Carolina QuotesWithout this form of social technology, the industrialized countries of the West could not have reached the heights of extravagance, wealth and pollution that they currently enjoy.
Charles Perrow Connected to the Carolinas
Source
p. 5; Talking about bureaucracy
- work
- Complex organizations, 1972
- year
- 1972
- locator
- p. 5
Cite this record
“Without this form of social technology, the industrialized c…” Charles Perrow. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-08CA38CB36. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/08ca38cb36
More from Charles Perrow
The operative goals will be shaped by the dominant group, reflecting the imperatives of the particular task area that is most critical, their own background characteristics (distinctive perspectives based upon their training, career lines, and areas of competence) and the unofficial uses to which they put the organization for their own needs.
The Basic Argument In its simplest form, the argument goes like this: when the tasks people perform are well understood, predictable, routine, and repetitive, a bureaucratic structure is the most efficient. Things can be "programmed," to use March and Simon's term. Where tasks are not well understood, generally because the 'raw material' that each person works on is poorly understood and possibly reactive, recalcitrant or self activating. the tasks are non-routine. Such units or organizations are difficult to bureaucratize.
Bureaucracy is a dirty word, both to the average person and to many specialists on organizations. It suggests rigid rules and regulations, a hierarchy of offices, narrow specialization of personnel, an abundance of offices or units which can hamstring those who want to get things done, impersonality, resistance to change.