Carolina QuotesMost social scientists consider the non-bureaucratic, or nonroutine organization to be good and the bureaucratic or routine organization to be bad (it impedes progress, is old- fashioned, is hard on its employees, etc.). But this judgment is debatable.
Charles Perrow Connected to the Carolinas
Source
p. 83
- work
- Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View, 1970
- year
- 1970
- locator
- p. 83
Cite this record
“Most social scientists consider the non-bureaucratic, or non…” Charles Perrow. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-112ED2DDD8. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/112ed2ddd8
More from Charles Perrow
As with all theories, we can learn something from agency theory and transaction-costs economics, since they emphasize something others hide. But as with all theories, they also distort; in fact, I will argue that their distortions outweigh the value of what they highlight.
For our purposes then, the bureaucratic model refers to an organization which attempts to control extra-organizational influences (stemming from the characteristics of personnel and changes in the environment) through the creation of specialized (staff) positions and through such rules and devices as regulations and categorization.
Organizational theorists, at least since the pioneering work of Burns and Stalker, 1961 and Joan Woodward, 1965 and others in what came to be called the contingency school, have recognized that centralization is appropriate for organizations with routine tasks, and decentralization for those with nonroutine tasks. For an early statement see Perrow 1967, and Lawrence and Lorch, 1967.