Role Of Bureaucracy In Business

In this assignment, I am going to discuss Bureaucracy and its role in everyday Business. I will also explore if there is any positive or beneficial to be gained by using bureaucratic structures. I will select a large organisation and discuss ways in which it displays characteristics of a bureaucracy.

1. Explain the term Bureaucracy using research and discussion?

A bureaucracy is a structure of an organization or government administration made up of many departments and divisions managed by lots of people, where one level of jobs is subject to control by the next higher level, who implement rules and structures. It is common in both business and in government administrations. Max Weber was the ' 'father of the bureaucratic management theory

Bureaucracy has a number of criticisms such as over emphasis on rules and procedures. “Critics of bureaucracy argue that mountains of paper and rules only slow an organization 's capacity to achieve stated goals.” (cliffsnotes.com, 2016) However there are many advantages in using bureaucratic structures, top level managers in bureaucratic structures have a great deal of control over strategy decisions, which would be ideal for business owners with a command style of management. Deciding on strategic decisions can be shorter in a tall organisations, since there aren’t as many people involved in the process.

“The fully developed bureaucratic apparatus compares with other organizations exactly as does the machine with the nonmechanical modes of production. Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of files, continuity, discretion, unity, strict subordination, reduction of friction and of material and personal costs - these are raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration.” (Frank Parkin, 2002) Since a bureaucratic organisation has such an organised structure and set of rules it is easier to copy them if a company was to open a new store “ The structure is highly repeatable.”(

It is one of the biggest franchises in the world. It was owned by the McDonalds brothers and a sales man called Ray Kroc. “Kroc pitched his vision of creating McDonald’s restaurants all over the U.S. to the brothers. In 1955 he founded the McDonald’s Corporation, and 5 years later bought the exclusive rights to the McDonald’s name. By 1958, McDonald’s had sold its 100 millionth hamburger.” (McDonalds.ie 2016)

“Ray Kroc wanted to build a restaurant system that would be famous for food of consistently high quality and uniform methods of preparation. He wanted to serve burgers, buns, fries and beverages that tasted just the same in Alaska as they did in Alabama” (Mcdonalds.ie, 2016). “For managers and owners of individual restaurants, McDonald’s provides “the Bible,” an exhaustive manual covering all the procedures and standards to be employed” (George Ritzer, 2004) .He has opened thousands of McDonalds all to the same degree from the food being the same to the workers having the same uniform and restaurant having similar layouts. The rules and routines are laid out so it reduces uncertainty for employees over who is to do what.This links back to the rules and procedures of a