The Social Foundations of the Bureaucratic Order

This article views the bureaucratic form of organization as both an agent and an expression of key modern social innovations that are most clearly manifested in the non-inclusive terms by which individuals are involved in organizations. Modern human involvement in organizations epitomizes and instit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Organization (London, England) Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 13 - 36
Main Author: Kallinikos, Jannis
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi SAGE Publications 01.01.2004
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects:
Adaptability
Behavior
Bureaucracy
Capitalism
Communications technology
Contingencies
Corporate culture
Culture
Egalitarianism
Formal organization
Human body
Individualism
Innovation
Innovations
Meritocracy
Modernity
Organization theory
Organizational Behavior
Organizational change
Organizational Structure
Organizations
Role
Roles
Social behaviour
Social Structure
Society
Standardization
Studies
Technological change
United Kingdom > UK
behaviour
formal role systems
adaptability
role enactment
bureaucracy
modernity
ISSN:1350-5084, 1461-7323
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This article views the bureaucratic form of organization as both an agent and an expression of key modern social innovations that are most clearly manifested in the non-inclusive terms by which individuals are involved in organizations. Modern human involvement in organizations epitomizes and institutionally embeds the crucial yet often overlooked cultural orientation of modernity whereby humans undertake action along well-specified and delimited paths thanks to their capacity to isolate and suspend other personal or social considerations. The organizational involvement of humans qua role agents rather than qua persons helps unleash formal organizing from being tied to the indolence of the human body and the languish process of personal or psychological reorientation. Thanks to the loosening of these ties, the bureaucratic organization is rendered able to address the shifting contingencies underlying modern life by reshuffling and re-assembling the roles and role patterns by which it is made. The historically unique adaptive capacity of bureaucracy remains, though hidden behind the ubiquitous presence of routines and standard operating procedures that are mistakenly exchanged for the essence of the bureaucratic form.
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ISSN:1350-5084
1461-7323
DOI:10.1177/1350508404039657