Bureaucracy is "an organisation that can not correct its behaviour by learning from its error " critically analyse the above statement?

[Taylor]

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[Ravi Pandey]

Bureaucracy is a body of appointed officials who work on the basis of their legal rational authority.Acc. to Weber the bureaucratic form is the most efficient organizational form for the large scale complex administration that has been developed in modern world . How ever Weberean concept of bureaucracy is ideal type and some features of bureaucracy has make it a static organization . For ex-

Excessive emphasis on rule in bureaucracy is resulted in red tapeism  and the rules which are means to achieve goal ,are becoming goal itself. Marx has criticize bureaucracy for not being rational . As he elaborate that hierarchy of structure means a  hierarchy of knowledge .comprehensive knowledge is not possible in a situation of where knowledge is deliberately split up. He also charged bureaucracy for changing knowledge in secrecy and competence in mystry. The higher functionaries do not reveal their subordinate while close character of bureaucracy protect its secret from views of outsider. Thus no critical appraisal.

Too much emphasis on documentation in Bureaucracy is deleterious for effectiveness and efficiency of bureaucratic  organization as it give more priority to paper work over actual work.  Detached spirit of bureaucracy is in fact  a vague concept  and resulted in frustration among bureaucrats  which is many time termed as prostitution of personality .

 Bureaucracy is criticized for being static and not able to change itself as per changing environment . That is why it is said that bureaucracy is more suitable for developed countries where environment is more stable and static. In developing countries there is need for a dynamic type of organization which can learn from its mistakes and work effectively with changing environment.

pls review . 

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[MUKESH GUPTA]

friend (Ravi)

u gave all limitation of bureaucracy and also good to relate it with static environment and developing countries . your some points are also good as " . As he elaborate that hierarchy of structure means a  hierarchy of knowledge .comprehensive knowledge is not possible in a situation of where knowledge is deliberately split up. He also charged bureaucracy for changing knowledge in secrecy and competence in mystry." 

 buddy , in my opinion we should more on reasoning aspect , why ? aspect

 

As per question demand and also proceeding to your answer ahead that especially in developing countries like India , Bureaucracy is not changing its behavior and not learning from its error , because our system is not providing the suitable atmosphere in organisation to have push for it.

                 As secrecy aspect in their working and no accountability for their action as they work behind the wall of minister and neither they get credit  nor blame for their work .

                  Other thing  they do not get good incentive to have better attitude to bring  change in their working behavior and not having further boost to have up-gradation as per the conditions and demands.

                  Even if they want to change their behaviour , too much formal work make them to stick to the official routine work and have institutional character only and loosing their original personality.

                 Their colonial elite character which has created a wall between top decision makers and ground reality and made them untouched with  the social effects. Weakness of social powers to influence bureaucratic performance has created  Constitution formalism which means that there is a gap between stated principles and actual implementation , because of their  ivory tower approach.

                 So, Weber gave the positive aspect to Bureaucracy and guide  them to be firm with its characters ,but forget to provide it flexibility with changing time demands as explained by McGroger by Theory Y and Likert by system -4 sorts of manager working.

                    For need of  change we should focus on both,  to the bureaucrats and our administrative system , as advocated by II ARC  through bonus incentives and full proved  performance appraisal system to give them boost for change to have  better and creative performance and more expansion of field line manager sorts of officers to have look over ground reality for social impact on their personality and their behavior..

[Ravi Pandey]

Thanxs Mukesh ,

 You have cover all aspects of question .. 

[Taylor]

Weberian perspective of bureaucracy has characterized it as an outcome of Legal rational authority. It is described as an instrument which seeks to achieve societal objectives through impersonal codified rules, hierarchy, rationality, integrity and neutrality. However, several scholars including Marx has expressed qualms regarding that. 

To Marx, Bureaucracy is an extension of class domination of state where instead of acting as a means it becomes an end in itself. He described this phenomenon as INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF BUREAUCRACY . In this process , the societal interest and rectification of mistakes become unimportant and perpetuation of class domination becomes the only goal. 

 

Similarly, Bureaucracy is criticized for being too mechanical which leads to prostitution of individual personalities which demeans the freedom & creativity of individual to the extent that they are not being able to correct themselves to the temporal and spatial dynamics.

Further, in developing countries in India , their role in development administration has been a bone of contention. The scholars like Tuffler have gone to the extent of introducing a re-engineered model of Adhocreacy which can handle unforeseen challenges in much more efficient manner.

Moreover, one of the greatest criticism leveled against bureaucracy is of being a status quoist where it justifies temporal uniformity in its behavior. It fails to rectify its follies which are key to meet socio-economic realities of society. This results in features like red tapism, stagnation in skills and experience which challenges its core value of being efficient.

However, it will be wrong to blame bureaucracy only as complex political dynamics, political apathy to change, absconding incentives  and disconnect between head quarter & field & inadequate training are some other reasons which makes operations of bureaucracy more rigid and immune from correction. In this regard, ARC-2 has suggested for restructuring of institutions, re-engineering of procedures through periodic training, timely exchange of personnel between head quarter and field. 

Atlast, political will is the key to initiate any correction which may serve as an incentive for reformed behavior towards mistakes. 

[divyesh upadhyay]

Bureaucracy is one of the most important pillar of a country. As weber has described, '' without an efficient and effective Bureaucracy, the administration will not Yield results''

Bureaucracy donot work in ideal environment, so mistakes are inevitable. But some times they don't learn from their mistakes, like roads of indian villages can be easily destroyed by heavy rains. Every year they are made without any cost benefit analysis and determining the causes behind their frequent destruction.

On the other hand, some times they not only correct their mistake but also leave  an unprecedented example,  like in moist affected village of chattisgarh, an ias officer analyse the reason behind the plague of poverty that had affected the whole area, and at last after proper analysis,  it was known that social sector schemes are not benefiting them because of improper channelisation and
Lack of focus on outcome. So he prepared a list of household with their individual needs and channelised all government schemes according to needs of respective household.

So it is not that Bureaucracy don't want to learn from their mistakes. Sometimes this happen, but only in the case of corrupt and irresponsible officers. In all other cases, many impediments deter them from improving like political pressure, nexus of corporate with politicians, judicial overeach, financial and jurisdiction constraints. Etc

[Rahul Sharma]

Nice try ! 

1. good language

2. Word limit , carefully planned.

" nexus of corporate with politicians, judicial overeach, financial and jurisdiction constraints. Etc"

I missed these points which i personally feel are relevant to the question. Refer to Mukesh points as well, he has given an alternative perspective.

--

Rahul Sharma 

B.Tech (Electronics And Communications)

Indian Institute Of Information Technology , Allahabad

[MUKESH GUPTA]

rahul

 

by secrecy i mean to say ...aspects which are intentionally kept under The Official Secrets Act 1923 byThe disclosure of any information that is likely to affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, or friendly relations with foreign States, is punishable by this act.

as also recommended by the IIARC to amend the  Official Secrets Act for proper accountability of bureaucrates and other aspect as i gave in next point by working behind the ministers ...so no direct accountbility to them

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