How bureaucracy and development are interdependent

INTRODUCTION

The term, "bureaucracy", basically means "rule by office." It derives from the French word "bureau", meaning office or desk, and the Greek word "kratein", meaning "to rule." Given that, many cultures had bureaucracies of sorts in place long before the term entered common parlance. Max weber was one of the first people in modern time to think about the importance of bureaucracy. He wrote in Germany during the early of 20^th century, when developing capitalism was spawning more and more large businesses. The changing economic scene had important implications for government. He created the classic conception of bureaucracy as a well-organized, complex machine that is a ‘rational’ way for a modern society to organize its business. He did not see them as necessary evils, but as the best organizational response to a changing society (www. phs.prs.k12.nj.us/.../chapter twelve.htm)

DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS OF KEY TERMS

Bureaucracy is a large organization in with specialized knowledge are organized into clearly defined hierarch bureaus and office each of which has specified mission (Snellen, 1998)

Bureaucracy is the public agencies that translate the intent of democratic institutions actions 

Development is the act of improving quality of life and making sure everyone has the preference in what that life looks like (http://www.ask.com/question/what-is-development).

Development is the process of economic and social transformation that is based on complex cultural and environmental factors and their interactions. (http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/development.html#ixzz2xoWKeZTu).

Advantages and disadvantages of bureaucracy

The advantages of a bureaucracy are division of work and responsibility, there are written policies and procedures in place, and there is a hierarchy of authority. Disadvantages of bureaucracy include the lower level hierarchy aren't given the chance to have a voice, creates poor levels of interpersonal relationships and can be rigid in their views.

The following are the explanation on how bureaucracy and development are interdependent;

Bureaucracy as an organization is expected to play a pivotal role in process of development. The concept of Development Administration had originated in U.S.A and as such bureaucracy system is expected to be effective instrument to achieve objective of development. With their emphasis on rules and regulation, division of labor, hierarchy, role specialists, rationality, impersonality and neutrality, bureaucracy was expected to ensure smooth process of development and thus why these two words are dependent as explained below.

Hierarchy form of authority, is an organizational structure where every entity in the organization except one is subordinate to a single others entity. Members of hierarchical organizational structures chiefly communicate with their immediate subordinate. Structuring organization in this way is useful partly because it can reduce the communication overhead by limiting information flow; this is also its major limitation. Due to the presence of good division of powers each unity with its responsibility and guidelines target a single goal of an organization which resulted to the development of whole system (Michael  2005).

 

Rules and regulations, this is another factor which facilitate development in any organization due to the fact that controlling by rules and regulations allows decision made at high levels to be executed consistently by all lower level and if rules and regulation do not exist in any organization, it means thing will be done randomly hence the organization will fail to achieve the goals which have been targeted. For example st.francis girl’s secondary school in Mbeya city its students are doing better in their exams simply because teachers and students follow rules and regulation which are there.

Division of labour, this is the one of the basic features of bureaucracy in any organization, division of labour is the mutually open the development in the organization because each task is broken down into smaller tasks, and different people work on different parts of the task, Division of labour allows workers to focus only on the tasks they are assigned to Jobs An example of division of labour would be most obvious in factory assembly lines In Tanzania we have a lot of organization that is managed in bureaucratic system of management. Weber thinks that division of labour in an organization is effective, as overtime, it develops practice and familiarity of assigned tasks and workers will become best at what they do, hence, improving the organization’s productivity level (Weber, 1968).

Rule of specialization; in any organization there is the presence of specialization of work simply because the people hired by certain organization due to their qualification which based of specific organization for example the country like Tanzania the government employed teachers by considering specific specialization of their subject and the result of this specialization it lead  development

Rationality; bureaucracy it can lead to the development within any organization because of rationality due to the fact that once there is rationality in a certain organization the division of works as well as decision making will be fair, no any kind of biasness will be practiced, so due to that situation any worker within the organization can conduct the work given accordingly and obviously the organization may maximize income (Ritzer 1998).  

Conclusion

All in all bureaucracy and development both of them are quite similar since in any organization normally we expecting to increase the efficiency in all sector technically, management and productions all this done purposefully to the development of the organization. When the people or workers became well organized from the top to bottom and every one work hard accordingly, this situation in other hand related to the development in the certain organization especially in private sectors.

REFERENCES,

Donk (eds.), Public Administration in an Information Age. A Handbook. Amsterdam: IOS Press.

Michael H.Carolyn and Kroehler J (2005), Sociology the core, Seventh Edition, Mc Grow Hill. Published by S.chand and company Ltd.

Ritzer, G. (1998). The Weberian Theory of Rationalization and the McDonaldization

Shankarrao C.N (2006) Principle of sociology with an introduction to thoughts, Sixth Edition

Snellen, I. (1998). Street Level Bureaucracy in an Information Age. In I. Snellen & W.    van de

Weber, M. (1968/1921). Economy and Society. An outline of interpretive sociology. (translated

www. phs.prs.k12.nj.us/.../chapter twelve.htm

http://www.ask.com/question/what-is-development

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/development.html#ixzz2xoWKeZTu


Written by AUSI CHIWAMBO (2014) TEOFILO KISANJI UNIVERSITY