Max Weber was known as a successful sociologist. In his life he had written many theories that influenced the lives of the people around him. In his theories he spoke of rationality, religion, political value, responsibility and management. Most of his works concerned religious beliefs. Weber's success has reasons. Weber viewed problems from a developmental perspective. He thought the biggest changes between now and five hundred years ago were not in science, technology, or drugs. He believed that the biggest change was a difference in the way people think. People living in the twenty-first century question his outdated ideology. According to some, too much focus has been placed on the result, ignoring Weber's way of thinking. Weber's critical thinking process is still effective in the twenty-first century. This research aims to analyze Weber's thought process and improve his theory to adapt it to the twenty-first century. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Today in the twenty-first century, when people search for the word “bureaucracy,” it is related to a negative word, usually defined as inefficient, complex, and rigid. But in the transition from feudal society to modernization, Weber's bureaucratic management mode played a positive role. Weber lived at the end of the 19th century. At that time the social environment was that of the formation of the first German national state. The turbulent changes affected him. He observed the process and was interested in understanding modern society. Before establishing how bureaucracy should be managed, he analyzed the history and social background. People believed that the transition from traditionalism to modernity began as a temporal process that would change, but Weber had a different idea. He thought that the change of time was a natural condition, that the essential change was people. When Weber looked back in history, he found that societies and people were becoming more rational. He believed that the true defining characteristics of the transition from traditionalism to modernity were ways of thinking. He started analyzing the reasons for the massive change in people's thinking. According to the divine right of kings “In European history, a political doctrine in defense of monarchical absolutism, which stated that kings derived their authority from God and could therefore not be held accountable for their actions by any earthly authority such as a parliament. Originating in Europe, the theory of divine right can be traced back to the medieval conception of God's assignment of temporal power to the political ruler, paralleling the assignment of spiritual power to the Church." Through his analysis, he gave the answer: Due to the reform of religion, people's ideologies were changed. Weber had another goal: what started this movement of rationalization. Weber believed that the transition from traditionalism to modernity began with the Protestant Reformation. According to Max Weber, writing about the Europe of his time, “Protestants were more likely than Catholics to reflect the values of hard work and savings conducive to capitalist ideology. Focusing on Calvinism, he demonstrated that Protestant values influenced the rise of capitalism and helped create the modern world order” (Little 289). The basis of his analysis is that he compared modernity with traditionalism and tried to understand the difference between them. Weber defined the way people think and ideasof people became more rational: they were the fundamental reasons for the rationalization process. He thought that traditionalism takes things for granted, but modernity does not. In modernity everything is at stake. He designed bureaucracy based in most workplaces that use relationships, kinship, family, or customs to guide and make decisions called traditional authorities. Bureaucracy is an important part of the transition from the traditional to the modern state. Compared to traditional authority, bureaucracy is more suitable for rationalizing society. Weber designed the bureaucratic theory to include two parts which are a clear organizational hierarchy and clear rules on decision making. A clear organizational hierarchy required each hierarchy to have legal-rational authority. It means that those in power are in the position of a leader rather than an individual. Weber wanted those who run organizations to achieve goals more rationally, especially through clearer leadership and clarified rules for decision making. Weber referred to clear rules about decision making as rational and legal decision rules. Organizations should be governed by rules. According to Peek, author of Max Weber's management theory on Business.com “In an ideal bureaucracy, everyone is treated equally and their job responsibilities are clearly divided according to each team's areas of expertise. A well-defined hierarchical management system supports this, providing clear lines of communication and division of labor based on the level of management you work at” (Peek). Weber identified six characteristics of bureaucracy: hierarchical management structure, division of labor, formal selection process, career orientation, formal rules and regulations, impersonality. These characteristics have effective independence, combination together with also systematization. Bureaucracy consists of a level structure and a clear command system. This makes it legitimate and highly efficient. The organizational structure is made up of special roles and through formal written communication. The bureaucracy is made up of a hierarchy of positions with an extremely clear chain of command, which makes it both extremely rational and very efficient. This hierarchy is made up of a variety of very specialized roles and is held together by formal, written communications. Bureaucracy is a more rational approach to managing organizations. Through Weber's theory of bureaucracy, people use this idea in the United States today. For example, when people go to the polls every four years, they make a choice about who will run the bureaucracy, and they make that choice based on the characteristics of the people running. The idea is that as people run to become leaders of Democratic or Republican bureaucracies, they do so with the support of their specific political parties. In the actual functioning of bureaucracy in large organizations, people have a high evaluation of bureaucracy. Weber himself believed that it was a scientific system, capable of strengthening modernization in the transitional period. According to Pierson writing in The Modern State “It is obvious that technically the great modern State is absolutely dependent on a bureaucratic basis. The larger the state and the more it becomes a great power state, the more unconditionally this happens” (Pierson 17). Weber's analysis inspired people to think about the twenty-first century. When we look back at history, we will find that Weber's bureaucracy is flawed. Weber's hierarchical management places responsibility as a whole and distributes it to different levels. Thelower level must obey the orders of the higher level, and the higher level people not only control the lower level, but also follow the central command. Everyone knows what to do and their responsibilities and positions are clear. This structure is usually considered to use the connective chain in organizations from high-level positions to low-level positions. The hierarchical structure was commonly used in nineteenth-century Germany. People were influenced by religion to do their work purposefully, not to question hierarchical levels, but in the twenty-first century popular ideology has improved. The reason we put Weber's hierarchical management structure into organizations today has many negative results. In the chain of different levels havetoo many positions. For high-level management, the entrepreneur has to pay more money for his experience and skills and this would cause the organization to spend quite a bit of money to pay for these positions. Another problem was that Weber's hierarchical management structure could be too complex and cause results that slowed down decision making and action. Since each level needs to report to the higher level position, sometimes a question or emergency situation cannot be answered in time because actions are slowed down and time is wasted. Due to different personalities, different leaders may have different standards. Compared to a company with only one decision maker, Weber's hierarchy did not produce positive results and was inefficient. Weber's division of labor presents a limitation problem used in the present. Weber's general idea was that each individual person professionally handled a specific job. He thought that if everyone was a small part of a chain and performed well in the small part of their job, then the entire chain would have maximum benefits. But Weber was also concerned about the division of labor. According to Weber “It is horrible to think that one day the world may be filled only with small gears, with little men clinging to small jobs and struggling to accomplish larger ones – a state of affairs which must be seen once again, as in the Egyptian documents, which play an increasingly important role in the spirit of our current administrative system, and especially of its descendants, the students.” This highlighted the limitations of working capabilities. Everyone focuses on their own part of the chain. Everyone knows what they are doing and is used to working on cycle paths. Everyone is considered a small part of the company. But the division of labor presents unclear accountability issues. When the whole chain had something wrong, it was difficult to find out everyone who had done something wrong. If a person left the job, no one knew how to perform the role, due to their limited skills. Another thing is that people work not only for money. The most important thing is to create value and self-fulfillment. But working with this system is a tedious cycle of work that leads to the loss of a meaningful lifestyle. Although this type of work can improve production efficiency, it is cruel to employees. According to Weber's formal selection process, Sean Peek writes on business.com “In the ideal organization, Weber believed that employees should be chosen based on their technical abilities and skills acquired through education, experience, or training – no other factors should be considered” (Peek). The formal selection process is based on equality and choosing leaders through reasonable evaluation methods. Nowadays,people usually get a job through an interview process. But interviews cannot fully see a person's abilities. Some people may not be honest during the interview, exaggerating their ability to pass the interview. But when the person is actually at work, his or her job skills may not be as good as those stated during the interview. Another disadvantage was that the person took old experiences and applied them to the new job. From that moment on the person may no longer be an analysis of the real fact in the new work situation. This will definitely give employees negative thoughts and harmful emotions. A better idea for promotion was to select people who were already employed thus giving more opportunities to choose candidates. This way you can encourage employees to have a competitive consciousness and challenge each other to learn more skills in their work environment. For Weber, career orientation is actually a beneficial rule for employees. This rule will help employees discover their potential capabilities and establish the pattern of personal skills and competencies. Based on the evaluation and judgment of the organization that retains employees, encourage employees do their best in the company to create values. When Weber defined formal rules and regulations, he wanted to establish rules and put rules in documents for everyone to follow. This way everyone knows the standard of their work. The rules written in the documents helped employees understand what they should and should not do. Formal rules and regulations are widely used today in large organizations. In general, with various changes in society, bureaucracy has gradually exposed its inherent flaws in the course of practice. The specific manifestation is that bureaucracy overemphasizes the customization of organizational management. The existence of this organization is based on the expenditure of people's freedom, meaningful private relationships, personal emotions and all-round development. Completely following the bureaucratic organization is an emotionless organization. The bureaucracy pays too much attention to following laws and regulations. This emphasizes that the operations of the organization and the behavior of the staff must be limited by regulations, which causes the behavior of the organization and individuals to tend to be rigid, lacking due flexibility and resilience, and the individual follows the rules and regulations like an automatic car. Repetition severely suppresses individual freedom, creativity and all behavior patterns determined by rules and regulations become organizational and conservative rigidity. The bureaucratic organization overemphasizes the formal and mechanical organizational function, ignoring the actual operational process and the interconnection between the organization and the external environment. . Bureaucracy blindly pursues ordering the internal structure of the organization and maximizing technical efficiency, but the division of labor has led to the expansion of departments. Overlap between each department has caused communication barriers and coordination difficulties, which further reduces overall efficiency. The level and moderation can make authority and responsibilities clear, but rely too much on text transmission, delaying work efficiency. The bureaucracy lacks competition and causes officials within it to lack internal incentives, which is not conducive to improving service quality and does not encourage innovation. Please note: this is just one. 2020.
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