bureaucracy

n.The administrative structure of a corporate body or government that divides work into hierarchical units and subunits.The nonelected officials of a government.

Citations

Cook 1993, p. 31 The classic mono-hierarchical theory of bureaucracy elucidated by Max Weber, in which each subordinate unit is responsible to one superior unit, has long been a thing of the past. Parallel structures, task forces and project teams, joined across organizations by broken-line horizontal linkages, exercising consensus management and collegial relationships, now compete openly for power with the traditional, vertical, solid-line hierarchical authorities, and these new 'structures' all create and often maintain records. MacNeil 2000, p. 51 The most pervasive characteristic of bureaucracy is the existence of a system of control based on rational rules, that is, rules meant to design and regulate the entire organization on the basis of technical knowledge and with the aim of achieving maximum efficiency.