We call irrelevant information in derivations bureaucracy. An example of such irrelevant information is the order between two consecutive inference rules that trivially permute. Building on ideas by Guglielmi, we identify two forms of bureaucracy that occur in the calculus of structures (and, in fact, in every non-trivial term rewriting derivation). We develop term calculi that provide derivati...

Reports of the demise of the bureaucratic form of organization are greatly exaggerated, and debates about bureaucracy’s functions and effects therefore persist. For many years, a broad current of organizational scholarship has taken inspiration from Max Weber’s image of bureaucracy as an “iron cage” and has seen bureaucracy as profoundly ambivalent— imposing alienation as the price of efficienc...

and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts. Abstract One key policy dispute in the school choice debate concerns whether the education bureaucracy is a cause or a consequence of poor performance. This dispute is striking because both sides accept the same neo-institutionalist organization theory. This paper uses a large panel of school districts to address the dispute. T...

Purpose Given the context of accountability-driven policy environments, research has shown that school leaders perceive bureaucratic rules and protocols in negative ways, but they also utilize organizational structures routines to lead changes. To better understand both enabling hindering mechanisms bureaucracy schools, this study explores how Korean principals using a lens ambivalence. The aut...

The term “bureaucracy” has never been so precisely defined than in the writings of Max Weber. Such precision results in a useful and enduring conceptualization of the term. This paper examines four essential characteristics of Weber’s ideal type bureaucracy; defining them and their technical advantages in the context of certain overarching sociological trends. These trends are impersonality, ef...

Bureaucracy is a central component in many important debates in organization theory. First suggested as a way to efficiently manage organizations that would replace favouritism and partiality with clear, transparent rules (Weber, 1922), the growth of bureaucracy was seen to lead to the domination of ‘rational matter of factness’ (Weber, 1922; 240). Since its inception, bureaucracy has been inte...

Reports of the demise of the bureaucratic form of organization are greatly exaggerated, and debates about bureaucracy’s functions and effects therefore persist. For many years, a broad current of organizational scholarship has taken inspiration from Weber’s image of bureaucracy as an “iron cage” and has seen bureaucracy as profoundly ambivalent – imposing alienation as the price of efficiency. ...

Kurt Lewin famously proclaimed, “There is nothing so practical as good theory”, signifying that a good theory lends itself to being applied in a variety of contexts. This paper uses the lens of Max Weber’s theory of bureaucracy to examine contemporary EGovernment related research and literature. Two major, prevailing themes emerge from this exercise. The first theme that emerges is that IT (inf...