Bureaucracy essay DUE - Grade: A PDF

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1 Jeffrey Payne SOC-102 February 25, 2019 Professor Villanueva Bureaucracy Essay In light of their prevalence and the increasing power they wield in today’s Western world, it’s worth taking a deeper look at the specific type of formal organization known as a bureaucracy. A bureaucracy is a particular type of formal organization constituted to accomplish a specific goal, task, or production outcome in the most efficient way or matter. (Weber, 1947) A bureaucracy has 5 key characteristics to make it true: clear hierarchical levels of authority with all of the work assignments flowing downward, a division of work labor, a set of written rules, written communications and records, and impersonality as well as replaceability. My 18 and under hockey team back in San Jose, California, the Jr. Sharks, classifies as a type of organization that falls under the category of a bureaucracy because it follows all five of the key traits. The workers within an organization are put into a ranking or leveled system where someone is supervised by someone who has a higher level of authority. Those who are seen as a higher worker in the hierarchy, has more power than the work levels below it. The order of authority in my hockey team is: owner, president, director of hockey operations, general manager, head scout, head coach, assistant coach, player scout, players, and then equipment managers. The owner of the team has pretty much every piece of power that falls under the name of the organization to last minute decision, the owner always has a say. The team president is the person who is next down in the hierarchy. His power is slightly under the owner, as his range of

2 authority is basically any say within the organization. Every change that happens on the team, he gets a pass or fail before the owner, his job is to also help the owner in hockey related decisions. The director of hockey operations is basically the head authority once it comes to hockey related positions. His knowledge of the sport and who has the following up positions is up to them. He or she takes care of almost all of the hockey decisions within a team basis. The head scout is in charge of which players and how many players the team is going to have. They have full control of who gets traded and who signs to be on the team. Next is the head coach, he has all say of what goes on within the players but cannot tell the staff what to do. His power is to assign players to lines and teach how to play their best but cannot say what the organization does outside of the hockey rink. The assistant coach is the head coach’s partner, they’re allowed to work together to make the best team possible on the ice. The player scout is a scout trainee who goes out to find talent that can help the actual team. If the player scout can find a player who fits the teams search description, it’s his job to let the head scout know who and where. The players have little to no say of what goes on in the organization. They are there for one job and that is to win games as a group. Last, the equipment managers are the ones who are there to clean up and organize the locker rooms at home or on the road. These are jobs that have no say on what the team does, other than making sure the players have what they need to play. These roles are what goes on within the hockey organization and the levels of power according to the roles Every column of occupation needs someone who specializes or is a “Master of Work” within that task or goal, which creates the characteristic of divisions of different work labor. Every spot in the organization of a hockey team needs to have a person who specializes in what they do, but in some areas, it could be best to have someone who does their job the absolute best. The owner, president, and some equipment managers of the organization don’t need to know

3 much about their field of work except follow the guidelines or rules given. The director of hockey operations has to know what hockey is about. Having someone in that position and not know enough, could lead an organization to failure. Every sports organization’s general manager and scouts has to know a lot about the sports and about almost every player. People in these positions are learning something new and getting better at their jobs every day. The coaching position is a very unique occupation. Every coaching style can be different from each other, but each style finds success through the person coaching it. There’s really no such thing as a bad coaching style, but someone can be bad at coaching. Last, players of the organization need to know how to play the game, and at an elite level. If a player is not elite and cannot compete to others, then they can be dismissed from the team or even traded to a new one. All bureaucracies are normalized and set to follow a set of written rules and regulations. In my hockey organization, there are not much written rules for the players, owner, and president, but for all other positions there are written rules in the organization’s and league’s rulebook. The general manager cannot break the league’s rules once it comes to trades and transactions. There is one main rule and that is no more shopping players after the trade deadline, which is sometime in January. The scouts cannot talk to players who are not of age in the league yet, as that is seen as “early recruiting” and gives a disadvantage for other organizations or teams. The equipment managers cannot cross any guidelines within the team’s rulebook. They have a specific routine, or protocol, when it comes to setting up the locker room in San Jose or preparing the gear for road trips when the team has to travel. It is on them to make sure everything is correct and organized or else they could easily lose their position or earn a strike in the organization.

4 Communication within an organization is always key but, in a bureaucracy, written communication is a must. Instead of normal or casual communication, bureaucracies heavily depend on formal documented reports, which are kept in a storage or an archive with all of the other organizations records. In my hockey organization, as well as almost all sports organizations use, are written contracts and reports. A contract is a written documentation between a player or participant and the organization, most of them time coming to an agreement to play. Other times, to request a trade or being traded. The general manager of my team, every time he wanted to trade or sign a player, had to do it in a formal and written manner. The owner of the organization I was a part of, every time he had wanted to change partners or sponsors, he needed to do it in written fashion. In order to be safe legally, these thigs needed to be kept for the written record. All bureaucracies have to keep communication in written form and kept for records sake. Organizations that are labeled a bureaucracy depend on job descriptions which is an improvement over hereditary or winning absolutism. Emphasis on efficiency or improvement however, may lead to the incapability to separate situations and needs and can concentrate power in the positions at the very top of the hierarchy of power. Within the hockey organization, many positions are challenged by other spots in the hierarchy to be the best they can and work together almost fluently. Most of the time, the general manager will do its best to give the head coach players who he thinks will fit the chemistry of the squad to make the team better. This gives the coach the challenge to coach the new players the way he’s been coaching the team annually. If the coach is very capable of doing so, and proving it in the wins over losses, this makes the organization in great decision making, goal-setting, and overall keeping them committed to be the best responsive organization they can be.

5 Overall, A bureaucracy is a particular type of formal organization constituted to accomplish a specific goal, task, or production outcome in the most efficient way or matter. (Weber, 1947) A bureaucracy has 5 key characteristics to make it true: clear hierarchical levels of authority with all of the work assignments flowing downward, a division of work labor, a set of written rules, written communications and records, and impersonality as well as replaceability. My 18 and under hockey team back in San Jose, California, the Jr. Sharks, classifies as a type of organization that falls under the category of a bureaucracy because it follows all five of the key traits.

6 References

Larkin, T. M. (2015). Social structure. In Grand Canyon University (Ed.) Our social world: An introduction to sociology. Available from http://lc.gcumedia.com/soc102/our-socialworld-an-introduction-to-sociology/v1.1/...