Bureaucracy as Knowledge

Bureaucracy the Bureaucracy Pattern

The Bureaucracy pattern is a recurring design theme used to implement hierarchical object or component structures which allow interaction with every level of the hierarchy and maintain their inner consistency themselves. It is a composite pattern that is based on the Composite, Mediator, Chain of Responsibility and Observer pattern. Composite patterns require new presentation and modeling techn...

The Socialization of Software Development Knowledge-work versus Bureaucracy

Modern Bureaucracy

Max Weber believed that bureaucracy could be understood by analysing its ideal-typical characteristics, and that these characteristics would become more pervasive as the modern age advanced. Weber’s horizontal account of bureaucracy can be criticised on various grounds, including its unrealistic notion of bureaucratic rationality. An alternative view is proposed, namely, that the development of...

Desperately Avoiding Bureaucracy: Modularity as a Strategy for Organisational Innovation

Back in the 1960s, it was established that bureaucracy and innovation tend to oppose each other. However not many “innovative” organisations have managed to banish bureaucracy altogether. Topicus, a young software house in the Netherlands, has done this. It has developed an organisational strategy that creates a “spin-off” whenever the organisation becomes too large and is in danger of losing i...

Dynamically Engineering Bureaucracy