What are the advantages of Bureaucratic Controls?

Rules are clear, authority lines are designated and written into job descriptions.

Large organisations have to run along the lines of this type of system, where there is large staff with variable skills.

 

These large entities are governed by Policy and Policy Manuals, and staff are skilled up over their working careers, having clear targets and quality control processes.  Human nature like to see the road map of working career, and feel safe in clearly defined boarders.  It promotes consistency and teamwork.From the definition: A system of administration distinguished by its (1) clear hierarchy of authority, (2) rigid division of labor, (3) written and inflexible rules, regulations, and procedures, and (4) impersonal relationships.

 

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Top-level managers in bureaucratic organizational structures exercise a great deal of control over organizational strategy decisions, which is ideal for business owners with a command and control style. Strategic decision-making time can be shorter in a tall organizational structure, since less individuals are involved in the process. Standardization and best-practices are often highlights in companies with tall organizational structures, ensuring that work is consistently completed efficiently and effectively.

Bureaucratic control can be used when behavior can be controlled with market or price mechanisms.

Even though many Americans dislike bureaucracy, this organizational model prevails today. Whether or not they wish to admit it, most Americans either work in bureaucratic settings, or at least deal with them daily in schools, hospitals, government, and so forth. Hence, taking a closer look at the pros and cons of bureaucracy is important. Pros of bureaucracy Although the vices of bureaucracy are evident (and are discussed in the next section), this form of organization is not totally bad. In other words, benefits to the proverbial “red tape” associated with bureaucracy do exist. For example, bureaucratic regulations and rules help ensure that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) takes appropriate precautions to safeguard the health of Americans when it is in the process of approving a new medication. And the red tape documents the process so that, if problems arise, data exists for analysis and correction. Likewise, the impersonality of bureaucracies can have benefits. For example, an applicant must submit a great deal of paperwork to obtain a government student loan. However, this lengthy—and often frustrating—process promotes equal treatment of all applicants, meaning that everyone has a fair chance to gain access to funding. Bureaucracy also discourages favoritism, meaning that in a well‐run organization, friendships and political clout should have no effect on access to funding. Bureaucracies may have positive effects on employees. Whereas the stereotype of bureaucracies is one of suppressed creativity and extinguished imagination, this is not the case. Social research shows that many employees intellectually thrive in bureaucratic environments. According to this research, bureaucrats have higher levels of education, intellectual activity, personal responsibility, self‐direction, and open‐mindedness, when compared to non‐bureaucrats. Another benefit of bureaucracies for employees is job security, such as a steady salary, and other perks, like insurance, medical and disability coverage, and a retirement pension. Cons of bureaucracy Americans rarely have anything good to say about bureaucracies, and their complaints may hold some truth. As noted previously, bureaucratic regulations and rules are not very helpful when unexpected situations arise. Bureaucratic authority is notoriously undemocratic, and blind adherence to rules may inhibit the exact actions necessary to achieve organizational goals. Concerning this last point, one of bureaucracy's least‐appreciated features is its proneness to creating “paper trails” and piles of rules. Governmental bureaucracies are especially known for this. Critics of bureaucracy argue that mountains of paper and rules only slow an organization's capacity to achieve stated goals. They also note that governmental red tape costs taxpayers both time and money. Parkinson's Law and the Peter Principle have been formulated to explain how bureaucracies become dysfunctional. Parkinson's Law, named after historian C. Northcote Parkinson, states that work creates more work, usually to the point of filling the time available for its completion. That is, Parkinson believed that bureaucracies always grow—typically6 percent annually. Managers wish to appear busy, so they increase their workload by creating paper and rules, filling out evaluations and forms, and filing. Then they hire more assistants, who in turn require more managerial time for supervision. Moreover, many bureaucratic budgets rely on the “use it or lose it” principle, meaning the current year's expenditures determines the following year's budget. This provides a deep incentive to spend (even waste) as much money as possible to guarantee an ever‐increasing budget. Parkinson's views remain consistent with those of conflict theorists, who hold that bureaucratic growth serves only the managers, who in turn use their increasing power to control the workers. Approaching bureaucracies from yet another angle, the Peter Principle, named after sociologist Laurence Peter, states that employees in a bureaucracy are promoted to the level of their incompetence. In other words, competent managers continually receive promotions until they attain a position in which they are incompetent. And they usually remain in this position until they retire or die. The bureaucracy can only continue because competent employees are constantly working their way up the hierarchical ladder. Parkinson's Law and the Peter Principle, while fascinating social phenomena, are based on stereotypes and anecdotes rather than on rigorous social science research.

I agree with the expert answers.

I agree with Ms Bonnie Cheryl Nel..............

Bonnie Cheryl Nel 

Shareholder, director at ProAccSA31823

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Briefly  An advantage is it should always be clear who is responsible ,A disadvantage is the "message" gets distorted or lost..

Some advantage of bureaucracy:  -Clear division of work with boundaries to responsibilities.     -Formal (written) rules and procedures resulting in predictability and reutilization.  -A well-defined hierarchy of authority.-Appointments to posts based on technical competence.-Formal (written) documentation of actions and decisions.-Bureaucratic control’ system is a strategic was based around internal labor market and the winning of employee commitment through the prospect of long  term career advancement  includes job security, pension packagesand Training & development.  - Bureaucracies helped HRM in recruitment, performance appraisal, and other systems.-A bureaucratic system brings to the overall running and efficiency of a business and its employees. In a bureaucracy each employee of the organization knows precisely what their duties are within the organization, and therefore many tasks will be performed a lot quicker and more efficiently. The clear-cut rules set by bureaucratic systems also enable the organization...

Agreed to the experts............................................ 

 

You get what you desire because you have both ability and right to influence others to act in way you want it to be crafted. High level of stewardship can be observed in bureaucracy.

Management layers characterize bureaucratic organizations. The layers give bureaucracies a vertical thrust when laid out in an organizational chart. These "tall" organizations are the most traditional organizational structure. The functional structure is oldest, organizing around similar work activities such as sales or payroll. The divisional structure is similar. Complex companies use it to create autonomous divisions devoted to a type of customer, product or location before departmentalizing the divisions, usually into functional departments. The advisability of using a bureaucratic structure depends on the situation.

Control

With so much management, bureaucratic structures have strong boundaries. Chains of command are clear, as are expectations and decision-making power. Authority is centralized instead of spread out among employees. Job descriptions are detailed and specialized. Over time, bureaucracies develop many rules to maintain the structure. Management can monitor outcomes, which lends itself to standard products or services and quality control.

Mechanistic

Exerting tight control, a bureaucracy tends to function like a machine of many cogs and gears, each part serving the whole. While that may sound dystopian, viewing an organization as a machine allows management to concentrate on coordinating resources and effort. This mechanized business approach functions well in predictable environments. Mechanically humming along, the bureaucratic organization’s order meshes well with stability, allowing a company to move inexorably toward its strategic goals.

Economies of Scale

Grouping jobs by function breeds certain economies. Departments efficiently share resources. Meanwhile, the bureaucratic structure’s required job specialization leads to economies of scale as employees work repetitively and with increasing proficiency, efficiency and productivity.

Lack of Maneuverability

The very bureaucracy of tall structures prevents companies from maneuvering quickly. Changes in procedure must move through the chain of command for approval -- perhaps being Ok'd by several bosses -- then travel back down the chain for adoption. In a stable environment, such rigidity is not an issue. In volatile situations, though, this inability to quickly change directions can present real problems. A lumbering company cannot dodge sudden competitive threats.

Low Morale

The more specialized a job, the more repetitive it is likely to be. Repetitive jobs bore employees, breeding dissatisfaction. Meanwhile, as mere cogs, employees aren’t judged for what they can uniquely bring to a job, but by how well they fulfill their functions. Employee disempowerment stems from the centralized power structure. With the bureaucracy holding authority, employees may feel helpless, passive and even indifferent to company goals.

Relevance

A company bringing up the rear in adjusting to market forces cannot be an industry leader. Meanwhile, the disempowered employees are not free to innovate to better position the company, especially in the face of sudden market shifts. Between the difficulty innovating and the lack of maneuverability, companies employing the bureaucratic structure run the risk of being irrelevant within their own industry.

1. Specialization: A bureaucratic organization provides the advantages of specialization because every member is assigned a specialized task to perform.

2. Structure: A structure of form is created by specifying the duties and responsibilities and reporting relationships within a command hierarchy. Structure sets the pace and framework for the functioning of the organization.

3. Rationality: A measure of objectivity is ensured by prescribing in advance the criteria far decision­ making in routine situations.

4. Predictability: The rules, regulations, specialization, structure and training import predictability and thereby ensure stability in the organization. Conformity to rules and roles in the structural framework bring about order to cope with complexity.