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Organizational Behavior Max Weber Essay

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An organization, put in simple terms is a group or assembly of people working alongside one another to achieve common goal or objective through a division of labor and or responsibilities. Business organizations in free market economies are formed to provide services or deliver goods to ultimate consumers for profit. Generally speaking, people form an organization because it provides a means of using individual strengths within a group to achieve more than can be accomplished by the aggregate efforts of group members working individually. Over time there have been several models and theories with respect to organizational function and essential characteristics. One model suggests that organizations at their core are information processing systems, where information includes knowledge about markets, products, production methods, management techniques, finance, laws, etc... and many other factors involved in running a business. In the end, the organization that can best process information will facilitate learning and the development of new knowledge. Another model suggests that organizations focus on traits such as power and subordination, culture and adaptation, and efficiency. From their creation, organizations will develop, adapt and evolve and so will the theories and models. Modern organizational theory is rooted in concepts developed during the Industrial Revolution. During that period was the research of Max Weber, a German sociologist. Weber based his model bureaucracy on legal and absolute authority, logic, and order. Weber believed that bureaucracies, staffed by bureaucrats, represented the ideal organizational form. In the bureaucracy, responsibilities for workers are clearly defined and behavior is controlled by rules, policies, and procedures. One can suggest that Weber’s bureaucracy mimicked a machine, people were arranged to perform specific functions, each of which worked in concert with another to form a streamlined process. This is similar to the many gears of a clock working together to keep time. Weber's theory on organizations reflected an impersonal and indifferent attitude toward the people working within the organization. Personal aspects of human behavior were not taken into consideration and in fact vie...

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