Organizational Size and Bureaucratic Structure

Abstract

Patterns in the evolutionary development of bureaucratic organization are analysed as functions of the interplay between four structural dimensions: work-flow interdepen dence, hierarchical shape, administrative intensity, and mechanisms of control. Three stages of growth, marked by distinct configurations of these four structural dimensions are associated with increases in organizational size. The growth stages are derived as ideal types which are constructed on the basis of 'technical rationality'. These technically ideal types are compared to Max Weber's bureaucratic ideal-type, and some terminological confusions in the organizational literature are identified.