ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to ascertain the impact of bureaucracy towards achieving organizational goals and objectives. The survey method of descriptive research was used for the study. The main instrument used in data collection for the study was a questionnaire the responses were attached in frequency tables and percentages were used to analyze the data. The result of the analysis and interpretation revealed that bureaucracy has too much innovation and not rigidity, it sees human feelings and not regarding human feelings and not regarding humans as programmed like machines and appropriately manipulated to produce standard outcome in the organizations. It was also discovered that rules and regulation encourage the operation of Power Holdings in Anambra State. Impersonal orientation helps the actualization of the organizations objectives. Close supervision and control also help bureaucrates in the process of carrying out assigned duties. It was recommended from the study that the organization should view their staff as human that have feelings and not like machine that can be programmed. The researcher also reminds that the should neither be two rigid nor too flexible to her workers but a PHCN balance should be struck. Employees should be exposed to learning opportunities so as to bring out creativity and innovativeness in them.
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Bureaucracy is a distinctive arrangement used by human beings to organize their activities. The invention of Western bureaucracy several centuries ago helped solve the problem for leaders of governing human systems that grew larger and more complicated with each passing year. The great virtue and probably defining characteristic of bureaucracy, according to the one of the founders of sociology, German Max Weber ( 1864- 1920), is as "an institutional method for applying general rules to specific cases, thereby making the actions of government fair and predictable". Weber contributed much to the understanding of bureaucracy as a social phenomenon. His ideal bureaucracy legitimately, efficiently, and rationally organized people and work to get things done by the elected leader in a democracy. Bureaucracy, he noted, provides for the role of the "functionary" (an interesting word), who is the person interspersed between leader and electorate within a democratic system. Ten features of the Weberian bureaucracy archetype follow:
1.The bureaucrats must be personally free and subject to authority only with respect to the impersonal duties of their offices.
2.The bureaucrats are arranged in a clearly defined hierarchy of offices.
3. The functions of each office are clearly specified.
4.The bureaucrats accept and maintain their appointments freely-without duress.
5. Appointments to office are made on the basis of technical qualifications, which ideally are substantiated by examinations administered by the appointing authority, a university, or both.
6.The bureaucrats receive money salaries and pension rights, which reflect the varying levels of the
hierarchy. While the bureaucrats are free to leave the organization, they can be removed from their
offices only under previously stated, specific circumstances.
7.The office must be the bureaucrat's sole or at least major occupation.
8 A career system is essential; while promotion may be the result of either seniority or merit, it must be
premised on the judgment of hierarchical superiors.
9 The bureaucrats do not have property rights to their office or any personal claim to the resources that
go with it. The bureaucrat's conduct must be subject to systematic control and strict discipline.
Bureaucracy has been called a concept with a career. Today it has at least four separate meanings:
1.The totality of government offices or bureaus that constitute the permanent government of a state; that is, those people and functions that continue irrespective of changes in political leadership.
2.All of the public officials of a government.
3.A general invective to refer to any inefficient organization encumbered by red tape.
4.A specific set of structural arrangements.
Bureaucracy is sometimes called the "fourth branch of government...While technically under control of the executive branch, it sometimes seems to function as if it had a will, power, and legal authority all its own." (5)
The Two Main Problems of Bureaucracy
Most people at some time or another complain about two main problems with bureaucracy: inefficiency and arbitrariness, according to political scientist and author James Q. Wilson. Wilson received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1959 and later taught at Harvard and UCLA. (He is well known for his influential
"broken windows" theory of crime (1982), that is, if police and the community ignore public disorder (symbolized by broken windows), then law-abiding people will be intimidated and criminals will get the message that "anything goes." Many police departments adopted this theory as part of "community policing." Without good
statistics on crime rates, nobody would know what worked in fighting crime.)
Weber was a German sociologist and formulated ideas on the ideal management approach for large organizations. Unlike Taylor and Fayol who tried to solve practical problems related to the activity of managing, Weber was more concerned with the basic issue of structuring the enterprise. He developed a set of ideas about the structure of an organization that define what we know as "bureaucracy."
