FORMAL GROUPS: ASSOCIATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS

Other than communities and primary and secondary relationships is the vast territory of groups–small and large, and formal and informal. Here we focus our attention on the relatively large formal groups, that are mostly Secondary groups.

We may mention here that in recent decades, the concept of ‘non-formal’ has also come into vogue, particularly in the field of education. To overcome the difficulties of providing education through formal schooling to those who are either adults, or those children who find it difficult to stop participating in the family economy to attend a regular school, a system of non-formal education was devised under UNESCO auspices. Students learning under this scheme do not follow the formal system of learning by attending schools, or using the prescribed textbooks and appearing for examinations. As they do not follow formal procedure, such a practice is called non-formal. However, norms have also developed for this type of arrangement. In other words, the non-formal is also technically a formalized activity. Non-formal, in this context, is used in the sense of being ‘different from the formal’.

Association

Groups that are formal are known by the generic term ‘Association’. However, a distinction is also made between an Association and an Organization. An Association is generally, but not necessarily, voluntary, whereas an Organization is generally, but not necessarily, involuntary. As societies grow large, several of the activities are performed outside of the family in well-organized structures by people who develop various skills and expertise. The functioning of such groups turns formal particularly when these groups become sufficiently large and a complicated system of division of labour evolves within the group. Groups are also formed in order to attain specific goals or to fulfil special needs. Such groups are more often voluntary, and the membership to them is governed by rules and regulations developed by the participating members.

Associations, in this sense, serve as a means to pursue certain specified goals. They are formed when individuals are unable to attain their goals without the help of others. For example, playing a game requires two or more players. These can be played with neighbours casually in non-formal settings. But for certain games you need paraphernalia such as balls, nets, a proper playground, and some-one to ensure the proper management of all this. In such a situation, players may come together to form an Association, or some entrepreneur may launch a club and invite membership to it. This is a cooperative pursuit that is neither spontaneous nor casual or customary (for example, an activity associated with a festival).

When a group is created expressly for the purpose of pursuing some interests as a collectivity, it becomes an Association. People may name it a Club, or a Society, or an Association, or even a Party. A Trade Union, or a Political Party, is also an example of an Association. In this sense, an Association is different from a Community. A Community may have several associations with differing membership. A member of a community selects the associations of which he/she would like to be a member. Thus, no single individual in a community, and therefore in a Society, is a member of all the associations within it, and it is not necessary for any person to always remain a member of any particular association. The doors of an association are open both for entry and exit; of course, every association has its own ‘gate-keepers’ to allow entry, and also to throw someone out if found ‘undesirable’ or if one becomes ‘ineligible’–for example, a person would lose his membership to a bachelors’ club upon his getting married. Similarly, age might be a criterion for eligibility; individuals lose their membership when they cross the required age limit–one cannot remain a member of a youth club if the age limit has been crossed; similarly, one cannot join a senior citizens’ Club if one has not qualified as a senior citizen in terms of the required age.

The concept of Association is also used in a somewhat broader sense to distinguish between an Institution and an Association. An association refers to a group of people who are in league for some or several common interests, whereas an institution refers to normative practice. For example, take the case of marriage and family. We will never call marriage an association, it is an institution through which the association called Family is created. For those who are born into the Family, it is an involuntary association as they had no choice in becoming its member, but for the husband or the wife, it might be a voluntary group if they were given the choice to select their partner. In a patrilineal family, the daughter loses her membership in the parental family when she is married into another family, of which she then becomes the member.¹¹ In this sense, some scholars regard family as a replica of the community, and also fit to be named an association. ‘We belong to associations but not to institutions’ say MacIver and Page (1955: 15). ‘Association denotes membership; institution denotes a mode or means of service’(ibid: 16).

This is a fine distinction. We must, however, be aware of the fact that the word institution is also used for certain types of associations–such as hospital, schools, colleges, university. Comparing one with the other, we quite often say this is a better (or otherwise) institution. In saying so, we refer not only to the associational aspect of it, but also the ‘culture’ of that organization–the norms, the activities, the overall performance that gives it a specific identity. It is in this sense that a person held in high esteem is eulogized by the sentence: ‘He is an institution by himself’. But all these are literary niceties, and should not be confused with sociological concepts.¹²

Formal Organizations: Bureaucracy

Large-scale organizations tend to become formal and bureaucratic. Organizations are generally known by the explicit goals they are expected to attain. In governments, and in private companies, the executive wings represent the bureaucracy of the organization. People manning them are supposed to be trained specialists and are appointed to carry out the tasks of the organization spelt out by the (i) top leadership–elected representatives in the case of democracies, and rulers in the case of authoritative regimes; and (ii) the Company heads (including the Board of Directors) in the case of private business firms. Bureaucracies are thus found in large-scale organizations in the religious, political and economic sectors of society. Bureaucracies perform a dual role of organizing the work–distribution of roles and responsibilities, and creating norms of behaviour–within the system and of developing norms for dealing with the wider system of society of which it is a sub-system. It is in this sense that formal organizations are a special type of associations. A voluntary organization–an NGO,¹³ for example—needs a small bureaucratic structure to maintain its records and handle the accounts, while its workers might be voluntary workers. A Club is another example where the membership is voluntary; people join the club to meet their specific goals, and may opt out of it when they want. Such a Club also has a small bureaucracy to handle its membership-related issues. In contrast to this, a government department is a bureaucratic organization which might have the responsibility of carrying out specific activities. In that connection, it might be expected to interact with the public: to attend to their grievances, to clear their applications, to grant them subsidies, to issue them ration cards or driving licences, etc. All this work requires a clearly laid out procedure, a set of rules and a code of conduct for the officials. Such offices are easily identified as bureaucracies.

The use of the adjective ‘formal’ for such groups suggests that these are different from the personal, informal groups. As societies grow large, the problems of their governance and of maintaining ‘law and order’ require handling them in a well-defined manner. Even in a small group such as family, there are some rules of behaviour that are passed on from one generation to other and are observed with a certain degree of sanctity. Thus, the relationship between husband and wife, between husband’s father and son’s wife, and between father and son are governed by the norms of society. But family being a Primary group, members have face-to-face relationships and several of their daily interactions are of an informal nature.

When people move outside of their family and of their neighbourhood, to interact with people who are not so close, their interactions are governed by formal patterns of behaviour. Any agency that is created to meet the demands of a populace has to develop some mechanism to ensure that the deals are just, and delivery is efficient. Such agencies are created in accordance with the goals, and the work within it is divided amongst its workers in terms of their skills. They are trained to know their duties and responsibilities and also the ‘ways of doing’ their job satisfactorily. The social relationships within the organization, and with the ‘general public’ approaching it as a ‘client’, are more impersonal. The church, the state, the various departments of the government, the business houses, the factories, and the school, among others, are all examples of formal organizations. Even an Association needs an outfit to run its business. The office of the Association is a formal organization that is run by the paid (or honorary) staff who are different from its members. And the business of the office runs along bureaucratic principles.

Bureaucracy, although generally associated with governmental organizations, is a feature that characterizes any formal organization. It is in this sense that we say that corporate offices also have their own bureaucratic structures–a hierarchy of top decision makers, managers and workers, and standard working practices, rules and regulations. Even a church is said to have a bureaucracy. What the word signifies is the point that all big and complex organizations have to evolve the norms of their functioning so that there is no dependence on any given individual. Clearly laid out rules and procedures ensure predictability, and lessen the dependence on any particular official: a new incumbent is expected to follow the same procedure and rules, and therefore a change in personnel does not, at least in theory, affect the working of the organization. In other words, the routinization of charisma results in bureaucratic procedures; the charisma is transferred from an individual to the chair so that any occupant of the given chair wears the same charisma. As a consequence, the actions become predictable. A person submitting an application knows how it will be processed and how much time will be taken to get a response from the organization.

The word ‘bureau’ signifies ‘office’; therefore bureaucracy means rule of the office, or of the officers. Through inference, it is used for governmental and semi-governmental offices and secretariats, although the norms of an office are also to be found in other formal organizations such as a factory or a school. Usually, in common parlance, the word bureaucracy is used in a pejorative sense, implying the hurdles caused by the officers who adhere strictly to the rules. In other words, bureaucracy is generally perceived to be a hallmark of inefficiency, of routine work with no place for innovation or deviation from the norm. But as a conceptual tool, bureaucracy stands for impersonality, efficiency and supremacy of norms and rules in the attainment of organizational goals.

To recapitulate: With the increasing complexities of governments emerged large-scale formal organizations. The larger the society, the greater are the number of structures, and more complicated their hierarchies. A small village community gets linked to a tehsil and district-level administration, which is part of the provincial government, and the various provincial governments function under a central government. Such an intricate system of power distribution requires a clear-cut definition of duties and responsibilities, and powers. With the arrival of Industrial Revolution in the West, bureaucracy gained its importance in other fields as well. The need was felt to create rational structures to ensure efficiency.

Max Weber, who conceptualized this concept, talked of three types of authority.

The validity to their claims to legitimacy may be based on:

1. Rational grounds–resting on a belief in the ‘legality’ of patterns of normative rules and the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue commands (legal authority);
2. Traditional grounds–resting on an established belief in the sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of the status of those exercising authority under them (traditional authority); or finally
3. Charismatic grounds–resting on devotion to the specific and exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him (charismatic authority).¹⁴

Weber argued that running large-scale organizations require rational-legal authority. A government is able to function only when its legitimacy is recognized. At various levels, formal organizations are created to meet the specific needs of the people. They cannot run on an ad-hoc basis. The people should know the manner of their functioning and the powers and responsibilities of their functionaries.

Weber recounted the following characteristics of a bureaucracy:

1. Division of labour. In a formal organization, there exists division of labour. The work is divided into several components, both in terms of sequencing and specialization, and people are recruited to perform those special functions. These are called official duties and they develop a certain specialization in the employees. The basis of selection of candidates is technical qualifications, and these are tested through examination or interviews. The important thing about the bureaucracy is that the officers are appointed and not elected. The top position may be held by an elected person, but that person is not regarded as a bureaucrat. Thus, a Minister in the government is an elected representative, but his Ministry’s work is carried out by the bureaucracy. That is why a bureaucrat is regarded as an ‘old horse’ compared to the ministers, who come and go. In day-to-day functioning, the Minister acts on the advice of the bureaucrats. In a bureaucracy, people climb up the ladder both through training and experience, that is, merit.
2. Hierarchy of authority. Implicit in the division of labour is the point that a formal organization is manned by people with different skills, and a varied range of experience. Accordingly, they are placed in the official hierarchy where the top position is held by the key decision-maker and policy planner. That officer is assisted by experts deputed at the senior level, and the administrative staff that carries out the instructions, maintains office records, and manages the finances of the organization. Below them are lower-level staff divided into supervisory responsibility and workers and helpers. Every bureaucracy has established rules for probation, promotion and retirement. An official is subject to strict control and discipline in the exercise of his duties. The offices are organized on the principle of hierarchy, where the lower office operates under the supervision of the higher office.
3. Rules and regulations. All formal organizations have set rules and procedures to guide the workers and officers. Since these are written, and documented, they are available to any-one in the organization. They are part of institutional memory. As such, the organization continues to function even when any particular officer or worker is either transferred to another position or another place, or leaves the organization for good. Strict adherence to rules is regarded as important for the efficient functioning of the organization. ‘The participants’ orientation to common rules is a source of predictability of behaviour, hence of rationality, for any one person’s rationality in action is severely limited unless he can count on what others will do in particular circumstances’ (Johnson, 1960: 291).
4. Impersonality. The work of the organization is carried out in an impersonal way; that is, personal likes or dislikes are not allowed to hamper the task of the organization. In other words, no personal considerations are allowed in a bureaucracy to ensure that it does not get corrupt or that its means are diverted to meet other ends. Not only do the organizations have rules and regulations, but these are also regarded as supreme and emphasis is placed given on adherence to them. Of course, rules are also regularly reviewed and amended, but they need to be followed diligently. The rules are framed with a view to facilitating the attainment of the organization’s goals, and to ensuring that individual workers or officers do not deviate from them. In a way, it is an extension of the principle of a machine. Once a machine is assembled it functions in a well-defined manner, and any change of sequencing, or timing might hamper its performance or cause damage to the person handling it. A well-run machine meets its productivity goals; a bureaucracy is also expected to be efficient in the same manner.

Seen in this manner, a bureaucracy is a rationally organized social structure. Its various activities are rationally linked to each other and are oriented towards the goals of the organization. Weber’s conceptualization of bureaucracy follows the model of a machine. Just as machines operate without any feelings and follow the process without any distraction or outside influence, the administrative machine is also supposed to be somewhat de-humanized–in the sense that it treats its clients without love or hate.

In the introductory paragraph to the essay on ‘Bureaucratic Structure and Personality’, Robert Merton has listed all the characteristics of a bureaucracy present in Weber’s formulation. We reproduce them as itemized characteristics here, to serve as a summary of what was said above:

• The various hierarchized statuses ‘inhere a number of obligations and privileges closely defined by limited and specific rules’.
• ‘Each of these offices contains areas of imputed competence and responsibility’.
• Authority ‘inheres in the office and not in the particular person who performs the official role’.
• ‘Official action ordinarily occurs within the framework of pre-existing rules of the organization’.
• The system ‘involves a considerable degree of formality and clearly defined social distance between the occupants of these positions’.
• ‘Such formality … serves to minimise friction’. ‘Moreover, formality facilitates the interaction of the occupants of offices despite their (possibly hostile) private attitudes towards one another. In this way, the subordinate is protected from the arbitrary action of his superior, since the actions of both are constrained by a mutually recognised set of rules’.¹⁵

What distinguishes a formal organization from informal groups, then, is the point that these organizations are established to accomplish certain specified goals. These goals could be temporal or long range. We must also differentiate between (i) the relevance of these goals for particular individuals/clients, and (ii) their relevance for the continuance of the organization. We know that for particular individuals, any organization may be of relevance for a particular purpose or period. When their personal goals are fulfilled, they retire from the organization. Their place is taken by others who have similar interests. For example, a school is an organization that is set up to provide education. Students admitted to it remain in it until their goal of receiving education, provided by the given institution, is attained. Upon their passing out—graduating from the school—their positions are filled up by a new set of aspirants. Thus, for students, the utility of the organization is limited for a period, but the utility of the school for the society continues. In this sense, the changing demographic profile of an organization does not mean the dis-continuity of the institution. We must therefore distinguish between the goals of the participating individuals and the goals of the organization as such. Similarly, organizational goals can also be divided into main and subsidiary goals.

Some scholars also suggest that organizations may have both manifest and latent goals. A private educational institution–a school or a college–is manifestly created for imparting education, but the latent goal of the organization might be to ‘make money’, and therefore such institutions–particularly the surrogate educational institutions–engage in money-making activities that may be even unethical.¹⁶ Charging capitation fees, awarding degrees that are fake, running courses for which proper authorization is not obtained, underpaying the teaching staff, and for this purpose, hiring ill-trained teachers, are such activities that are part of the latent structure of corruption and are carried out to fulfil the unstated goals.

There are organizations that do not have an explicitly formulated ideology. In business firms and corporate organizations, scholars have worked hard to unravel the ideology by carrying out systematic content analyses of the annual reports, speeches of the presidents of the companies in the meetings of the Boards of Governors, or in the meetings of their share-holders, in the orders and instructions issued by the management to the staff and workers, and in their advertisements. Business firms are generally flexible with respect to their organizational goals, as they respond to the changing economic and political environments.

Writing about governmental bureaucracies, Merton says:

 

Most bureaucratic offices involve the expectation of life-long tenure …. Bureaucracy maximizes vocational security. The function of security of tenure, pensions, incremental salaries and regularized procedures of promotion is to ensure the devoted performance of official duties, without regard for extraneous pressures. The chief merit of bureaucracy is its technical efficiency, with a premium placed on precision, speed, expert control, continuity, discretion, and optimal returns on input. The structure is one which approaches the complete elimination of personalized relationships and non-rational considerations (hostility, anxiety, affectual involvements etc.) (Merton, 1964: 196).

 

Business firms continually face the problems of turnover of their personnel, technically known as the ‘attrition’ phenomenon. People who are professionally sound generally tend to be occupationally mobile, as their skills have a high market demand. Those who prefer to remain organizationally loyal rise in the hierarchy on grounds of seniority and loyalty, but their inter-organizational mobility remains rather limited. In the universities, teachers move from lectureship to professorship via the position of reader, mainly on the basis of the number of years served in a particular position; but if any university lecturer wishes to move to another university for a higher position, his/her candidature is examined not only in terms of the number of years of experience, but also in terms of research publications and overall image in the profession. Efficiency-oriented organizations also insist on better performance and skill-enhancement while promoting an employee to a higher position.

Organizations are also judged in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. Ideally, every organization strives to be both effective and efficient. An organization is regarded as effective when it is able to attain the goals for which it was set up. It is regarded as efficient when the goals are attained with a favourable net-balance of consequences in terms of time, energy and money–when there are savings in terms of these three variables and yet the goals are properly attained, the structure is regarded as both effective and efficient.

An effective organization is one that has (i) high productivity, (ii) needed flexibility in terms of its approach to rules and to structures, and (iii) capacity to adjust to changes in the external milieu. The organization must be able to efficiently handle internal conflicts and inter-organizational strains. Internal conflicts arise because of the inevitable growth of informal groups. The management must have its radars in action to continuously assess the changing situation and take timely action to resolve the crises, rather than allow them to grow and interrupt the normal processes. Such actions demand a flexibility of approach. A good administrator goes beyond structural variables to accommodate personality factors and changes in the external environment.

An organization is thus viewed not as a closed system, but as an open system with its interfaces with the wider social system. An organization is connected to a variety of other organizations and groups. This networking differs from organization to organization. When we talk of a government department, the department is related with other departments of the government–more closely with some, less so with others. Intergovernmental transfers provide linkages between them at the level of individuals. Similarly, specific departments relate with specific organizations in the public sector. The Ministry of Human Resource Development, for example, has direct links with the University Grants Commission (UGC), The Central Board of School Education (CBSE), The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), the various universities (Central and State, Private and Deemed) and colleges, the IITs and IIMs. They will be part of the organizational structure of the HR ministry. But for each individual university or college, the links with other similar institutions will have a distinctive profile. Those that would constitute the organizational set of a particular institution have their own organizational set in which, other than that particular institution, there would be organizations that may not be a part of the organization set of the second institute.

Several years ago,¹⁷ Yogesh Atal developed the concept of nation-set along similar lines. The concept of organization-set is an extension of the same phenomenon. In an article titled ‘Subordinate State System and the Nation State: Tools for the Analysis of External Milieu’,¹⁸ Atal distinguished between four different types of Nation-sets, namely:

1. Contiguous boundary Nation-set
2. Common interest Nation-set
3. Membership-role Nation-set
4. Non-Membership nations: the out-groups

Figure 6.1 illustrates the contiguous boundary nation-sets of two countries, Y and A.

 

Figure 6.1 Contiguous Boundary Nation-sets of Two Countries

 

Figure 6.1 shows two nations, called Y and A. It will be seen that both countries have two different nation-sets, and only a few of them are common to the two. In the same fashion, two offices located in the same city might have different sets of their counterparts with whom to interact. It is this nature of the organization set that gives an organization its typical identity. Take two private schools¹⁹ in a town. The kind of students each attracts, the location of the school, and the private individuals or groups financially supporting the institution constitute each school’s network, and determine its status in the society. It is these connections with the outside world that influence the inner workings of an organization. For the study of an organization, it is therefore essential to study not only its internal structure, but also its network of organizational relationships. It should also be stressed that organizations are also linked with other organizations via their own workers. Thus, workers in a factory may belong to different labour unions run by different political parties. Thus, political parties indirectly influence the functioning of the organization.

All these relationships–networks and interactions–change the sociology of the organization in question. An organizational structure is a formal blueprint. It gets changed by the social organization that develops when the blueprint is translated into a living organization.

In this regard, a landmark study was carried out in the 1930s in the United States by Fritz Jules Roethlisberger and W. J. Dickson.²⁰ This study was carried out in the Hawthorne Electric Company under the leadership of Elton Mayo, where it uncovered the presence of a series of informally functioning primary groups, which bear an impact on the productivity of the Company. Relations between non-supervisory occupational groups, such as connector wiremen and selector wiremen, wiremen and soldermen, and wiremen and soldermen in relation to truckers as well as to inspectors were investigated. Occupants of all these statuses functioning in the Bank Wiring Observation Room were ‘differentiated into five gradations, ranging from highest to lowest in the following order: inspectors, connector wiremen, selector wiremen, soldermen, and trucker’. Researchers collected data about informal activities such as playing games, participation in controversies about windows (to be kept open or closed), job trading, helping one another, and friendships and antagonisms. Based on the responses to these questions, sociograms were prepared. The authors came to the conclusion that:

1. ‘these people were not integrated on the basis of occupation’; in other words, there were no occupational cliques.
2. From all the areas covered for observation, it emerged that there existed two cliques, one of which was located towards the front of the room, the other towards the back.
3. There were two cliques, but certain individuals remained away from them. However, the authors emphasize the point that it does not mean that there was no solidarity between the two cliques, or between the cliques and the outsiders. The main point was that this clique formation was a result of continuous interaction amongst the occupants of various statuses put together in a single work site, and was not the part of the official blueprint.

 

Figure 6.2 Internal Organization of the Group in the Bank Wiring Observation Room

 

This study laid the foundation for the new sub-discipline of Organizational Behaviour in the general field of Management. It emphasized the point that it is just not enough to know the formally spelt-out contours of an Organization to diagnose any human relations problem that it might be facing. One needs to investigate the existence of informal groupings within an organization to attend to the key management problems.

To sum up: Hawthorne studies made four general conclusions:

• The aptitudes of individuals are imperfect predictors of job performance.
• Informal organization affects productivity. Discovering a group life among the workers, the studies showed that the relations that supervisors develop with workers tend to influence the manner in which the workers carry out instructions.
• Work-group norms affect productivity. Work groups unknowingly evolve norms of what is ‘a fair day’s work’.
• The workplace is a social system.²¹

Figure 6.2 suggests that any formal organization tends to develop an informal culture, which begins to have an impact on the functioning of the formal organization. Since this culture is the result of interaction between individuals occupying different positions, it remains unique to that organization only and is changed with the change of persons. It is the person-set that creates and nurtures the informal culture. Two similar offices of the same company, or of a Government department, will have different informal cultures.

Bureaucracy in Operation: The Pathology and Dysfunctions

Several scholars working on the functioning of bureaucracy have noted, however, that any concrete case of a bureaucratic organization departs from the ideal type as outlined by Weber. Such departures could be eufunctional, dysfunctional or non-functional for the organization. It will be sufficient to mention that any conceived plan or structure is influenced by the people involved in it. It is found that any action taken in accordance with the stated intention might lead to the same set of consequences. These consequences need not always be bad (dysfunctional) for the system concerned; they may be either helpful (eufunctional) or neutral in the sense that they neither contribute to its efficiency nor make it inefficient (non-functional). Scholars worried about the obstructive role of bureaucracy focused on the demonics²² of bureaucracy, which are part of the dynamics²³ of the process inherent in the functioning of the system.

Merton argues that the ‘bold outlines’ of bureaucracy emphasize ‘the positive attainments and functions of bureaucratic organization’, and ‘almost wholly’ neglect the internal stresses and strains of such structures (1957: 197). The community at large, however, notices the ‘imperfections’ and regards the bureaucrat as a ‘horrid hybrid’. In this regard, Merton alludes to (i) the concept of ‘trained incapacity’ advanced by Veblen,²⁴(ii) Dewey’s²⁵ notion of occupational psychoses, and (iii) Warnotte’s view of ‘professional deformation’.²⁶

 

Trained incapacity refers to that state of affairs in which one’s abilities function as inadequacies or blind spots. Actions based upon training and skills which have been successfully applied in the past may result in inappropriate responses under changed conditions …. In general, one adopts the measures in keeping with one’s past training and, under new conditions which are not recognized as significantly different, the very soundness of the training may lead to the adoption of the wrong procedures. Again, in Burke’s²⁷ almost echolalic phrase, ‘people may be unfitted by being fit in an unfit fitness’; their training may become an incapacity (ibid.: 198).²⁸

 

As noted, the central emphasis of bureaucracy is on the discipline, understood in terms of strict adherence to rules and procedures so that there is no place for any personal considerations. The actions of the officers follow a predictable line.

 

If the bureaucracy is to operate successfully, it must attain a high degree of reliability of behaviour, an unusual degree of conformity with prescribed patterns of action …. Discipline can be effective only if the ideal patterns are buttressed by strong sentiments which entail devotion to one’s duties, a keen sense of limitation of one’s authority and competence, and methodical performance of routine activities.

 

All bureaucracies make arrangements to inculcate and reinforce these sentiments.

Merton argues that emphasis on these values causes ’ transference’ of these sentiments ‘from the aims of the organization onto the particular details of behaviour required by the rules’. In such circumstances, the means devised to attain the aims gain precedence and the officials tend to strictly adhere to them. The rules are the means, but in the enthusiasm for conformity to norms, the means gain an almost religious sanctity. Officers forget the intention behind the rules. When the aims are undermined and the means worshipped, the aims suffer. This is what Merton refers to as Displacement of Goals, where ‘an instrumental value becomes a terminal value’.

One can find myriad examples of this process in practically every organization. Lawrence J. Peter published a satirical book in collaboration with Raymond Hull–a playwright–in 1968 with the title The Peter Principle: Why things always go Wrong. The book opens with a very simple example of a school teacher who is fed up with bureaucratic procedures within his institution and responds to an advertisement for a similar job in another school.²⁹ His application is returned by the advertisers as it was not sent by ‘registered post’, as required. The teacher then decided to retain his present job as he was convinced that all organizations are alike in terms of bureaucratic procedures. What this instance tells us is the fact that sticklers to rules disregard the intention behind a set procedure. Asking applicants to send applications by ‘registered post’ was meant to ensure that the application did not get lost in transit. But when an application has already reached the destination, the insistence on the procedure suggests that the means devised for ensuring receipt became a goal by itself for those who were in charge of receiving the applications. A good and eligible candidate was thus not considered for the job. This is an apt instance of displacement of goals.

Each one of us can furnish from personal experience several examples of rule worship that reach a level of absurdity. Some examples from the Indian setting are given below.

• There is a rule that any person going on a sabbatical has to furnish a certificate stating that ‘he is alive’ in order to claim the salary from the parent organization. A most quoted instance is that of a university teacher who had gone to the USA on a sabbatical. Not knowing why his salary for the month of July was not paid to him while he received payments for subsequent months, he wrote to the Registrar of his University about the arrears. The Registrar wrote back saying that a medical certificate stating that he was alive in that month had not been received. Now, if the Registrar was writing to him in the month of, say, October, isn‘t it logical to assume that the person was alive in July? Don‘t his certificates for the later months cover the past in this regard? Can a person who is ‘alive’ in October be ‘dead’ in July? Obviously the Registrar was a worshipper of the rules, and did not apply his mind. He needed the certificate to complete the file by following the set procedure.
• An officer living very close to the airport suggested to his administrative officer that it would be economical for him to take a taxi for the airport rather than using the official car, as it would involve overtime payment to the driver, excessive use of fuel–from the office to his residence and then to the airport and back to the office. But it was denied on the ground that taxi fare could not be paid, as officers are paid on the basis of mileage at official rates, which is much less than the taxi fare. While rejecting the suggestion, what was ignored was that the use of an official car would incur greater costs than the taxi fare. It is interesting to note that the same officer was entitled to full taxi fare when when an official vehicle was not available!
• A senior officer from Delhi was supposed to go to Pune. In the 1970s, there was no direct flight from Delhi to Pune and the passenger had to go via Mumbai, making a night halt. Since there was no ‘official work’ in Mumbai, the officer was denied any expenses for the Mumbai stopover–requiring the officer to spend his own money. The finance officer then came up with a solution that the officer concerned should ‘invent’ some official work in Mumbai to justify his claim! It could be a letter to be delivered to the Chairman of his Board. In fact, any pretext would have done.
• It was reported in the newspapers of 30 January 2010 that an erring businessman (Uma Precision Limited) in Aurangabad was levied a penalty of  5,000 from the Commissioner (Appeals), which was paid. It was later discovered that a mistake had occurred as the earlier order had fixed a penalty of  5011– 11 more than the amount remitted. In order to recover this small sum from the party, proceedings were initiated to challenge the order of the Commissioner (Appeals) and for that purpose to approach the Customs, Excise and Services Tax Appeallate Tribunal (CESTAT) in Mumbai. For this purpose, a superintendent-level officer from Aurangabad would have visited Mumbai on at least two occasions–once while filing the case with CESTAT and the second time on the day of hearing. The officer is entitled to second-class air-conditioned train fare and food allowance. The entire exercise took three years and a good amount of paper work involving several hours of office time. But after all this, CESTAT turned down the prayer. The government spent nearly  3,000 and three years to recover the paltry sum of  11 from the erring businessman, but failed in its mission. This shows how rule worship leads to inefficiency and financial loss. It was not worth the exercise for  11. The officer concerned should have applied his discretion and closed the file.

All these instances hint at the unimaginative use or interpretations of the rule. The intention to prevent misuse and economize office expenses is disregarded and obstacles created in the smooth discharge of duties. Such examples abound when a common man approaches a governmental bureaucracy.

Peter derived a more general principle from similar examples for his proposed ‘Science of Hierarchiology’. The Peter Principle says that in any hierarchy, an employee tends to rise to his or her level of incompetence. Employees who are perfectly competent at one level are automatically promoted regardless of their ability to do the job they are promoted to, or whether they wish to be promoted. Such people attain their level of incompetence with the rise in the hierarchy.

Peter argued that in due course of time, most management positions within a bureaucracy are filled by those who are incompetent. They attain superior positions by being rather good at their current position, but are rendered incompetent at the higher level. This is also the case where promotions are given on the basis of seniority and not competence. In the Indian setting, where most government appointments are life-long–that is, until the age of retirement–a person feels secure in his or her job after the period of probation, and awaits promotion on the basis of seniority and not the competence needed for handling upper-end jobs. Such individuals are generally doomed to fail, but they cannot be removed or downgraded. That is why seniority-based promotions in the universities in India have brought incompetence to the top academic positions. Peter says that senior officials mask their incompetence using various tricks, by using giant desks, inventing incomprehensible acronyms, blaming others for failure, sycophancy, and various other ways of cheating. Reaching one’s level of incompetence is also an illustration of the phenomenon of ‘trained incapacity’ mentioned earlier.

There is another dimension of the bureaucratic rigmarole that Parkinson has pointed out, which is popularly known as Parkinson’s Law.³⁰ He also developed a ‘coefficient of inefficiency’. From his own experience as a bureaucrat, he came to the conclusion that there is no relation between the number of officials and the quantity of work in a particular office. He coined the famous phrase: ‘Work expands so as to fill the time available for its expansion’. It is generally the case that an official wants to multiply his sub-ordinates, and not the rivals, and the officials make work for each other. There are several instances of Committees and Commissions set up by the government to give reports within a stipulated time, but in most cases the tenure of such offices is extended ad nauseam. Parkinson gave the example of the expansion of the foreign office of the British Government at a time when its colonial regime was constantly shrinking.

The assumption that strict adherence to rules increases efficiency has also been challenged by certain actions taken in the public sphere in India. Indian political culture evolved several ways of lodging its protest. The most innovative way was to announce a strike following the work-to-rule strategy. In the 1970s, the Trade Union of Railway employees resorted to such a strategy and caused a total disruption of services. Invoking Weber, one should have raised the query: how can ‘work-to-rule’ lead to inefficiency? Weber’s ideal type suggests that rigorous adherence to rules is necessary for the efficient functioning of the bureaucracy. Obviously, the Union leaders and railway employees were not challenging Weber, but were hinting at the work norms evolved by them, which facilitated their work and improved their efficiency. In other words, such strikes were a reminder to the superiors that there are deficiencies in the rules, and that departure from them was necessary to attain the goals. One area of contradiction revealed by that strike was in the conflicting goals and rules of two of its important departments, namely traffic and security. The primary goal of the traffic department was: Come what may, trains must run punctually. The Security department, on the other hand, insisted: Come what may, proper security precautions–as prescribed–must be taken, even if delay occurs in the running of the trains. Since the trains before the strike were mostly running on time, it was obvious that some of the security procedures must have been bypassed; and during the strike, strict observance of these procedures resulted in enormous delays, and brought the railways to a halt. Political analysts and even social scientists did not receive this message from the striking employees, who thus unwittingly put Weber in the dock.

In terms of research, this seems to be a grey area; research on the role of rules and procedures invites attention.

Merton put forth the view that over-conformity in a bureaucratic organization can be traced to structural sources.

 

The process may be briefly recapitulated. (1) An effective bureaucracy demands reliability of response and strict devotion to regulations. (2) Such devotion to the rules leads to their transformation into absolutes; they are no longer conceived as relative to a set of purposes. (3) This interferes with ready adaptation under special conditions not clearly envisaged by those who drew up the general rules. (4) Thus, the very elements which conduce toward efficiency in general produce inefficiency in specific instances. Full realization of the inadequacy is seldom attained by members of the group who have not divorced themselves from the meanings which the rules have for them. These rules in time become symbolic in cast, rather than strictly utilitarian (1957: 200).