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human relations
human relations
66(9) 1249–1273
The ascension of Kafkaesque © The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/0018726712470290
organizations hum.sagepub.com
Randy Hodson
Ohio State University, USA
Vincent J Roscigno
Ohio State University, USA
Andrew Martin
Ohio State University, USA
Steven H Lopez
Ohio State University, USA
Abstract
Although Weber’s ideal typical model of bureaucracy was developed primarily in relation
to the state, studies of private sector organizations typically adhere to its formal-
rational conceptions with little adjustment. This is unfortunate since bureaucracy in
private sector economic organizations has many elements that are poorly captured by
and potentially significantly at odds with Weber’s thinking. Most notable in this regard
is the pervasiveness of particularistic and often informal, emergent arrangements −
arrangements well documented for many decades by workplace ethnographers. This
has significant implications for the conception of modern private sector organizations
and indeed offers a picture that is more Kafkaesque than Weberian. Significant
support for this point is provided by an analysis of content coded organizational
ethnographies. Weberian dimensions of bureaucracy − most notably coordinated and
specialized organization and training − are predominant in public institutions; private
Corresponding author:
Randy Hodson, Department of Sociology, Townshend Hall, Room 238, 1885 Neil Avenue, Ohio State
University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
Email: hodson.8@osu.edu
1250 Human Relations 66(9)
Keywords
bureaucracy, Kafka, organizational theory, public management, Weber
Max Weber and those who have built on his work have done much to identify bureau-
cracy as a fundamental societal trend, indeed establishing it as an essential starting point
for social science analysis of organizations (Jacoby, 1973: 147). Formal-rational bureau-
cracy, in the sense of predictable and efficient mechanisms for attaining socially agreed
upon goals, is not, however, as forthcoming in private sector organizations as scholarship
has postulated and continues to assume (see Clegg and Lounsbury, 2009; Perrow, 2007).
Rather, mock compliance and even flagrant rule breaking often seem pervasive (Hynes
and Prasad, 1997: 606). Global financial giants that take extraordinary risks and then
peddle the resulting products to trusted and trusting customers (Partnoy, 2003), medical
providers that exclude sick people (Starr, 1992), and energy companies that generate
environmental disasters (Prechel and Morris, 2010) are all too common reminders of the
limitations and disappointments of formal-rational bureaucracy (see Warner, 2007: 1027;
Zald and Lounsbury, 2010).
Despite obvious improvements in efficiency over pre-modern forms of organization,
bureaucracy has obvious faults. ‘Audit cultures,’ for instance, may emerge wherein
‘accountability metrics’ are given priority over substantive goals, resulting in inefficiency
in the attainment of the actual organizational goals (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Merton,
1940; Morrill, 2008). Bureaucracies are also seen as inflexible, while bureaucrats are
often criticized for acquiring ‘bureaucratic personalities’ that value rigid adherence to
rules over substantive goals. ‘Trained expertise’ can also produce ‘trained incapacity’ to
see options outside the current set of rules. Finally, formal rationality also encourages
‘rule proliferation’ in response to emergent problems and exceptions − proliferation that
can undermine rather than facilitate effective action by creating contradictory and poten-
tially mutually exclusive expectations for action (March et al., 2000).
Organizational and industrial sociologists, of course, have long been cognizant of the
limits of Weberian formal-rational models of bureaucracy for understanding the daily
fabric and texture of organizational life. The writings of Blau (1955), Gouldner (1954),
and Selznick (1949) on particularistic power behind universalistic rules, the writings of
Crozier (1964) and Roy (1954) on the creation of alternative and negotiated meanings,
and the writings of Beynon (1975), Burawoy (1979), and Jackall (1978) on contested
goals in organizational life give testimony to the richness of this body of work (see Scott,
2008, for an overview of this literature). Yet, few if any integrated, alternative conceptu-
alizations have emerged to challenge or to complement the underlying Weberian formal-
rational model.
In this article, we offer such a conceptualization, rooted in the writings of Franz
Kafka, which draws together five well-documented facets of real-world bureaucratic
Hodson et al. 1251
Weberian bureaucracy
Weber’s model of bureaucracy views formality and rationality (logically consistent
rules) as replacing arbitrary and capricious decisions by traditional elites. Five key ele-
ments in particular distinguish modern formal-rational bureaucracy from older tradi-
tional forms of authority: (i) exhaustive written rules covering all regular operations; (ii)
specialized departments, fundamentally important for technical efficiency; (iii) a clearly
ordered and integrated system of hierarchy with higher offices supervising lower ones;
(iv) formal training for bureaucrats both in their special area of expertise and in the prin-
ciples of management; and (v) official duties that require the full capacity of the official
so that bureaucratic duties are not a side activity subordinate to some other source of
income (Weber, 1968: 956−958).
The five elements above − elements that serve as an underlying theoretical foundation
for such broad areas of study as contemporary organizational theory (Perrow, 1986),
administrative science (Page, 1985), and international development (Evans and Rauch,
1999) − are specifications of the basic theoretical premise that formal-rational bureau-
cratic operations are both efficient and predictable. Indeed, such assumptions regarding
bureaucracy and its core elements underlie the general conviction that bureaucracy pro-
vides comparative advantages relative to the accomplishment of both politically derived
goals and private economic activity (Gajduschek, 2003).
Weber’s vision of bureaucracy was, of course, significantly influenced by his position
during the First World War as Director of nine army hospitals in Heidelberg. This high-
ranking station, in combination with his previous positions, gave him an excellent van-
tage point for observing a large public bureaucracy from the top down (Warner, 2007:
1023). This position, however, may also have produced a keener awareness of bureau-
cracy as a set of formal rules than as a set of operational rules − rules sometimes far
removed from official versions of protocol. The resulting model thus explicitly down-
plays the personal, the capricious, and the abusive in preference for official versions of
procedures. Front-line realities are largely invisible to those who hold power, yet are
experienced intensely by those who are the object of that power.
1252 Human Relations 66(9)
The historic backdrop and contrast for Weber’s appreciation for the rationality
and formality of modern bureaucratic organization was the unilateral Bismarkian
form of rule by fiat that preceded it. Indeed, for organizations operating under tradi-
tional authority, personal and capricious decision-making are the norm. This charac-
terized small privately owned enterprises and even larger establishments under the
‘drive system’ well into the 20th century (Stinchcombe, 1965). Such systems entail
‘close supervision, abuse, profanity, and threats [and] arbitrary and harsh enforce-
ment’, with fear of immediate firing as the prevailing motivator (Jacoby, 2004:15).
Notably Weber clearly describes bureaucracy as also being a structure of ‘domina-
tion’ (Weber, 1968: 978), yet power dimensions of his model have been less well
developed and certainly less theoretically explicit relative to descriptions of the for-
mal-rational structure of rules. The resulting theoretical prioritization of formality
over domination has been incorporated and reproduced in and across social science
disciplines.
The crucial distinction between public and private sector organizations provides
important opportunities and, in our view, much needed contextual leverage for refining
Weber’s model and for understanding the functioning and limitations of contemporary
bureaucracy (Zald and Lounsbury, 2010). As a starting point, we build upon the literary
works of Franz Kafka and the rich insights they afford regarding bureaucracy and five
undertheorized yet commonplace features of modern complex organizations: particular-
ism, chaos, contested goals, the abuse of power, and fear. Such aspects of modern organi-
zations are not easily approached through Weber’s formal-rational model. We argue,
however, that their systematic consideration is essential for a comprehensive and fully
integrated model of organizational functioning. This is especially true when considering
private sector organizations − organizations that appear very much bureaucratic, in the
Weberian sense, yet operate with much greater autonomy and significantly less oversight
and accountability than public sector organizations.
Kafkaesque bureaucracy
The core of Kafka’s contribution to understanding contemporary bureaucracy can be
gleaned from three central pieces that speak to the internal character of organizational
life: The Trial, The Kastle, and In the Penal Colony. In The Trial, Kafka probes the
opaqueness and lack of accountability of modern bureaucracies as the protagonist ‘K’ is
accused and eventually executed for a crime that remains unknown. In The Kastle, ‘K’ is
hired as a land surveyor even though no such position exists. His life spirals downward
through a series of contacts with ever more powerless and peripheral officials. Finally, in
In the Penal Colony, Kafka depicts a cruel execution device that is simultaneously highly
complex and in disarray − symbolic of the merger of complexity and dysfunction of
bureaucracy so central to his writings. Though literary rather than analytic, these pieces
of literature offer a compelling counter-image to the formal-rational model derived from
Weber. The insights provided from Kafka, which directly inform our analyses, can be
viewed as part of an emerging critical consensus on the enigmatic, contradictory, and
dystrophic aspects of modern bureaucracy (see also Beck Jørgensen, 2012; Munro and
Huber, 2012; Warner, 2007).
Hodson et al. 1253
In contrast to the more elevated positions in which Weber sat, Kafka was a low-
level official at the Workers’ Accident Insurance Board of Bohemia. The employer
machinations, bureaucratic façades, and worker injury and misery he witnessed are
clearly visible in the images of bureaucracy portrayed in his novels (Warner, 2007).
Indeed, and unlike Weber, Kafka’s view of bureaucracy is from the bottom up.
Although the portrait he paints is not easily reduced to a set of theoretical postulates,
the core elements emphasized do present a coherent picture − a fact highlighted by the
elevation of ‘Kafkaesque’ as a widely used adjective. Kafka’s bottom-up view of
bureaucracy captures important dynamics that Weber’s more top down formal-rational
model does not. Moreover, the deviations from formal rationality he identifies differ
from those identified by academic critiques of bureaucratic failings (e.g. bureaucratic
rigidity, which has its origins in formal rationality). Instead, we argue that Kafkaesque
elements represent forces in direct tension with core Weberian bureaucratic values of
rationality and meritocracy and, in fact, often pervert seemingly formal-rational
bureaucracy toward more narrow subordination to the interests of those at the top of
organizations.
Particularism
For Weber, the movement away from patrimonialism and particularism was a defining
characteristic of modern formal-rational bureaucracy. For Kafka, in contrast, particular-
ism permeates and persists in organizational relationships as a means of assuring elite
control. The emergent nature of covert, shifting coalitions relative to organizational
power is illustrated in Kafka’s short story, In the Penal Colony. Here, the controller of the
torturous execution machine describes how sentiment has turned against his prize device
since a new warden has come to power:
This procedure and method of execution, which you are now having the opportunity to admire,
has at the moment no longer any open adherents in our colony. I am its sole advocate … The
adherents have skulked out of sight, there are still many of them but none of them will admit it.
If you were to go into the teahouse today, on execution day, and listen to what is being said, you
would perhaps hear only ambiguous remarks … An attack of some kind is impending on my
function as judge; conferences are already being held in the Commandant’s office from which
I am excluded. (Kafka, 1971: 153)
Kafka offers a profound observation here: the official meanings of bureaucratic acts are
often secondary to private, personal meanings, and actions. Throughout Kafka’s writing
we see an awareness of such infusion and prevalence of ‘tyrannical, personal power of a
pre-modern type’ within − and through the very mechanisms of − bureaucratic organiza-
tions (Löwy, 2004: 53). Weber, to be sure, acknowledged that real-world organizations
might mix traditional and modern elements. Yet, he also assumed that rational elements
would increasingly dominate modern bureaucratic life. Moreover, he never explicitly
considered the possibility that seemingly rational elements (like official, written com-
munications within bureaucracies) could, in fact, enable more personalized abuses of
power (Scott, 2008).
1254 Human Relations 66(9)
In Kafka’s bureaucracy, informal and formal power cannot be parsed neatly, even
conceptually. Such enigmatic truths about bureaucracy are useful for making sense of
many common organizational patterns that are hard to interpret within a Weberian frame-
work (Beck Jørgensen, 2012). For example, ‘mentorship’ is broadly promoted in organi-
zations as a mechanism for effective transfer of in-house knowledge and development of
social and human capital. In addition, as Kanter (1977) noted over three decades ago,
informal relations based on homogamy are a foundation for uncertainty reduction and
the development of trust in organizational relations. Yet, as Kanter also notes, the very
same mentoring relations can also be a foundation for the maintenance, reproduction,
and hording of power (see also Jackman, 2003; Tilly, 1998). From a Kafkan perspective,
particularism is not just a sort of impurity − a carryover of traditional authority relations
into modern formal-rational settings − but rather is actively reproduced in and through
formal bureaucratic procedures themselves. More broadly, and extending beyond the
context of mentoring and homogamy, ‘only the most rigid bureaucracies treat their inter-
action partners truly universalistically, and even in those situations only a few unimpor-
tant or powerless ones’ (Heimer, 1992: 146).
Chaos
Formal-rational bureaucracy is based on clear rules, consistently applied, and real world
exceptions entailing less coherent and integrated applications are considered ‘not a valid
objection’ to this general description (Weber, 1968: 216, fn 2). In contrast, Kafkan
bureaucracies seem rife with chaos, contradiction, ambiguity, and unpredictability, and
these attributes, rather than being theoretically irrelevant exceptions, are defining char-
acteristics (Kafka, 1937).
Consistent with Kafka’s insights, the organizational literature since Weber routinely
reports chaos, contradiction, and ambiguity in organizational behavior. Scholars have
often noted, for instance, increasing complexity in organizational fields, including regu-
latory bodies, competitors and collaborators, and unions and other professional interest
groups (Selznick, 1949). Competing and even contradictory goals sought by these actors
allow us to understand the endemic nature of apparent (and actual) chaos in organiza-
tions as rules arising from different actors and enunciating different goals often collide.
Complexity, as an emergent bureaucratic reality, thus inevitably produces chaos − an
insight well developed in the literature on organizational disasters (Perrow, 2007;
Vaughan, 1999).
Ironically, the proliferation of rules to resolve every ambiguous case can, in and of
itself, lead to greater contradiction and inconsistency as concrete cases are caught
between a variety of competing rules. Thus, formal-rational solutions to ambiguity
through rule proliferation may exacerbate uncertainty and chaos (Gajduschek, 2003).
The pervasiveness of such contradictory claims throughout society – including formal
organizations – has been a principal inspiration behind theories of post-modern chaos
and contradiction (Hoogenboom and Ossewaarde, 2005: 605). Within organization stud-
ies, the repeated observation of contradiction has given birth to theories of ‘loose cou-
pling’ (Meyer and Rowan, 1977) and ‘turbulent unpredictability’ (Smith, 2010) as
strategic responses to chaos. Importantly, however, such observations have not resulted
Hodson et al. 1255
Contested goals
The pervasiveness of contested goals, as opposed to normative and procedural consensus
in organizations, is fundamental in Kafka’s work but also to Gouldner’s (1954) classic
analysis of punishment-centered, mock, and representative bureaucracy. What appears to
be a formal-rational script for behavior within an organization is often found, on closer
inspection, to reflect a ‘negotiated order’ of covert understandings − understandings
wherein actual behaviors are guided by ongoing compromises among relevant actors
with competing goals (Fine, 1984; Selznick, 1996). For example, in The Kastle, K (the
protagonist) verbalizes his interpretation of a recent phone contact with an official con-
cerning the confusion about his employment status as a land surveyor:
Those telephone answers are of ‘real significance,’ how could it be otherwise? How could the
information supplied by a Castle official be meaningless? I said so already in relation to
Klamm’s letter. All these statements have no official meaning; if you attach official meaning to
them, you’re quite mistaken, though their private meaning as expressions of friendship or
hostility is very great, usually greater than any official meaning could ever be. (Kafka,
1998/1926: 72−73)
In this passage, Kafka clearly conveys the widely shared experience of informal negotia-
tion that pervades many encounters people have with formal-rational bureaucracies, sup-
posedly organized on the basis of clearly and consistently applied rules.
Decades of empirical observation of contested goals and negotiated orders within
organizations have given momentum to a resurgent focus on organizations as ‘inhabited’
institutions, perhaps better conceived of as battlefields of competing logics and ration-
ales (Hallett and Ventresca, 2006: 221; Scott, 2008). The ‘neo-institutional’ literature
further suggests that such battles will be most intense where more formal mechanisms of
negotiated power and checks and balances are absent (Selznick, 1996: 272). Weber pos-
tulated that, at least in public sector bureaucracies, consensus would be realized primar-
ily through political debate and, secondarily, through a bureaucratic ethos (Weber, 1968:
959, 995). The primary manifestation of bureaucracy today, however, is in the private
sector, where negotiations among stakeholders regarding goals are broadly deemed as an
impediment to the primary goal of profit maximization and increased shareholder value
and are thus typically minimal or even absent.
K discovers in a closet of his bank the two deputies who picked him up initially and offered to
take possession of his good clothes (ostensibly to protect them, but really to sell them). ‘Sir!
We’re to be flogged because you complained about us to the Examining Magistrate.’ ‘We are
only being punished because you accused us; if you hadn’t, nothing would have happened, not
even if they had discovered what we did. Did you call that justice?’ (Kafka, 1937: 84−85)
Fear
For those who live under abusive (and often unpredictable) power, fear can become a
fact of life. The organizational literature subsequent to Weber generally argues that such
an experience most often emerges under traditional patriarchal systems and that one of
the chief benefits of bureaucracy, even when its informal side is on display (see Burawoy,
1979), is the elimination of the capriciousness of rule by fiat. Yet, as already noted, capri-
cious power and fear may be quite pervasive especially where organizational goals are
not negotiated and power cleavages are pronounced (Coupland et al., 2008; Scott, 2008).
A compelling example is offered in The Trial, where K find himself in a such a state of
utter despair and agitation that he is unable to return to work after the following oration
by his lawyer:
The whole dossier continues to circulate, as the regular official routine demands, passing on to
the higher Courts, being referred to the lower ones again, and thus swinging backwards and
forwards with greater or smaller oscillations, longer or shorter delays. These peregrinations are
incalculable … No document is ever lost, the Court never forgets anything. One day – quite
unexpectedly – some Judge will take up the documents and look at them attentively, recognize
that in this case the charge is still valid, and order an immediate arrest. (Kafka, The Trial, 1937:
158−159)
Bureaucracy revisited
The five Kafkaesque elements of bureaucracy just described (Table 1) have been recog-
nized in the organizational literatures, to be sure. Yet, they tend to be treated as either
anomalies or viewed as relatively minor exceptions to the Weberian formal-rational
model. Consequently, their identification has not been considered a fundamental chal-
lenge to notions of rationality sufficient to warrant major revisions in how we understand
bureaucracy. We hope to provoke such reconsideration.
Our central argument is that the five features of organizational life discussed above
are as much regular features of bureaucracy as are formal-rational elements. Weber
sought to highlight what was new about bureaucracy, omitting dimensions carried for-
ward from prior forms of authority. This is particularly true with particularism as a basis
for association, decisions, and reward distribution. Such omission, in our view, results in
the oversight of a fundamental characteristic of bureaucracy – even if that characteristic
also characterizes past organizational formations. Weber was also perhaps inadequately
dialectic in his approach to bureaucracy, paying too little attention to emergent properties
that routinely arise in response to ongoing tensions and contradictions generated by more
formalized elements. Such emergent properties include the pervasiveness of informal
relations and solidarities in organizations (Blau, 1955: 2) as well as contested goals
(Hallett and Ventresca, 2006) − two fundamental constants of modern organizational life
that are widely acknowledged by contemporary organizational analyses the recognition
of which has done little to challenge the underlying formal-rational model. We argue, in
contrast, that full consideration of such inherent features of bureaucracy fundamentally
challenges the Weberian model; it is difficult to rectify meritocracy with patrimonialism,
professionalization with abuse, and widely agreed-upon rules with contested goals.
Perhaps a more adequate portrayal would be one in which Weberian elements of bureau-
cracy are seen as a means of legitimating more informal procedures undertaken in the
course of organizational goal attainment.
One useful strategy for deepening current theories of bureaucracy is to consider the
organizational venues in which more Weberian and more Kafkaesque bureaucratic ele-
ments are found. Weber presented the goals of bureaucracy as derived from a process of
political negotiation. Kafka presented a world in which the goals, along with being capri-
cious, were also unilateral. In the following sections, we distinguish between public and
private bureaucratic settings as a useful approximation of these distinctions. No less
important, we consider trends across time to assess the extent to which Weberian or
Kafkan elements of organizational and bureaucratic life are ascendant.
formal organizational theory was developed through the study of public sector organiza-
tions (Selznick, 1949). Unfortunately, as bureaucracy (and its study) has migrated to the
private sector, issues of translation have remained submerged and subordinate. The
standard, and largely inadequate, interpretation is that public bureaucracies are subject to
culture (negotiation) but private sector bureaucracies operate according to technical con-
siderations governed by rational profit-oriented action (see the critique of this position
by Dobbin, 2009).
In the private sector, the central goal is profit maximization for owners and sharehold-
ers. Under the ascendance of neoliberal ideologies − ideologies that stress private sector
profit maximization as the only route to societal goals − such goal setting has, if any-
thing, become even more unilateral. Relatedly, the private sector seeks to avoid all
‘rents,’ such as those negotiated by unions and, importantly, to externalize costs of pro-
duction such as environmental degradation and occupational diseases and accidents.
Such a narrow, self-serving logic underscores the ‘irrationality of the rational,’ particu-
larly in contexts where the ‘rational goals’ have been unilaterally selected (Bauman,
2000; Warner, 2007: 1024). In pre-modern organizations, elites used a variety of tools,
including patrimonialism, fear, and abuse, to maintain control and to ensure their own
ends. In private sector bureaucracies, one should expect similar motivations of personal
enrichment to undercut Weberian ideals of meritocracy and consensus. We formalize this
expectation in the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: Private sector bureaucracy will be distinguished from public sector bureaucracy
by a greater reliance on the organizational characteristics described by Kafka: particularism,
chaos, contested goals, abuse, and fear.
control over the organization. Growing cleavages between the goals of owners and work-
ers, along with greater inequality, should also spur greater abuses of power and the
growth of fear as a motivating device. Weber’s vision of formal-rational bureaucracy
may remain relevant, but in this scenario serves mainly as a legitimizing smokescreen
for, and a means of carrying out, more rapacious behavior (Jackman, 2003) − a theme to
which we return in the conclusions. We formalize this expectation in the following
hypothesis:
Measurement
A team of four researchers developed the coding instrument for the ethnographies. First,
we generated a list of variables and preliminary response categories representing core
concepts in the literature. Second, each individually read and coded a common ethnog-
raphy, and then met to discuss consistencies and inconsistencies in their respective cod-
ings, the retention or removal of items, and the refinement of variables, response
categories, and coding protocols. This process of reading, coding, and refinement was
repeated for eight representative ethnographies. The goal was to create an instrument that
trained coders could complete for each of the ethnographies with maximum reliability.
Hodson et al. 1261
Table 2. Example organizational ethnographies for private and public sector settings.
Private ownership
Fink D (1998) Cutting into the Meatpacking Line: Workers and Change in the Rural Midwest.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. (Pork processing workers)
Gouldner AW (1964) Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy. New York: Free Press. (Gypsum plant
workers)
Milkman R (1997) Farewell to the Factory: Auto Workers in the Late Twentieth Century. Berkeley:
University of California Press. (General Motors assembly workers)
Sherman R (2007) Class Acts: Work in Luxury Hotels. Berkeley: University of California Press.
(Front desk workers in two luxury hotels)
Smith V (1990) Managing in the Corporate Interest: Control and Resistance in an American Bank.
Berkeley: University of California Press. (Branch bank managers)
Public sector
Blau PM (1955) The Dynamics of Bureaucracy: The Study of Interpersonal Relations in Two
Government Agencies. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. (Federal Bureau of Investigation
and state job training employees)
Miller G (1991) Enforcing the Work Ethic: Rhetoric and Everyday Life in a Work Incentive
Program. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. (State employment agency employees)
Ospina S (1996) Illusions of Opportunity: Employee Expectations and Workplace Inequality.
Albany, NY: SUNY Press. (Systems analysts for large urban sanitation department)
Table 3. Industrial, occupational locus, and employment size of organizational ethnographies
(N = 197).
Where coders found contradictory information for particular variables, they discussed
relevant passages with the team, which determined as a group how to code the item. To
evaluate the reliability of the content coding process, 13 per cent of the cases were coded
1262 Human Relations 66(9)
a second time. The average intercorrelation between codings was .79, indicating a rela-
tively high degree of intercoder agreement.2
The variable codings, means, and standard deviations are reported in Appendix A.
Many of the variables are widely used in human relations research and are coded in a
straightforward manner. It will be useful, however to elaborate how the various aspects
of Kafkaesque bureaucracy were coded and measured.
An example of abuse of power is provided within an ethnography of paralegals:
The impatient client began to wander the halls and happened into the attorney’s office. The
attorney immediately got off the phone, welcomed the client, and commenced their business.
After the client left, Chris yelled at the paralegal for leaving the client by himself. Greg
explained what had happened. Rather than apologizing for her outburst, the attorney angrily
replied: ‘Well, I just had to yell at someone, and you were there.’ (Pierce, 1995: 91−92)
This free discretion to schedule shifts, in fact, allows Box Hill grocery managers … to play
favorites regularly by rewarding preferred employees with optimal weekly shifts and schedules
… ‘You have to suck up to the manager to avoid getting stuck with crappy hours,’ a young bagger
in Box Hill explains matter-of-factly. Over the long run, such scheduling insecurities and the
resulting worker-on-worker competition can be draining … ‘I just can’t stand having to be ‘Angel
of the Week’ all the time so you can get rewarded with the best schedule.’ (Tannock, 2001: 189)
Other examples are provided in the results section in conjunction with specific findings
of our analyses.
Results
Variation across public and private organizational realms
The associations of the Weberian and Kafkan dimensions of bureaucracy across public and
private bureaucratic settings are evaluated in Table 4. The public sector serves as a baseline
for this evaluation. The associations reveal a consistent pattern: all five of the Weberian
dimensions of bureaucracy are less prevalent in the private sector, and one of these associa-
tions is individually significant. Conversely, all five of the Kafkan elements of bureaucracy
are more prevalent in the private sector and one of these associations is individually signifi-
cant. The largest contrasts have to do with the greater prevalence of fear characteristic of
the private sector in combination with less training in the private sector.
The patterns reported in the ethnographic record thus suggest a better fit with a
Weberian model of bureaucracy for public sector organizations. In contrast, Kafkaesque
dimensions are more clearly predominant in private sector organizations. Thus, although
Weber may have been generally correct in contrasting pre-modern organizational forms
with modern bureaucratic organizations, he missed a key distinction and a noteworthy
gap between public bureaucracies − bureaucracies around which his model was devel-
oped − and private sector bureaucracies. In private sector settings, formal-rational
dynamics are less evident and even superseded by less formalized approaches to organi-
zational functioning.
Notably, the secular time trend evidenced in the ethnographies suggests that Weberian
elements of bureaucracy are relatively stable across time (i.e. across the last half of the
20th century): the time trend for the Weberian elements is mixed and statistical signifi-
cance is not evidenced for any element of Weberian bureaucracy. In contrast, Kafkan
aspects of bureaucracy appear to be ascendant − all of the time trend effects are positive,
although none is individually significant. This pattern of the ascension of Kafkan ele-
ments is not currently acknowledged in mainstream social science accounts of contem-
porary bureaucracy, although it has been alluded to by some critical accounts of work life
in ‘post-bureaucratic’ settings (Clegg and Lounsbury, 2009; Vallas, 2003).
The prevalence of fear. Reading narrative accounts of workplace lives, one cannot but be
taken by how widespread and prevalent fear is as a daily experience in private sector
organizations. Perhaps the most prominent insight arising from our reimmersion is the
absence of the job protections found in the public sector − protections, for instance,
apparent in Blau’s classic study of a public sector employment agency. In this setting
1264
Table 4. Regression of bureaucratic elements on private vs public sector and time, organizational ethnographies (N = 197).
Notes: Table reports standardized regression coefficients. Significance denoted by * = .001 (2-tailed t-tests).
1The models for ‘rules’ and ‘capacity’ were estimated with logistic regression because these two variables are measured with binary indicators. Coefficients are logistic
seniority protected workers from management scrutiny and facilitated a more coopera-
tive (and productive) workplace:
All but one member [in the section] were veterans, whose employment could not be terminated
except for cause. They could more easily afford to co-operate with one another in disregard of
official production records, since, as one envious colleague put it, ‘they felt that nothing could
happen to them, because they were veterans and had superseniority.’ (Blau, 1955 Dynamics of
Bureaucracy: 67)
In contrast, the following episode from a Toyota engineering group in Japan is typical
of the pattern of routine bullying and fear-drenched environments frequently reported in
ethnographies of private sector corporations. The following exchange follows a regular
team meeting to report progress on a project to management:
‘He’s such a bully!’ interjected Erberto. ‘When we don’t have the right answers to technical
questions, he just yells at us, saying we’re stupid.’
‘So why do you always laugh during meetings?’, I asked. ‘It seems like your group is having
such fun.’
Chen smiled, his pudgy face bulging at the sides. ‘It’s because we’re afraid,’ he said. ‘When
Oda tells a joke, we all feel we must laugh along with him.’ (Mehri, 2005: 141)
Ascendant Kafkan bureaucracy. An especially notable and concerning pattern in our find-
ings centers on the increased prevalence of Kafkan elements of bureaucracy across time,
especially particularism, chaos, abuse, and fear. Re-immersion in the narrative accounts
to explore these effects further uncovers three discrete mechanisms underlying the pat-
tern: (i) a decline of ‘Fordism’ and erosion of the post-Second World War ‘great compro-
mise’ between capital and labor; (ii) the rise of service work; and (iii) increase in female
participation in the workplace.
The organizational ethnographies to which we returned clearly evidence the decline
in commitment and respect by organizations for their labor forces in the past few dec-
ades. From an ethnography in the early post-Second World years, a manager in a manu-
facturing establishment reports, ‘You can’t have industrial relations without giving and
taking on both sides. You’ll always win more cases by getting along … than by getting
tough’ (Dalton, 1959: 116). From a steel mill of the same period, ‘Supervisors above the
foreman level often consulted with individual men, especially the key workers, on pro-
duction problems, since the judgment of the individual worker was important’ (Walker
and Guest, 1952: 94).
More recent ethnographies increasingly feature subcontracted work where chaos pre-
vails and efficiency is accomplished more often by understaffing, yelling, and bullying
than by carefully planned and executed production protocols or by any version of stake-
holder involvement. At these plants, managers and supervisors often make reference to
‘Japanese style’ production. Yet, they incorporate it very selectively, focusing most often
on ‘full utilization of time’ without attendant engineering, supervisory, or management
efforts to make the most effective use of that time. Investments in workers and concern
for their well-being are minimal. The result is high turnover, which further aggravates the
1266 Human Relations 66(9)
chaos that often prevails in these plants. The outcome is what many observers have
called ‘stressed production’ (Berggren, 2001).
A related feature is the greater prevalence in subcontracting firms of strapped budgets
and sharply constrained investment. The following example from an automobile wiring
harness subcontractor illustrates the role of underfunding and ill-repair in disorganized
and chaotic production:
The lack of spare parts coupled with the general disrepair of the machines (and Bobby's very
general knowledge) made it impossible to keep the SELMs running for any length of time. As
two weeks turned into a month, this situation became maddening … The machinery had three
major problems. First most of it was outdated for the kind of operation we were running, and it
had been badly maintained over the years. Second, management refused to stock either enough
spare parts or the tools necessary to repair the machines. Third, management refused to hire or
keep trained personnel to maintain the machines. Instead, they hired a series of young
inexperienced mechanics (some better, some worse) who, if they were lucky, managed to keep
the deteriorating equipment patched together. (Juravich, 1985: 37, 39−40)
There isn’t much about our team meetings to like … Many workers refer to the team system as
the rat system … If a worker is lucky, discussions during meetings will restrict themselves to
work-related issues … However, private matters have a way of becoming very much public at
team meetings. One facilitator […] held two-hour meetings in which he apparently enjoyed
picking away at people. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another; something always managed to
drive some poor soul into tears … Managers seemed intent on creating little cliques, little
factions of workers that fight each other … while managers and facilitators stand back and
watch the fireworks. (Grenier, 1988: 30−31)
The fact that private sector bureaucracies operate with their own internally deter-
mined goals and rules produces strong pressures toward deceit, duplicity, bad faith,
and non-accountability − pressures that cannot necessarily be fixed by more rules.
Rules in and of themselves may simply create more contradictions and opportunities
for discretion, interpretation, and selective enforcement (Evans and Harris, 2004).
The problem is not, then, an absence of rules as much as it is a lack of accountability
and compliance (McGoey, 2007). Successfully regulating organizations may require
a certain degree of internal democracy, not just externally imposed rules (Braithwaite,
2008). State regulation of private sector bureaucracies may not be adequate in and of
itself. More proximate representative democracy within organizations may be required
to avoid the particularism, chaos, abuse, manipulation, and fear so widely evidenced
in ethnographies of private sector organizations. This call is not new − see Gouldner’s
(1954) discussion of the need for participatory bureaucracy − it simply remains
unfulfilled.
To be clear, our claim is not that capriciousness, particularism, chaos, and con-
tested goals were completely overlooked by earlier students of the workplace.
Organizational observers have noted these features as common, to be sure, but have
largely failed to give them adequate theoretical weight. In addition, such features of
bureaucratic life seem to have increased in the 21st century workplace, making
Kafka’s insights more relevant than ever. Employees are now more vulnerable to the
whims of capricious superiors. Chaos does not simply reflect micro-level cracks in
Fordist production, but rather a bewildering Kafkaesque world in which much deci-
sion-making is arbitrary, less that happens on the shop floor makes sense, and yet
employees are still expected to somehow make it all work. No longer are divergent
interests reconciled by negotiations between somewhat evenly matched management
and employees who share at least some common interests, but are instead increasingly
one-sided contests in which the goals of management are exclusively profit maximi-
zation, above even the survival of the organization.
The implication of applying a formal-rational model of bureaucracy developed
for the public sector to private sector corporations without adjustments such as those
we are suggesting is that social scientists have profoundly misunderstood and are
continuing to misunderstand and misinterpret private sector bureaucracy. A more
comprehensive and indeed accurate understanding, in our view, rests on elevating
the weight of power and its attendant particularism, discretion, chaos, and abuse in
our theoretical discussions, frameworks, and empirical examinations, especially
within the private sector context. An important corollary is the insight that successful
regulation of private sector bureaucracies cannot rest solely on external rules. It must
also include internal political negotiations among all stakeholders to derive goals
that the organization can support without evasion and subterfuge. In short, more
rules will not successfully leash private sector bureaucracies. Only empowered
stakeholders and sustained internal debate about organizational goals is capable of
such a feat.
Hodson et al. 1269
Appendix A.
Means, standard deviations and scales, organizational ethnographies (N = 197).
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Tom Maher for lending us Kafka’s In the Penal Colony, which was an
important catalyst for this project.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.
Notes
1. A list of the organizational ethnographies included and those considered but excluded is avail-
able from the senior author on request and at http://intra.sociology.ohio-state.edu/people/rdh/
Workplace-Ethnography-Project.html
2. The codesheet, coding protocol, and data are available at http://intra.sociology.ohio-state.
edu/people/rdh/Workplace-Ethnography-Project.html. As with any content analysis project,
we may have made errors in the interpretation of the texts or in the coding of the data. The
data, however, are available for public scrutiny and reanalysis and we welcome suggestions,
criticisms, and alternative views on the recorded data.
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Randy Hodson is Distinguished Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Ohio State Uni-
versity, USA. His recent books include Dignity at Work (2001, Cambridge) and Social Theory
at Work (with Mareck Korczynski and PK Edwards, 2006, Oxford). His articles on work appear
in American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Organization
Science, British Journal of Sociology and other journals. He is co-author with Teresa A Sullivan
of The Social Organization of Work (5th edn, 2012, Cengage) and is past-editor of the American
Sociological Review. [Email: hodson.8@osu.edu]
Vincent J Roscigno is Professor of Sociology at Ohio State University, USA. His recent books
include The Voice of Southern Labor (2004, Minnesota) and The Face of Discrimination (2007,
Rowman & Littlefield). His articles on inequality and work appear in American Sociological
Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Work and Occupations, and Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. He is past-editor of American Sociological
Review and past President of the Southern Sociological Society. [Email: roscigno.1@osu.edu]
Andrew Martin is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Ohio State University, USA. His
primary research interests focus on the organizational dynamics of social protest. He is currently
analyzing how American labor unions have begun to employ social movement style tactics to
organize new workers. Additionally, he is interested in US strike activity, particularly how this
form of collective action has changed over time. His recent articles appear in American Sociological
Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces and Social Problems. [Email: martin.1026@
osu.edu]
Steven H Lopez is Associate Professor of Sociology at Ohio State University, USA. He is the
author of Reorganizing the Rust Belt (2004, California), winner of the 2005 Distinguished Book
Award given by the Labor Section of the American Sociological Association. His articles on nurs-
ing home work appear in Work and Occupations, Politics and Society, and Qualitative Sociology.
He is currently writing a book about the work of nursing home aides. [Email: lopez.137@osu.edu]