Post‐bureaucracy – control through professional freedom
Journal of Organizational Change Management
ISSN: 0953-4814
Article publication date: 1 October 2003
Abstract
This article develops a framework for understanding autonomy and control in post‐bureaucratic organizations. It reviews two dominant discourses on post‐bureaucracy – the managerial discourse and the critical management discourse. Whereas the one pictures post‐bureaucracy as an emancipating regime based on the personalities and social networks of individuals, the other pictures it as a totalitarian regime, which subordinates individuals’ thoughts, emotions and identities to its instrumental schemes. Both discourses are criticized for being grounded in a view of post‐bureaucracy as a “total” organization. An alternative conceptualization is developed, which shows that post‐bureaucracy neither emancipates individuals from control, nor captures them in totalitarian control. A distinguishing characteristic of post‐bureaucracy is that it displaces the responsibility for setting limits between professional and non‐professional concerns from the organization to the individual. Via a case study it is shown how this implies a specific form of control that does not restrict individual freedom, but uses it as its prime vehicle.
Keywords
Citation
Maravelias, C. (2003), "Post‐bureaucracy – control through professional freedom", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 16 No. 5, pp. 547-566. https://doi.org/10.1108/09534810310494937
Publisher
:MCB UP Ltd
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited