What is machine bureaucracy?

Machine Bureaucracy

The design of a machine bureaucracy tends to be as follows:

• highly specialised, routine operating tasks;
• very formalised procedures in the operating core;
• a proliferation of rules, regulations, & formalised communication;
• large-sized units at the operating level;
• reliance on the functional basis for grouping tasks;
• relatively centralised power for decision making;
• an elaborate administrative structure with sharp distinctions between line and staff.

Because the machine bureaucracy depends primarily on the standardization of its operating work processes for coordination, the technostructure emerges as the key part of the structure

Machine bureaucratic work is found, in environments that are simple and stable. Machine bureaucracy is not common in complex and dynamic environments because the work of complex environments can not be rationalized into simple tasks and the processes of dynamic environments can not be predicted, made repetitive, and standardized

The machine bureaucracies are typically found in the mature organizations, large enough to have the volume of operating work needed for repetition and standardization, and old enough to have been able to settle on the standards they wish to use

The managers at the strategic apex of these organizations are mainly concerned with the fine-tuning of their bureaucratic machines. Machine bureaucracy type structures are "performance organizations" not "problem solving" ones.