Bureaucratic alienation is a big problem for most of the same reasons that Marx identified 150 years ago which we already looked at in Chapter 4. Bureaucratic ritualism is also a big problem. Robert Merton first identified this problem and applied the term to an administrator s preoccupation with its rules and regulations to the point of thwarting organizational goals. What this means is that an employee will continue to be a candidate for promotion until he gets a job he cannot do well. Another large problem is bureaucratic inertia, the tendency of bureaucratic organizations to resist changes in procedures or structure because it is used to doing certain things in certain ways.
Bureaucracies can be both inhumane and dehumanizing.
Work rules are often designed in such a way as to fail to account for the real needs of employees in terms of time, other parts of their lives, etc. In some bureaucratic organizations, career ladders are too short, giving employees little opportunity for advancement. Some organizations develop levels within a job classification to give the appearance of a longer career ladder. In colleges, there are different faculty ranks but the faculty at all of the different ranks have the same job. Rationality and efficiency are themselves often dehumanizing.