Social Scientist Reflection - Max Weber

Ashneet and I did our presentation on Max Weber. He was a German sociologist born in 1864 and died in 1920. He taught before and during the first world war at the universities of Freiburg, Munich and Heidelberg. He was most famous for his theories on management and the bureaucratisation of society. In his lifetime he was mainly known for his political ideas and would probably be shocked that his theorie would have such an impact on the corporate world. His theory states that in order to function well, there should be many stages in management. Weber said that there were 3 types of leadership; charasmatic, hereditary and the beaurocratic. He believed that each type was capable of gaining obeidiency, but are suitable in different stages of the development of organizations. The charasmatic leader is best suited for the early stages as it relies on a single person's views to guide it towards it's goal. The hereditary leader is put in place by birth, replacing a family member usually, and is capable of continuing established practices. The beaurocratic is next, Weber's famous theory. There were several stages envolved and ideas passed through each stage. It was run in a very machine-like manner. Weber realised that the practices could become dehumanising and said that the only way to reverse this is to bring in a charasmatic leader to reform. The idea was that there is a hiearchy of career positions with possiblities of promotion, selected on terms of knowledge and qualifications, office space, pensions, however subject to control and discipline from the superiors.

This idea caught on as Weber was a major influence on major corporate leaders around that time, the inter-war period. Today mostly every company follows this structure. It maintains order, however must be controlled to a certain degree. Weber was right that it can become very dehumanising as major companies' salaries can go from millions to the CEO, to minimum wage to other workers who have no influence at all. It is vital to have employees of all fields in order to keep companies functioning, however it is unfortunate that the lesser known employees are practically forgotten about. For smaller businesses it is very good as everyone still knows oneanother and can communicate ideas successfully, yet still maintain the owner/boss, possibly supervisors to keep order and take care of major works. All in all this system is effective.