Bureaucracy and Professionalism:

A Reconsideration of Weber's

NINATOREN
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

One criticism of Weber's ideal-type of bureaucracy has been that in

defining its characteristics Weber did not distinguish between hierar-
chical and professional authority. Critics see these as inherently in-
compatible and in conflict in formal organizations. Recent empirical
findings indicate that professionalism and bureaucracy may be posi-
tively related on the level of organizational structure and individual
orientation. Implications for organizational theory and practice are
noted.

A central theme in the sociology of organi- creasingly work in large-scale organizations, it is

zations has been the assumed incompatibility
between the values and needs of managers and
those of professionals. Whereas professionals are
specialists who need freedom to do their work,
it is the task of managers to control, coordinate,
and integrate diverse organizational parts into an
ongoing whole. Since the professions are the
most rapidly growing occupational category in
post-industrial society, and their members in-
Nina Toren (Ph.D. — Columbia University) is lecturer of Or-
ganizational Theory and Development in the School of Busi-
ness Administration, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
Israel.
Received 5/28/75; Revised 12/15/75; Accepted 2/24/76.
apparent that accommodation and cooperation
between professionals and the organizational
bureaucracy are of great importance.
The notion of the bureaucracy-profession-
alism conflict stems from extensive debate and
elaborations of Weber's conception of the ideal-
type of bureaucracy (16, pp. 196-204; 52, pp. 329-
336). It has been claimed that in identifying the
characteristics of bureaucracy, Weber did not
distinguish between hierarchical and profession-
I am greatly indebted to Joseph Ben-David of the Hebrew
University, Melvin L. Kohn of the NIMH, and three anony-
mous referees, for their helpful comments on an earlier draft
of this paper.

36
 Academy of Management Review - July 7976
al authority, and that the inherent incompatibil-
ity of these two types of authority will be a source
of conflict in formal organizations.
Recent empirical findings from various
fields of research, rather than supporting this
claim, indicate that professionalism and bureau-
cracy may be positively related. It seems that the
issue of bureaucratic control versus professional
autonomy has been, at least to some extent, a
reification of the researchers' assumptions, and
is by now an outdated stereotype. The main ar-
gument of this article is that some recent re-
search evidence in fact confirms Weber's orig-
inal thesis that hierarchical authority and special-
ized knowledge are functionally interrelated in
rational bureaucracy, and are both essential at-
tributes of modern formal organizations.
At this point a conceptual clarification is
necessary because neither the definitions and
operationalizations of bureaucracy, nor those of
professionalism are unequivocal (2, 10, 15, 25,
53). Throughout this article, hierarchical struc-
ture of positions and bureaucracy on the one
hand, and technical expertise and professional-
ism on the other hand, are used interchangea-
bly. This usage is justified insofar as a hierarchical
chain of command is the central structural prop-
erty of bureaucratic organization (although not
the only one), while specialized and exclusive
knowledge and competence are the core ele-
ments of the professions around which other
characteristics develop, such as a code of ethics,
professional autonomy, and professional associ-
ations. Moreover, the identification of these
types of authority — bureaucratic and profes-
sional — has been based on these core attributes.
The bureaucratic is derived from position in the
organizational hierarchy, the professional from
esoteric knowledge and skills. Freidson (15) re-
cently suggested that "professional authority"
contains elements of authority based on techni-
cal competence as well as elements of bureau-
cratic authority, insofar as the professional is the
incumbent of an official licensed position which
confers upon him or her the legal right to prac-
tice.
37
The Critique of Weber
A long and well known footnote by Talcott
Parsons in his "Introduction" to Max Weber's
The Theory of Social and Economic Organization
(52, pp. 58-60) has served as the point of depar-
ture for extensive criticism of Weber's so-called
failure to distinguish between two types of au-
thority — the one based on incumbency of a le-
gally defined office, the other on superior knowl-
edge and competence. Weber's definition of bu-
reaucracy includes both the dimension of hierar-
chical authority and that of technical expertness.
As Blau and Scott have pointed out, this ". . .
construct of ideal type is an admixture of a con-
ceptual scheme and a set of hypotheses" (8, p.
33). The hypotheses propose a functional inter-
relationship between the elements comprising
the model of bureaucracy and their mutual con-
tribution to the effectiveness of the system as a
whole.
This functional association between the two
characteristics, namely hierarchical authority
and expert qualifications, is asserted by Weber in
a number of places:
The role of technical qualifications in bureau-
cratic organizations is continually increasing
(52, p. 336).
The primary source of the superiority of bu-
reaucratic administration lies in the role of
technical knowledge (52, p. 337).
Bureaucratic administration means funda-
mentally the exercise of control on the basis
of knowledge (52, p. 339).
Weber thus seems to equate high hierarchical
standing within an organization with superior
knowledge and expertise.
Critics and students of formal organizations
have suggested that not all elements of Weber's
model of bureaucracy are empirically intercon-
nected, and that some may even be negatively
related. Udy (51) submits that rational bureau-
cracy as defined by Weber is composed of two
distinct sets of variables — "bureaucratic" and
"rational" — which tend to be negatively asso-
ciated. In the same vein. Hall (23, 24) contends
 38 Bureaucracy ancJ Professionalism: A Reconsideration of Weber's Thesis
that some of the ideal typical attributes of bu-
reaucracy are not highly correlated in formal or-
ganizations and may vary independently. Stinch-
combe (45) claims that the ideal type compo-
nents fall into two categories — those which are
characteristic of rational administration in gen-
eral, and those which are found only in one sub-
type of rational administration, bureaucracy.
The attempts of Weber's critics to "disentan-
gle" the two strands contained in his model of
bureaucracy — hierarchical authority and exper-
tise — have given rise to numerous concepts and
typologies that have since dominated organiza-
tional theory and research. The two bases of au-
thority, administrative and technical, have be-
come a major dimension on which organiza-
tions, positions, and personalities have been cat-
egorized. Thus, several types of bureaucracies
were distinguished — "punishment oriented
bureaucracy" versus "representative bureau-
cracy" (18, p. 24; 19, p. 402), the "Weberian"
the "human relations", and the "professional"
models of bureaucracy (30). Organizations have
been variously classified as "non-professional",
"full-fledged professional", and "semi-profes-
sional" (13); "autonomous" and "heterono-
mous" (42). The incumbents of bureaucratic au-
thority positions have been called the "line", and
experts the "staff" of an organization, and the
relationship between the two generally has been
described as that of tension, strain or conflict (11).
Typical orientations of bureaucrats in contrast
with those of professionals have been extensive-
ly examined (35, 40, to name only the earliest
studies), and Gouldner's (17) typology of "cos-
mopolitans" and "locals" is widely employed to
identify diverse attitudes and commitments of
professionals in organizations.
A more subtle statement of the proposition
that bureaucratic authority and expert qualifica-
tions are inversely related is to present them as
functional alternatives (8, 43, 45). On the basis of
a study comparing construction and mass-pro-
duction industries, Stinchcombe concludes that
rational coordination of complex tasks can be
achieved either through high professionalization
of workers as in construction, or through bu-
reaucratic control as in mass production. Each al-
ternative method of administration is the more
rational under different conditions. His designa-
tion of these conditions is in line with more re-
cent work indicating that bureaucratic adminis-
tration is appropriate to the performance of rou-
tine tasks in stable environments, while profes-
sional settings are conducive to accomplishment
of more complex tasks under conditions of un-
certainty (22, 29, 38, 47).
This overview of the critique shows that the
Weberian model of bureaucracy has been dis-
puted on different levels and from different
perspectives. The general conclusion has been
that Weber failed to notice that he was con-
founding two disparate bases of authority which
give rise to two distinct and incongruous author-
ity structures within bureaucratic organizations.
Attempting to explain this apparent difficulty in
Weber's formulation. Parsons writes:
It is probable that Weber's neglect to analyze
professional authority is associated with a
tendency to over-emphasize the coercive as-
pect of authority and hierarchy in human rela-
tions in general, important as it is in particular
cases.
Another plausible interpretation may be derived
from Weber's main concern to contrast the ra-
tional character of modern bureaucratic admin-
istration with other forms of administration.
From this point of view, both bureaucratic and
professional authority are based on rational cri-
teria of recruitment and performance, whereas
the other types — traditional and charismatic au-
thority — are not. However, the following reas-
sessment of Weber's analysis in light of empirical
evidence will show that neither of these expla-
nations is necessary.
Recent Evidence on Bureaucracy-
Professionalism Relationships
Weber's original exposition of the close in-
terconnection between bureaucratic and profes-
sional principles of organization is substantiated
by data from various fields of investigation.
 Academy of Management Review - July 7976
These are: the structure of government bureau-
cracies, industrial organization and effectiveness,
organizational size and complexity, professional
norms and attitudes, and bureaucracy and per-
sonality. The following research evidence is clas-
sified into two general categories: (a) findings
pertaining to the structural level which demon-
strate that hierarchical organization of authority
and professional expertise not only coexist with-
in organizations but vary together; e.g., the
more of one, the more of the other; and (b) data
concerning the attitudinal level which indicate
that bureaucratic settings do not necessarily in-
fringe upon professional values and orientations.
Bureaucratic Structure and Professional Expertise
Generally the structure of bureaucracy is
characterized by two core attributes: a hierarchy
of authority and an administrative staff. Empiri-
cal research on formal organizations usually con-
centrates upon one or the other of these compo-
nents, thus giving the term bureaucracy differ-
ent operational definitions and meanings. When
hierarchically organized authority is perceived
as the central dimension of bureaucracy, the de-
gree of bureaucratization is measured by the
number of levels of authority in the organization.
On the other hand, when the presence of an ad-
ministrative staff is regarded as an important fea-
ture, the proportion of managerial and supervis-
ory staff to other groups in the organization is
employed as an indicator of the degree of bu-
reaucratization.
There is considerable evidence that both
these core characteristics of bureaucracy —
multilevel hierarchy and a specialized adminis-
trative staff — are positively related with in-
creased professionalization within organizations.
The degree of professionalization also has at least
two different connotations — referring to the
size of the professional group relative to other
component groups in the organization, and/or
to the length of training and level of profession-
al qualifications demanded as a prerequisite for
recruitment and advancement.
In a series of studies on the structure of au-
39
thority in formal organizations, Blau and his col-
leagues (6) started from the assumption that a
highly differentiated authority structure and a
high level of staff technical competence serve as
functional alternatives for the rational pursuit of
organizational goals. In other words, the pres-
ence of a professional staff, whose work is based
on expert knowledge and guided by professional
norms, will substitute for the need for a high
proportion of managers and supervisors to co-
ordinate and control activities. This is essentially
the same interpretation given by Stinchcombe
(45) to his findings on construction work and
mass-production described earlier. In a subse-
quent study on public personnel agencies, Blau
found that "agencies that require high qualifica-
tions (a college degree with a job related major)
are more likely than others to have a high ratio
of managers" (4). This relationship was re-exam-
ined and supported in two additional studies,
one on finance departments of state and local
governments (5), the other on employment se-
curity agencies (7). The findings show that great-
er hierarchical differentiation of the organiza-
tion's authority structure is positively correlated
with higher professional qualifications of the
staff. Agencies with a larger number of hierarchi-
cal levels had a higher proportion of professional
staff (4, p. 461, Table 1).
In contrast with the accepted notion that a
high ratio of managers indicates narrow spans of
control and close supervision, Blau suggests that
such a structure facilitates reciprocal communica-
tion between managers and professional staff,
thus promoting a more decentralized process of
decision making. The validity of this reconcep-
tualization for other types of organizations and
professionals is open to question, and has been
the subject of further research (9, 36). The stud-
ies by Blau and his colleagues, nevertheless, sig-
nify more than an uncomfortable co-existence
of official authority and expert knowledge within
organizations. They seem to denote that a differ-
entiated authority structure (indexed by a high
ratio of administrative to professional staff and a
multilevel hierarchy), and a highly qualified pro-
40 Bureaucracy and Professionalism: A Reconsideration of Weber's Thesis
fessional staff, may indeed complement each
other to produce a more effective organization
than would otherwise be possible.
Industrial Bureaucracy and Technical Expertness
Additional support for the contention, that
the degree of bureaucratization and the level of
expertness are interdependent and vary togeth-
er, can be derived from studies on industrial
organizations. Woodward's work (54) on manu-
facturing firms in Britain is particularly pertinent
to this issue. The 90 firms investigated were
graded on a scale of technical complexity with
process production at the top, followed by mass
production, and unit production at the lower
end. Relating these three types of technology to
organizational structure, the ratio of managers
and supervisory staff to total personnel was
found to be highest in the most technically ad-
vanced organizations, the proportion of man-
agers being three times greater in process-pro-
duction firms than in unit-production firms.
Corresponding material in Melman's (34) histor-
ical-comparative study on the growth of admin-
istrative staff in American manufacturing indus-
tries shows that the administrative component in
petroleum refining (process-production) in the
U. S. increased by 35.3 percent between 1899 and
1937, while in the automobile industry (mass-
production), the growth of administrative over-
head was only 3.8 percent for the same period.
Woodward also found that the number of levels
of authority in the management hierarchy in-
creased with technical complexity, the median
number of levels being 6 in process-production,
4 in mass production, and 3 in unit-production
(53, pp. 4-21).
It is reasonable to assume that firms utilizing
a more advanced technology, i.e., process pro-
duction, generally require more technical com-
petence and professional knowledge of their
employees than the simpler modes of produc-
tion (mass and unit). If this is true, then Wood-
ward's findings demonstrate that a high degree
of bureaucratization — measured by a relatively
large managerial component and a multilevel
hierarchy of authority — is positively associated
with high technical and professional qualifica-
tions.
These studies on industrial organizations
thus corroborate Blau's evidence concerning
public and government bureaucracies. The con-
sistency of the findings from these two different
areas of organizational research makes them all
the more convincing.
Organizational Size, Complexity, and
Administrative Ratio
The relative size of the administrative com-
ponent (viewed as a dimension of bureaucracy)
is affected by two major factors — organizational
size and complexity. The impact of size and
complexity on the proportion of the managerial
and supervisory staff has been examined by a
host of studies in a large variety of organizational
settings. The bulk of the evidence indicates that
size decreases and complexity increases the ad-
ministrative ratio (5, 7, 26, 33, 39). The relevance
of this generalization is the nature of the rela-
tionship between complexity and the degree of
bureaucratization.
Organizational complexity is a multidimen-
sional concept and has been operationalized in
the research literature on two different levels of
analysis; one referring to the complexity of the
individual's work-task, the other to the function-
al and structural differentiation of the organiza-
tion as a whole (1, 21, 22, 38). These two types of
complexity are, under certain conditions, re-
lated (21, 37); both usually imply that the greater
the complexity, the higher the level of knowl-
edge and skills demanded of the organizational
members. Hage (21), for example, combines the
number of occupational specialties, and the
length of training required by the members of
each, into an index of organizational complexity.
The view that bureaucratization and profes-
sionalization are interrelated in formal organiza-
tions is thus further sustained by the studies on
the effect of size on the administrative compo-
nent, with the degree of complexity as a mediat-
ing variable.
Academy of Management Review - July 7976
Bureaucratic Organization and
Professional Orientation
The distinction between bureaucratic and
professional authority and the notion of the in-
herent conflict between them, produced the
conception of two concomitant types of individ-
ual attitudes. It was proposed that professional
values, emphasizing selfless service and self-reg-
ulation, are fundamentally inconsistent with bu-
reaucratic principles of organization. Thus, pro-
fessionals in bureaucratic settings will feel that
their autonomy is curtailed by organizational
control; management will attempt to harness
the work of professionals and keep them away
from positions of power within the organization.
Traditionally, three main consequences
were noted to ensue from this confrontation of
bureaucrats and professionals, with their diver-
gent values, goals, and bases of authority. These
consequences were conflict, subversion of pro-
fessional norms, or mutual adjustment. Recently
it has been suggested that the contradiction be-
tween professional and bureaucratic orientations
and commitments is not as great nor as per-
vasive as has been generally assumed (3, 24, 31,
46, 48, 49). Professionals in bureaucratic frame-
works often exhibit a local-cosmopolitan orien-
tation based on "professional orientations
rooted in a colleague group . . . mixed with ca-
reerist orientations rooted in a workplace hier-
archy" (53, p. 157). Furthermore, some studies
have indicated that professional norms and ori-
entations are not necessarily reduced in formal
organizations, and may, under certain circum-
stances, be enhanced by bureaucratic working
conditions(12,14, 27).
The relationship between professionaliza-
tion and bureaucratization was examined by Hall
(25) in a study of 27 work groups of various pro-
fessional specialties (law, medicine, engineering,
nursing, social work, teaching, certified public
accounting, etc.), within different organizational
settings. Bureaucracy and professionalism were
defined as composed of sets of attributes; each
attribute was treated as a separate continuum. 2
41
Of major interest is the finding which concerns
the relationship between the type of setting in
which professionals work and the intensity of
their professional norms.
Organizational settings were classified into
three categories: the autonomous professional
organization, defined by Scott as an organization
in which the professionals have "considerable
responsibility for defining and implementing
the goals, for setting performance standards, and
for seeing that standards are maintained"; the
heteronomous professional organization in
which professionals are "subordinated to an ad-
ministrative framework, and the amount of au-
tonomy granted professional employees is rela-
tively small' (42, pp. 66-67); and the professional
department which is part of a larger organiza-
tion (for instance, a legal or engineering depart-
ment within the framework of a bureaucratic
organization). These different settings vary ac-
cording to the degree of bureaucratization of
their formal structures — the autonomous or-
ganization being generally less bureaucratic than
the heteronomous organization and professional
departments (25, p. 100, Table 5).
The attitudinal attributes of professionalism
were measured by Likert attitude scales on five
dimensions: (a) use of the professional organiza-
tion as a major referent, (b) belief in service to
the public, (c) belief in self-regulation, (d) sense
of calling to the field, and (e) feeling of auton-
omy in work. The rankings of the 27 groups on
each of the professional attitudes manifest such
wide variations that no one-to-one relationship
seems to exist between degree of bureaucratiza-
tion of the organizational framework and degree
of professional orientations.
The average ranks of professional attitudes
for the three different work settings were com-
puted from the original Hall table (25, p. 98,
Table 2). The results do not indicate a consistent
tendency for professionals in autonomous or-
ganizations to be more professionally oriented.
-' The complete bureaucracy scale is elaborated in Hall (23);
the professionalism scale in Hall (25) and Snizek (44).
 42 Bureaucracy and Professionalism: A Reconsideration of Weber's Thesis
On three of the five professional attributes (a, b,
and d), professionals in heteronomous settings
rank higher than those in autonomous settings.
On the professional organization as reference
(a), professionals in the most bureaucratic —
"department" — category rank higher than both
the heteronomous and the autonomous groups;
although this may be a spurious relation due to
the unusually high score on this attribute of one
group of lawyers working in a legal department.
On the "feeling of autonomy" (e), which is gen-
erally regarded as a core element of professional
orientation, there is virtually no difference be-
tween professionals working in the most bureau-
cratic framework (department), and those in the
less bureaucratic (heteronomous) organizations.
The conclusion derived from these findings
is that professional norms may be strong in bu-
reaucratic settings and weak in non-bureaucratic
ones. It seems that the magnitude of these atti-
tudes is not determined mainly by the degree of
bureaucratization of the work situation but by
other factors, such as the nature of the profes-
sional knowledge-base and training, and the
profession's general position in the wider com-
munity. Hall concludes that the conflict be-
tween professionalism and bureaucracy is not
inherent nor is it ubiquitous, and "that a particu-
lar level of professionalization may require a
certain level of bureaucratization to maintain so-
cial control" (25, p. 104).
A study by Engel (12) lends further support
to the proposition that bureaucracy is not, by
definition, detrimental to professional orienta-
tions. She examined the "feeling of autonomy"
of three groups of physicians working in three
different medical organizational settings: highly
bureaucratic (governmentally associated), mod-
erately bureaucratic (privately owned, closed-
panel) and non-bureaucratic (solo or small
group practice).
The degree of autonomy, as perceived by
physicians, was explored with respect to clinical
practice and research. The degree of bureau-
cracy was measured by objective criteria (in con-
trast to Hall, who measured it as perceived by
respondents), such as formal charts of organiza-
tional structure, number of hierarchical levels,
amount of rules and regulations. The data re-
vealed that professionals in the moderately bu-
reaucratic setting perceived themselves as be-
ing more autonomous in their work than their
colleagues in the non-bureaucratic setting;
those working in the most bureaucratic organi-
zation felt least autonomous, as expected.
These findings are, again, contrary to the
traditional bureaucracy-professionalism-conflict
assumption. Engel explains the relationships
found by noting that bureaucratic organizations
are conducive to the new patterns of modern
professional work in supplying essential re-
sources (expensive equipment, funds, adminis-
trative facilities), which enable the professional
to perform high quality work, thus contributing
to his or her feeling of freedom and independ-
ence.
Hall's and Engel's findings suggest a conclu-
sion regarding the attitudinal level similar to
that of previous research in respect to the struc-
ture of organizations. Some characteristics of
bureaucracy and the professions are not neces-
sarily incompatible; indeed, under certain con-
ditions, they are positively related. By this con-
clusion, it is not intended to imply that bureau-
cracy and professionalism contain no potentially
inconsistent components.
Bureaucracy and Personality
The impact of working within a bureaucratic
framework on individuals' "values, social orien-
tation, and intellectual functioning" was system-
atically investigated by Kohn (27, p. 462). The
study was conducted on a sample of 3101 per-
sons representative of all persons employed in
civilian occupations in the U. S. The hierarchical
structure of authority in organizations was cho-
sen as the core dimension of bureaucracy, and
operationalized by the number of formal levels
of supervision relative to organizational size.
The dependent variables of values, norms and
orientations of individuals referred not only to
the occupational sphere, but also to their gen-
Academy of Management Review - July 7976
eral social-psychological constitution and Welt-
anschauung. These variables were: (a) values —
the relative evaluation of self-direction versus
conformity to external authority (41); (b) nature
of social orientation — including rigid conform-
ity versus open-mindedness, strict adherence to
formal moral positions versus personal respon-
sible standards; and (c) intellectual functioning
— intellectual flexibility versus intellectual rig-
idity.
Although correlations between degrees of
bureaucratization of work settings and these
personality traits were small, they were consis-
tently in the opposite direction than might have
been expected. Individuals working in bureau-
cratic organizations tended to be more self-di-
rected and open-minded, to have more person-
ally responsible moral standards, be more re-
ceptive to innovation, and be more flexible in-
tellectually than individuals in nonbureaucratic
organizations. Controlling for ownership (em-
ployee/entrepreneur), sector of the economy
(public/private), and occupational position
(blue/white collar) did not change the direction
of influence which bureaucratization exerted
upon individuals.
These findings, especially if confirmed by
further research, undermine the established pre-
conceptions of "bureaucratic man". Among the
standards found to be highly valued among in-
dividuals employed in bureaucratic organiza-
tions, self-direction is clearly a non-bureaucratic
value; it resembles the norm of professional au-
tonomy and contradicts the unquestioning com-
pliance supposedly characteristic of bureaucrats.
In addition, receptiveness to change, personal
responsible moral standards, and intellectual
flexibility, are all at variance with the accepted
stereotype of the bureaucratic personality, who
is charged with rigid adherence to regulation and
procedures, a tendency to evade responsibility,
and intellectual dullness (35).
The principal factors accounting for the sur-
prising findings of this study, according to Kohn,
are related to certain occupational conditions
associated with bureaucracies. Bureaucratic or-
43
ganizations provide their employees with great-
er job protections and somewhat higher in-
come, and challenge them with more complex
work tasks. Put another way, Kohn's (28) analysis
indicates that the unexpected social-psychologi-
cal impact of bureaucracy is not primarily a con-
sequence of selective recruitment (attracting in-
dividuals with certain social psychological traits
or higher levels of education), but is due to on-
the-job socialization. Kohn points out that bu-
reaucratic organizations generally employ a
more educated labor force, which may partially
account for his findings. However, when level of
education was held constant, those working in
bureaucratic settings still manifested more
"non-bureaucratic" values, orientations, and in-
tellectual functioning, than those in non-bureau-
cratic settings. This lends extra strength to the
conclusion that the hierarchical structure of au-
thority in bureaucratic organizations is not nec-
essarily detrimental to the development of val-
ues, norms and attitudes which are generally
considered typical of professionalism.
Conclusions and Implications
Research findings represented in the fore-
going discussion cast serious doubt on the con-
tention of some critics of the Weberian ideal-
type of bureaucracy, that hierarchical authority
and expert qualifications are inherently incom-
patible and invariably in conflict. It is not
claimed here that the analytic distinction be-
tween bureaucratic and professional authority,
and the many elaborations on the ideal-type
based on their identification, did not enrich
knowledge and understanding of the fuctioning
of formal organizations. Nevertheless, in light of
pertinent research evidence, Weber's concep-
tion seems not to suffer from failure, neglect, or
confusion, but may be considered an almost
prophetic insight.
The relevant data indicate that both on the
structural-organizational level and the orienta-
tional-attitudinal level, hierarchical authority and
expert competence are indeed functionally in-
 44 Bureaucracy and Professionalism: A Reconsideration of Weber's Thesis
terrelated. In respect to professional values and
attitudes, the evidence suggests that organiza-
tional bureaucracy does not necessarily infringe
upon professional autonomy and orientations.
Regarding the organizational structure, it seems
that indeed "the role of technical qualifications
in bureaucratic organization is continually in-
creasing" (52, p. 335); and that simultaneously,
professional knowledge and skills required for
performing highly complex tasks in organiza-
tions enhance the need for integration through
structural bureaucratization. The explanation of
this relationship is to be found in the comple-
mentary functions of managerial coordination
and professional specialization. The mutual de-
pendence of administrative skills and technical
competence produces more effective forms of
organization than would have been possible if
bureaucracy and professionalism were struc-
turally segregated.
The implications of this reconsideration of
Weber's thesis for further research point in the
direction of a different approach to the bureau-
cracy-professionalism issue. One should not a
priori expect incompatibility and conflict, but,
following Weber's lead, focus attention on the
various patterns of interpenetration and coop-
eration between these two models of rational
organization.
On a more practical level, the problem is
how to control and incorporate highly trained
groups of professionals into organizations with-
out frustrating their commitment and creativity.
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