Bureaucracy represents an extreme form, or ideal type, of a formally structured organization. It is Characterized By

• Division of the staff
• Workload into smaller units called offices or bureaus
• Clear-cut lines of authority and responsibility
• Employment of personnel based on their technical or professional qualifications
• Rules and Regulations governing the way officials are to perform their jobs
• Establishment of a bureaucratic career.
• Bureaucracy is a hierarchical system of coordinating rationality and the work of many individuals through a division of labour and a chain of authority

DEFINING BUREAUCRACY

Bureaucracy, as just mentioned, is the machinery, which implements rational-legal authority. Max Weber studied bureaucracy in detail and constructed an ideal type which contained the most prominent characteristics of bureaucracy. Let us examine this ideal type which reveals to us the major features of bureaucracy.A bureaucracy in other words, is a group of people organized in a pyramid fashion, who try to administer large-scale organizations in a rational manner and efficient manner

MAJOR FEATURES OF BUREAUCRACY

     Division of Labour

• It is defined by precise rules or laws.
• Specialized experts are employed in each position to perform specific tasks. These individuals then assume the responsibility and are held responsible by their superiors for the efficient performance of their tasks.
• Each member must know his or her job and has a set of duties.
• Each person must have the resources needed to do the job, including the authority to command others, and each position must have defined limits, rights and power.

MAJOR FEATURES OF BUREAUCRACY

• Chain of Commands: In a bureaucracy, the lines of authority or chain of command are clear-cut. A formal organization allows people to keep the chain of command straight and makes it clear who sends directives to whom, who reports to whom and so on. Each official is responsible to the one above him, and each, in turn, is responsible for his subordinates. The scope and limits of each individual’s authority and responsibility are clearly defined.
• Hierarchy of Officials in Authority: By this, we mean that there is a firmly built structure of subordination and superordination. Of lower officials are supervised by higher ones and are answerable to them.
• The management of the bureaucratic office is carried out through written documents or files. They are preserved and properly kept by clerks who are specially appointed for this purpose. 
• The work in the bureaucratic office is highly specialized and staff is trained accordingly.
• A fully developed bureaucratic office demands the full working capacity of the staff

It relies on the following Rules and Regulations. 

• The activities which comprise bureaucracy are distributed among the officials in the form of Official Duties.
• There is a Stable or Regular System by which officials are vested with authority. This authority is strictly delimited by the laws of the land.
• There are Strict and Methodical Procedures which ensure that officials perform their   duties adequately.
• Rules Govern Work Procedures. Work must be done in a certain way to achieve the organization’s goal with a minimum waste of time, effort and money
• IMPERSONALITY
• In Principle, Bureaucracy segregates official activity from the sphere of private life. In principle, the executive office is separated form the household, business from private correspondence and business assets from private fortunes.
• Organizational Affairs are kept Separate. The property of the organization is completely separate from the private property of its members. The bureaucrats' personal residence is separate from the organization. This keeps the person's status as a bureaucrat from being tangled with his or her status in other groups. It means that each function in a bureaucracy must be performed impersonally. Each bureaucrat or member of a bureaucracy must remain impersonal in his relations with other persons within the organization or with those who have dealings with it.
• Selection is based on Merit and Job Tenure.

Selection to a retain position is made strictly in accordance with the employee's merit, and not because of personal considerations. This type of selection ensures the competence of employees. If the employee's performance is considered satisfactory by his superiors, he can expect his employment to continue and to be promoted to higher levels of the hierarchy. He may wish to make a career out of his work for a particular large-scale organization.

Weber mentions the following characteristics of officials in a bureaucratic set-up

• Office work is a ‘vocation’ for officials.
• They are specially trained for their jobs.
• Their qualifications determine their position or rank in the office.
• They are expected to do their work honesty
• Their official positions also have a bearing on their personal lives
•  Bureaucratic officials enjoy a high status in society.
• Often, their jobs carry transfer liabilities. By this, we mean that they may be transferred from one place or department to another leading to some instability in their professional and personal lives.
• Officials receive salaries not in accordance with productivity but with status. The higher their rank the higher their salaries. They also receive benefits like pension, provident fund, and medical and other facilities. Their jobs are considered very secure.
• Officials enjoy good career prospects. They can move from the lower rungs of the bureaucratic ladder to higher ones if they work in a disciplined manner.

DYSFUNCTION

• Karl Marx believed that bureaucracies are used by the dominant capitalist class to control the other, lower social classes. According to Marx, bureaucracies are characterized by strict hierarchy and discipline, veneration of authority, incompetent officials. lack of initiative and imagination, fear of responsibility and a process of self-aggrandizement.
• The Dysfunctions of Specialization. Weber's bureaucratic theory emphasizes that specialization enhances productivity and efficiency. The theory, however, ignores dysfunctional qualities of specialization. Specialization has been shown to lead to increased productivity and efficiency but also to create conflict between specialized units, to the detriment of the overall goals of the organization. For example, specialization may impede communication between units.
• The Dysfunctions of Hierarchy. The functional attributes of a hierarchy are that it maintains the unity of command, coordinates activities and personnel, reinforces authority, and serves as a formal system of communication.
• In theory, the hierarchy has both a downward and an upward orientation, but in practice, it has often turned out to have only a downward emphasis. Thus, individual initiative and participation are often blocked, upward communication is impeded, and there is no formal recognition of horizontal communication. Personnel who follow only the formal hierarchy may waste a great deal of time and energy.
• The Dysfunctions of Rules. Bureaucratic rules probably have the most obvious dysfunctional qualities. Contributing to the bureaucratic image of red tape, rules often become the ends in themselves, rather than the means for more effective goal attainment

CONCLUSION

• Because of above noted dysfunctions many of today's theorists are predicting the decline and fall of the classical bureaucratic form of organization.
• In spite of its various shortcomings, various elements of bureaucracy are found in most of modern organizations more in government organizations and less in business organizations.