Social Bureaucracy

The goal of this assignment is for you to use your life experience as data to understand the nature and function of a bureaucracy.

In an essay of 1,000 words, describe an organization with which you are familiar and which appears to fit the characteristics of a bureaucracy, as listed in Our Social World: An Introduction to Sociology – chapter 6.

Your essay should incorporate the five items listed below and show that the organization bureaucracy meets each characteristic:

1. Clear hierarchical levels of authority with the work assignments flowing downward
2. A division of labor
3. Written rules
4. Written communications and records
5. Impersonality and replaceability

Conclude your essay with a paragraph that describes some ways in which this organization may be dysfunctional because of the bureaucratic way in which it is operated.