ABSTRACT
The pathologies of bureaucracy are the excesses of group behavior that prevent an enterprise from being consumer-oriented and responsive to need and change. A close look at bureaucracy suggests that pathological behavior is due to an imbalance between the role of the individual and that of the group in administration, and that people tend to react to this imbalance in three ways. First, people working in large organizations are apt to become self-centered. Secondly, people working in large organizations tend to avoid responsibility if they can. Thirdly, people working in large organizations try to compensate for declining individual status by taking advantage of opportunities to exert their power, often in petty ways. The fact is that bureaucrats are conditioned by their environment to regard the assumption of responsibility as of secondary importance. In addition to a preoccupation with procedure, there is also a philosophy of do-the-least.
