ABSTRACT
In a paper published in 1970, Warren Bennis speaks about the “end of bureaucracy”: “Every age develops an organization form appropriate to its genius, and . . . the prevailing for today – the pyramidal, centralized, functionally specialized, impersonal mechanism known as bureaucracy – [is] out of joint with contemporary realities” (Bennis, 1970: 166). Bennis continues and predicts a future where new organization forms are developed and widely used:
Organizations of the future . . . will have some unique characteristics. They will be adaptive, rapidly changing temporary systems, organized around problems-to-be-solved by groups of relative strangers with diverse professional skills. The groups will be arranged on organic rather than mechanical models: they will evolve in response to problems rather than to programmed expectations. People will be evaluated, not in a rigid vertical hierarchy according to rank and status, but flexibly, according to competence. Organization charts will consists of project groups rather than stratified functional groups, as now is the case. Adaptive, problem-solving, temporary systems of diverse specialists, linked together by coordinating executives in an organic flux – this is the original form that will gradually replace bureaucracy.
