Mintzberg – Chapter 4 – The Professional Bureaucracy - Summary
Professional Bureaucracy:
o Common at universities, school districts, and hospitals must rely on the skills and
knowledge of their operating professionals to function producing standard
products/services.
o Hires trained and indoctrinated specialists – professions – for the operating core
and they control their own work.
o “Control over his own work means that the professional works relatively
independently of his colleagues, but closely with the client he serves.” (page 50)
o Coordination between the professionals is based on a standardization of skills
and knowledge whereby they know what to expect from their colleagues (e.g.
heart surgeons and common procedures).
o Training and indoctrination is complicated taking years at a university followed
by on-the-job training and certification by the professional association that the
trainee has the requisite knowledge, skills, and norms. Following certification,
the professional keep up with new knowledge by reading journals, attending
conferences, and periodic formal retraining.
Bureaucratic Nature of the Structure:
o Similar to a machine bureaucracy where coordination is achieved by design, by
standards that predetermine what is to be done.
o Unlike a machine bureaucracy, professional bureaucracy standards are
determined largely outside its own structure in the self-governing associations
its operators join with their colleagues from other professional bureaucracies.
o Unlike a Machine bureaucracy which relies on hierarchical power – the power in
a professional bureaucracy is the power of expertise
o Unlike a machine bureaucracy, the outputs of professional work cannot easily be
measured, and so do not lend themselves to standardization.
Pigeonholing Process:
o Function of a repertoire of standard programs – in effect – the skills used by the
professions which are applied to predetermined situations called contingencies
also standardized.
o Professional has two tasks – categorize the need of a client (contingencies) to
determine which standard program to use (diagnosis).
o It is the pigeonholing process which enables tasks to be assigned to individual,
relatively autonomous professionals without denying the existence of
1
uncertainty but enabling the professional to adjust (“Containment of
Uncertainty”).
o Diagnosis is what separates the professional vs. machine bureaucracy.
Focus on the Operating Core:
o Operating core is the key part of the professional bureaucracy.
o Support staff is also important but only in the sense it support the operating
core.
o Technostructrue (e.g. finance and budgeting) and middle line (e.g. Dean) play
less significant roles given they can do little to coordinate the operating work.
Decentralization in the Professional Bureaucracy
o
o
o
o
o
Highly decentralized in both vertical and horizontal dimensions
Power rests at the bottom of the structure with the operating core.
Identification rests more on the profession than with the organization.
Organization enables learning from each other and to provide services.
Highly democratic among operating core.
2
Administrative Structure:
o Professionals seek to control the administrative decisions that affect them.
o Professionals perform administrative tasks so to maintain control (e.g.
committees).
o Some administrative functions (e.g. printing) are not likely to be managed by
professionals given they are more akin to machine bureaucracies.
o Within some universities – may have parallel administrative hierarchies – one
professional manned and a second machine for the support staff. 2 parallel
hierarchies.
o “In the professional hierarchy, power resides in expertise; one has influence by
virtue of one knowledge and skills. In other words, a good deal of power
remains at the bottom of the hierarchy, with the professional operators
themselves. That does not, of course, preclude a pecking order among them.”
[lecturer, assistant, associate, and full professor]
The Role of the Professional Administrator
o Presidents, Deans and Executive Directors still retain considerable indirect power
in the structure.
o They handle disturbances negotiating solutions among parties.
o They buffer the professionals from external parties (e.g. government).
o Raise funds and have a say in expending them.
o Power of professional administrator is greater than any one individual but not
the collective power of the professionals.
Strategy Formulation in the Professional Bureaucracy
o Notion of one single integrated strategy.
o Strategies of the Professional Bureaucracy are ones of the individual professions
within the organization as well as the professional associations on the outside.
o Strategic initiatives – approved by the operating core and professional
administrators after numerous committee hearings.
o A skilled and politically adapt administrator can build consensus towards his/her
vision of strategy.
Issues Associated with Professional Bureaucracy
o Given the great deal of autonomy found in the operating core – also creates
problems.
3
o Problem of coordination – pigeonholing process is source of conflict (lack of
coordination between professional and support staff).
o Problems of innovation – professional bureaucracy is an inflexible structure –
new problems are placed into old pigeonholes. Everyone must agree on the
changes.
o Dysfunctional responses.
4