The Problems of Corporate Bureaucracy and the Producer Cooperative as in Alternative

Bibliographic Data

ID9257375
AuthorsDouglas E Booth (0000-0001-7146-402X, Marquette University, corresponding author)
Year1985
Volume43
Issue3
Pages298-315
Publication date1985-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueReview of Social Economy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0034-6764 • E-ISSN: 1470-1162
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00346768500000033
OpenAlexW2002581640
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited19

Over the last fifteen years, the U.S. economy has been characterized by two notable trends. First, U.S. manufacturers have experienced declining shares of sales in a number of important international and domestic markets, and, second, labor productivity growth in the U.S. economy has diminished significantly. A central proposition of this paper is that declining U.S. competitiveness and productivity has resulted from inherent limitations in the corporate-bureaucratic form of business organization. Moreover, the removal of such limitations requires a substantial redistribution of decision making power from the top of organizational hierarchies to the bottom and a significant re? structuring of the ownership of business property. In explaining these views, several questions need to be addressed. Why did the bureaucratic form of business organization emerge in the first place, and why was it initially successful? What are the inherent limitations of bureaucratic business organization, and what challenges have arisen to them? Is there a feasible alternative form of business organization that avoids the limitations of bureaucracy, and how can such an alternative be imple? mented? The answers to these questions will suggest that bureaucracy arose primarily as a means to control labor, that bureaucracy inhibits productivity and innovation, that bureaucratic organization is being challenged from within by workers and from without by superior orga? nizational forms, and that the producer cooperative is a form of organi? zation that avoids the pitfalls of corporate bureaucracy

Bureaucracy · Business · Economic growth · Economic system · Economics · Industrial organization · Market economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Productivity · Redistribution (election) · Structuring · Cooperative Studies and Economics · Economic Theory and Institutions · Finance · Law · Political Economy and Marxism

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