I think it’s good to first expand a view on bureaucracy a bit—while FDA may look as a prototypical bureaucracy, it’s not the only example
As Matthew Barnett said, for-profit firms also create internal bureaucracies. In Soviet Union and other communist countries all command economy could be viewed as a single firm, and all economic management was done via in-firm internal bureaucracy.
So I’d hypothesize that the thing bureaucracy (at any level or subunit) tries to maximize is “power”, or to put it more concretely, ability to give orders. In that case an attempt to maximize its budget, or extend its purview evidently gives a manager inside a bureaucracy more capabilities to give orders, both inside and outside of bureaucratic hierarchy
In this framing avoiding blame is more like instrumental and defensive goal—being constantly blamed for some transgressions may cause higher levels on hierarchy (or principals/politicians/firm executives) to reduce manager’s or unit’s power.
Great post!
I think it’s good to first expand a view on bureaucracy a bit—while FDA may look as a prototypical bureaucracy, it’s not the only example
As Matthew Barnett said, for-profit firms also create internal bureaucracies. In Soviet Union and other communist countries all command economy could be viewed as a single firm, and all economic management was done via in-firm internal bureaucracy.
So I’d hypothesize that the thing bureaucracy (at any level or subunit) tries to maximize is “power”, or to put it more concretely, ability to give orders. In that case an attempt to maximize its budget, or extend its purview evidently gives a manager inside a bureaucracy more capabilities to give orders, both inside and outside of bureaucratic hierarchy
In this framing avoiding blame is more like instrumental and defensive goal—being constantly blamed for some transgressions may cause higher levels on hierarchy (or principals/politicians/firm executives) to reduce manager’s or unit’s power.