Social-Psychological Implications of Weber's Model of Bureaucracy: Relations Among Expertise, Control, Authority, and Legitimacy

A social-psychological formulation of Weber's model of bureaucracy is offered which emphasizes close connections among expertise, control, authority, and legitimacy. Structured and sociometric questions are used to develop ordinal measures of these four variables and the relationships are tested among the individuals in a public school system. In general the relationships are confirmed, indicating that Weber's model is useful as a source of generalizations about the behavior of individuals in organizations. The implications of these findings are discussed, with emphasis given to suggested modifications of the ideal-typical model.