Adhocracy

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Not to be confused with autocracy.

Adhocracy is a flexible, adaptable and informal form of organization that is defined by a lack of formal structure that employs specialized multidisciplinary teams grouped by functions. It operates in an opposite fashion to a bureaucracy.<ref>Belmonte Martín, Irene (2016). La modernización de la gestión tributaria local en España : el caso de Suma Gestión Tributaria de la Diputación de Alicante (1st ed.). Madrid: Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública. p. 178. ISBN 978-84-7351-557-3.</ref> The term was coined by Warren Bennis in his 1968 book The Temporary Society,<ref name = "Bennis">Bennis, Warren (1968). The Temporary Society. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 9780787943318.</ref> later popularized in 1970 by Alvin Toffler in Future Shock, and has since become often used in the theory of management of organizations (particularly online organizations<ref name="MateiBritt2017">Matei, Sorin Adam; Britt, Brian C. (2017). "Specifying a Wikipedia-Centric Explanatory Model for Online Group Evolution and Structural Differentiation". Structural Differentiation in Social Media. Lecture Notes in Social Networks. pp. 31–43. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-64425-7_3. ISBN 978-3-319-64424-0. ISSN 2190-5428.</ref>). The concept has been further developed by academics such as Henry Mintzberg.

Adhocracy is characterized by an adaptive, creative and flexible integrative behavior based on non-permanence and spontaneity. It is believed that these characteristics allow adhocracy to respond faster than traditional bureaucratic organizations while being more open to new ideas.<ref>[1] Archived 2017-08-26 at the Wayback Machine. Business Dictionary</ref>

Overview

Robert H. Waterman, Jr. defined adhocracy as "any form of organization that cuts across normal bureaucratic lines to capture opportunities, solve problems, and get results".<ref name = "Waterman">Waterman Jr., Robert (1990). Adhocracy: The Power to Change. Knoxville, TN: Whittle Direct Books.</ref> For Henry Mintzberg, an adhocracy is a complex and dynamic organizational form.<ref name = "Mintzberg">Mintzberg, Henry (1989). Mintzberg on Management:inside our strange world of organizations. New York: Free Press.</ref> It is different from bureaucracy; like Toffler, Mintzberg considers bureaucracy a thing of the past, and adhocracy one of the future.<ref name = "Travica">Travica, Bob (1999). New Organizational Designs: Information Aspects. Stamford, Conn: Ablex Pub. Corp. ISBN 9781567504033.</ref> When done well, adhocracy can be very good at problem solving and innovations<ref name="Travica"/> and thrives in a diverse environment.<ref name="Mintzberg"/> It requires sophisticated and often automated technical systems to develop and thrive.<ref name="Travica"/>

Characteristics

Some characteristics of Mintzberg's definition include:

  • highly organic structure<ref name="Mintzberg"/>
  • little formalization of behavior<ref name="Mintzberg"/><ref name="Travica"/>
  • job specialization not necessarily based on formal training
  • a tendency to group the specialists in functional units for housekeeping purposes but to deploy them in small, market-based project teams to do their work<ref name="Mintzberg"/>
  • a reliance on liaison devices to encourage mutual adjustment within and between these teams<ref name="Mintzberg"/><ref name="Travica"/>
  • low or no standardization of procedures<ref name="Travica"/>
  • roles not clearly defined<ref name="Travica"/>
  • selective decentralization<ref name="Travica"/>
  • work organization rests on specialized teams<ref name="Travica"/>
  • power-shifts to specialized teams
  • horizontal job specialization<ref name="Travica"/>
  • high cost of communication<ref name="Travica"/>
  • culture based on non-bureaucratic work<ref name="Travica"/>

All members of an organization have the authority within their areas of specialization, and in coordination with other members, to make decisions and to take actions affecting the future of the organization. There is an absence of hierarchy.

According to Robert H. Waterman, Jr., "Teams should be big enough to represent all parts of the bureaucracy that will be affected by their work, yet small enough to get the job done efficiently."<ref name="Waterman"/>

Types

  • administrative – "feature an autonomous operating core; usually in an institutionalized bureaucracy like a government department or standing agency"<ref name = "Dolan">Dolan, Timothy (2010). "Revisiting Adhocracy: From rhetorical revisionism to smart mobs" (PDF). Journal of Future Studies. 2: 33–50.</ref>
  • operational – solves problems on behalf of its clients<ref name="Dolan"/>

Alvin Toffler claimed in his book Future Shock that adhocracies will get more common and are likely to replace bureaucracy. He also wrote that they will most often come in form of a temporary structure, formed to resolve a given problem and dissolved afterwards. An example are cross-department task forces.

Issues

Downsides of adhocracies can include "half-baked actions", personnel problems stemming from organization's temporary nature, extremism in suggested or undertaken actions, and threats to democracy and legality rising from adhocracy's often low-key profile.<ref name="Travica"/> To address those problems, researchers in adhocracy suggest a model merging adhocracy and bureaucracy, the bureau-adhocracy.<ref name="Travica"/>

Etymology

The word is a portmanteau of the Latin ad hoc, meaning "for the purpose", and the suffix -cracy, from the ancient Greek kratein (κρατεῖν), meaning "to govern",<ref name="Travica"/> and is thus a heteroclite.

Use in fiction

The term is also used to describe the form of government used in the science fiction novels Voyage from Yesteryear by James P. Hogan and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow.

In the radio play Das Unternehmen Der Wega (The Mission of the Vega) by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, the human inhabitants of Venus, all banished there from various regions of Earth for civil and political offenses, form and live under a peaceful adhocracy, to the frustration of delegates from an Earth faction who hope to gain their cooperation in a war brewing on Earth.

In the Metrozone series of novels by Simon Morden, The novel The Curve of the Earth features "ad-hoc" meetings conducted virtually, by which all decisions governing the Freezone collective are taken. The ad-hocs are administered by an artificial intelligence and polled from suitably qualified individuals who are judged by the AI to have sufficient experience. Failure to arrive at a decision results in the polling of a new ad-hoc, whose members are not told of previous ad-hocs before hearing the decision which must be made.<ref>"An Extract from The Curve of the Earth: A Samuil Petrovitch novel « Simon Morden". www.simonmorden.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-26. Retrieved 2016-02-10.</ref>

The asura in the fictional world of Tyria within the Guild Wars universe present this form of government, although the term is only used in out-of-game lore writings.

See also

References

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Sources

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