Bureaucratic Structure and Personality¶
Merton, R. K. (1940). Bureaucratic Structure and Personality. Social Forces, 18(4), 560-568.
Cited by¶
7 citations across 7 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Mechanisms¶
- Autonomous Team Charter
- The classic misuse is goals stated so vaguely that the unit optimizes its own local metric against the system's interest with the charter offering no check, a drift Robert Merton named goal displacement.
This sourceNames goal displacement as the transformation of an organizational means into an end that can interfere with the original purpose.
- The classic misuse is goals stated so vaguely that the unit optimizes its own local metric against the system's interest with the charter offering no check, a drift Robert Merton named goal displacement.
- Autonomy Service-Level Agreement
- It misleads when the metrics become the mission
This sourceExplains how adherence to formal measures can become an end in itself.
- It misleads when the metrics become the mission
- Goal Reframing
- … goal that is left aspirational — on the wall but not in the metrics — changes nothing, while a reframed goal wired to a single sharp proxy simply relocates the optimization to a new number and invites the same gaming, a form of goal displacement in which pursuit of the measurable proxy quietly replaces the real end.
This sourceDefines goal displacement as an instrumental means becoming an end and displacing the organization's original purpose.
- … goal that is left aspirational — on the wall but not in the metrics — changes nothing, while a reframed goal wired to a single sharp proxy simply relocates the optimization to a new number and invites the same gaming, a form of goal displacement in which pursuit of the measurable proxy quietly replaces the real end.
- OKR Alignment Process
- Its failure mode is goal displacement — the process becomes an end in itself, and hitting key results substitutes for improving the outcome they were meant to represent.
This sourceDescribes goal displacement as the transformation of adherence to procedures from a means into an end in itself.
- Its failure mode is goal displacement — the process becomes an end in itself, and hitting key results substitutes for improving the outcome they were meant to represent.
- Standardized Rollout Template
- The dangerous failure is checklist theater — teams complete the template's steps while losing the outcome those steps were meant to secure, so the artifact's means quietly displace the actual goal.
This sourceShows how prescribed means can become ends and interfere with the original purpose.
- The dangerous failure is checklist theater — teams complete the template's steps while losing the outcome those steps were meant to secure, so the artifact's means quietly displace the actual goal.
- Structured Review Form
- Worse is goal displacement
This sourceSocial Forces. Explains goal displacement in which procedural rule-following becomes an end rather than a means to the underlying objective.
- Worse is goal displacement
- Values-to-Behavior Translation
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