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Principles of Organising Authority in Large Scale Organisations!
While considering the organisation of a secondary group the problem that presents before us is how to reconcile authority with liberty. Every secondary group, state or corporation, is controlled by formal rules or laws which it cannot violate. These rules are necessary in every large scale organisation for securing efficiency, order and economy.
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These rules may become rigid with the passage of time not responding to the needs of individuals and changing situations. They tend to acquire a sort of religious sanctity in the mind of the official as if they are an end in themselves. He is concerned only with their enforcement even often sacrificing human values.
The organisation falls into red tapism and tends to grow stereotyped. This is what actually happens in governmental organisation, political parties, large social service agencies and university administrations. Vested interests grow in these institutions who resist any change in their organisation. The need, therefore, is of organizing the authority in large organisations in such a way that some degree of liberty and flexibility may be retained while securing order and efficiency.
Large scale organisations may be organised on two principles, federation and official responsibility:
(i) The Federative Principle:
Under this principle the organisation is split up into a number of local or regional units, each possessing as much autonomy as is not incompatible with the ends of the organisation. In the political sphere, thus, the authority is divided among the centre and the states, the latter further subdividing their powers to municipalities and other local bodies.
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Similarly, political parties assign various functions to their local units who also enjoy certain degrees of autonomy. In the industrial sphere too the principle of decentralisation finds its place, specialised functions being distributed to specialised units within the industrial area or different areas.
Extent of Application of Federative Principle:
The federative principle of organisation has numerous advantages. It reconciles the claims of autonomy with authority. The local interests are determined locally and efficiently served. People cooperate more easily with the local units as these are nearer to them than the central units.
The burden of the central units is lessened and they can now devote themselves more to wider problems. But there is a point beyond which the principle cannot be made to apply. Firstly, the modern society is so complex and interdependent that few interests are local. The local problems also are now solved on national level, for example, the problem of the wages of workers, working in a local factory is solved by national special agencies.
Secondly, there are Interests the fulfillment of which does not demand localisation. A central organisation makes currency or tariff regulations for the whole country. An international body makes rules for the right of sea passage or air passage for the whole world. Lastly, there are certain types of interests which do not need localisation urgently, for example, economic interests which are better solved on national plane because our economy today is not local but highly dependent upon other countries.
Thus, there are certain limitations to the application of federative principle beyond which it cannot be satisfactorily applied; still it cannot be denied that the local unit has often an important role to play in large scale organisation, especially when the service which the organisation renders is more personal.
The less standardised is the service, the more the local units resist absorption: thus luxury shops, fashionable tailors flourish as local concerns. In the political organisation local courts or party units are necessary units though there is not so much the need of local legislatures.
(ii) The Principle of Official Responsibility:
This principle is of great importance with respect to the state, the most powerful political organisation. It is the essential principle of a democratic state. Since the state exercises great powers it is of utmost importance that in the exercise of its powers it should not act in an arbitrary way.
In a democratic state the officials are turned into representatives elected by the people acting on their behalf and subject to their control, though experience reveals that mere election of the officials by the people does not attain the end of responsibility.
The people, in general, are not public spirited or enlightened. They cannot understand the intricacies of administration and adjudge the qualities requisite for its conduct. However, there is no better way other than election to make the government subservient to the wishes of the majority.
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In many modern states the principle of responsibility is attained to a considerable extent in spite of several practical difficulties and problems involved in popular election. Once the end of responsibility has been attained in a state, it can prevent the other organisations from making undue encroachments on the interests of people.