Systems Leadership, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 7 Meritocracy

 

 

 

We, like others, begin with the observation that now most goods and services are provided through organisations, more so than at any time in history. Prior to the industrial revolution agriculture was dominant over manufacturing and people worked and lived in the same communities, primarily in family groups or collections of family groups. We have discussed different types of social organisations in Chapter 5 emphasising the particular nature of a meritocracy.

Organisations beget bureaucracy, but the phenomenon of bureaucracy is not new in itself. In pre-industrial times bureaucracies were more limited to government or religious spheres (see, for example, Shafritz and Ott, 1996). Although in China, Assyria, Egypt ...