The success of many major corporations can be traced back to the order established in firm operations where employees, among other resources, are strategically leveraged and mobilized towards firm goal accomplishment. In essence, the establishment of order in firms embodies the structure of bureaucratic organizations where reliance on a formalized structure to guide operations enhances firm goal achievement even though bureaucracy is criticized for its rigidity. Fundamentally, bureaucracies denote the managerial systems that are used to administer institutions especially large institutions like government departments and large private companies where the German sociologist Max Weber provided various characteristics to define bureaucratic organizations (Volti, 2011). For instance, bureaucratically administered formal organizations have a formal hierarchical structure involving centralized decision making and planning while authority and control takes a top-down approach. As such, administration is guided by rules from senior managerial levels to be followed by those below, who rely on their specialty (as a principal factor in their recruitment to organizations), and organization into organized groups in accomplishing firm goals. The institutions are also guided by missions oriented towards firm or stakeholder value maximization based on a deliberate impersonal orientation in terms of treating the firm various stakeholders equally.

Viewing the concept of bureaucratically administered formal organizations from a sociological point of view, Max Weber saw bureaucracy as a potentially prevalent form of social organization that would characterize modern society founded on value placed on rationalization (Volti, 2011). Firmly founded on the concept of rationalization, the principal components defining the concept of the bureaucratically administered formal organization seems to permeate and expand over different spheres of social life with regards to family life, among other aspects of social life. For instance, the idea of a formal organization where power and authority takes a top-down approach where low level organizational members accomplish clearly defined goals and objectives set by the senior members is replicated in the family situation. In this case, parents are the senior members of the family, as representative of the bureaucratically administered formal organization, who set goals and objectives in terms of tasks and responsibilities for the children (as low level organizational members). This establishment of an orderly hierarchy, where each member has a specialized role and responsibility, guided by a relatively systematic process of management and administrative direction, also defines functions in the family. Additionally, religious life like functions and activities in many professions are also largely defined by a bureaucratic form of organization comprised of centralized decision making, among other defining elements of bureaucratically administered formal organizations.

With regard to rationalization, Max Weber identified that society was increasingly being committed to rationality as a worldview that sought to use logic and reason in explaining causes of events in modern society without invoking the supernatural. As such, rationalization informed the structure and management of bureaucratically administered formal organizations where rational thought was perceived as the best approach in firm goal accomplishment through enhanced efficiency and effectiveness. Relatedly, the principle of calculability that defines rationality in terms of estimations of, and assumptions guiding achievements coincide with functionality of the bureaucratically administered formal organization where clearly-defined and measurable goals are set. Additionally, the integration of predictability in terms of administrative rules and regulations as well as the concept of efficiency in bureaucratically administered formal organizations represent a driving force founded on rationality with regards to firm goal accomplishment. The focus on rules and regulations as well as the calculability of achievement based on clearly-defined goals and objectives where modern technologies enhance measurement and predictability of outcomes indicates an orientation founded in rationalization. This is in line with predictions of Weber who posited that bureaucracies led to depersonalization in the system as members take a professional ‘emotionally detached’ approach to firm goal achievement.