Moral Mazes Bureaucracy and Managerial Work Essay

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Moral Mazes: Bureaucracy and Managerial Work

Originally published in the Harvard Business Review's 1983 edition, Robert Jackall's interpretive sociological analysis entitled "Moral Mazes: Bureaucracy and Managerial Work" seeks to explore the ethical and moral ramifications of managerial work. By conducting what he terms "a great many extensive interviews with managers and executives in several large corporations," the author proposes to "study how bureaucracy -- the prevailing organizational form of our society and economy -- shapes moral consciousness" (Jackall, 1983). The result is an incisively written essay that manages to cover the historical influences of the Protestant Ethic on modern work habits, the pyramidal political structure employed by most large corporate conglomerates, and the capricious nature of success within a sprawling bureaucracy.

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Jackall's authorial tone throughout the essay is one of reserved bemusement, suggesting that this empirically minded lifelong scholar has reservations regarding the wholly subjective methods used both by those in managerial positions, and the companies that chose to promote them.

The essential argument presented within Jackall's text holds that a corporate entity's hierarchal structure leads to a decided lack of moral or ethical accountability on the part of senior or middle managers. By observing that "power is concentrated at the top in the person of the chief executive officer and is simultaneously decentralized; that is, responsibility for decisions and profits is pushed as far down the organizational line as possible" (Jackall, 1983), the author exposes a fundamental myth of the.....

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"Moral Mazes Bureaucracy And Managerial Work", 06 August 2012, Accessed.19 May. 2025,
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