Adhocracy
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Adhocracy is the absence of hierarchy, and is therefore the opposite of bureaucracy. It is a portmanteau of ad-hoc and the suffix -cracy.
The term is used in the theory of management of organizations. All members of an organization have the authority to make decisions and to take actions affecting the future of the organization.
Alvin Toffler noted in his book Future Shock that adhocracies will get more common and are likely to replace bureaucracy in the near future. He also wrote that they will most often come in form of a temporary structure, formed to resolve a given problem and dissolved afterwards. An example are cross-department task forces.
The term is also used to describe the form of government used in the science fiction novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow.
[edit] Examples
Wikipedia is an example of Adhocracy to some degree, as decisions are usually made by whomever happens to be present.
[edit] See also
[edit] Sources
- Adhocracy by Robert H. Waterman, Jr. (ISBN 0393310841)
- Future Shock by Alvin Toffler (ISBN 0553277375)
| This page uses content from the English-language version of Wikipedia. The original article was at Adhocracy. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Psychology Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. |
