ASSIGNMENT 1

Report Presentation
TITLE:
Concept of Bureaucracy and
"Loose Coupling” in Education

Name : Nurul Qistina Abu Bakar

Student Id : Pgd 130009
Class : Pxgm 6102 – Educational
Administration & Organization
Lecturer : Dr. Zuraidah Binti Abdullah
Introduction

Bureaucracy is discussed as the sociological construct established by Max Weber (1947) of an

ideal type of organizational structure that is made up of rules and policies, authority and hierarchy
structures, document management, expert training, working capacity, and workplace management
(Gerth&Mills,1948). Concepts bureaucracy is commonly referred broadly Weberian bureaucracy as a
rational organization formed to facilitate the activities of government. Weberian bureaucracy emphasizes
how should the bureaucratic machine is run professionally and rationally. In Malaysia, organizations
implementing the bureaucracy in the organization structure in order to make sure the organisation be
structure and organized. Eventhough the bureaucracy been implementing in the organisations but still the
members of research questioning the notion the connection of the school with the structure of the
organization in order to achieve its objectives.

Coupling usually defined as the relationship between the elements or variables, whereby, loose
coupling refers to the general characteristics of form of relationship in which the relations are more
flexible of that tight. Coupling is defined as the relationship between "A" and " B ", and vary in strength
along the continuum from the free-to-tight. Loose coupling combines the multidomain approach and
multidimensional organizational processes. Members of the organization are linked together by bonds of
bureaucracy and culture, the functional and resource interdependence with vertical and horizontal
relationships. Multidimensional nature of the coupling also implies that the members can be aggregated or
combined either loose or tight at the same time. For example, the principal and the deputy of the principal
are linked closely (tightly coupled) because they share the same mission and vision of the school, but they
also can be describe as loosely (loosely coupled) because they are not living in the same place and they
are doing other responsibilities. According to Karl E. Weick (1976) & Howard E. Aidrich (1979), the
nexus between the elements of the subsystems within the organization is loose. Therefore, educational
institutions is a form of organization 'loose coupling'. John Meyer & Scott (1983) state that loose coupling
in schools as they assert that bureaucratic structure and instruction are disconnected while Bidwell (1965)
depicts the school as a distinctive combination of bureaucracy and structural looseness. All the statment
state by the authors can well be define the loose coupling. The words coupling is synonymous with words
like connection or link. The concept of loose coupling is well describe by Weick"(1976: 6), as loose
coupling need not be used normatively while (Glassman, 1973; March and Olsen, 1975) said that it is
important to highlight the connotation that is captured by this phrase and by no other.
Characteristics of Loose Coupling

There are six characteristic in loose coupling that I would like to discussed. The first
characteristic are goal is ambiguous or unclear. Until now, the school is still considered to be an
organization that have a unclear goal. This means that, most of the organization have the goal that they
want to archive but the goal that they create is not been explain clearly towards the employees and each of
the employees different taught and understanding. The second characteristics are lack of the technology
application. The technology is important in the organisation especially educational organisation. This is
because, in order to be a great country in term of the educational system, the country need to apply
systems and make the system implementation is one of the most important things. In Malaysia, when the
ministry of education introduce the Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) system for school staff and make it
compulsary to school in Malaysia to apply the system, most of the school teachers complaint and they
can’t accept the system with by giving many excuses rather than try to accept and implementing the
system. The third characteristics are lack of technological applications. In Malaysia, most of the school
still lacking in technology applications. Most of the school teacher is unclear in using technology. Most of
them refused to use technology in the school adn often give excused in using it. With out the technology
knowledge it is difficult for the school to grow and loose coupling will extend bewteen the teachers and
principals in the school.

The fourth chateristics for loose coupling is fluid in participation among the teachers in the
activities in the school. This means when the participation among teachers is weak, this will make the
relation between the teachers with other teachers, students and the management become more loose. The
fifth is loose control of the performance of duties. This means that, in organization, there is hierarchies of
authority and it is not effective mechanism in intergration. For examples, in any organization, the person
is a normal lecturer and the person is given responsiblities to be the Head of Department, that person will
get the allowance for the title. When this happen, the person sometimes take advantage on the allowance
that they get by not fulfill the responsibility given and no one monitor the person. This show that the
school is still weak interm of monitoring. The six characteristics are there is no coordination in activities
that they organize. In school, most of the activities that they plan to do always fails after few months its
start. There is no monitoring on the activities that tahy organized. For examples, there is lost of activities
been introduce in school such as Scout, Girls Guides, Kadet Pertahanan Awam, Kedet Remaja Sekolah,
Kadet Polis Trafik Sekolah and manymore. But not all of the club is going on. Some of it failed halfway.
This is because there are no tight rules of monitoring the activite in the school.
 The Loose-Coupling Metaphor

According to Weick (1976), the loose coupling metaphor has two limitations but frequently
ignored by those adopting the perspective. First, not every connection in school systems is a loose
coupling. The degree of coupling cannot be characterized simply as either tight or loose, for the re-
sponsiveness of units to one another varies from one context to another. By assigning teachers and
students to classrooms, for example, administrators tightly control who teaches whom. Yet they exert less
influence over what happens once the classroom door is shut (Weick, 1976; Meyer and Rowan, 1978).
Thus there is good reason to explore the variety of con-nections between organizational subunits in school
systems.

Second, the loose coupling view does not identify the mechanisms that hold school systems
together. With few rules and orders, and little supervision, how can school systems bring about the
sequential curricular progress and eventual graduation of students? How do teaching and learning occur
similarly across classrooms? What forces permit work to be accomplished in the near absence of
bureaucratic authority? These questions is to prompt us to explore the nature of organizational linkages.

Elements of Loose Coupling

Technical Core Of The Organization

In the case of technical couplings, each element is some kind of technology, task, subtask, role,
territory and person, and the couplings are task-induced.

The Authority Of Office

In the case of authority as the coupling mechanism, the elements include positions, offices,
responsibilities, opportunities, rewards, and sanctions and it is the couplings among these elements
that presumably hold the organization together.
Components for Coupling

Independent component of coupling refers to the degree of dependence that exists between the
components to function properly.

 Highly Coupled : Is the strong dependence between the compenents.

 Loosely Coupled : There is a dependency between the components but the relationship is weak.

 Uncoupled : There is no dependency at all between the compenents. It is free.

Advantages of Loose Coupling

 Loose coupling lowers the probability that the organization will have to or be able to respond to
each little change in the environment that occurs.

 May provide a sensitive sensing mechanism. This possibility is suggested by Fritz Heider's
perceptual theory of things and medium.

 Loosely coupled system may be a good system for localized adaptation. These local adaptations
can be swift, relatively economical, and substantial.

 In loosely coupled systems where the identity, uniqueness, and separateness of elements is
preserved, the system potentially can retain a greater number of mutations and novel solutions
than would be the case with a tightly coupled system. A loosely coupled system could preserve
more "cultural insurance" to be drawn upon in times of radical change than in the case for more
tightly coupled systems.

Examples Of Loose Coupling

Slack times-times when there is an excessive amount of resources relative to demands.

Occasions when any one of several means will produce the same end.
Richly connected networks in which influence is slow to spread and/or is weak while spreading.
A relative lack of coordination, slow coordination or coordination that is slow as it moves through
a system.
A relative absence of regulations.
Planned unresponsiveness.
Actual causal inde-pendence.
Poor observational capabilities on the part of a viewer
Infrequent inspection of activities within the system
Decentralization
 References

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