Research Note: Impersonal Decision-Making as a Fradudulent Ideology

Abstract

As a young sociologist, I had come to believe that formal organizations were for the most part bureaucratic structures and that Bureaucratization offers above all the optimum possibility for carrying through the principle of specializing administrative functions according to purely objective considerations." (Gerth and Mills 1946:215). My expectations were that people evaluating others would look objectively at the evidence and render an equitable decision, that is, that they would actually be impersonal decision-makers. Over the years I have found this not always to be the casc. Since sociologists are dealing with probability statements, it is possible to conclude that one has become overly attentive to the exceptions to the rule. Perhaps, one has taken note of a "privale trouble" and there is no basis to make a "public issue" out of a few cases (see Mills, 1962:295-402). Since this writer has had over twenty years of experience as a faculty member at a mid-western university. it is possible to examine the "issue" empirically by reference to individual cases. Having embarked upon that task, some effort was made to cross check the findings against cases outside the university experience.