Professional Bureaucracy

A professional bureaucracy is defined by its ability to allow an organization to function in a stable, intricate, and decentralized setting. This is reflected in the higher education setting by the presence of formalized campus cultures, standardized codes of conduct and strategic plans, and systems of stability, such as tenure, that ensure a complex, stable environment, as well as units that operate largely autonomously from one another (e.g., Student Affairs, Athletics, the School of Education). This entry provides an overview of professional bureaucracy in the context of higher education, including its organizational structure, then explores challenges inherent in this structure and possible solutions to those challenges.