Professionalization, Bureaucratization and Rationalization: The Views of Max Weber

Although it has not been recognized, Max Weber had a great deal to say about the professions and the relationship between professionalization, bureaucratization and rationalization. His ideas are very contemporary. He recognized that professionalization, like bureaucratization, is an aspect of the rationalization of society. Unlike some contemporary sociologists, Weber saw that professionalization and bureaucratization are not antithetical. Finally, Weber understood that a profession must be viewed from the structural, processual, and power perspectives. Weber's rich understanding of the professions is attributed to two factors. First, he saw them as part of the rationalization process. Second, his thinking was not distorted, as was the case with American sociologists, by the aberrant case of the physician in private practice as the prototype of the professions.