Communication Within a Bureaucratic Organizational Framework: Implications for the Educational Administrator of Some Recent Investigations
| Published date | 01 February 1967 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb009611 |
| Pages | 97-106 |
| Date | 01 February 1967 |
| Author | A.R. CRANE |
| Subject Matter | Education |
THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION 97
VOLUME V, NUMBER 2 OCTOBER, 1967
Communication Within a Bureaucratic
Organizational Framework:
Implications for the Educational Administrator
of Some Recent Investigations
A. R. CRANE
(A paper read at the Third Seminar on Administrative Studies at the Aus-
tralian National University, Canberra, August 1965.)
The literature has been searched for experiments on communica-
tion within organizational frameworks. Some apparently relevant
work is cited and discussed in terms of an "anxiety arousal"
hypothesis of communication within organizations. The effects
upon communication of hierarchical status, organizational mobil-
ity, power and ingratiation are discussed. The paper concludes
with a series of hypotheses about communication within school
systems that could be the subject of empirical investigation by
students of educational administration.
There is little doubt that the schools and school systems of the
Australian states quite comfortably fit Weber's1 criteria of bureau-
cracy, viz,
1. They have a supreme chief with authority defined by
regulation.
2. They have a hierarchical structure of positions.
3.
Each position has attached to it a defined sphere of
con-
trol.
4. Positions are filled by selection based upon technical
qualifications.
5. Occupants of the positions are remunerated by salary and
pursue the occupation as a career.
MR. A. R. CRANE is Vice Principal of the Teachers' College, Armidale, New-
South Wales and part-time Lecturer in Educational Administration in the
University of New England, Armidale. He holds the degree of Master of Arts
with honours, and the Diploma in Education of the University of Sydney and
the degree of Master of Education of the University of Melbourne. Mr. Crane
is the co-author of "Peter
Board"
(1957) and "Headmasters for Better
Schools"
(1963),
and is assistant editor of The Journal of Educational Administration.
He participated as an Australian representative in the 1966 International Inter-
visitation Program.
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