Corporate and Organizational Bureaucracy

post thumbnail

More moves toward transparency and accountability

So the news is still full of bad stuff, but I detect a change in people’s reactions to the bad stuff, in that calls for transparency and accountability keep mounting.

15Jun2010 | | 0 comments | Continued
post thumbnail

Bob Schieffer on Church Bureaucracy

To follow up on yesterday’s post, here’s a great commentary by CBS’s Bob Schieffer on Catholic Church bureaucracy and the pedophile priest scandal.

4Apr2010 | | 0 comments | Continued
post thumbnail

They may as well be Martians: what the Vatican doesn’t get

To date, every time a Vatican spokesman or other defender of the Pope opens his mouth, what comes out is a clear demonstration of how much they do not comprehend about the experience of sexual abuse; and, more to the point, how little they attend to what’s necessary for healing from sexual abuse.

3Apr2010 | | 0 comments | Continued
post thumbnail

Cigna: “That’s just the way it is;” but not if Dawn can help it

Every now and then a bureaucracy finds out that they’ve messed with the wrong person, and now it’s Cigna’s turn to find out they shouldn’t have messed with Dawn Smith.

2Oct2009 | | 0 comments | Continued
post thumbnail

Protect Insurance Companies PSA

MoveOn.org has released a new “insurance company public service announcement” featuring Will Ferrell.  This one competes for top spot along with the Insurance Company Rules video.  Here’s the new one–check it out and then look at the old one for an additional dose of hoot: Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

22Sep2009 | | 0 comments | Continued
post thumbnail

Crystal Lee Sutton, “Norma Rae” dies after denied timely care by insurance company

Crystal Lee Sutton, whose labor organizing efforts inspired the movie Norma Rae, died September 11 in North Carolina at age 68.

14Sep2009 | | 0 comments | Continued
post thumbnail

Another corporate snafu–Tracfone false advertising? Updated

I’m not someone who needs all the latest electronic toys. Only once did I do a 30-day trial of an upper tier cell phone plan. All the little extra charges made me faint, so I ditched that for a Tracfone.

1Aug2009 | | 0 comments | Continued
post thumbnail

Catamount Health flub up

Vermont’s Catamount health insurance option is truly a wonderful thing for many people who would otherwise have no health coverage. And I haven’t heard any horror stories about them such as one reads about private insurance companies refusing to pay for medical treatment for people who’ve paid in their premiums faithfully.

29Jul2009 | | 1 comment | Continued
post thumbnail

Amazon and 1984–a lovely bit of irony

Here’s one about corporate bureaucracy. You may have seen or heard something about Amazon having angered some owners of Kindle, Amazon’s ebook reader. Amazon deleted copies of George Orwell’s 1984…

28Jul2009 | | 1 comment | Continued
post thumbnail

Here’s to things passing as they should…

Ah, I just couldn’t let the end of the year pass without one more post for 2008.  My latest hiatus was on account of my taking the time to get two new knees installed.  Though I didn’t have internet access while in rehab—and wouldn’t have had the brain power to make proper use of it [...]

1Jan2009 | | 1 comment | Continued
post thumbnail

Insurance Company Rules

Netroots Nation, which recently wrapped up in Austin, TX, is something I really, really hoped to go to, but alas. Good things are popping out of there, however, including this stitch of a video, Insurance Company Rules. It’s from Health Care for America Now!, a grassroots campaign to achieve universal affordable health care. Insurance company bureaucracies [...]

20Jul2008 | | 1 comment | Continued
post thumbnail

Keith John Sampson’s Apology from IUPUI Chancellor Bantz

This one will also go into the BureaucracyBlog Resource Library as an example of both the importance of standing up to bureaucratic abuse, and the role that publicity plays in rectifying bureaucratic abuse.

14Jul2008 | | 0 comments | Continued
post thumbnail

Bureaucracy and higher education

I find it astonishing, but also fairly common, that institutions of higher education often do not take time to find out, and make use of, some of the cutting edge work being done by their own students and faculty that could so well serve the kinds of administrative changes that would enhance the educational mission.

11Jul2008 | | 0 comments | Continued
post thumbnail

Keith John Sampson update: The WSJ story

As mentioned in the post of a few days ago, there is indeed a story in today’s Wall Street Journal by Dorothy Rabinowitz about Keith John Sampson’s situation at IUPUI. The reportorial aspects of the story are fine, but oh, do I have a problem with the tone! And the graphic.

7Jul2008 | | 0 comments | Continued
post thumbnail

Conduct Unbecoming a University

“I thought my situation was over here at IUPUI but now I find that the IUPUI News Center, run by Rich Schneider, is still telling members of the media that the problem was not in my reading the book in question but some other actions that they can not reveal to the press. “

3Jul2008 | | 0 comments | Continued
post thumbnail

Another Textbook Case of Bureaucratic Insanity

Someone saw “KKK” in the title and jumped to the conclusion that Mr. Sampson was a supporter of the KKK, and filed a complaint against him with his university’s Affirmative Action Office, alleging that his reading the book in the break room constituted racial harassment.

12May2008 | | 1 comment | Continued
post thumbnail

An Old Cautionary Tale Made New

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the knight was lost. For want of a knight, the victory was lost. For want of a victory, the kingdom was lost. Time for a little attention to organizational bureaucracies. Today I [...]

22Apr2008 | | 0 comments | Continued
post thumbnail

Bureaucracies at Their Worst: Governmental, Corporate, and Organizational

In all cases, there are features in the structure of the bureaucracies that have allowed this turning of responsibility inside-out, such that the government, business or organization operates 180° out of phase with its stated principles and mission. The question becomes: how can bureaucracies be structured differently to prevent that 180° shift?

20Apr2008 | | 0 comments | Continued
post thumbnail

Catching Up

Recovery from knee surgery is going really well, but it has set me back on posting here, which is a tad frustrating with so many relevant things going on. This post will consist of snippets and links to a few of those stories. Beginning with last week, there was the story about federal bureaucrats spending [...]

16Apr2008 | | 0 comments | Continued
post thumbnail

Proposing Professional Adjudicative Standards

As evident in several previous posts, the approach I’m taking to address the problem of incompetent and conflict-of-interest ridden bureaucracies is to seek legislative remedies. I have recently had exchanges with colleagues who are taking different approaches to the same kind of problem. One aims to develop a coaching/mentoring network to help people who are [...]

17Feb2008 | | 0 comments | Continued
  • INVITATION to Readers

    Do you have a story about bureaucratic abuse, waste, or idiocy--or their remedies? Help bring transparency and accountability to the bureaucracies in your region, state, or other part of the world by publishing your stories on BureaucracyBlog. Click here.

  • Ads By CbproAds >