It's the phenomenon where the actual work increasingly gets pushed aside to make room for recording information about the work.
Jobs of higher and higher complexity get invented to measure and analyse this meta-work, ostensibly in the name of productivity. But I suspect a large portion of it is just the paper-pushing meta-workers making jobs up in order to fill their time.
Bureaucracy? Sure. It's very visible, to everyone at all these companies.
How about putting this in the context of a company & product like Coca-Cola though? It's not bad for them per se, to hand over the reins to finance/commerce/bureaucracy. Can we call it a "business cycle" perhaps?
Management, in particular for soft drink and FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) there's brand management (marketing, sales channels, target audience, product placements in movies, communicating with the consumers, coming up with new creative ideas every quarter to keep the brand fresh, managing advertisements, etc).
Basically after a certain size the question is not how to make the product better, because ... it's what it is. It's a mature product. Sure, there are sometimes quirky versions, seasonal versions, promotional versions, but the high-level focus is on keeping the market share, and to grow it if possible.
For example at that level it just makes sense to pay for lobbyists. To know where health regulation is going (soft drink tax), and of course CocaCola probably tried and tires to contest these proposals on many levels.
Bureaucracy is the process of adhering to processes, management is the process of coming up with new processes. Then of course the bigger the whole enterprise the more these seem to be ... the same.
Well said. So on a company's road to success, opportunities can arise in different corners of the international landscape. Understanding that, it makes sense that a small journey with enough time and distance becomes an enterprising voyage.
But then the question is, how does management determine whether to stay an enterprising voyage (eg exploring space endlessly) or become a settlement (eg McDonalds franchise)? Maybe the analogy ends here.
shareholders decide that implicity by hiring the management that aligns with this or that idea/vision/style.
and society at large (culture!) decides what is a worthwhile endeavor, for example by pre-ordering space telescopes, or by complaining loudly and shaming anyone who does not behave like good McDonalds patronizing people.
It's the phenomenon where the actual work increasingly gets pushed aside to make room for recording information about the work.
Jobs of higher and higher complexity get invented to measure and analyse this meta-work, ostensibly in the name of productivity. But I suspect a large portion of it is just the paper-pushing meta-workers making jobs up in order to fill their time.