According to Weber, bureaucracy is a product of the legal-rational form of authority which is itself a product of the process of rationalisation which defines modern societies. Max Weber was a sociologist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who was concerned with understanding social actions and the effects they had on modern, Western civilisation. He identified a relatively new social process of rational action which is characteristic of modern society in all it's institutions. One of the social consequences of rationalisation lies within the sphere of authority, and Weber identified a new form of authority called legal-rational authority. This type of authority called for new ways of organising systems, that is, new organisational bodies which would be compatible with rationalist principles. Weber called these modern organisational bodies bureaucracies.

Weber saw rationalism as the hallmark of modern society (Cuff, Sharrock & Francis 1998). He made a distinction between people's behaviours and people's actions, with actions being those which carry attached meanings, and behaviours those which don't. Four types of meaningful action were theorised by W

Weber, M. 1957. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, Free Press, New York.

Weber saw bureaucracy as an embodiment of legal-rational authority. Legal-rational authority itself Weber conceptualised as part of a larger process of rationalisation, rational action and the consideration of means as well as of ends related to all actions. Weber distinguished between modern, rational societies as opposed to other societies using concepts of meaningful action and domination. Modern societies are characterised by instrumentally rational action and legal-rational authority. By studying the modern system of control, the bureaucracy, Weber showed how the principles of rationalism operate within the organisation and, in doing so, demonstrated how modern bureaucracy is legal-rational authority in it's concrete form.

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