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The aim of this chapter is to argue that charisma is a collective representation, and that charismatic authority is a social status that derives more from the “recognition” of the followers than from the “magnetism” of the leaders. I contend further that a close reading of Max Weber shows that he, too, saw charisma in this light.

I develop my argument by a close reading of many of the most relevant texts on the subject. This includes not only the renowned texts on this subject by Max Weber, but also many books and articles that interpret or criticize Weber’s views.

I pay exceptionally close attention to key arguments and texts, several of which have been overlooked in the past.

Writers for whom charisma is personal magnetism tend to assume that charismatic rule is natural and that the full realization of democratic norms is unlikely. Authority, in this view, emanates from rulers unbound by popular constraint. I argue that, in fact, authority draws both its mandate and its energy from the public, and that rulers depend on the loyalty of their subjects, which is never assured. So charismatic claimants are dependent on popular choice, not vice versa.

I advocate a “culturalist” interpretation of Weber, which runs counter to the dominant “personalist” account. Conventional interpreters, under the sway of theology or mass psychology, misread Weber as a romantic, for whom charisma is primal and undemocratic rule is destiny. This essay offers a counter-reading.

It is doubtful whether Max Weber would have been appreciative of his current status as the father of organisation theory. Weber did not develop the concept of bureaucracy as part of a quest to advance a science of organisations, or in order to do a microanalysis of the internal structure of particular organisational units. The concept of bureaucracy was an ideal-typical concept developed as a point of departure for comparisons across historical periods and geographic settings. Weber’s research was motivated by macroscopic and historical questions such as ‘why did capitalism develop in the West’ and, ‘how do persons in the West and other civilizations attach meaning to their activities?’ Unlike consultants and organisation theorists that make use of him today, it was not a major concern for Weber to develop criteria for the most efficient kinds of organisations. Rather, his concern was to identify variations in administrative and bureaucratic cultures and patterns by the means of the bureaucratic ideal type. It is maintained in modern textbooks in organisation theory that there has been a development from a closed and rationalistic paradigm towards an understanding of organisations as open and natural systems, and Max Weber’s theory of bureaucracy is taken as a point of departure for this kind of narrative. This classification of Weber as an example of a rational and closed approach is highly questionable. The cross-societal and historical approach used so effectively by Weber, is put on a sidetrack in such mainstream narratives. It would be more in the spirit of Weber to focus on organising as an activity, bureaucracy as an ethos and to study organisations within their particular political and cultural contexts.

This article examines Max Weber’s theory of value spheres as a basis for a polytheistic religious sociology of institutional life. Weber’s approach implies institutional theory as a form of comparative religion. Two problems present themselves. If the values of the spheres are to be considered as “gods,” they do not align easily with Weber’s sociology of religion. Given that love was central both as a driver and a constituent in Weber’s understanding of salvation religions, it also implies that love be incorporated into our theorizing of institutional life, something entirely absent in the way we think about enduring forms of social organization. Taking the second seriously may enable us to fabricate a solution to the first.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a re‐examination of the Weberian corpus.

Discusses the Weberian corpus and the discrepancies and lacunae in Weber's accounts. Outlines “Weberian” bureacracy in the post‐bureacracy literature, the use and utility of ideal types and the problems of ideal typifications.

The so‐called “Weberian ideal type” which is the standard reference point in bureaucracy versus post‐bureaucracy discussion is only ambiguously related to what Weber himself wrote. Usually “Weberian” bureaucracy is equated with rule‐governed hierarchy. This is a gross over‐simplification of Weber's thought, but his “ideal type” demands radical re‐tooling in order to be usable. The components he itemized and the importance he attached to them are inconsistent, they are abstracted from exemplars which Weber privileged without explanation, and he gave no unambiguous criteria for deciding which components this ideal type should include or exclude. Moreover, he equated bureaucratic organization with modernity, when on his own account there were fully bureaucratic organizations centuries before “modernity”. His ideal type thus cannot yield a clear distinction between bureaucratic and “post”‐bureaucratic organizations, unless “bureaucracy” is flattened into “hierarchy”, and “post”‐bureaucratic into “non‐hierarchical”. But hierarchy cannot be eliminated from complex organizations, and bureaucracy can be re‐theorized to include any non‐contradictory attributes. Therefore, there can be adaptations of bureaucracy, but ex hypothesi there cannot be a “post‐bureaucratic era”.

The paper shows that Weber's ideal type can be re‐theorized to include any “non‐contradictory attributes”.

Discussions of political ethics, and of the problem of dirty hands, often cite Max Weber’s comments on these subjects, especially as presented in “Politics as a vocation”. Offers an interpretation of Weber’s views by explaining why he focused on the political leader as the proper subject of political morality, why he deemed certain personal qualities essential to responsible leadership, how he conceived the relationship between ethics and politics, and why he believed the problem of dirty hands to be both inescapable and unresolvable. Advances the central claims that Weber conceived political ethics as the attempt to reconcile ethical with political duties, and dirty hands as the inevitable accompaniment of political action because of its unavoidable association with violence and the partiality of its ends.

Examines the current attack on the legitimacy of the administrative state, and the question of how public administration should respond, in light of Weber’s account of bureaucratic domination. Finds in Weber a political theorist who rejects rather explicity the claim that bureaucracy can articulate and defend substantive values properly or wisely; one who provides an account of why administrators ‐ notwithstanding their considerable talents ‐ are an especially threatening participant in struggles over the ends of the state. Explores Weber’s account of the tension between political leadership and a system based increasingly on expertise and instrumental rationality. Explains how Weber’s analysis offers fresh insight into the current dilemma of public administration with respect to its role in governance and its search for professional status.

This article reviews research published in secular management journals that examines what the world’s largest religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, and Islam) say about management. In terms of how religion informs management, the literature identifies two basic means: (1) written scriptures (e.g., Analects, Bible, Quran) and (2) experiential spiritual practices (e.g., prayer, mindfulness). In terms of what religion says about management, the emphasis tends to be either on (1) enhancing, or (2) liberating mainstream management. Studies based on scriptures typically either enhance or liberate management, whereas empirical research based on spiritual disciplines consistently point to liberation. Implications are discussed.

Although the rational and the emotional are often thought to be in conflict, this is not always the case. Here I examine two instances, Max Weber’s ideal-typical depiction of bureaucracy and James Coleman’s proposal for a rational reconstruction of societal institutions. In the case of Weber, it is clear that the disciplined, steady and affectless performance of official duties by bureaucrats can only be possible because of an underlying foundation of emotions, both positive and negative. In the case of Coleman’s proposal, which is based on money bounties as incentives for performing important societal tasks, a multitude of deleterious and defeating emotions inhere in this ultra-rational scheme.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.