申論題

(3) Please analyze the following paragraph by the concepts of management theories. What managerial implications might be obtained from the Weber's Bureaucracy Theory? (25分)
 A few years ago, The Econ omist constructed an index of crony capitalism. It was designed to test whether the world was experiencing a new era of "robber barons"--a global re-run of America's gilded age in the late 19th century. Depressingly, the exercise suggested that since globalisation had taken off in the 1990s, there had been a surge in billionaire wealth in industries that often involve cosy relations with the government, such as casinos, oil and construction. Over two decades, crony fortunes had leapt relative to global GDP and as a share of total billionaire wealth. Behind the crony index is the idea that some industries are prone to "rent seeking". This is the term economists use when the owners of an input of production--land, labour, machines, capital--extract more profit than they would get in a competitive market. Cartels, monopolies and lobbying are common ways to extract rents. Industries that are vulnerable often involve a lot of interaction with the state, or are licensed by it: for example telecoms, natural resources, real estate, construction and defence. Rent-seeking can involve corruption, but very often it is legal. The rich world has lots of billionaires but fewer cronies. Only 14% of billionaire wealth is from rent-heavy industries. Developing economies account for 43% of global GDP but 65% of crony wealth. A reason for vigilance is technology. In our index we assume that the industry is relatively free of government involvement, and thus less susceptible to rent-seeking. But that assumption is being tested. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has become one of the biggest lobbyists in Washington and is in constant negotiations in Europe over anti-trust rules and tax. Uber has regulatory tussles all over the world. If technology were to be classified as a crony industry, rent-seeking wealth would be higher and rising steadily in the Western world. Whether technology evolves in this direction remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure. Cronies, like capitalism itself, will adapt.