Accompanying the growing repudiation of scientific management as the sole body of administrative wisdom was a challenge to Weber's "ideal" bureaucracy. Even before it was widely available in an English translation, Weber's work sired a lively debate about its underlying premises. In a 1940 issue of journal social forces, Robert K. Merton (1910-2003), one of the most influential of modern sociologists,published an article,"Bureaucratic structure, and Personality," which proclaimed that the "ideal-type" bureaucracy espoused by Weber had inhibiting dysfunctional characteristics that prevented it from being optimally efficient. This is a theme that has been echoed equally by subsequent empirical studies and the polemics of politicians.In the 1950 s, Merton slightly revised the article for inclusion in his collection of essays, Social Theory and Social Structure, which is the version reprinted here, but the article is appropriately placed in 1940 for chronology.