goal displacement

Meaning: Formal organizations are created to achieve a goal, such as educating students or helping patients. Goal displacement occurs when the means (following rules, completing forms, protecting the organization's budget or survival) become more important than that goal. Robert Merton described it in bureaucracies, where strict adherence to rules, which Weber's ideal bureaucracy values for efficiency and predictability, can harden into rigidity and ritual. A related use of the term describes an organization that has met its goal or lost its purpose and redefines its aims so that it can keep existing.

On the MCAT: A passage describes a case, such as a clerk who refuses to help a client because a form is incomplete even though the agency exists to help that client, or a charity that spends most of its effort on fundraising and administration instead of aid. You are asked to name the concept or link it to bureaucracy. Answer choices often include Weber's ideal bureaucracy, the iron law of oligarchy and McDonaldization.

Common confusion: Goal displacement is not the same as the iron law of oligarchy, which says power in organizations tends to concentrate in a few leaders. It is also not the defense mechanism called displacement, which redirects an impulse onto a safer target. To settle it, ask whether the means have replaced the end the organization was meant to serve.