McDonaldization is a term used by sociologist George Ritzer

George Ritzer

George Ritzer is a sociologist who studies American patterns of consumption, globalization, metatheory, and modern and postmodern social theory...

 in his book The McDonaldization of Society

The McDonaldization of Society

The McDonaldization of Society is a 1993 book by sociologist George Ritzer.In the book, Ritzer took central elements of the work of Max Weber, expanded and updated them, and produced a critical analysis of the impact of social structural change on human interaction and identity...

(1993). He explains it occurs when a culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

 possesses the characteristics of a fast-food restaurant. McDonaldization is a reconceptualization of rationalization

Rationalization (sociology)

Rationalization is a term used in sociology to refer to a process in which an increasing number of social actions become based on considerations of teleological efficiency or calculation rather than on motivations derived from morality, emotion, custom, or tradition...

, or moving from traditional to rational

Rationality

In philosophy, rationality is the exercise of reason. It is the manner in which people derive conclusions when considering things deliberately. It also refers to the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons for belief, or with one's actions with one's reasons for action...

 modes of thought, and scientific management

Scientific management

Scientific management, also called Taylorism, was a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. Its main objective was improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes and to management...

. Where Max Weber

Max Weber

Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...

 used the model of the bureaucracy to represent the direction of this changing society, Ritzer sees the fast-food restaurant as having become a more representative contemporary paradigm

Paradigm

The word paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek "παράδειγμα" , "pattern, example, sample" from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" , "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from "παρά" , "beside, beyond" + "δείκνυμι" , "to show, to point out".The original Greek...

 (Ritzer, 2004:553).
Ritzer highlighted four primary components of McDonaldization:

• Efficiency – the optimal method for accomplishing a task.