Decoding organization
Subtitle: Bletchley Park, codebreaking and organization studies
By: Christopher Grey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 322
ISBN-13: 9781107005457
Subjects: History; Cryptography; Electronic intelligence; Intelligence service; Corporate culture; Secret service; World War, 1939-1945; Great Britain. Government Communications Headquarters; Organization; BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Organizational Behavior; Great Britain; Case studies
Description: "How was Bletchley Park made as an organization? How was signals intelligence constructed as a field? What was Bletchley Park's culture and how was its work co-ordinated? Bletchley Park was not just the home of geniuses such as Alan Turing, it was also the workplace of thousands of other people, mostly women, and their organization was a key component in the cracking of Enigma. Challenging many popular perceptions, this book examines the hitherto unexamined complexities of how 10,000 people were brought together in complete secrecy during World War II to work on ciphers. Unlike most organizational studies, this book decodes, rather than encodes, the processes of organization and examines the structures, cultures and the work itself of Bletchley Park using archive and oral history sources. Organization theorists, intelligence historians and general readers alike will find in this book a challenge to their preconceptions of both Bletchley Park and organizational analysis"--

"As its title implies, this book has two purposes. One is to explicate the 'decoding organization' at Bletchley Park, the place most famous for the breaking of Enigma ciphers in conditions of complete secrecy during the Second World War. The other is, in the process, to develop a certain approach to the analysis of organizations; a way of making sense of, or 'decoding', organization which points to a way of reviving organization studies as currently commonly conducted. In this sense it is a contribution to the social science of organizations and will primarily be of interest to academics working in that field. However, it should also have a value to those working in the area of intelligence studies and history, and an appeal to general readers with an interest in Bletchley Park "--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Organization Studies, History and Bletchley Park; title: Part I. Decoding Structures; title: The Making of Bletchley Park; title: The Making of Signals Intelligence at Bletchley Park; title: Part II. Decoding Cultures; title: Pillars of Culture at Bletchley Park; title: Splinters of Culture at Bletchley Park; title: Part III. Decoding Work; title: Making Bletchley Park Work; title: Understanding Bletchley Park's Work; title: Conclusion: Reviving Organization Studies; title: Appendix A: Timeline, 1919-2011; title: Appendix B: Table of Interviewees; title: Appendix C: Brief Profiles of Key Figures; title: Appendix D: Organization Charts, 1940-46; title: Glossary of Terms.