Decoding Organization

Bletchley Park, Codebreaking and Organization Studies

Christopher Grey

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781107005457
• eBook ISBN: 9781139334921
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Organisational Behaviour
• Index: Business

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Decoding Organization
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations and Acronyms
• Introduction: Organization Studies, History and Bletchley Park
• Part I: Decoding Structures
• 1: The Making of Bletchley Park
• 2: The Making of Signals Intelligence at Bletchley Park
• Part II: Decoding Cultures
• 3: Pillars of Culture at Bletchley Park
• 4: Splinters of Culture at Bletchley Park
• Part III: Decoding Work
• 5: Making Bletchley Park Work
• 6: Understanding Bletchley Park’s Work
• Conclusion: Reviving Organization Studies
• Appendix A. Timeline 1919–2011
• Appendix B. Table of Interviewees
• Appendix C. Brief Profiles of Key Figures
• Appendix D. Organization Charts 1940–46
• Glossary of Terms
• References
• Index