Christopher Grey
Biographic Data
| ID | 3609682 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christopher Grey |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christopher |
| FAMILY NAME | Grey |
| SIGNATURE | GREY C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Royal Holloway University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9006-6040 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 500 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Brexitism
This commentary argues that the term ‘Brexitism’ is a necessary addition to the lexicon of concepts used to understand contemporary British politics. Its value lies in capturing how Brexit continues to impact upon those politics even though Britain has left the European Union. The meaning of Brexitism is elaborated as a distinctively British version of populism, as a political mood, as a post-Brexit policy agenda, and as a political psychology.
Everyday secrecy
Gossip is an everyday part of organizational life and has been increasingly researched. However, some gossip has a particular character, whereby it is to some degree secret. Drawing on studies of both gossip and secrecy, in this paper we explore this ‘confidential gossip’ via a participant observation case study. This was based on an internship with Quinza, a British media company, and had a covert element which is discussed and justified. Specif…
Does Brexit mean the end for Critical Management Studies in Britain
My argument in the Speaking Out essay is, first, that in the European Union Referendum vote, Critical Management Studies found itself on the same, anti-Brexit, side as big business and mainstream management studies, making it hard to sustain itself as something separate from these. Second, I argue that this reflects a wider set of issues about the liberal-left and the European Union, which, third, means that British Critical Management Studies no…
History, gendered space and organizational identity
How do buildings contribute to an organization’s sense of what it is? In this article, we present the findings of a major archival study of an iconic university building to answer this question. Founded in the 19th century as a college for women, the building is analysed as a gendered space that embodies meanings that are selectively deployed and adapted by the present-day, now co-educational, university. By bringing together concepts of space an…
Violence and Organization Studies
In this paper we argue that violence is curiously both absent and present within organization studies. By violence we mean actual or potential physical harm and, building on an insight from Norbert Elias, we suggest that such violence is both ‘totally familiar yet hardly perceived’ in organizations. We examine how in two major traditions of organization studies, one deriving from Weber and the other from Foucault, violence figures as, respectivel…
Beyond choice
This article problematizes the dominant assumption in the literature on volunteer work that it is undertaken primarily as a matter of individual choice. Using findings from a qualitative study of volunteers at the not-for-profit organization, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, it is shown that volunteering exists within a dense web of social relations, especially familial and communal relations, so that volunteering is recursively constitut…
Brexit
The unprecedented geopolitical shift resulting from Brexit reflects deep socio-economic fault lines within and beyond the UK. In many ways foreshadowing the US presidential election of Donald Trump, Brexit brought to the surface and gave a public voice to socio-economic divisions that were deeply embedded, sometimes illogical, but until now had either been ignored or hushed out of ‘respectable’ public debate. This Discussion Forum emanates from a…
An organizational culture of secrecy
This paper draws on a major study of the organization of Bletchley Park, the British codebreaking centre in the Second World War, to analyse the particular issue of organizational secrecy. Through detailed empirical examples, the key processes of organizational secrecy are identified as being ignorance, silence and surveillance. Organizational consequences, both positive and negative, are also identified
Bringing Secrecy into the Open
This paper brings into focus the concept of organizational secrecy, defined as the ongoing formal and informal social processes of intentional concealment of information from actors by actors in organizations. It is argued that existing literature on the topic is fragmented and predominantly focused on informational rather than social aspects of secrecy. The paper distinguishes between formal and informal secrecy and theorizes the social processe…
Notes for anniversarifiers
A reflection on the celebration of journal anniversaries, and of anniversaries in general
Decoding Organization
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 …
Decoding Organization
A Chaos that Worked
Drawing on a major historical study of the organization of Bletchley Park, the site of British and Allied codebreaking during the Second World War, this article shows that it was characterized by ‘chaos’ in terms of a lack of clear formal structures. It is argued that the success of Bletchley Park can be explained in terms of various factors including shared social capital of some employees, organizational hybridity, centralization, knowledge-sha…
Security Studies and Organization Studies
This note provides an outline of the field of security studies, drawing comparison between it and that of organization studies. It is noted that whilst having many parallels, the two fields exist almost entirely in isolation from each other. The potential overlaps between the fields offer opportunities to extend the range of each and to contribute to the renewal of organization studies
Historicising knowledge-intensive organizations
This article offers a historicized account of knowledge-intensive organizations.This is achieved by drawing on an archive and interview study of Bletchley Park, the British SecondWorldWar codebreaking centre.The outlines of the organization of Bletchley Park are presented. The case is then used to challenge the idea that knowledgeintensive organizations are a novel phenomenon. Second, it is used to explore the contingent nature of ascriptions of …
The regulation of smoking at work
Smoking was for most of the 20th century a normal part of everyday life in western society, including work organizations. Within a very short space of time it has become much less acceptable in the workplace and, in many countries, banned altogether. Why has this happened? This article seeks to answer this question. Although the main legislative basis of these bans is the health and safety of employees, we argue that the issues at stake are in fa…
Writing Differently
Here are some stories about writing critically. We have written them to beguile you and make you laugh. But we also want to provoke you to think about how and why you write. Interspersed are short, unashamedly idiosyncratic statements about what we think is wrong with much of the writing that goes on in the field, and why we think writing matters. We want to discourage pompous, impenetrable writing; writing that seems driven by desires to demonst…
Critical Management Studies
Critical Management Studies’ or ‘CMS’ has emerged over the last ten years as the term to describe a diverse group of work that has adopted a critical or questioning approach to the traditional concerns of management studies. In this time, CMS has come to exert an increasing influence in Management and Management Studies, and while it has prompted fierce debate about its validity and use, there is no doubt that the rapidly growing interest in CMS …
Critical management studies
“Helping them to forget..”
Beneath and Beyond Organizational Change Management
This essay introduces contributions to a special issue exploring alternative accounts of organizational change management (OCM). It begins with identifying why such alternatives are needed by pointing to core assumptions within OCM, including a practical and ontological prochange bias, managerialism and universalism. The alternatives to OCM are then framed in terms of the constructionism associated with various forms of discourse analysis. It is …
The Real World of Enron's Auditors
Against Learning
This article is a critique of the broad ensemble which we identify as `learning discourse' and its pervasive ideological content which determines learning as a `good thing for all'. We consider how the signifier `learning' works as a nodal point which constitutes (legitimizes and sustains), yet glosses over, antagonistic and contradictory organizational and social practices. With our critique we endeavour to go beyond a simple rebuke or rebuttal.…
Contexts of CMS
Organized and Disorganized Utopias
At the Critical Moment
We have recently witnessed a growing, if still arguably marginal, interest in `Critical Management Studies' (CMS). Our aim in this paper is to reflect upon the popularization of CMS; more specifically, we propose to examine the various factors that have contributed to its emergence, and to review the significance of its project. We start by exploring the conditions of possibility for CMS and point to a combination of political, institutional and …
Career as a Project of the Self and Labour Process Discipline
This paper draws together recent insights in labour process analysis, which highlight the role of Panoptic techniques of disciplinary power, and work which suggests that the project of self-management has become a defining feature of contemporary subjectivity. In particular, it is argued that the discipline operationalised within the discursive and non-discursive practices of 'career' should be treated as an aspect of this contemporary project of…
In the Name of the Client
In this article we explore how notions of the client and client service are constructed within two `Big 5' professional services firms. Drawing upon a range of qualitative materials, we argue that the client is a central term in the socialization of trainee accountants within these firms and the emergence of their professional identities. We illustrate this with reference to recruitment, appraisal and daily work practices. We then move on to cons…
Bringing Secrecy into the Open
This paper brings into focus the concept of organizational secrecy, defined as the ongoing formal and informal social processes of intentional concealment of information from actors by actors in organizations. It is argued that existing literature on the topic is fragmented and predominantly focused on informational rather than social aspects of secrecy. The paper distinguishes between formal and informal secrecy and theorizes the social processe…
Brexit
The unprecedented geopolitical shift resulting from Brexit reflects deep socio-economic fault lines within and beyond the UK. In many ways foreshadowing the US presidential election of Donald Trump, Brexit brought to the surface and gave a public voice to socio-economic divisions that were deeply embedded, sometimes illogical, but until now had either been ignored or hushed out of ‘respectable’ public debate. This Discussion Forum emanates from a…
Violence and Organization Studies
In this paper we argue that violence is curiously both absent and present within organization studies. By violence we mean actual or potential physical harm and, building on an insight from Norbert Elias, we suggest that such violence is both ‘totally familiar yet hardly perceived’ in organizations. We examine how in two major traditions of organization studies, one deriving from Weber and the other from Foucault, violence figures as, respectivel…
Beyond choice
This article problematizes the dominant assumption in the literature on volunteer work that it is undertaken primarily as a matter of individual choice. Using findings from a qualitative study of volunteers at the not-for-profit organization, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, it is shown that volunteering exists within a dense web of social relations, especially familial and communal relations, so that volunteering is recursively constitut…
Against Learning
This article is a critique of the broad ensemble which we identify as `learning discourse' and its pervasive ideological content which determines learning as a `good thing for all'. We consider how the signifier `learning' works as a nodal point which constitutes (legitimizes and sustains), yet glosses over, antagonistic and contradictory organizational and social practices. With our critique we endeavour to go beyond a simple rebuke or rebuttal.…
Re‐Eroticizing the Organization
This paper examines an important recent development in thinking on the role of sexuality and eroticism within organizations, namely Re‐eroticization theory. The paper contextualizes this development by contrasting it with modemist‐masculinist and modernist‐feminist discourses on eroticism and organizations prior to synthesizing the many disparate strands of Re‐eroticization theory. Re‐eroticization is then examined critically in terms of its theo…
History, gendered space and organizational identity
How do buildings contribute to an organization’s sense of what it is? In this article, we present the findings of a major archival study of an iconic university building to answer this question. Founded in the 19th century as a college for women, the building is analysed as a gendered space that embodies meanings that are selectively deployed and adapted by the present-day, now co-educational, university. By bringing together concepts of space an…
Historicising knowledge-intensive organizations
This article offers a historicized account of knowledge-intensive organizations.This is achieved by drawing on an archive and interview study of Bletchley Park, the British SecondWorldWar codebreaking centre.The outlines of the organization of Bletchley Park are presented. The case is then used to challenge the idea that knowledgeintensive organizations are a novel phenomenon. Second, it is used to explore the contingent nature of ascriptions of …
Everyday secrecy
Gossip is an everyday part of organizational life and has been increasingly researched. However, some gossip has a particular character, whereby it is to some degree secret. Drawing on studies of both gossip and secrecy, in this paper we explore this ‘confidential gossip’ via a participant observation case study. This was based on an internship with Quinza, a British media company, and had a covert element which is discussed and justified. Specif…
An organizational culture of secrecy
This paper draws on a major study of the organization of Bletchley Park, the British codebreaking centre in the Second World War, to analyse the particular issue of organizational secrecy. Through detailed empirical examples, the key processes of organizational secrecy are identified as being ignorance, silence and surveillance. Organizational consequences, both positive and negative, are also identified
The regulation of smoking at work
Smoking was for most of the 20th century a normal part of everyday life in western society, including work organizations. Within a very short space of time it has become much less acceptable in the workplace and, in many countries, banned altogether. Why has this happened? This article seeks to answer this question. Although the main legislative basis of these bans is the health and safety of employees, we argue that the issues at stake are in fa…
A Chaos that Worked
Drawing on a major historical study of the organization of Bletchley Park, the site of British and Allied codebreaking during the Second World War, this article shows that it was characterized by ‘chaos’ in terms of a lack of clear formal structures. It is argued that the success of Bletchley Park can be explained in terms of various factors including shared social capital of some employees, organizational hybridity, centralization, knowledge-sha…
Organized and Disorganized Utopias
Gender as a Grid of Intelligibility
Re‐Eroticizing the Organization
This paper examines an important recent development in thinking on the role of sexuality and eroticism within organizations, namely Re‐eroticization theory. The paper contextualizes this development by contrasting it with modemist‐masculinist and modernist‐feminist discourses on eroticism and organizations prior to synthesizing the many disparate strands of Re‐eroticization theory. Re‐eroticization is then examined critically in terms of its theo…
Career as a Project of the Self and Labour Process Discipline
This paper draws together recent insights in labour process analysis, which highlight the role of Panoptic techniques of disciplinary power, and work which suggests that the project of self-management has become a defining feature of contemporary subjectivity. In particular, it is argued that the discipline operationalised within the discursive and non-discursive practices of 'career' should be treated as an aspect of this contemporary project of…
Gender as a Grid of Intelligibility
How to Become Oneself
In the face of widespread organizational change which some claim heralds the demise of bureaucracy, and in the context of the cultural and intellectual uncertainties of postmodernism, how do people in organizations respond? In this paper, we explore the role of `How To' books for managers in the elaboration of these responses. How To books may be read as part of a long-standing tradition of self-help which represents a form of the secularized Pro…
Work Hard, Play Hard
In this paper we explore one specific aspect of the way language is used in organizations—the use of cliche and slogans by organizational members. Drawing upon a 12-month qualitative study of two international accountancy practices ('Firm A' and `Firm B') we examine different instances of cliche in the discourse of their organizational actors. The cliches are seen to operate in several complex ways, but at a general level are understood to be int…
Too Much, Too Little and Too Often
In recent years, organizational and political debates have accorded a privileged position to enterprise as holding the promise for both corporate and individual development. In several publications, Paul du Gay has articulated a persuasive analysis and critique of the enterprise discourse; he and a number of collaborators have analysed the various managerial discourses and techniques through which employees are reimagined as entrepreneurs, and or…
At the Critical Moment
We have recently witnessed a growing, if still arguably marginal, interest in `Critical Management Studies' (CMS). Our aim in this paper is to reflect upon the popularization of CMS; more specifically, we propose to examine the various factors that have contributed to its emergence, and to review the significance of its project. We start by exploring the conditions of possibility for CMS and point to a combination of political, institutional and …
In the Name of the Client
In this article we explore how notions of the client and client service are constructed within two `Big 5' professional services firms. Drawing upon a range of qualitative materials, we argue that the client is a central term in the socialization of trainee accountants within these firms and the emergence of their professional identities. We illustrate this with reference to recruitment, appraisal and daily work practices. We then move on to cons…
Contexts of CMS
Organized and Disorganized Utopias
Beneath and Beyond Organizational Change Management
This essay introduces contributions to a special issue exploring alternative accounts of organizational change management (OCM). It begins with identifying why such alternatives are needed by pointing to core assumptions within OCM, including a practical and ontological prochange bias, managerialism and universalism. The alternatives to OCM are then framed in terms of the constructionism associated with various forms of discourse analysis. It is …
The Real World of Enron's Auditors
Against Learning
This article is a critique of the broad ensemble which we identify as `learning discourse' and its pervasive ideological content which determines learning as a `good thing for all'. We consider how the signifier `learning' works as a nodal point which constitutes (legitimizes and sustains), yet glosses over, antagonistic and contradictory organizational and social practices. With our critique we endeavour to go beyond a simple rebuke or rebuttal.…
“Helping them to forget..”
Critical Management Studies
Critical Management Studies’ or ‘CMS’ has emerged over the last ten years as the term to describe a diverse group of work that has adopted a critical or questioning approach to the traditional concerns of management studies. In this time, CMS has come to exert an increasing influence in Management and Management Studies, and while it has prompted fierce debate about its validity and use, there is no doubt that the rapidly growing interest in CMS …
Critical management studies
Writing Differently
Here are some stories about writing critically. We have written them to beguile you and make you laugh. But we also want to provoke you to think about how and why you write. Interspersed are short, unashamedly idiosyncratic statements about what we think is wrong with much of the writing that goes on in the field, and why we think writing matters. We want to discourage pompous, impenetrable writing; writing that seems driven by desires to demonst…
The regulation of smoking at work
Smoking was for most of the 20th century a normal part of everyday life in western society, including work organizations. Within a very short space of time it has become much less acceptable in the workplace and, in many countries, banned altogether. Why has this happened? This article seeks to answer this question. Although the main legislative basis of these bans is the health and safety of employees, we argue that the issues at stake are in fa…
Security Studies and Organization Studies
This note provides an outline of the field of security studies, drawing comparison between it and that of organization studies. It is noted that whilst having many parallels, the two fields exist almost entirely in isolation from each other. The potential overlaps between the fields offer opportunities to extend the range of each and to contribute to the renewal of organization studies
Historicising knowledge-intensive organizations
This article offers a historicized account of knowledge-intensive organizations.This is achieved by drawing on an archive and interview study of Bletchley Park, the British SecondWorldWar codebreaking centre.The outlines of the organization of Bletchley Park are presented. The case is then used to challenge the idea that knowledgeintensive organizations are a novel phenomenon. Second, it is used to explore the contingent nature of ascriptions of …
A Chaos that Worked
Drawing on a major historical study of the organization of Bletchley Park, the site of British and Allied codebreaking during the Second World War, this article shows that it was characterized by ‘chaos’ in terms of a lack of clear formal structures. It is argued that the success of Bletchley Park can be explained in terms of various factors including shared social capital of some employees, organizational hybridity, centralization, knowledge-sha…
Decoding Organization
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 …
Decoding Organization
Notes for anniversarifiers
A reflection on the celebration of journal anniversaries, and of anniversaries in general
An organizational culture of secrecy
This paper draws on a major study of the organization of Bletchley Park, the British codebreaking centre in the Second World War, to analyse the particular issue of organizational secrecy. Through detailed empirical examples, the key processes of organizational secrecy are identified as being ignorance, silence and surveillance. Organizational consequences, both positive and negative, are also identified
Sociology (28 works) · Political science (20 works) · Management and Organizational Studies (17 works) · Law (14 works) · Economics (13 works) · Epistemology (12 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Public relations (10 works) · Social science (10 works)