Instruments for Exploring Organizational Culture: A Review of the Literature

Organizational culture is widely considered to be one of the most significant factors in reforming and modernizing public administration and service delivery. This article documents the findings of a literature review of existing qualitative and quantitative instruments for the exploration of organizational culture. Seventy instruments are identified, of which 48 could be submitted to psychometric assessment. The majority of these are at a preliminary stage of development. The study's conclusion is that there is no ideal instrument for cultural exploration. The degree to which any measure is seen as "fit for purpose" depends on the particular reason for which it is to be used and the context within which it is to be applied.     

Medieval Welsh Law and the Mid-Victorian Foreshore

In 1862 a text of medieval Welsh law, attributed to the tenth-century king Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good), was cited as part of the defence in a case, Attorney General v Jones, concerning disputed foreshore rights in Anglesey, north Wales. This article aims to explain why and how Welsh law, effectively abolished by the Acts of Union of 1536–43, was deployed as evidence in the case and how far this marked a readiness to accommodate the distinctive legal heritage of Wales within the framework of the nineteenth-century common law. As well as analysing the legal arguments presented, the article seeks to assess the broader significance of the case by setting it in the contexts of the Crown's increasingly vigorous claims to foreshores, the circumstances and attitudes of the real defendant, William Bulkeley Hughes, and antiquarian study of the medieval Welsh law-texts, including their use in previous mid-Victorian foreshore disputes.     

Integration of strategic and operational intelligence during the Peninsular war

Wellington is well known for his understanding of the importance of intelligence, but so far history has recorded that he presided over a one-man intelligence department, himself being the only analyst of what proved to be a massive quantity of raw information. New research highlighted in this article reveals that this has been an inaccurate interpretation. The British government also acted to establish a civilian network of correspondents and agents communicating with the British ambassadors to Spain and Portugal. Wellington's main priority was to integrate the ‘strategic intelligence’ collected by government agents with his own ‘operational intelligence’. Instead, analysis was conducted more by Wellington's subordinates in the field, applying their personal localized expertise to the information they received. In this way, an early and primitive form of the staff system later developed by the Prussians was created in the Peninsular War.     

Britain and the Missile Gap: British Estimates on the Soviet Ballistic Missile Threat, 1957–61

Between 1957 and 1961, American National Intelligence Estimates overestimated the Soviets’ capabilities to produce and deploy intercontinental ballistic missiles, creating the ‘missile gap’ controversy. This article examines the contemporaneous estimates of British intelligence on the Soviet ballistic missile program, which were based upon very similar, if not the same, raw intelligence. It demonstrates that British estimates of the Soviet ICBM program were more accurate. However, this success did not continue in the analysis of the medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missile (M/IRBM) threat, which was relatively poor for most of the period. It concludes that the reasons for this lie in the different assumptions held by intelligence analysts on both sides of the Atlantic, and a degree of conservatism in both intelligence establishments.