The United Kingdom’s Post Office debacle, which continues to dominate British politics despite military action against Houthi terrorists, is simultaneously a very British affair and a very global one. (For newcomers, between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of UK postal office employees were wrongfully prosecuted for theft and false accounting by the government-owned Post Office after computer glitches led to shortfalls in their accounts.) It is very British because it involves quirky institutions and class prejudices. The Post Office has the right to arrest people, a legacy of its Victorian origins. The gap between senior managers in London and the “sub-post masters” in the provinces is a class divide as well as an organizational one (the term “sub” is doing a lot of work). Yet it is global because the propensity of institutions to do dumb things and then stick by them even as evidence of their dumbness becomes undeniable can be found everywhere.

In my last column I explored the way that scientific management had encouraged managerial idiocy, particularly since the frenzied expansion of the management-consulting and masters-in-business-administration industries from the 1980s onwards. But, as the Post Office scandal metastasized and interest in it spread, I felt compelled to consult three notable authorities on organizational misbehavior for their views.

QOSHE - The UK Post Office Scandal Is a Cautionary Global Tale - Adrian Wooldridge
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The UK Post Office Scandal Is a Cautionary Global Tale

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17.01.2024

The United Kingdom’s Post Office debacle, which continues to dominate British politics despite military action against Houthi terrorists, is simultaneously a very British affair and a very global one. (For newcomers, between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of UK postal office employees were wrongfully prosecuted for theft and false accounting........

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