Stovepipe (organisation)

A stovepipe organization has a structure which largely or entirely restricts the flow of information within the organisation to up-down through lines of control, inhibiting or preventing cross-organisational communication. Many traditional, large (especially governmental or transnational) organisations have, or risk falling into having, a stovepipe pattern. Intelligence organisations may deliberately adopt a stovepipe pattern so that a breach or compromise in one area cannot easily spread to others. A famous example of this is Bletchley Park (an allied forces Second World War codebreaking centre where messages encrypted by the Enigma machine were decrypted) where people working in one hut would not know what the people in any other hut did.

A stovepipe pattern is most likely to develop in organisations that have some or all of the following characteristics:

A stovepipe pattern can be very harmful to a commercial organisation as it can lead to duplication of effort in different parts of the organisation and, in extreme cases, unhealthy competition between different branches of the organisation.

Strategies to avoid this can include:

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