Creating Structures for Network-Centric Warfare: Perspectives from Organization Theory

Combat organizations are increasingly faced with the challenge to adapt to new and diverse engagements. The pace of change is being accelerated by advances in information technology. This article offers perspectives from organization theory that can serve as design principles for enabling combat organizations to adopt flexible structures to cope with changes in the external environment. The specific design principles articulated are technology-enabled virtual organizations, organizational “semi-structures”, and anticipating the future by launching probes. We discuss the implications of these principles for military organizations.