Power Implications within Command and Control Organizations: New Insights through Knowledge Measurement

EasyChair Preprint no. 1637

Abstract

The concept military power is very clear: One military organization seeks to impose its will upon another, relying on its chosen command and control (C2) approach to plan, conduct, coordinate and refine warfare activities. This reflects power of a military organization. Aside from the obvious rank structure, however, the implications of power within such organization are tenuous: The concept organization power remains ambiguous, resists quantification and continues a longstanding lack of research attention. This applies in particular to the dynamics of organization power within a chosen C2 approach, which require additional theoretic development. The research described in this article builds upon recent C2 work to develop a system for visualizing and measuring dynamic knowledge in the organization. This enables us to interrelate more closely the dynamics of C2 knowledge with organization power, focusing in particular on how power is wielded and perceived in the military organization, and to measure the effects of C2 organization power on military knowledge, action and performance. We illustrate the use and utility of this approach through a measurement example in the C2 organization context. The research makes a theoretic contribution by advancing a coherent approach to dynamic knowledge measurement and by extending our understanding of C2 organization power. As such, it is likely to stimulate considerable thinking, discussion, debate and continued research.

Keyphrases: Command and Control, competitive advantage, dynamics, knowledge, Measurement, organization power

@Booklet{EasyChair:1637,
  author = {Mark Nissen and Shelley Gallup and Paul Shigley and Robert Tanner},
  title = {Power Implications within Command and Control Organizations: New Insights through Knowledge Measurement},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 1637},

  year = {EasyChair, 2019}}