Impact of Information Technology on Battle Command: Lessons from Management Science and Business

George E. Dodge

jan 1998 · U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

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"The possible effects of information technology insertion on organizations and their personnel are derived from an analysis of published management science and business literature. Two major points are developed. First, many factors other than the technical potential of a given information technology interact with one another and with the technology itself to determine the resultant nature, form, and functionality of the digitized organization. Second, the most significant impact on commanders and their staffs for the foreseeable future will not be quantum improvements in operational performance made possible by information technology but, rather, the technology insertion process, itself. Based on this analysis, we propose that implications for command in a digitized environment can be best described by reference to a continuum of organizational structures and associated behaviors. The extremes of this continuum are defined as digital mechanistic and digital organic. A third point between these two extremes is defined as digital adaptive. We discuss the nature of command over the range of the proposed continuum. The new competencies that might be required of commanders and their staffs regardless of the outcome of the technology insertion process are then discussed. The chapter concludes with suggestions for improving the technology insertion process."--DTIC