Agile Knowledge Management: A Review, Reconceptualization, and Extension to Military Applications

This study contributes to the literature by integrating agility in knowledge management (KM) operations, especially in military environments via major findings of (a) introducing a new approach to KM with integration of \u27agility\u27; (b) articulating the application of an enhanced process of Agile Knowledge Management (AKM) across the military. The purpose of the study is to explore the conceptual background of agility in KM, re-conceptualize it and extend it to military applications with a special focus on counterinsurgency (COIN). An initial qualitative exploration of agility in KM was performed. Three different concepts and their interrelationships were analyzed: (a) KM, (b) agility in operations, and (c) military organizations in the COIN environment. Findings from this initial qualitative analysis were used to inductively redefine, re-conceptualize, and extend the concept of AKM, as well as, to compare and adapt the AKM concept to the military environment of COIN. An additional qualitative analysis was performed to validate the extended concept of AKM. While this study is mainly focused on AKM in a dynamic multinational and joint military environment of COIN, conclusions may be applicable in a broader context. The results of this research can be used by engineering managers and KM practitioners and academics with particular focus on the military environment as foundation for (a) further research and development in AKM (b) developing customized AKM education programs and (c) extending the concept of AKM and its application to other environments

Strategic Lean Organizational Design: Towards Lean World-Small World Configurations through Discrete Dynamic Organizational Motifs

Organizations face strong international competition in the global market arena in achieving strategic goals such as high quality of product or service at lower cost while increasing their ability to respond quickly to requirements of the market. These challenges concern strategically designing organizations that can meet global challenges and specialize locally to meet performance constraints. After introducing the concept of organizational functional and structural motifs as small organizational building block, our findings suggest the hypothesis that a strategic organizational design (SOD) approach to meet these challenges involves maximizing the number and diversity of functional motifs, while minimizing the repertoire of structural motifs. By detecting characteristic structural motifs, we provide organizational leaders with specific Lean SOD solutions with which to meet local and global challenges simultaneously. As a matter of application, we show the implementation of such an SOD approach in nine US hospitals that form one large health care holding

Joint All Domain Command & Control (JADC2) Naval Analysis

NPS NRP Technical ReportThe Navy needs to play a vital role in JADC2 and to serve as a central pillar. Leveraging extensive knowledge of agile C2 and rapid organization reconfiguration, along with experience with mission command and C2 knowledge flow integration, this project seeks to address questions regarding how the Navy should prepare for this role; how naval fires and assets should cross COCOMs; how the Navy Tactical Grid should integrate into the Joint Grid; and how Service unique knowledge needs and capabilities should balance with important goals of convergence, commonality and interoperability.N2/N6 - Information WarfareThis research is supported by funding from the Naval Postgraduate School, Naval Research Program (PE 0605853N/2098). https://nps.edu/nrpChief of Naval Operations (CNO)Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

A Computational Approach to Diagnosing Misfits, Inducing Requirements, and Delineating Transformations for Edge Organizations

Nominated for Best Paper Award

Effects of Intellectual and Social Alignment on Organizational Agility: A Configurational Theory Approach

Literature has shown that business-information technology (IT) alignment can exert both positive and negative influences on organizational agility, giving rise to the IT alignment-agility paradox. To better understand this paradox at a more granular level, we conceptualize the sensing and responding dimensions of organizational agility as two independent constructs and suggest a nonlinear analytical approach. Based on configurational and contextual perspectives, this study investigates how intellectual and social alignment and organizational and environmental elements combine into multiple configurations to affect sensing and responding capabilities. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) is used to analyze the survey data from 135 dyads of business and IT executives from the Chinese shipbuilding industry. Results show that different equifinal pathways can be used to achieve high sensing and responding capabilities, in which intellectual and social alignment play heterogeneous roles depending on the specific contexts. This study extends the IT-enabled agility literature by deepening our understanding of the effects of multidimensional IT alignment on multidimensional organizational agility and providing new insights into the IT alignment-agility paradox

Agile Knowledge Management; A Review, Reconceptualization, and Extension to Military Applications

The purpose of this research is to explore the conceptual background of agility in knowledge management, re-conceptualize it and extend it to military applications with a special focus on Counterinsurgency (COIN). An initial qualitative exploration of agility in knowledge management was performed. Three different concepts and their interrelationships were analyzed: (1) knowledge management, (2) agility in operations, and (3) military organizations in the COIN environment. Findings from this initial qualitative analysis were used to inductively redefine, re-conceptualize and extend the concept of Agile Knowledge Management (AKM), as well as, to compare and adapt the AKM concept to the military environment of COIN. An additional qualitative analysis was performed to validate the extended concept of AKM. While this study is mainly focused on AKM in dynamic multinational and joint military environment of COIN, conclusions may be applicable in a broader context. The results of this research can be used by engineering managers and knowledge management practitioners and academics with particular focus on the military environment as foundation for (a) further research and development in agile knowledge management (b) developing customized agile knowledge management education programs and (c) extending the concept of AKM and its application to other environments