Publisher's Synopsis
This military study executed a contingency theory based organizational analysis of command level EW organizations responsible for EW plans and management within the Department of Defense. The United States (U.S.) has the best-trained and equipped military in the world; however; these factors do not necessarily equate to success in operations. Information is a vital component of warfare that facilitates success. Electronic warfare (EW) organizations in the U.S. military are tasked to control battlefield information flow throughout the range of military operations. Historically, the U.S. has effectively accomplished this mission; however, recent events reveal symptoms of a decline in America's ability to exploit, attack, and protect information systems. The collective assessment using the combined open systems model and ORGCON (Burton et al., 1998) expert system revealed the organization has not adequately adjusted to the dynamic environment of the twenty first century. Implementation of recommended changes to the EW strategic task, leadership rank structure, education system, and division of EW may assist the U.S. military to maintain its information advantage in future operations. Chapter I is the introduction where the thesis purpose is identified. This is followed by a brief discussion of the mission and tasks of electronic warfare assigned by the Department of Defense and formalized in joint publications. Additional examples are provided to illustrate symptoms of the EW decline that can affect national security. Finally, research methodology and rationale for focusing the research scope to an analysis of command level EW organization within the EW community is discussed. Chapter II provides the reader a brief literature review on organizational design and introduces a combined open systems model developed for this analysis. The model is developed by incorporating components of the "Leavitt Diamond" (1965) model and the Mercer Delta presented Congruence model developed by Nadler and Tushman (1998). Components of the model and key terms of organizational design are identified and defined in this chapter. In Chapter III, the current structure of command level EW organizations are placed into the context of the combined open systems model. Information from joint publications, Department of Defense instructions, and interviews with personnel in command level EW staff positions are used to place command level EW organizations in the context of the model. Chapter IV is the analysis of the "fit" or congruence between components within the model. The terms fit and congruence are used synonymously in the thesis. Nadler and Tushman (1998) define fit as: CHAPTER I * INTRODUCTION * A. PURPOSE * B. ROLE OF ELECTRONIC WARFARE * C. SYMPTOMS OF ELECTRONIC WARFARE DECLINE * D. THESIS ORGANIZATION * E. RESEARCH SCOPE * CHAPTER II * OVERVIEW AND BASIC CONCEPTS * A. THEORETICAL REVIEW OF THE OPEN SYSTEMS AND CONTINGENCY MODELS * B. COMBINED OPEN SYSTEMS MODEL COMPONENTS, KEY TERMS, AND DEFINITIONS * 1. Organizational Configuration and Structure: Key Terms * 2. Combined Open Systems Model Components * 3. Analysis Methodology * CHAPTER III * ELECTRONIC WARFARE ORGANIZATION INTO CONTEXT OF COMBINED OPEN SYSTEMS MODEL * A. OUTPUTS AND FEEDBACK * B. INPUTS * 1. Environment * 2. History * 3. Resources * 4. Strategy * C. TRANSFORMATION CORE * 1. Task * 2. Formal Structure * a. Structural Divisions * b. Formal Relationships * c. 'As-required' Organizations
