Network Organization Pitfalls and Success Factors for Team and Organizational Processes. Analyses of Key Organizational Variables and Cultural Differences in International Military Contexts

This dissertation investigates effects of network organization in military organizations. The last decades’ changes in the tasks and responsibilities of military organizations have prompted a need for organizational change. Military theorists have fronted network organization as the solution, thus making military teams and organizations both currently relevant and appropriate cases for the focus of this research. Network organization would imply changes to central organizational variables, like structure and processes, as well as increased ad hoc distributed and multinational collaboration. The presented research explores issues related to the effects of such changes on flexibility, effectiveness, trust, and team processes, as well as on issues related to culture and the measurement of individualism/collectivism in military samples. To this end, data were collected through an experimental series and at three different multinational military exercises. The experimental series was conducted in a lab environment using a web-based gaming tool adapted for the study of distributed team collaboration. This technique represents a new approach to studying international team-work and collaboration, cultural differences, and trust. Methods of direct observation, observer ratings, and self-report questionnaires were employed. The results from this work have been reported in four articles, which are cited in the second half of this dissertation. The first article (I) investigates organizational structure and processes as antecedents of organizational flexibility in military contexts, and also explores possible moderator effects of power distance and cultural diversity. To this end, both self-report and experimental data were collected from three military exercise organizations and one series of laboratory experiments. The data from each of these studies were analyzed both separately and collapsed across studies. When all data were analyzed together, significant relations between decentralized processes and flexibility and between flat structure and flexibility were observed. No moderator effects were found. Moreover, the analyses revealed that decentralized processes were the most consistent predictor of organizational flexibility across each of the four studies. The second article (II) furthers the research in article I and explores the consequences of flat structure, decentralizing processes, and alignment (i.e., of structure and processes) for the effectiveness (mea