ABSTRACT
Responses by nation-states to this new combat environment have included increased reliance on special operations forces (SOF), as demonstrated by significantly increased funding and manpower levels. Activities, associated job functions and relationships among the jobs are defined by rules, processes, policies, laws and standard operating procedures. Bureaucracies are traditional “line-and-box” organizations, where the “box” is defined by a social role which is described as a status and a set of associated and expected behaviors. In a bureaucracy, the organizational gaze is vertical: power inheres in roles at the top, and direction and instruction flow down. Bureaucracies set up systems of controls to help ensure that these principal-agent tensions are appropriately addressed. Nation-state governments, themselves highly bureaucratic organizations, have tried to establish various forms of networked organizations and operations to further national ends. The functional concept recognizes the difficulty of the human transition from a bureaucratic structure to a networked organization.
