ABSTRACT
Introduction All organizations have to be managed to ensure that they remain viable. Managers gather information about the organization and its environment, assess this information, take decisions, and issue instructions. To facilitate the flow of information and instructions, managers impose a structure on the organization. Military commanders differ from their civilian counterparts in having to do this both in peacetime and during military operations. Military organizations in peacetime adopt insights from the management accounting and control (MAC) literature, because they share with civilian organizations the emphasis on efficiency. They are famous for introducing bureaucratic principles and use for example budgeting methods and performance measures to minimize the use of resources. Over the past two decades, the MAC literature has focused on the organizational and strategic aspects of management. MAC systems produce relevant information for planning, decision-making, and evaluation (Merchant and Otley 2006). By contrast, there is a separate literature on managing military organizations during military operations. The management of military operations is known as command and control (C2). Under the burden of life-and-death situations, the emphasis is on effectiveness, rather than efficiency, with military commanders being judged by their leadership qualities. Over the past two decades, the C2 literature has given attention to applying technology to gaining an advantage – particularly in tempo and agility – over potential opponents. Military doctrine and procedures give widespread attention to C2 models, functions, and processes. C2 systems produce information for gaining situation awareness, for sharing understanding of this situation between organizational units, for disseminating the commander’s intent to subordinate units, and increasingly for collaborating in developing plans and operation orders. Throughout the book it has become clear that contemporary military operations (e.g. the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan) are often a combination of development, diplomacy, and defense often known as 3D or, more formally, as ‘the comprehensive approach’. The aim of these operations, in short, is to rebuild a nation that governs itself, respects humanitarian laws, and shows social and
economic progress. Military commanders and units have to operate ‘combined’ (cooperation with military units of other nations), ‘inter-agency’ (cooperation with other government agencies,) and ‘joint’ (cooperation between land, sea and air forces) in cooperation with contractors and other private military companies. This demands that military commanders and units integrate and coordinate their efforts, assess effects in terms of support of local populations, social and economic growth, and overcome cultural differences and language barriers. Traditionally, the C2 literature focuses on functions and systems with a heavy emphasis on technology. Unlike the MAC literature it is only in the past decade that this literature has started to turn its attention to the organizational and managerial aspects of command and control. However, these aspects are essential in nation-building missions and in environments where commanders and units have to be able to operate alongside different partners (Molier and Nieuwenhuijs 2009). Military commanders need new types of information and current C2 systems are not yet suited for delivering the required intelligence. Combining the C2 and MAC perspectives on the management of military organizations during crisis response operations fills this gap. Both perspectives benefit by recognizing and using each other’s concepts and methods. We illustrate our theoretical C2 and MAC findings by a real-life situation in theater. In particular, we describe the development of an information processing, decision-making, and communication system in the operational NATO’s Regional Command South (RCS) headquarters in southern Afghanistan.
