ABSTRACT
What is military transformation? Why and how are military services able to convert the initial impetus for radical change into sustained adjustment in the ways that they outfit, plan, train, and organize to wage war? This chapter addresses these questions. The first section notes the dilemmas of military change that necessitate conceiving of military transformation as an ongoing process of organizational change. The second part assesses the traditional debate between “outside-in” and “inside-out” explanations for military innovation. This features a critical review of “new wave” material-functional and cognitive-cultural theories of military organizational change. The third section highlights generic problems with recent efforts to push the frontiers of the incentive-ideas divide, and specifies directions for recasting the debate. We then briefly outline the general claims of an alternative microfoundational approach, with specific reference to its value as an analytical bridge between material and ideational explanations for military service change.
