Enabling Organizational Innovation: Scientific Process and Military Experience

Abstract : Increasing information richness and the changing socio-political environment in recent years have resulted in changes in corporate structure and organization. The growing challenges of organizational and technological complexities require the development of new organizational concepts. The effects of a combination of high complexity and high uncertainty have been recognized before in military settings. To take advantage of new technologies and manage information complexity, a theory of Network Centric Operations was developed. Mission Command and Network Centric Operations formulate organizational structure across functional domains (physical, informational, change this cognitive and social), in a way that is also applicable in a business setting. In response to an increase in decision complexity and regulations, academia has developed risk assessment and multi criteria decision analysis tools for use in military and industrial settings. We believe that the combination of military science with multi-criteria decision analysis and risk assessment has the potential to dramatically improve the credibility, efficiency and transparency of strategic and tactical decisions in industrial settings. This paper summarizes the military concepts of MC and NCO, and links them with mental modeling, risk assessment and decision analysis tools. Application of the combined framework for the pharmaceutical industry is also discussed.