Organizational Unit:
Center for Edge Power

Date Established

2004

Type

Center

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 58

N2C2M2 experimentation and validation: understanding its C2 approaches and implications
(2010-06) Manso, Barbara; Manso, Marco; Center for Edge Power
The recently developed NATO NEC Command and Control Maturity Model (N2C2M2) defined new C2 approaches, established their relation with one or more maturity levels and studied the implications throughout the NCW value chain, the C2 domains (information, cognitive and social) and the organization's effectiveness. This paper focus on a set of experiments especially developed to validate N2C2M2's hypothesis and implications by instantiating each of the models' C2 approaches, applying ELICIT, a network-enabled collaborative environment involving 17 human subjects, and conduct a quantitative analysis on several C2 domains and variables. The experiments confirmed significant differences among the several C2 approaches, demonstrating that increasing the C2 approach maturity of an organization, increases the extent of shared information and critical information available, result in better interactions, broader extent of correct understanding, self-synchronization and increased organizational effectiveness and efficiency. More specifically, COLLABORATIVE approach was the most effective and efficient, while EDGE approach performed best in making critical information available to the right positions, reached highest extent of correct understanding and most ordered state of cognitive self-synchronization. As expected, CONFLICTED approach achieved worst scores in all domains.
Understanding organizational agility: a work-design perspective
(2008-06) Holsapple, Clyde W.; Li, Xun; Center for Edge Power; Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)
This paper introduces a unified theoretical model of organizational agility and investigates the attributes of knowledge-intensive work-design systems, which contribute to achieving and sustaining organizational agility. Even though there has been considerable research on the topic of agility, these studies are not unified regarding their conceptualizations of agility and/or tend to adopt fairly limited views of agility dimensionality. Here, we organize a review of existing definitions and conceptual models of organizational agility, and proceed to advance a relatively comprehensive model built from a work-design perspective. This new model offers a theoretical platform for understanding organizational agility. This paper further investigates those attributes of a work design system that contribute to organizational agility. A knowledge-intensive work-design system is an example of an edge organization. Its governance mechanism (participant engagement governance, network governance, and system dynamic governance) involves three work-design levels: strategic, operational and episodic. We contend that an entrepreneurial governance pattern has attributes contributing to organizational agility, whereby the impetus for its work-design efforts stem not from some deep hierarchical authority pattern, but rather is distributed among participants and through their networking dynamics. These attributes allow each participant positioned at the edge of the system to stay alert and respond to environing trends and forces, on behalf of the system and in concert with the system. Result of an illustrative case study are reported.
Hypothesis Testing of Edge Organizations: Empirically Calibrating an Organizational Model for Experimentation
(2007-06) MacKinnon, Douglas J.; Ramsey, Marc; Levitt, Raymond E.; Nissen, Mark E.; Center for Edge Power
This paper presents our ongoing efforts to model, simulate, and eventually optimize work and knowledge flows in Edge organizations. We use the extended POW-ER 3.2 framework to model and compare two organizational forms (Edge vs. Hierarchy) to structure participants in a counter-intelligence student exercise, ELICIT -- first without, and then with, learning micro-behaviors enabled in POW-ER 3.2. Empirical, experimental data on learning and forgetting from observtions of student teams conducting repeated trials of the AROUSAL (Lansley, 1982) business simulation exercise at Stanford are used as the basis for calibrating agent learning and forgetting micro-behaviors derived from the cognitive psychology literature. We then compare empirical observations of student teams conducting the ELICIT exercise for both Edge and Hierarchy structures configurations with outputs from POW-ER 3.2 computational simulation models representing teams executing the ELICIT exercise in these two structural configurations. This initial comparison has the potential to further calibrate and validate POW-ER for potential use in analyzing and designing C2 organizations. Further output from ELICIT experiments and other empirical data on learning and forgetting will augment our initial comparison. Calibrated POW-ER 3.2 learning and forgetting micro-behaviors will improve the ability of POW-ER to model and simulate organization-level C2 knowledge flows in Edge vs. Hierarchical organizations.
Hypothesis Testing of Edge Organizations: Modeling the C2 Organization Design Space
(2007-06) Gateau, James B.; Leweling, Tara A.; Looney, John P.; Nissen, Mark E.; Center for Edge Power
The Edge represents a fresh approach to organizational design. It appears to be particularly appropriate in the context of modern military warfare, but also raises issues regarding comparative performance of alternate organizational designs. Building upon prior C2 research, we seek to understand the comparative performance of the Edge and all organizatinal forms, across 21st Century and all mission-environmental conditions, and hence characterize the entire organization design space systematically. Leveraging recent advances in computational organizational theory, we extend our campaign of experimentation to specify six, diverse, archetypal organization forms from theory, and evaluate their comparative performance empirically. Results confirm that no single orgnizational form is "best" for all circumstances; highlight contingent circumstances for which the Edge and other kinds of organizations perform relatively better than one another; and elucidate specific performance measures that provide multidimensional insight into different aspects of organizational performance. This research grounds the Edge organization firmly in well-established organization theory, and provides empirical support for and against claims regarding this novel organizational form, particularly in terms of agility. Additionally, through organizational modeling and analysis, we aarticulate an organizational design space for the first time. We discuss the model, experimental setup and results in considerable detail, and offer theoretical implications for the organization scholar and actionable guidance for the C2 practitioner.
New Software Platform Capabilities and Experimentation Campaign for ELICIT
(2008-06) Ruddy, Mary; Nissen, Mark E.; Center for Edge Power
ELICIT is the Experimental Laboratory for Investigating Information-sharing Collaboration and Trust. A project of the Command and Control Research Program (CCRP) within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (NII), the ELICIT project developed an online multi-user software platform for conducting experiments in information-sharing and trust. The initial version of the software allowed researchers to model and experiment with a limited set of Command and Control (C2) organizations, processes and approaches in a computer-instrumented environment. The ELICIT software has since been enhanced to allow organization type to be configurable, thereby allowing researchers to experiment with a wider variety of C2 organizations, processes and approaches. In addition, the software has been further enhanced to support software agents as well as human participants, greatly expanding the avenues for research. Although the introduction and use of ELICIT remain relatively recent events, considerable research has been conducted already using this experimentation platform, and the C2 Research Community is gaining commensurate experience and insight into sound research design. Building upon such research and experience, we develop a multidimensional campaign for continued experimentation using the ELICIT platform. The campaign is populated with recent studies and guides future researchers toward high-payoff research areas that can be addressed using ELICIT.
Command and control in virtual environments: laboratory experimentation to compare virtual with physical
(2010-06) Bergin, Richard D.; Adams, Alicemary Aspell; Andraus, Ramez; Hudgens, Bryan J.; Lee, June G. Chinn Yi; Nissen, Mark E.; Center for Edge Power; Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)
Research in command and control is advancing rapidly through a campaign of laboratory experimentation using the ELICIT (Experimental Laboratory for Investigating Collaboration, Information-sharing and Trust) multiplayer online counterterrorism intelligence game. In most ELICIT experiments, participants play the game through a Web interface and interact with one another solely through textual information exchange. This mirrors in large part the network-centric environment associated with most counterterrorism intelligence work in practice, and it reflects what appears to be a wide spread assumption about how to organize such work: in a physically distributed, virtual manner. Such reflection is consistent with considerable research (e.g., in Education Psychology) prescribing such distributed, virtual environments for work performance. Alternatively, substantial research (e.g., Media Richness Theory) suggests instead that a more personal, physical environment offers potential to improve performance. Hence we have a theoretical conflict with potential to affect how the important work of counterterrorism intelligence is organized. The research described in this article addresses this theoretical conflict through a series of experiments to assess the comparative performance of people working in physical, face-to-face versus textual, virtual environments. Exercising great care to match experiment conditions and control for factors other than task environment, results elucidate important comparative performance effects and suggest compelling follow-on experiments as well as practical implications.
CyberKM: harnessing dynamic knowledge for competitive advantage through cyberspace
(Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School, 2010) Nissen, Mark E.; Graduate School of Operational and Information Sciences (GSOIS); Center for Edge Power; Information Sciences (IS)
Knowledge is key to sustainable competitive advantage, but different kinds of knowledge affect competitive advantage differently, and they exhibit qualitatively different dynamic properties and behaviors. This places particular importance on understanding the dynamics of knowledge as it flows from where and when it is to where and when it is needed. Given the increasingly strategic importance of computer networks in terms of achieving, defending and ultimately sustaining competitive advantage, understanding how to manage dynamic knowledge through Cyberspace has become critical to organizational survival. Unfortunately, considerable confusion and uncertainty regarding Cyberspace knowledge management (CyberKM) abound and persist, rendering pursuits of sustainable competitive advantage daunting at best and infeasible in many cases. The research described in this paper builds upon Knowledge Flow Theory to illustrate a scheme for measuring dynamic knowledge flows in the cyber domain. Through this novel approach to measurement, one can analyze and visualize the relative power, speed and proliferation of both tacit and explicit knowledge through organizations, which enables knowledge leaders, managers and workers to understand the comparative costs and benefits of alternate approaches to and technologies for managing cyber knowledge. This work articulates a clear set of tradeoffs facing decision makers in Cyberspace, and it provides principles-based techniques for making cyber knowledge decisions in a rational and informed manner. Hence we offer a theoretical contribution suitable for academic journals, but we highlight in particular current, practical application through enhanced decision making in the context of harnessing dynamic knowledge for sustainable competitive advantage through Cyberspace.
Performance Measures for Edge Organizations: A Preliminary Report
(2008-06) Desouza, Kevin C.; Roy, Sumit; Lin, Yuan; Center for Edge Power
Taking an information-processing view of organizations, we address the need for building a robust set of performance measures for Edge Organizations (EOs). Alberts and Hayes in Power to the Edge: Command, Control in the Information Age conceptualized EOs as information- intensive entities whose performance is directly related to their ability for agile information processing. We ask the question, how can we measure the information-processing capacities of EOs? To this end, in this research-in-progress paper, we examine (1) the technical dimension of information flows, (2) the human-dimension of information flows, and (3) the socio-technical dimensions of information flows. The technical dimension represents movement of information between two machine nodes and can be informed by drawing on performance measures for telecommunications network theory. The social dimension represents the movement of information between two human nodes for which we examine the literature on social networks for performance measures. Finally, the socio-technical dimension represents movement of information between human and technical nodes or vice versa. To develop measures for these information flows we must not only extend, and customize, the performance measures from telecommunications networks and social networks, but also draw on measures in the disciplines of decision sciences, information sciences, and organizational science, among others.
Interoperability risk mitigation through the application of operational capability based engineering
(2009-06) Lenahan, Jack; Pacetti, Don; Heller, Scott; Reed, Rebecca; Mori, Paul; Center for Edge Power
We are interested in investigating an operational system of systems engineering approach to the resolution of interoperability issues discovered after system deployment. Operational system of systems engineering focuses on the engineering of systems in an end to end mission thread context. Such methodology shifts the acquisition focus from simple 'box engineering' to the behavior of systems in their operational ecosystem. This paper proses a Capabilities Based Engineering Framework (CBEF) to provide a methodology that will deliver operations focused enterprise requirements in addition to traditional systems requirements. Capability based approaches are used to identify and understand interactions, patterns, structures and properties of the end to end architecture. A System of Systems (SoS) refers to an integrated package of individual solutions that interoperate to provide a required capability. In addition to interoperability requirements, an analytically based operational capability process results in the identification of capability gaps for a given end to end mission thread. The resulting capability gaps become expressed in terms of functional requirements, interaction requirements and performance requirements for the optimal "pack" of systems and distributed systems.
Organizing on the Edge: Appreciation and Critique
(2006-06) Scott, W. RIchard; Center for Edge Power
The paper begins with a summary of Alberts and Hayes’s concept of edge organizations, noting its distinguishing features. Limitations and shortcoming are identified. The critique broadens to include a discussion of the limited perspective on organizations utilized, the neglect of attention to edge forms in nonmilitary settings, inattention to the relevance of the institutional environment within which the military operates, and the failure to consider the difficulties of inducing radical change in existing, entrenched organizations.