NPS: Research on Edge Organizations in the Context of Network-Centric Operations

Sponsor: The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)

The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) has established and currently manages the Center for Edge Power to conduct research and educational activities proposed on behalf of the OASD (NII)/DoD CIO. The Edge Center focuses on research pertaining to Defense command, control and organization in general, and on Edge Organizations in the context of Network Centric Operations in particular. The research will be performed by faculty and students at NPS and other top-tier research institutions, and it will be integrated into a coherent research stream. This research opportunity description outlines five research areas of interest in FY07.

- Research Area A – Hypothesis Testing of Edge Organizations. Research in this area seeks to employ tools, methods, and metrics related to network-centric / power to the edge concepts (including agility) to various theories of organization (including computational organization theory) to test hypotheses pertaining to Edge organizations. Building upon an accumulating stream of research along these lines, various conceptual models of alternate organizational forms (e.g., Hierarchy, Edge) have been evaluated and critiqued in the contemporary C2 domain. Performance metrics are being developed and used to test Edge Organization hypotheses via computational models, laboratory experiments and fieldwork. Hypotheses of particular interest include those pertaining to the comparative appropriateness of Edge versus other organizational forms for different mission-environmental contexts. A campaign of experimentation in this research area is developing new contingency theory to help Defense leaders and policy makers to align organizations with missions more effectively, and it seeks to develop a representative catalog of diverse organizational forms and missions that each fits best.

- Research Area B – Near-Optimizing Knowledge and Power Flows. Research in this area seeks to understand how flows of knowledge can enable and enhance flows of power to the edges of organizations. Building upon an accumulating stream of research along these lines, theory-driven models of knowledge and power flows are being used to complement models of workflows and information flows in Edge, Hierarchy, and other Defense organizations in the C2 domain. Models of individual and organizational learning and forgetting are being developed and analyzed in the context of knowledge inventory, and policy decisions associated with just-in-time versus just-in-case learning are being examined. A campaign of experimentation in this research area is developing new management theory to help military leaders and policy makers to facilitate, enhance, measure, and ultimately optimize knowledge and power flows.

- Research Area C – Infrastructure Enhancement. Research in this area seeks to develop appropriate tools to create virtual environments, and to explore flows of knowledge, trust and power through diverse organizations in a variety of mission-environmental contexts. Building upon an accumulating stream of research along these lines, a prototype implementation called POW-ER (Projects, Organizations and Work for Edge Research) is being developed to represent the structures and to emulate the behaviors of various organizations and missions in the C2 domain. This prototype has reached a point of beta testing and documentation, and it is planned for unrestricted release to and use within the US Department of Defense. The implementation provides computational infrastructure to the other research areas, and the other research areas provide theoretical and empirical relationships and behaviors for incorporation into the implementation. Additional infrastructure developments and enhancements to support Edge research and development are welcome.

- Research Area D – Exploring and Exploiting Intercultural Knowledge Flows and Organizational Forms. Research in this area seeks to understand how cultural differences and institutional factors affect Edge and other organizational forms where knowledge flows are important. The relationships between knowledge flows (and transfers) and conditions related to the enablers or impediments of these flows (including trust) are being investigated also. The organizations and institutions literatures are being used to examine how various organizational forms accommodate and exacerbate cultural and institutional differences (e.g., across military services, coalition partners, non-government organizations, insurgent and terrorist groups). This work also draws from emerging knowledge-flow theory to examine intercultural, inter-organizational knowledge work as a balance between exploration (i.e., knowledge flows associated with organizational learning) and exploitation (i.e., workflows associated with organizational doing) within the perspective of organizational field. A campaign of experimentation in this research area is developing new management theory to help military leaders and policy makers to learn how different institutional factors and knowledge dynamics affect power and performance in Edge and other kinds of organizations.

- Research Area E – Emerging Research. Research in this area seeks to promote emerging C2 research that may not be described well within the four areas above, and to catalyze innovation further beyond the innovative areas under investigation currently.

Amount:

The Government anticipates making multiple awards throughout this announcement. The anticipated award will take the form of contracts, grants and/or cooperative agreements.

Total Amount of Funding Available: $850,000

Anticipated Range of Individual Award Amounts: $50,000 – $200,000

Anticipated Period of Performance: 05/01/2007 – 04/30/2009

Deadline: This announcement will remain open until 28 February 2008 or until replaced by successor BAA. Proposals may be submitted at any time during this period.

For further information, please visit: http://www.nps.edu/Research/documents/BAA001.doc