Network centric warfare: Organizational collaboration as a key enabler

Distributed work, globalization and changing situational demands have required that military warfare tactics shift from slower conventional operations to agile, dynamic strategies. Therefore, a better understanding of more dynamic, modern-day context is needed. The present research explored the concept of collaboration in the context of network centric warfare (NCW) and evaluated a metric to assess collaboration at the organizational level. Personnel (n = 240) from a logistics command and control organization completed a series of survey items as part of an ongoing organizational assessment. Results from a factor analysis indicated that organizational collaboration could be conceptualized according to four factors: collaboration effectiveness, collaboration adaptability, collaboration enablers, and job characteristics. The four factors were also examined to determine their relationship to other constructs, such as cohesion and trust, which are integral factors present in collaborative, dynamic environments. All four factors were positively related to organizational trust and group cohesion, thus providing concurrent validity to the organizational collaboration construct. The four factors depicted the complexity of socio-technical systems and could be used as a framework for future research on collaboration and development of collaborative systems. Implications for NCW are discussed.