Boin (2019) argues that in transboundary crisis management it is almost impossible to achieve centralization and coordination. This article identifies three principles through which actors in a ...transboundary crisis can balance centralization with autonomy while shaping coordination along the way. We reanalysed three transboundary cases: the Dutch military mission in Afghanistan, the downing of MH17 and hurricane Irma striking Sint‐Maarten. The principles we found are as follows: (a) reformulating key strategic priorities, (b) flexible adaptation of crisis management protocols and (c) the emergence of multifunctional units. With these three principles, we reflect on challenges in the Dutch crisis response to the corona outbreak and propose improvements for progressing current crisis management efforts.
As an organization operating under extreme conditions, the military is often confronted with destructive behavior from individuals, organizations, and societies. Written by experts from a variety of ...disciplines, this open access book reflects on confrontations with violence under extreme conditions and the various challenges that arise. By examining real first-hand accounts of soldiers’ deployments, the contributions shed new light on the multifaceted and sometimes hidden dynamics of destructive violent behavior and offer an ethical reflection on military practices. In addition, they address topics such as moral decision-making in violent contexts, military trauma, organizational change, and military ethics education. The interdisciplinary exploration of these topics has been the primary focus of Désirée Verweij, who was the Chair of Military Ethics at the Netherlands Defence Academy from 2008 to 2021. The contributions in this book are written in honor of her scholarly achievements and help to ensure that these important issues continue to receive attention. The book will appeal to scholars of military studies, organizational studies and military ethics, and to professionals and decisionmakers in military organizations.
Many militaries envision a technologically advanced future with a strong innovative capability and therefore invest in so-called innovation hubs focused on experimenting with new modes of operation ...with drones and (semi-)autonomous vehicles. However, there appears to be a discrepancy between these military visions and soldiers’ lived experiences on the ground. This article presents an ethnographic study of one innovation hub: the Robots and Autonomous Systems unit of the Dutch Army. Examining this unit through an analytical framework of sociotechnical imaginaries and expectations, we first outline how “innovation” and “military” imaginaries are integrated so that technological innovation is presented as necessary, desirable, and inevitable for military futures. Second, we explore soldiers’ experiences of military innovation, identifying friction between the strategic and operational levels. At the strategic level, soldiers experience meaning and purpose in their work whereas, at the operational level, soldiers’ expectations, practices, and experiences do not align with the “innovative military future” imaginary, resulting in disillusionment. With this empirical study, we contribute to a better understanding of how large-scale visions of technological “progress” play out in military practice.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide insight in how military expeditionary task forces cope with the dual challenge of organizing and learning, by reflecting on the experiences of Dutch ...expeditionary task forces in post-conflict missions in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reflects on the outcomes of a research project into the experiences of operators of different specific expeditionary task forces of the Dutch Armed Forces in dealing with everyday problems in their working environment. The case studies were based on interviews with military personnel of all ranks and focused on relating the process of making sense of environmental dynamics to characteristics of the organizational context.
Findings
The case studies indicate that designing and learning become intertwined in the realities of everyday problem-solving in the more complex missions. As task forces are essentially tailor-made for the purpose of specific missions, units initially need to be selected. Subsequently, the design of the task force needs to be adapted to suit local conditions. This challenge interrelates with the everyday challenge for operators of making sense of their environment and finding pragmatic solutions for the everyday problems they are confronted with. In pragmatically solving everyday problems, operators in the cases engaged in working out incomplete or ill-fitting aspects of the task force design.
Practical implications
The findings are relevant for military task forces and in general for organizations that are confronted with dynamically complex environments that rely on temporary structures.
Originality/value
Existing literature on learning and on organizing generally treat these as two related, but essentially separate, phenomena. In the expeditionary military task forces, operators that aimed to develop pragmatic solutions to everyday problems, the processes of learning and organizing became intertwined: units needed to organize to learn and to learn to organize. The paper ends by suggesting a combination of specific circumstances that influences the nature of the interrelation between these processes.
In clinical circles, the concept of "moral injury" has rapidly gained traction. Yet, from a moral philosophical point of view the concept is less clear than is suggested. That is, in current ...conceptualizations of moral injury, trauma's moral dimension seems to be understood in a rather mechanistic and individualized manner. This article makes a start in developing an adequately founded conceptualization of the role of morality in deployment-related distress. It does so by reviewing and synthesizing insights from different disciplines into morality and trauma. This discussion will lead to three positions: (1) values and norms are by definition characterized by conflict, (2) moral conflict may entail important social dimensions, and (3) moral conflict may lead to altered beliefs about previously held values. These insights provide important steps in further developing conceptions of the role of morality in deployment-related suffering.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The concept of moral injury, referring to the psychological impact of having one's moral expectations and beliefs violated, is gaining a firm place in research on military trauma. Yet, although moral ...injury has the recognized potential to extend the understanding of trauma beyond the individualizing and pathologizing focus of the clinical realm, most studies nevertheless focus on clinical assessment, diagnosis and treatment. This review aims to contribute to a better understanding of contextual dimensions of moral injury. To this end, it complements current theory on moral injury with a systematic review of literature relevant to contextual factors in moral injury. It draws together insights from psychology, philosophy, theology and social sciences into spiritual/existential, organizational, political and societal dimensions of moral injury. Thus an interdisciplinary theoretical foundation is created for context-sensitive research and interventions.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
PurposeEmergency organizations allocate specific tasks to responders in an attempt to resolve increasingly complex incidents. Many studies take a pragmatic perspective by studying how emergency ...organizations can more effectively compartmentalize response tasks. Yet, the effects of compartmentalization on responders' sensemaking of moral issues (i.e. moral sensemaking) has received almost no attention.Design/methodology/approachBased on existing research, the authors bring together different insights on the relation between compartmentalization and emergency responders’ sensemaking of moral issues.FindingsThe authors demonstrate that emergency organizations may undermine the moral sensemaking of responders through introducing moral blind spots and moral dissociation or, instead, enable moral sensemaking through enhancing moral agency and awareness. The authors argue that emergency organizations need to induce moral sense-discrediting among responders to enhance their moral sensemaking. Finally, the authors conclude with discussing two types of compartmentalizing tasks, functional concentration and the holographic metaphor, to show that the latter is most likely to enhance moral sensemaking among emergency responders.Originality/valueThis study introduces moral sensemaking to the emergency management literature and investigates how organizational design influences it.
•A case study was conducted on safety of military UAV operations within Task Force Uruzgan.•Emergence of safety was mainly developed by “self-designing” operators.•Emergence of safety was hindered by ...the ad-hoc way Task Force Uruzgan was designed.•Findings are used to reflect concepts such as “resilience” and “organizational learning”.
This paper aims to investigate how the ad-hoc and temporary way in which Dutch expeditionary military organizations are designed influenced self-organization and the emergence of safety of UAV operations in Uruzgan. This is done by means of a qualitative case study for which in-depth interviews with operators of the UAV unit within the Task Force Uruzgan were conducted. The analysis shows that developing safe operations depended largely on “self-designing” operators. It is also shown that aspects of Task Force design hindered self-organization and emergence of safety substantially. As a result Task Force design had significant safety consequences for both UAV operations and the operations of Task Force Uruzgan. These findings are used to reflect on contemporary safety management concepts and practices such as “resilience”, “percolation” and safety management systems.
•Recent studies indicate that safety management theory has deficiencies.•We argue that crucial systems theoretical assumptions are applied implicitly or inconsistently.•We provide a framework that is ...able to explicate and reflect on systems theoretical assumptions.•And analyze how two safety management theories tackle an empirical safety problem.•Implicit and inconsistent systems theoretical assumptions result in safety management problems.
Management of safety within organizations has become a key topic within safety science. Theorizing on this subject covers a diverse pallet of concepts such as “resilience” and “safety management systems”. Recent studies indicate that safety management theory has deficiencies. Our interpretation of these deficiencies is that much confusion originates from the issue that crucial meta-theoretical assumptions are mostly implicit or applied inconsistently. In particular, we argue that these meta-theoretical assumptions are of a systems theoretical nature. Therefore, we provide a framework that will be able to explicate and reflect on systems theoretical assumptions. With this framework, we analyze the ability of two frequently used safety management theories to tackle the problem of managing safety of Dutch military expeditionary organizations. This paper will show that inconsistent and implicit application of systems theoretical assumptions in these safety management theories results in problems to tackle such a practical problem adequately. We conclude with a reflection on the pros and cons of our framework. Also, we suggest particular meta-theoretical aspects that seem to be essential for applying safety management theory to organizations.
Research indicates that soldiers struggling with PTSD under-utilize mental health care. Quantitative studies of barriers to care point to the importance of soldiers’ beliefs about mental health and ...mental health interventions in their care-seeking behavior, yet these studies still struggle to understand the particular beliefs involved and the ways they impact care-seeking behavior. This preliminary study makes a start in examining these questions through qualitative literature analysis. It maps out dominant messages surrounding PTSD in military mental health interventions, and explores how they can both shape and conflict with soldiers’ personal notions. It does so by analyzing these messages and notions as institutional and personal (illness) narratives. Institutional military PTSD-narratives, which draw on mainstream scientific and clinical models, appear to communicate contradictory notions on the meanings of violence and its psychological consequences, often without acknowledging these contradictions. As such, these narratives seem to shape struggles of soldiers, both within themselves and with the military institution. The identified conflicts indicate, contrary to the individualizing and decontextualizing focus of dominant PTSD-understandings, that soldiers’ struggles also have social and moral dimensions. This has important implications for both research into PTSD-interventions and understandings of PTSD as such.
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