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Asia Pacific Journal of Management

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01.12.2009

Reexamining some management lessons from military history

verfasst von: David Ahlstrom, David Lamond, Zhujun Ding

Erschienen in: Asia Pacific Journal of Management | Ausgabe 4/2009

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Abstract

Military history has provided a number of useful metaphors for management, such as positioning, blue ocean strategy, defensible perimeters, and fighting the last war, among others. In spite of this rich tradition and the detailed writings on the military, management research has actually made a rather truncated use of military history. This includes the selective use of military metaphors, and a limited number of individual and comparative case studies on diplomatic and military scenarios. It is argued that much more can be learned from military history, though certain well-known metaphors and lessons drawn from major events do not convey what military history actually teaches about those events. To learn from military history, historical events must be studied carefully so proper lessons can be derived from them. This paper examines two major episodes in 20th century military history from World War I and the subsequent interwar period, and how themes derived from these events and used in the management field are not consistent with what the historical record teaches about them. We suggest that a fuller and more careful rendering of historical events and their lessons would be potentially beneficial to management research, and suggest ways in which they can be researched.

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The Austrians labeled the assassination a terrorist conspiracy traceable to Serbia, a conclusion that is still debated (Keegan, 1999: 50–51).

The interwar years produced the long accepted, though debatable “lions led by donkeys” interpretation of WWI, referring to the poor leadership and conduct of Allied officers during the war (Porch, 2000; Strachan, 2005).

Thomas Schelling’s (1966) early work on international relations and game theory was ranked as one of the 100 most influential books of the postwar period and has been widely cited in management and organization theory (TLS, 1995).

Interestingly, perhaps the first to circulate this idea were the politicians themselves whose decisions in 1914 led directly to the conflict and wanted to disavow responsibility for the war. For example, on July 31, 1914, the eve of the war, German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg had already started to argue that military systems and schedules were forcing his hand (Albertini, 1952, Vol. 3: 15–17).

A key illustration Schelling (1966) used, borrowed from The guns of August (Tuchman, 1962), asserts that it was nearly impossible to turn the trains around once the mobilization of the armies had begun, the point being that organizational systems, plans, and technology were dictating policy to ineffectual leaders (Brodie, 1931–1978; Schelling, 1966).

Though Schelling does not cite her book directly, he states that the writings of Tuchman informed his work on this topic (Brodie, 1931–1978).

That neither Moltke and his advisers nor anyone else in Berlin was actually committed to a tight war timetable is furthered supported by the fact that in the months leading up to the July Crisis the German general staff was busy negotiating with the civilian authorities to obtain funding for a major upgrade of the country’s strategic railroad system—a multiyear project. This would have been unlikely if war had been imminent (Trumpener, 1976).

The doctrine which emerged from this perception of great lethality stressed what the French called the bataille conduite, translated as “methodical battle.”

It should be quickly pointed out that this learning did not extend to the level of grand strategy and policy in the German government. The Nazi regime failed to articulate a clear and achievable set of policy aims until late in 1943 when it had become evident that Germany would lose the war and not be in a position to achieve those aims (Murray & Millett, 2001).

The general rule during WWI was that the attacking side would suffer more casualties than the defending side, and thus the attacking side needed to amass more manpower in order to successfully overcome the defense.

It was well known that the cordon defense of not giving up ground and counterattacking to retrieve lost territory hurt the Confederacy and contributed to its major manpower losses during the US Civil War (Beringer, Hattaway, Jones, & Still, 1991).

A related approach to finding useful books or well-regarded journals in a given specialty is to review course syllabi at major universities. Google scholar is particularly helpful in this regard. Using Google scholar’s advanced search, the search can be limited to the “edu” domain in the top search category, along with a course title or topic (in quotations) so only university holdings and syllabi will be retrieved in a search.

For example, to examine a Middle East topic, it would be good to become familiar with the works of the best known professional historians in that area such as Bernard Lewis (2003) or Fred Halliday (2005), while avoiding journalist accounts or pseudo-histories written by nonhistorians.

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Titel: Reexamining some management lessons from military history
verfasst von: David Ahlstrom
David Lamond
Zhujun Ding
Publikationsdatum: 01.12.2009
Verlag: Springer US
Erschienen in: Asia Pacific Journal of Management / Ausgabe 4/2009
Print ISSN: 0217-4561
Elektronische ISSN: 1572-9958
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-009-9155-2

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