Marching to the Sea: Little Ideas and Small Innovations in the Evolution of Amphibious Operations
Carnegie goes to California: Advancing and Celebrating the Work of James G. March
ISBN: 978-1-80043-979-5, eISBN: 978-1-80043-978-8
Publication date: 26 October 2021
Abstract
This paper honors the breadth of some of March’s key ideas on organizations by applying them to the development of amphibious operations in the United States. The development of amphibious operations highlights, in part, March’s appreciation for little ideas, the importance of ordinary actions as opposed to great men, and the larger societal trends in which evolutionary organizational change is nested. The persistence of ordinary men and a series of little ideas that accumulated for decades prior to the far more celebrated 1919–1939 interwar period established the intellectual and organizational foundation that made the interwar innovation period possible. We use this case not only as an example of how many of March’s ideas are relevant to a given case, but also to demonstrate how extending March’s ideas to different kinds of institutions and organizations might be useful for future scholars and for organizational scholarship.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Christine Beckman and anonymous reviewers for comments on previous drafts. Any remaining errors were produced without help.
Citation
Augier, M. and Barrett, S.F.X. (2021), "Marching to the Sea: Little Ideas and Small Innovations in the Evolution of Amphibious Operations", Beckman, C.M. (Ed.) Carnegie goes to California: Advancing and Celebrating the Work of James G. March (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 76), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 21-51. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20210000076002
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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