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This study aims to empirically analyze the significance of various knowledge management (KM) elements to the environment in a military organization and establish the efficacy of performance indicators of civil organizations for a military organization.

The research methodology includes the development of a research model based on a comprehensive literature review. A sample of 454 Indian Air Force Veterans was obtained and structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis using statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) analysis of moment structures (AMOS) was conducted to test the hypotheses. The study first employed exploratory factor analysis (EFA) for redefining the theoretical constructs and then confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the hypotheses.

The study empirically establishes the significance of various KM elements on the knowledge environment that creates, stores, transfers and applies knowledge to achieve military objectives. Findings indicate the complexity of KM in a military setup while applying the performance measures used in the civil organization.

The study expects to expand the scope of the KM literature to the militaries of developing countries and provide a methodology to the leaders and practitioners in the military organizations, and to study the available KM practices, models and tools in the civil world.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present research is one of the first to generate empirical insights into a knowledge environment in military organizations and test its relation with parameters used in civil organizations. The paper would significantly contribute to the underexplored area of KM in military organizations and infuse a theoretical rigor into the KM literature.

The relationship between motivation at work and internal knowledge transfers (IKTs) is an important topic in the knowledge management literature, but evidence on the topic is contradictory. This study aims to analyze the mediating role of transactive memory systems (TMSs) in this relationship.

Data were obtained from 208 military knowledge workers (analysts) from a large European army.

The results indicate that intrinsic and identified motivation positively affect IKTs, although fully mediated by the TMS. Introjected motivation, in contrast, has only a slightly significant direct influence and external motivation has no significant effect. As individual motivation is insufficient to speed up knowledge transfer, this paper proposes the solution of implementing a TMS, which generates trust and improves coordination among group members.

This study’s originality stems from both its context and the problem tackled. The context analyzed is the military, a group that has received very little attention in the field of management and business. Individual motivation in job performance has also received little study in a military context and even less research has related individual motivation to IKTs. To supplement the scarcity of existing studies and resolve the possible difficulties identified concerning IKT in the military, this study proposes to analyze the mediating effect of a TMS on the relationship between individual motivation to perform one’s job and IKTs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how military strategic knowledge managers consider and respond to digitalization of operational processes in their revision of military knowledge management technologies. The research question is: which strategic considerations and professional concerns impact decisions about how far digitalization should be incorporated into Army planning doctrine?

The paper presents material from a qualitative research study which observed the process of revising Danish Army Field Manual III. The empirical data include 12 in-depth interviews as well as documents related to the revision process. Data were analysed using a thematic approach.

The paper identifies and discusses strategic dilemmas arising from incorporating digitalization into planning doctrine. Two major areas of concern are addressed. The first involves considerations about the extent of digitalization, including concerns about risk and issues of timing regarding choices of specific digital solutions. The second involves potential limits of digitalization in relation to military notions of the role and identity of the commander. The article suggests that digitalization may impact on professional roles and identities and that strategic knowledge management developers need to be cognizant of this.

The paper contributes to the literature in two ways. First, the paper draws attention to the notions of risk and timing in relation to strategic decisions on how far knowledge management technologies should make use of possibilities brought about by digitalization. Second, the paper provides insight into how digitalization may profoundly alter professional roles and identities.

Premature departure of highly skilled and experienced soldiers is detrimental to the excellence of a military organisation. The organisation can achieve knowledge superiority over adversaries, only if it acknowledges the organisation’s critical knowledge and undertakes necessary steps to preserve it. The purpose of this paper is to find out the critical types of knowledge loss in military organisations when a soldier departs.

This study uses grounded theory methodology with purposive/theoretical sampling of experts from the Indian Air Force, coding and constant comparative analysis to construct different knowledge categories. ATLAS.ti 8 was used for data coding and analysis.

This paper identifies eight types of knowledge categories in a military organisation and specifies the criticality of each category.

This study has been piloted on a single organisation with a limited number of samples. However, the results can be used in future research on exploring generalisation. This study is unique in providing useful insights into the types of critical knowledge loss in a military organisation. Research infuses theoretical rigour to the knowledge management (KM) literature and provides impetus to study various aspects of KM in a military organisation.

This study provides the first set of guidelines for the leaders in military organisations to develop a KM strategy for knowledge loss. Research lists specific and actionable areas of knowledge for the commanders to act with considerable savings to exchequer, time and effort. The result could be reasonably generalised for other military setups in the world.

This paper is highly innovative and would significantly contribute to the under-explored area of KM in military organisations and the KM literature.

The debate about the differences between government, commercial and military knowledge management initiatives continues. Many consultants and vendors posit that the different objectives of government, military and commercial organizations require different philosophies, methodologies and technologies to achieve success. Many agree that technology is not the most important element of knowledge integration. However, they also agree that knowledge management technologies can enable knowledge integration and contribute to efficiencies in organizations. This study provides empirical research to contribute to this theoretical and practical discussion.

This study explores the perceived differences of the impact of knowledge management technologies between commercial, military and government users. Analysis of variance is used to compare means of responses among the three groups. This study applies hypothesis testing through a case study of an enterprise in the military sector, the United States Department of the Navy's (DON) Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR).

The primary conclusion of this study is that there is a significant difference in expectations among contractors, government civilian and uniform military knowledge workers on expected efficiencies from KMTs. Contractors and uniform military have similar expectations. Government civilians have significantly lower expectations. Contractors have the highest expectations from KMTs.

There are a few studies that compare government and commercial sector knowledge management expectations and practices. In addition, case studies and anecdotal data provided by vendors and consultants communicate the value of knowledge management technologies. Still there is a need to grow the body of knowledge on the impact of KMTs on efficiency. To that end there is a growing commitment to empirical and conceptual research by scholars in knowledge management.

Implications for scholars and practitioners are posited.

There is still a lack of empirical research on the impact of knowledge management technologies on competitive advantage in government organizations. This study adds to understanding of this area of research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the principles supporting organizational change management.

The paper develops a qualitative study from a single case which focuses on how the military (NATO) transformed their functionally integrated organizational form to gain additional flexibility and responsiveness.

The findings indicate that the transformation of military organizations has led to reshaping and aligning communication artifacts and organizational structures. In addition, it also entailed significant adaptations of the way knowledge is divided, allocated and coordinated among units, with a particular emphasis on standardization processes.

The implications of this study for scholars and practitioners are twofold. First, it shows that the conditions for success in organizational transformation reside in the consistency of the design strategy adopted by the organization. In particular, the findings provide evidence that the alignment of the structural and cognitive designs is critical but hard to achieve. Second, organizations and managers should devote time and effort to support the codification and standardization of both component and architectural knowledge. This contribution is limited by looking at a single case. On the premise that model generalization depends upon extensive empirical data, the current paper should be considered as a preliminary/exploratory research that aims at identifying the principles supporting organizational change management.

The originality of this paper is to look at military organizations to elaborate on a theoretical model of organization design which links together the structural and cognitive views and discuss its main implications for organizational change management.

This paper aims to clarify the relationship between explicit and tacit knowledge in specific organizational environments. It seeks to explore processes and strategies currently being deployed as best practices in the military to see what can be learnt from them and to improve the use of knowledge assets in large‐scale organizations in high‐velocity and/or turbulent environments.

High velocity/turbulent environments are defined. The paper uses examples from the public sector and the private sector and provides a model for knowledge management in high velocity/turbulent environments (HVTE) and offers several propositions for further exploration.

The paper provides insights into how and why tacit knowledge is more important to decision making and strategic positioning in high velocity/turbulent environments. The complexity of knowledge management is enormous.

What the authors learned from the military can serve as lessons for businesses to improve their agility in high velocity/turbulent environments. Businesses can apply this knowledge in considering the types of environments they operate in and which methods of knowledge transfer would serve them best to remain competitive.

This paper addresses what the authors believe is missing in knowledge management research to date – how and when tacit knowledge is more critical to organizational success than the use of explicit knowledge. The analysis also provides an environmental framework that distinguishes the use of tacit and explicit knowledge.

This paper aims to present an exploration of the contributions of the military organization to knowledge‐based development within and beyond the boundaries of its home country.

After first defining knowledge, several frames of reference for considering knowledge are presented. Then the nature of contributions to societal knowledge from military organizations is explored, with a focus on leadership and values as knowledge contributions. A large part of this paper is a case study which introduces the core values of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and looks at SAF's knowledge contributions to the city‐state of Singapore and Singapore's allies and regional neighbors.

The knowledge and learning that occur in military organizations are entangled with the knowledge and learning of the country they serve, in terms of both individuals moving through the military setting and back into society, and the military organization's larger knowledge contributions made in service to its citizens. Using SAF, specific examples are cited that support the movement of knowledge from the military to the public and private sectors and enhance the growth of knowledge‐based development. The strong values needed for effective military defense clearly carry over to the nation's civilian needs in terms of leadership.

The paper takes a unique approach to exploring the role of military organizations and personnel in knowledge‐based development of the country they serve, intertwining descriptions of military values and knowledge with individual examples of leaders who move from the SAF to the public and private sectors, and stories provided by current and past SAF leaders. A new conceptual model of the relationship between moral values and knowledge is introduced.

This paper aims to illustrate the need for context-adapted models of military learning organizations (LOs), identify challenges to building LOs in the military and discuss how maturing as an LO provides military organizations a competitive advantage.

This paper highlights the primarily industrial focus of existing literature, discusses a sample of nuanced challenges to building military LOs and posits potential benefits of military LOs future operational environment.

Building military LOs is an area of research that remains underdeveloped. Advancing LO theory requires researchers to consider context and the challenges organizations may encounter during efforts to build LOs.

This paper highlights gaps and alignment in LO theory to advance the argument that context-adapted approaches to building military LOs are needed.

Both the military and non-military organizations (NMO) bring assets, skills, and capabilities to a humanitarian crisis, however, their capabilities and competencies are very diverse. Identification of the specific competencies and capabilities that are core to these types of organizations can enable better planning by both military and NMOs, allowing them to achieve greater effectiveness and efficiency in the humanitarian response. The purpose of this paper is to explore the core capabilities of the military and NMOs engaged in humanitarian operations.

The work builds on existing literature on the core competency of the corporation. The authors extend the concept of the ability to identify, cultivate, and exploit the core capabilities in the private sector to the organizations that want to respond efficiently and effectively to disasters. The authors develop a core competencies test for such organizations.

The research identifies the competencies and capabilities that are core to the US military and NMOs for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. By identifying such abilities the authors establish a vein of research for exploring the role of such organizations to facilitate greater understanding among academics, policy makers, and decision makers in public administration, public health, and international aid.

Existing literature in humanitarian logistics does not adequately address identification of those competencies and capabilities that are core to the military organizations and NMOs and are most needed during the operational life cycle of a humanitarian crisis. In addition to identifying them, the authors compare the core capabilities of the military and NMO.