Abstract
Chapter IV contains the main findings. In great detail, the author provides a thick description of the evolution of the culture capability in the German Federal Armed Forces between 1990 and 2017. In this regard, the first sub-chapter sets the stage by providing the prologue and the overall development. The author continuously digs deeper into the data in the following sub-chapters 2 to 4, providing more and more interpretation. Primarily chapters 3 and 4 provide the core of this study, describing and interpreting the capability evolution processes and practices while developing the adaptive community's core concept as a meso-level construct of dynamic capabilities.
“Again, it is competition with others that pushes us to edges of knowledge. Only there are found the opportunities to keep ahead of rivals. There is no avoiding it. That uneasy sense of ambiguity you feel is real. It is the scent of opportunity.”
– Richard P Rumelt in Good Strategy Bad Strategy (2011:243)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
LADCENT was established in 1993, restructured to Joint Headquarters Centre Heidelberg in 2000, again restructured to Component Command-Land Headquarters in 2004, and again transformed into Headquarters Allied Force Command Heidelberg in 2010 until its cessation in 2013. The main purpose of this headquarter was the promotion of interoperability and standardization as well as combined work with the Allied Command Transformation on concept development, exercise and training (see NATO homepage under https://www.nato.int/fchd/FCHD/history.html; accessed 29.01.2018 13:47).
- 2.
Maren Tomforde is a social scientist and ethnologist who joined the FAF at the ISS researching on out of area missions. Since 2007 she is a lecturer for ethnology at the Command and Staff College of the FAF. She was interviewed and informally contacted several times for this study.
- 3.
Though there are several other internal institutions and units of the FAF that are dealing with cultural or ethnographic knowledge in out of area missions—e.g., the Department for Geoinformation of the FAF, the Military Academy of the German Armed Forces, the Military History Research Office and the Joint Operations Command—the former four are the only ones relevant from a perspective on middle management. Agents from these institutions play a role in this timespan, however, they are regarded as frontline agents because they are acting individually, out of personal interest.
- 4.
“Innere Führung” (or Leadership Development and Civic Education) is a term unique to the German armed forces. The “Innere Führung” was created as a reaction to the crimes and atrocities of WW II. The FAF understands the “Innere Führung” as its own codified “orgnizational philosophy” or organizational culture. It comprises values as the “uniformed citizen”, the self-image of the soldier, the rejection of following orders blindly and the leadership principle of “Führen mit Auftrag” or mission-type tactics.
- 5.
This status changed dramatically over the years, tying the ISS more and more to the official hierarchies until finally dissolving it in 2012 and integrating the remaining parts into a new unit under military command.
- 6.
I use the terms PsyOps and PsyOpsC interchangeably. Officially the former describes the psychological operations capability, while the latter describes the organizational structure occupying the capability. Furthermore, PsyOps might also be understood as the entirety of all units engaged with psychological operations, while the PsyOpsC refers to the command structure. When I use the terms PsyOps or PsyOpsC I intend to convey the structural interpretation of the terms.
- 7.
Especially during KFOR the PsyOps branch created and distributed several magazines: “Ditet e Shprese” (meaning Days of Hope), “Dritarja” (meaning “Window” with a circulation of 20,000 (bi-monthly) for Kosovo-Albanians; the successor of Ditet e Shprese), “Prozor” (meaning “Window” with a circulation of 5,000 (bi-monthly) for Kosovo-Serbians), “You” (for teenagers), and “Mirko” for Bosnia-Herzegovina.
- 8.
The “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FASZ 8/2002, Inacker, Michael)” issued a report on the FAF in 2002 stating leading Generals issued an urgent letter to the Minister of Defense, Peter Struck, warning of a “reform of the reform” (https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Militaers-gegen-Sparkurs-article120898.html; retrieved on 30.01.18 at 10:05). At that time many observers of the German FAF were frustrated with the constant reforms (I/109: 92), while others state that the reforms of the past decade have been the most fundamental in the entire 50 years of the FAF (I/117: 40).
- 9.
Similar to the ISS it was dissolved in 2012.
- 10.
Within the FAF there is a difference between line authority and functional authority, which do not always overlap.
- 11.
As described in the Army Regulation 100/100 (2007) “Unit Command of Land Forces” and the Army Regulation 100/200 (2009) “Leadership System of Land Forces”.
- 12.
During the years 2005 until 2007 Taliban forces carried the insurgency to the stable northern parts of Afghanistan where Germany was the lead nation. The operation HAREKATE YOLO II was the successful attempt to drive out these forces in order to regain control over rural areas in the north.
- 13.
Although cultural tensions are the major factor for the whole conflict, thus, erupting regularly, the uprising of nearly 50,000 Kosovo Albanians in 2004 all over the region was unusual and created major problems. In the end at least 28 people were killed while over 600 were wounded, over 4,000 were driven from their homes, and over 500 buildings and nearly 30 orthodox churches and monastaries were destroyed (I/132; I/133). Media and international organizations like Amnesty International critizised KFOR and especially the German forces of having reacted too slow and of a missing understanding of the local situation (I/133; I/134; I/135).
- 14.
At the same time as Generals Bühler and Warnecke worked at the MoD.
- 15.
The Nordic Centre for Gender in Military Operations was founded in 2012 as a cooperative project between Norway, Finland, and Sweden beginning in 2010. It was designated as the Department Head for Gender Education and Training of NATO by a memorandum between the Swedish Armed Forces, the Headquarters Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in 2013 (see https://www.act.nato.int/gender-advisor; last accessed on 19.05.2018).
- 16.
See Chapter 3 on Empirical Methodology.
- 17.
During the analysis of the interviews and archival material I was looking at my old notebooks, as I faced the problem that I was the key player behind the initial development of the six-week summer school for foreign area specialists. As I could not simply write down what I know of the development process (due to retrospective interpretation bias) and as the other two frontline experts that later joined the development of the summer school were not available for interviews I was screening my old booklets, e-mails, and all saved files regarding the program. Luckily, I had saved all of these files on external hard disk drives and had not thrown away my old notes.
- 18.
Note that this is a navy rank similar to Colonel (NATO OF (commissioned officer) 5). The term captain used before in this study refers to the army rank of captain translated from the German “Hauptmann”.
- 19.
The phrase is actually a lot older, dating at least back to the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) and the first major “Hearts and Minds” campaigns during the Vietnam War. It gained renewed popularity in the early 2000s as US troops started a new “Hearts and Minds” campaign in Iraq (e.g. I/98).
- 20.
During their deployment to Afghanistan some soldiers of the FAF found human skeletons and took pictures with these bones and skulls. The story came out a couple of years later and caused widespread sensation and indignation in the German public. The actions were widely condemned as impious and culturally inappropriate. For example, Reinhold Robbe the German military commissioner said in an interview with the taz in 2006 regarding this scandal that “[t]here is a need for adaptation. Intercultural competence, moral and ethical values must have a high priority in education.” (I/138: 1). It was speculated that such actions would cause intercultural tensions in the mission area, thus, the topic of intercultural competence was widely discussed in the public. In the end, no reactions occurred in Afghanistan, as the skeletons were from Russian Soldiers who had died in the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–1989), thus, the photos did not resonate with the Afghan population.
- 21.
We all recognize these observations if we visited any form of meeting on a regular basis. Within these meetings we will most likely hear similar stories produced over and over until they finally seem to belong to the repertoire of the group.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
4.1 Electronic Supplementary Material
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Andresen, F. (2021). Findings. In: Exploring Meso-Level Dynamic Capabilities to Address the Capability Rigidity Paradox. Forschungs-/Entwicklungs-/Innovations-Management. Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-32006-5_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-32006-5_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden
Print ISBN: 978-3-658-32005-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-658-32006-5
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)