Activities of the Center for Edge Power

The Center for Edge Power engages currently in three primary activities: 1) research, 2) outreach, and 3) Center development.

Research – this represents the focal task of the center. Six interrelated research projects are in work currently.

1. Research Area A – Edge Organizations. Research in this area seeks to understand how to conceptualize, develop, deploy and sustain Edge organizations. Building upon an accumulating stream of research along these lines, various conceptual models of alternate organizational forms (e.g., Hierarchy, Edge) have been evaluated and critiqued in the contemporary C2 domain. Performance metrics are being developed and used to test Edge Organization hypotheses via computational models, laboratory experiments and fieldwork. Hypotheses of particular interest include those pertaining to the comparative appropriateness of Edge versus other organizational forms for different mission-environmental contexts.
2. Research Area B – C2 Agility and Maturity. Research in this area seeks to understand how command and control (C2) organizations and approaches can be enhanced to increase agility and how such organizations can be tailored to achieve the requisite level of maturity. Agility pertains to accomplishing a diversity of sometimes unfamiliar missions well, and it may require rapid re-organization as well as quick acculturation to work with sometimes novel and goal-incongruent coalition partners. Maturity pertains to the range of alternate approaches to C2 that an organization enjoys, and it ranges from conflicted operations—through de-conflicted, coordinated and collaborative—to Edge. Theoretical work is acceptable, but empirical research is emphasized, particularly to understand and achieve requisite C2 maturity.
3. Research Area C – Infrastructure Enhancement. Research in this area seeks to develop appropriate tools to create virtual environments and to explore flows of knowledge, trust and power through diverse organizations in a variety of mission-environmental contexts. Tools for modeling and simulation, laboratory experimentation, immersive game play and enhanced tacit knowledge flow are encouraged. Additional infrastructure developments and enhancements to support Edge research and development are welcome.
4. Research Area D – Accelerating Intercultural Knowledge Flows. Research in this area seeks to understand how the deep tacit knowledge associated with cultural differences (e.g., national, religious, ethnic, professional, organizational) can be induced to flow quickly between people and particularly organizations from disparate cultures who need to work together. The relationships between knowledge flows (and transfers) and conditions related to the enablers or impediments of these flows (including trust) require investigation also. Theoretical work is acceptable, but empirical research is emphasized, particularly to understand and accelerate acculturation.
5. Research Area E – C2 in Virtual Environments. Research in this area seeks to understand what aspects of C2 can be accomplished better through virtual environments—particularly immersive ones—than their physical or media-poor (e.g., textual) counterparts. Emphasis on training applications is encouraged, but the serious focus on supporting combat and other operations is of prime interest. Research in this area should include prototyping but must go farther to incorporate empirical assessment through modeling, simulation, experimentation or like methods.
6. Research Area F – Emerging Research. Research in this area seeks to promote emerging C2 research that may not be described well within the four areas above and to catalyze innovation further beyond the innovative areas under investigation currently.

Outreach – this represents an important focus of the center. The goal is to reach out to top-tier academic institutions, with the idea of engaging top faculty and graduate students in research on Edge organizations, and to leaders and managers in military, government and commercial organizations, with the idea of informing them about Edge organizations. Two workshops are planned for each fiscal year, and the Center also solicits informed proposals for collaborative research.

Center Development – this represents the small infrastructural part of the center. A center identity, reflecting the multidisciplinary, multi-university, multi-year, virtual nature of the Center is established, developed and marketed.