Towards a cultural perspective on the absorption of emerging technologies in military organizations/ Paul Oling, Sebastiaan Rietjens, Paul van Fenema & Jan-Kees Schakel

Absorbing emerging technologies is crucial to the success of intelligence and security organizations. Scholars, however, tend to overlook the role of cultural traits in this process. Focusing on military organizations, this paper questions how military organizational culture shapes the absorption of emerging technologies. It draws upon literatures of military innovation, technology absorption and military sociology and empirically studies the absorption of counter improvised explosive devices technologies within the Netherlands Armed Forces. This paper argues that cultural influence on technology absorption becomes apparent in the innovation drivers, the distinction between war- and peacetime and the gradual shift of organizational identities.

TECHNOLOGY, MILITARY, INTEL, SECURITY, INTEL, NATSEC