Organization theory and the transformation of large, complex organizations: Donald H. Rumsfeld and the United States Department of Defense, 2001--2004

The purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to the academic literature on the transformation of large, complex organizations (in this case of a particular U.S. government organization). When Donald Rumsfeld was appointed as the Secretary of Defense at the start of the twenty-first century, and before the tragic events of 11 September 2001, he co-opted the term "transformation" from the U.S. Army for his dominant theme. This case study on his transformational initiative will address the following issues: (1) How established, highly regarded organization and decision-making theories (from Kenneth Arrow, Herbert Simon, et al.) help to illuminate this case study, and how the case study reinforces established theories and potentially adds new insights to them; (2) The global and organization context and the challenges and priorities of Secretary Rumsfeld's transformational efforts seen in the context of other comparable, large-scale, complex ones; (3) The dimensions of what Secretary Rumsfeld meant by transformation and how the concept was developed, introduced and perceived by key stakeholders in the DoD; (4) The manner in which transformation was implemented, the degree of its success in light of goals and initiatives linked to transformation, and an understanding of success or failure of particular efforts; (5) The roles of leadership and technology as enablers and possible hindrances; (6) Lessons learned and promising areas for future research related to this dissertation, including lessons learned about general and particular transformation challenges.; The fundamental methodology that will be used is that of a case study. After providing some key insights from leading theorists on organizational and decision-making theory, Secretary Rumsfeld's DoD Transformation initiative will be presented and analyzed in the light of relevant history, the current global, organizational and U.S. security contexts, and key tenets of the following theoretical framework, which is intended to bridge key focus areas of Herbert Simon (bounded rationality) and Kenneth Arrow (the limits of organization)---the "governance priority paradigm."...