Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Reexamining some management lessons from military history

  • Published:
Asia Pacific Journal of Management Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Military history has provided a number of useful metaphors for management, such as positioning, blue ocean strategy, defensible perimeters, and fighting the last war, among others. In spite of this rich tradition and the detailed writings on the military, management research has actually made a rather truncated use of military history. This includes the selective use of military metaphors, and a limited number of individual and comparative case studies on diplomatic and military scenarios. It is argued that much more can be learned from military history, though certain well-known metaphors and lessons drawn from major events do not convey what military history actually teaches about those events. To learn from military history, historical events must be studied carefully so proper lessons can be derived from them. This paper examines two major episodes in 20th century military history from World War I and the subsequent interwar period, and how themes derived from these events and used in the management field are not consistent with what the historical record teaches about them. We suggest that a fuller and more careful rendering of historical events and their lessons would be potentially beneficial to management research, and suggest ways in which they can be researched.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The Austrians labeled the assassination a terrorist conspiracy traceable to Serbia, a conclusion that is still debated (Keegan, 1999: 50–51).

  2. The interwar years produced the long accepted, though debatable “lions led by donkeys” interpretation of WWI, referring to the poor leadership and conduct of Allied officers during the war (Porch, 2000; Strachan, 2005).

  3. Thomas Schelling’s (1966) early work on international relations and game theory was ranked as one of the 100 most influential books of the postwar period and has been widely cited in management and organization theory (TLS, 1995).

  4. Interestingly, perhaps the first to circulate this idea were the politicians themselves whose decisions in 1914 led directly to the conflict and wanted to disavow responsibility for the war. For example, on July 31, 1914, the eve of the war, German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg had already started to argue that military systems and schedules were forcing his hand (Albertini, 1952, Vol. 3: 15–17).

  5. A key illustration Schelling (1966) used, borrowed from The guns of August (Tuchman, 1962), asserts that it was nearly impossible to turn the trains around once the mobilization of the armies had begun, the point being that organizational systems, plans, and technology were dictating policy to ineffectual leaders (Brodie, 1931–1978; Schelling, 1966).

  6. Though Schelling does not cite her book directly, he states that the writings of Tuchman informed his work on this topic (Brodie, 1931–1978).

  7. That neither Moltke and his advisers nor anyone else in Berlin was actually committed to a tight war timetable is furthered supported by the fact that in the months leading up to the July Crisis the German general staff was busy negotiating with the civilian authorities to obtain funding for a major upgrade of the country’s strategic railroad system—a multiyear project. This would have been unlikely if war had been imminent (Trumpener, 1976).

  8. The doctrine which emerged from this perception of great lethality stressed what the French called the bataille conduite, translated as “methodical battle.”

  9. It should be quickly pointed out that this learning did not extend to the level of grand strategy and policy in the German government. The Nazi regime failed to articulate a clear and achievable set of policy aims until late in 1943 when it had become evident that Germany would lose the war and not be in a position to achieve those aims (Murray & Millett, 2001).

  10. The general rule during WWI was that the attacking side would suffer more casualties than the defending side, and thus the attacking side needed to amass more manpower in order to successfully overcome the defense.

  11. It was well known that the cordon defense of not giving up ground and counterattacking to retrieve lost territory hurt the Confederacy and contributed to its major manpower losses during the US Civil War (Beringer, Hattaway, Jones, & Still, 1991).

  12. A related approach to finding useful books or well-regarded journals in a given specialty is to review course syllabi at major universities. Google scholar is particularly helpful in this regard. Using Google scholar’s advanced search, the search can be limited to the “edu” domain in the top search category, along with a course title or topic (in quotations) so only university holdings and syllabi will be retrieved in a search.

  13. For example, to examine a Middle East topic, it would be good to become familiar with the works of the best known professional historians in that area such as Bernard Lewis (2003) or Fred Halliday (2005), while avoiding journalist accounts or pseudo-histories written by nonhistorians.

References

  • Ahlstrom, D. 1996. Neglecting a useful technology: The case of dietary protein restriction in chronic renal failure. PhD dissertation, New York University, Stern School of Business, New York.

  • Ahlstrom, D., & Wang, L. C. 2009. Groupthink and France’s defeat in the 1940 campaign. Journal of Management History, 15(2): 159–177.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Albertini, L. 1952. The origins of the war of 1914, 3 Vols. London: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Allison, G. T., & Zelikow, P. 1999. Essence of decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed. London: Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Allison, G. T., Carnesale, A., & Nye, J. S. (Eds.). 1985. Hawks, doves and owls: An agenda for avoiding nuclear war. New York: Norton.

  • Ansoff, H. I. 1965. Corporate strategy. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnard, C. I. 1938. Functions of the executive. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beaufre, A. 1968. 1940, the fall of France. New York: Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beringer, R. E., Hattaway, H., Jones, A., & Still, W. N. 1991. Why the South lost the Civil War. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blight, D. W. 2002. Race and reunion: The Civil War in American memory. Cambridge: Belknap Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bloch, M. 1944. Strange defeat. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boar, B. 1995. Sun Tzu and Machiavelli on strategy. Journal of Business Strategy, 16: 16–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bond, B., & Alexander, M. 1986. Liddell Hart and De Gaulle: The doctrines of limited liability and mobile defense. In P. Paret (Ed.). Makers of modern strategy from Machiavelli to the nuclear age: 598–623. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boot, M. 2006. War made new. New York: Gotham.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brandt, L., & Rawski, T. G. (Eds.). 2008. China’s great economic transformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Brodie, B. 1931–1978. Bernard Brodie papers. Los Angeles: UCLA Research Library, Box 2.

  • Brodie, B. 1954. Unlimited weapons and limited war. The Reporter, 2(9): l8–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brodie, B. 1973. War and politics. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cairns, J. 1974. Some recent historians and the “strange defeat” of 1940. The Journal of Modern History, 46: 60–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, G., & Hannan, M. T. 2000. The demography of corporations and industries. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen, M., & Miller, D. 1994. Competitive attack, retaliation and performance: An expectancy valence framework. Strategic Management Journal, 15: 85–102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clausewitz, C. V. 2004. On war. J. J. Graham (Trans.). New York: Barnes & Noble.

  • Clegg, S., Kornberger, M., & Pitsis, T. 2005. Managing organizations: An introduction to theory and practice. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clemons, E. K., & Santamaria, J. A. 2002. Maneuver warfare: Can modern military strategy lead you to victory?. Harvard Business Review, 80: 56–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, E. A., & Gooch, J. 1990. Military misfortunes: The anatomy of failure in war. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, W. I. 1995. The Cambridge history of American foreign relations: Volume 4, America in the age of Soviet power, 1945–1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Corum, J. S. 1994. The roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German military reform. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Craig, G. A. 1964. The politics of the Prussian army: 1640–1945. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. 1983. The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48: 147–160.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. 1991. Introduction. In W. W. Powell & P. J. DiMaggio (Eds.). The new institutionalism in organizational analysis: 1–38. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dixon, N. F. 1994. On the psychology of military incompetence, Updated ed. London: Pimlico.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dougherty, J. E., & Pfaltzgraff, R. L. Jr. 2001. Contending theories of international relations: A comprehensive survey, 5th ed. New York: Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doughty, R. A. 1985. The seeds of disaster, the development of French army doctrine, 1919–1939. New York: Archon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doughty, R. A. 1988. The French armed forces, 1918–1940. In A. R. Millett & W. Murray (Eds.). Military effectiveness, Volume II: The interwar period: 39–69. Boston: Allen & Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doughty, R. A. 1990. The breaking point—Sedan and the fall of France 1940. New York: Archon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eicher, D. J. 1997. The Civil War in books. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evans, R. J. 1999. In defense of history. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evans, R. J. 2001. Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving trial. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farrar-Hockley, A. H. 1964. The Somme. London: Batsford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fayol, H. 1988. General and industrial management, Revised ed. London: Pitman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feld, M. D. 1959. Information and authority: The structure of military organization. American Sociological Review, 24: 15–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson, N. 2006. The war of the world: Twentieth-century conflict and the descent of the West. New York: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finkelstein, S. 2003. Why smart executives fail: And what you can learn from their mistakes. New York: Portfolio.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, G. W., & Nolan, A. T. (Eds.). 2000. The myth of the lost cause and Civil War history. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

  • Géraud, A. 1944. Les fossoyeurs, 2 Vols. The gravediggers of France: Gamelin, Daladier, Reynaud, Pétain and Laval: Military defeat, armistice, counterrevolution (Trans.). New York: Doubleday.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geyer, M. 1986. German strategy in the age of machine warfare, 1914–1945. In P. Paret (Ed.). Makers of modern strategy from Machiavelli to the nuclear age: 527–597. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, M. 1994. First World War. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gildea, R. 2004. Marianne in chains: Daily life in the heart of France during the German occupation. New York: Picador.

    Google Scholar 

  • Globerman, S., & Shapiro, D. 2009. Economic and strategic considerations surrounding Chinese FDI in the United States. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 26: 163–183.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Graff, D., & Higham, R. (Eds.). 2002. A military history of China. Boulder: Westview.

  • Halliday, F. 2005. The Middle East in international relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamel, G., & Prahalad, C. K. 1994. Competing for the future. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. 1984. Structural inertia and organizational change. American Sociological Review, 49: 149–164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hanson, V. D. 2002. Carnage and culture: Landmark battles in the rise of Western power. New York: Anchor.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hitt, M. A., Miller, C. C., & Colella, A. 2006. Organizational behavior: A strategic approach. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horne, A. 1979. To lose a battle—France 1940. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horne, A. 1984. The French army and politics 1870–1970. London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • House, R. J. 1996. Path-goal theory of leadership: Lessons, legacy, and a reformulated theory. Leadership Quarterly, 7: 323–352.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Howard, M. 1964. Lest we forget. Encounter, January: 61–67.

  • Hsiung, J. C. & Levine, S. I. (Eds.). 1992. China’s bitter victory: The war with Japan, 1937–1945. London: Sharpe.

  • Hughes, J. M. 2006. To the Maginot line: The politics of French military preparation in the 1920s. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, J. 2003. The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keegan, J. 1999. The First World War. New York: Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keynes, J. M. 1920. The economic consequences of the peace. New York: Harcourt Brace.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamond, D. A. 2006. Matters for judgment: Some thoughts on method in management history. Journal of Management History, 12: 237–243.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, B. 2003. The Middle East. London: Phoenix.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lo, V. H. Y., Ho, C. O., & Sculli, D. 1998. The strategic insights of Sun Tzu and quality management. The TQM Magazine, 10: 161–168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lupfer, T. 1981. The dynamics of doctrine: The changes in German tactical doctrine during the First World War. Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mains, S., & Geller, L. W. 2008. Freeing ideas from their silos. S+B Leading Ideas Online, 2/12/08. www.strategy-business.com/li/leadingideas/li00062, Accessed June 5, 2009.

  • May, E. R. 2000. Strange victory: Hitler’s conquest of France. New York: Hill and Wang.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGregor, D. 1960. The human side of enterprise. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, T. H. (Ed.). 1997. Light for the new millennium: Rudolf Steiner’s association with Helmuth and Eliza Von Moltke: Letters, documents and after-death communications (Trans.). London: Steiner.

  • Michael, J. H. 1995. America in the world: The historiography of US foreign relations since 1941. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mintzberg, H. 1987. Crafting strategy. Harvard Business Review, 65(4): 66–75.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mintzberg, H. 1994. The rise and fall of strategic planning: Reconceiving roles for planning, plans, planners. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mintzberg, H. 2008. Tracking strategies: Towards a general theory of strategy formation. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mintzberg, H., Lampel, J., & Ahlstrand, B. 1998. Strategy safari: A guided tour through the wilds of strategic management. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mintzberg, H., Lampel, J., Quinn, J., & Ghoshal, S. 2003. The strategy process: Concepts, contexts and cases, 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mosier, J. 2001. The myth of the Great War: A new military history of World War I. New York: HarperCollins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muller, R. R. 1996. Close air support: The German, British, and American experiences, 1918–1941. In W. Murray & A. R. Millett (Eds.). Military innovation in the interwar period: 144–190. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Murray, M., & Millett, A. R. 2001. A war to be won: Fighting the Second World War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, M., & Sinnreich, R. H. 2006. The past as prologue: The importance of history to the military profession. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, W. 1981. The German response to victory in Poland: A case study in professionalism. Armed Forces & Society, 7: 285–298.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murray, W. 1986. Clausewitz: Some thoughts on what the Germans got right. In M. I. Handel (Ed.). Clausewitz and modern strategy: 267–286. London: Cass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, W. 1996. Armored warfare: The British, French, and German experiences. In W. Murray & A. R. Millett (Eds.). Military innovation in the interwar period: 6–49. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, W. 2006. Thoughts on military history and the profession of arms. In W. Murray & R. H. Sinnreich (Eds.). The past as prologue: The importance of history to the military profession: 78–94. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, W., & Millett, A. R. (Eds.). 1996. Military innovation in the interwar period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicolson, C. 2001. The Longman companion to the First World War: Europe 1914–1918. London: Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peng, M. W. 2009. Global strategy. 2nd ed. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

    Google Scholar 

  • Persico, J. E. 2004. Eleventh month, eleventh day, eleventh hour: Armistice day, 1918 World War I and its violent climax. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pfeffer, J., & Sutton, R. I. 2000. The knowing-doing gap: How smart companies turn knowledge into action. Cambridge: Harvard Business Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Porch, D. 2000. Military “culture” and the fall of France in 1940: A review essay. International Security, 24(4): 157–180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Porter, M. E. 1980. Competitive strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Posen, B. R. 1984. The sources of military doctrine. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pringle, C., & Kroll, M. 1997. Why Trafalgar was won before it was fought: Lessons from resource-based theory. Academy of Management Executive, 11(4): 73–89.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rawski, T. J., & Perkins, D. H. 2008. Forecasting China’s economic growth to 2025. In L. Brandt & T. J. Rawski (Eds.). China’s great economic transformation: 829–887. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Redding, G. 2005. The thick description and comparison of societal systems of capitalism. Journal of International Business Studies, 36(2): 123–155.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ries, A., & Trout, J. 1985. Marketing warfare. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sbrega, J. 1989. The war against Japan, 1941–1945: An annotated bibliography. New York: Garland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schelling, T. C. 1960. The strategy of conflict. London: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schelling, T. C. 1966. Arms and influence. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schelling, T. C. 2007. Strategies of commitment and other essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shirer, W. 1970. Collapse of the Third Republic. New York: Cox & Wilson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spires, D. J. 1984. Image and reality: The making of the German officer. Westport: Greenwood.

    Google Scholar 

  • Staw, B. M. 1976. Knee-deep in the big muddy: The effect of personal responsibility and decision consequences upon commitment to a previously chosen course of action. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 16: 27–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Strachan, H. 2003. The First World War: Volume I: To arms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strachan, H. 2005. The First World War. New York: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sun, T. 1963. The art of war. S. B. Griffith (Trans.). London: Oxford University Press.

  • Taylor, A. J. P. 1961. The origins of the Second World War. New York: Touchstone.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, M. 1997. Britain, France and appeasement: Anglo-French relations in the popular front era. Oxford: Berg.

    Google Scholar 

  • TLS. 1995. The hundred most influential books since the war. TLS, the Times Literary Supplement, October 6: 39–45.

  • Trachtenberg, M. 1988. The development of American strategic thought, 1945–1969. New York: Garland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trachtenberg, M. 1991. History and strategy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trumpener, U. 1976. War premeditated? German intelligence operations in July 1914. Central European History, 9: 58–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tuchman, B. 1962. The guns of August. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Creveld, M. 1982. Fighting power: German and US army performance, 1939–1945. Westport: Greenwood.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weinberg, G. 2005. A world at arms: A global history of World War II. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wood, G. 2009. Empire of liberty: A history of the Early Republic, 1789–1815. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Worthing, P. M. 2007. A military history of modern China: From the Manchu conquest to Tian’anmen Square. Santa Barbara: Praeger Security International.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wynne, G. C. 1976. If Germany attacks: The Battle of Depth in the West. Westport: Greenwood.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, H. 1976. The misunderstanding of August 1, 1914. Journal of Modern History, 48: 644–665.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

The authors thank Professor Mike Peng, Editor-in-Chief of the Asia Pacific Journal of Management, for his many thoughts and suggestions on this paper. His insights on the connection between management and the armed services as well as his knowledge of history provided much inspiration for this work.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong

    David Ahlstrom & Zhujun Ding

  2. Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

    David Lamond

Authors
  1. David Ahlstrom
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. David Lamond
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Zhujun Ding
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Ahlstrom.

Additional information

The authors thank Professor Mike Peng, Editor-in-Chief of the Asia Pacific Journal of Management, for his many thoughts and suggestions on this paper. His insights on the connection between management and the armed services as well as his knowledge of history provided much inspiration for this work.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Ahlstrom, D., Lamond, D. & Ding, Z. Reexamining some management lessons from military history. Asia Pac J Manag 26, 617–642 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-009-9155-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-009-9155-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation