The United States joint staff after the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986: An organizational culture perspective.

摘要

The Goldwater-Nichols Act mandated significant organizational and structural changes within the Department of Defense including increasing the authority of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The act's Joint Specialty Officer (JSO) personnel mandates may have effected an organizational culture change and altered the Joint Staff's relationship to the service staffs, to the Office of the Secretary of Defense staff and ultimately to civilian control. The research examines the current Joint Staff, through the lens of organizational culture using Edgar Schein's typology, to determine if it has any of the attributes of what is called or known as a "general staff."A specially prepared organizational culture survey was given to the senior officers of the Joint Staff. Additionally, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the former Secretaries of Defense, since 1986, were interviewed. The research concludes, from the analysis of the resulting database, that the Joint Staff has an organizational culture separate and distinct from the services cultures, but it appears to have none of the major elements of a general staff. The staff culture is largely comprised of four separate but similar, professional groups: the services, assigned to the Joint Staff who have developed organizational values of cooperation and constructive problem solving in order to work together to support the services, the chairman and the National Command Authority. There is no significant evidence from the research survey or the interviews of a desire, on the part of the senior officers of the Joint Staff, to extend the staff's authority to challenge civilian leadership or to control operational forces. The Goldwater-Nichols' JSO mandates have created neither a Joint Specialty Corps nor general staff officers.