Managing Mega technological projects: The case of the defence industry and Network Centric Warfare projects Thèse de doctorat de l’Institut Polytechnique de Paris préparée à l’École polytechnique IPPAX030 École doctorale n°626 : 2020 de l’Institut Polytechnique de Paris (ED IP Paris) Spécialité de doctorat: Sciences de gestion NNT Thèse présentée et soutenue à Ville de soutenance a Paris, le 8 septembre, par Lars Löfgren Composition du Jury : Richard Le Goff Directeur, l’ENSTA ParisTech (– l’Unité d’Èconomie Appliquée) Président Staffan Furusten Director, Stockholm School of Economics (– Stockholm Centre of Organizational Research) Rapporteur Sylvain Lenfle Professeur des Universités, Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (– Laboratoire interdiciplinaire de recherches en science de l’action) Rapporteur Philippe Baumard Professeur des universités, Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (– Management, Innovation, Prospective (MIP) Examinateur Gunnar Hult Professor, Swedish Defence University (– Systems Science for Defence and Security) Examinateur Hervé Dumez Directeur, École polytechnique (–Institut Interdisciplinaire de l’Innovation (UMR 9217) i3-CRG) Directeur de thèse Managing Mega technological projects: The case of the defence industry and Network Centric Warfare projects Lars Löfgren On résiste à l'invasion des armées; on ne résiste pas à l'invasion des idées. Victor Hugo i Acknowledgments It is a tremendous step to start writing a thesis. It took six years and the work is now over. For reaching this far I have a number of individuals to thank and be thankful to for their help. Most of all I want to thank my supervisor Hervé Dumez at I3 – Centre de Recherche en Gestion at École polytechnique. At a considerable distance and with just a few meetings per year he has followed up and balanced my work, and my thoughts about it, into a hopefully interesting and qualitative thesis. He was also very helpful with the interviews made in Paris. Thank you very much Hervé. I also want to thank the rest of the staff and researchers at the Centre de Recherche en Gestion for the positive environment every time I have visited. I also want to thank Pro-Vice-Chancellor and associate professor Malena Britz and associate professor Eva Lagg at the Swedish Defence University. They have helped and supported me with my writing while I was working on the thesis. In parallel with my thesis studies I have worked at the Swedish Defence University teaching and writing studies. It has been challenging work to combine both teaching, studies and doctoral studies and make progress with the thesis. Working at the Swedish Defence University has also assisted my work with the thesis concerning both accessible contacts and an effective Anna Lindh library. There the help from Esther Thegel cannot be underestimated. One special colleague and friend, Johan Sigholm, means very much to me and has been very important as support for the thesis as well as outside of work and thesis writing. I also want to thank my colleagues and fellow doctoral students, some former, at the Science of Command and Control and Military Technology Division at the Swedish Defence University for support and many inspiring and interesting talks and thoughts. Thank you Fredrik Johnsson, Peter Sturesson, Nicoletta Baroutsi, Björn Persson, Daniel Amman, Gazmend Huskaj, Marika Ericson, Martin Bang, Martin Schüler, and Marcus Dansarie. I also want to thank all other colleagues, teachers and researchers, who contributed to a happy and open environment. Special thanks go to the head of the Science of Command and Control and Military Technology Division Thomas Uneholt and later Ylva Pekkari who have allowed me to work on my thesis. I also want to thank the Chaired Professor in Military Technology Gunnar Hult who supported my work. Together, Thomas and Gunnar have made my study and writing of the thesis possible. ii A very important person for me during the writing of the thesis has been Maria Edlund, the health educator at the Swedish Defence University. Without her, my situation would have been different and the progress with the thesis would have been more difficult. Thank you Maria. I also want to thank my father Gunnar and my brother Martin who have supported me during the thesis process. My thoughts go to my mother who doubtless would have wanted to be here and support me but could not be here anymore. Finally, I want to thank Stephanie Vacher for help with translation when needed. It would have been much more difficult without her help. I am very grateful. Thank you! Stockholm, July 2020 iii Content Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................ii Content ................................................................................................................................................ 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 6 What are mega projects? .................................................................................................................... 7 Research questions ............................................................................................................................. 9 Chapter 1 - Background to the Network Centric Warfare projects and the involved ideas and actors 11 New times and emergence of new ideas .......................................................................................... 12 Different methods of inventing and developing new defence technology ...................................... 14 Defence technology economic domicile ........................................................................................... 15 The economy of defence goods and technology .......................................................................... 16 Organising of marketing and selling of defence systems .................................................................. 18 Delivered value for the military customer .................................................................................... 19 Packaging of defence technologies with Systems Selling ............................................................. 19 Packaging of products with Product Service Offerings ................................................................. 20 Some concerns regarding defence goods and interests of actors ................................................ 21 The interests of different actors .................................................................................................... 22 The defence industry actor ........................................................................................................... 23 The end user actor ......................................................................................................................... 24 The political actor .......................................................................................................................... 25 The different actors in the Network-Centric Warfare cases ......................................................... 26 Thesis structure ................................................................................................................................. 29 Chapter 2 - Literature and theoretical framework ................................................................................ 31 Institutional environment and power among groups and individuals .............................................. 31 Different groups of interests and stakeholder surveying in organisations and in project management ................................................................................................................................. 32 The spreading of ideas as marketing ............................................................................................. 34 Ideas for change and transformation of organisations ..................................................................... 36 Human interactions and perception of organisation change ....................................................... 37 Invisible taken-for-granted structures in organisations ................................................................ 38 Individuals and different interests in organisations ...................................................................... 38 Large pressure groups and special interests ................................................................................. 39 1 Ideas materialise and then become ideas again ........................................................................... 42 Ideas and anticipation of change .................................................................................................. 43 Ideas and control ........................................................................................................................... 45 Radical or incremental transformation by technology development ........................................... 48 Technology management and management of mega projects ........................................................ 50 Technology management .............................................................................................................. 51 Project management ..................................................................................................................... 55 Management of mega projects ....................................................................................................