Samenvatting

Due to financial constraints, armed forces are being down-sized, and due to the need for joint operations the organizational structure of the Dutch Armed Forces has changed drastically. Policy-making has been centralized. Navy, Army and Air Force are brought under one com-mand and support has been concentrated. The services have been confronted by major changes and suffered a loss of autonomy. Services do not make policy anymore in their domain and their commanders in chief are history. Their wings are clipped even further because, from now on, acquisition and maintenance of equipment are concentrated for all services. Fifteen years ago, the idea was to decentralize authority and responsibility, because decisionmaking and accountability at the work floor level was considered best suited to reality and the best incentive for effective and efficient organizational results. Now, we see authority and responsibility went up the chain of command again. According to theory, less responsibility means less motivation. The questions we would like to ask are as follows. Are the commanders of the services less motivated because of the new junctions of command? Are they annoyed not to decide on all aspects of the service they used to command? Is the separation between policy and implementation in reality the same as in theory? The main question is: how are the new junctions of command influencing the commanders working life