All-channel Networks
Arquilla and Ronfeldt argue that it is the all-channel model that is becoming increasingly significant as a source of organizational collaborative power. The all-channel network has no central leadership and no key node whose removal might disrupt the entire organization. Instead, the network is completely decentralized, “allowing for local initiative and autonomy” in an organization that may at times appear “acephalous (headless), and at other times polycephalous (hydra-headed).”
The all-channel network is one of the most difficult to maintain because it requires a strong communications capacity to maintain ties between nodes. Moreover, nodal autonomy results in a distributed, consensus style of decision making which is necessarily dependent on back-and-forth communication. As such, this form of organization has only recently become feasible on a greater scale with the dawn of the information age.
Read more about this topic: Netwar, Network Structures
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