Managing Educational Innovation and Organizational Transformation in Military Academies: A Socio-Technical Systems Approach

Military academies operate as tightly coupled socio-technical systems in which pedagogical practice, human agency, technological artefacts, and hierarchical structure are mutually dependent. Drawing on socio-technical systems (STS) theory, this study investigates how the characteristics of instructors condition the management of change and the adoption of educational innovation in such settings, and how the integration of emerging defence-relevant technologies is enacted through—rather than independently of—the organizational structure. Rather than treating technology as an exogenous input, we frame educational innovation as an emergent property of the interaction among four subsystems: the social (instructor attributes), the technical (digital and simulation technologies), the structural (hierarchy, bureaucracy, policy), and the pedagogical (instructional design). A qualitative design was employed, using structured, open-ended interviews with 22 instructors of the Hellenic Army Non-Commissioned Officers’ Academy (HNCOA) spanning the military, academic, technical, and physical-training domains. Whereas research on military innovation has concentrated on top-down procurement, macro-level doctrinal change, and officer-commissioning academies, this study contributes empirical evidence from the non-commissioned officer (NCO) tier—the instructional cadre that translates technological mandates into frontline tactical and technical execution—and models innovation as an emergent property of joint optimization across subsystems rather than as an exogenous technological input. Data were analysed through codebook thematic analysis following Braun and Clarke, yielding three thematic axes and four question-aligned code hierarchies. Findings indicate that instructors perceive their technological competence, openness to change, and continuing professional development as the principal levers of change, while hierarchy, bureaucratic approval chains, and the absence of specialization are perceived as the dominant structural constraints. Consistent with STS theory, participants regarded technology alone as insufficient: perceived innovation was reported to emerge only when technical capability was jointly optimized with instructor development, institutional support, and alignment to operational tasks. We deliberately frame these as perceived rather than empirically demonstrated effects and derive a set of propositions and actionable design principles for the joint optimization of the social and technical subsystems in military professional education.