11 Sodobni vojaški izzivi, november 2019 – 21/št. 4
Contemporary Military Challenges, November 2019 – 21/No. 4
The last issue of the Contemporary Military Challenges in 2019 when we celebrate 
the 15th anniversary of Slovenia's accession to the European Union and NATO, is 
dedicated to the organizational culture.
Many different books, articles, and online records are dedicated to the organizational 
culture. Most authors claim that organizational culture is essential to the success of 
large companies and the performance of their employees. After a number of theories 
on the factors affecting the performance of companies and large corporations, we 
have somehow again returned to the central factor - the person - the employee, the 
one who is motivated to do something more and better, who positively influences 
other employees so that together they can become better and more satisfied, and that 
they are more in tune with the goals and desires of the company which employs them 
for the common good.
Concerning the distinction between organizational culture and organizational 
climate Dr Kristijan Musek Lešnik on his website writes that many experts 
and gurus often confuse the two concepts or use them interchangeably. As far 
as organizational climate is concerned, Musek, referring to Schein, writes that 
organizational culture is composed of artefacts (things, language, slogans, symbols), 
expressed values  (strategies, goals, philosophy and standards of the organization) 
and basic assumptions (beliefs, opinions, attitudes and feelings that are taken for 
granted within the organization and are shared by its members). When comparing 
the two, he says, the difference is also manifested in a temporal perspective: culture 
is oriented towards the past (traditions, myths, etc.) and builds the future through 
visions, whereas the climate is the perception of the present state.
From this description it can be concluded that the organizational culture and of 
course climate are important for every undertaking. Consequently, they also play an 
EDITORIAL
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Liliana Brožič DOI:10.33179/BSV.99.SVI.11.CMC.21.4.00.
 12 Sodobni vojaški izzivi/Contemporary Military Challenges
important role in the modern armed forces. History is important to the identity of a 
nation and its military; however, organizational culture as the builder of the future is 
even more important.
The past decade has been very specific for the Slovenian Armed Forces, as it 
was entirely marked by the financial crisis which began in 2008. SAF members 
especially felt it in terms of their salaries, equipment, weapons and reduced numbers 
of personnel. The SAF was also strongly impacted by the changed security situation 
in the nearby and broader region, which was predominantly manifested in the form 
of mass migration in 2015. Since then, it has been identified primarily through the 
increased number of illegal migrants crossing the Croatian border where Slovenian 
Armed Forces members take an active part in protecting the Schengen border in 
collaboration with the police. As it seems, this will continue to be its task in the 
future as well.
Organizational culture as the builder of the future is the central theme of this thematic 
issue, in which we focus on the core tasks and mission of the armed forces.
In the beginning, Maja Garb introduces us to the traditional military identity, 
which is, according to her, characterized by the stability of relationships. This is 
visible primarily in the hierarchical structure, the established discipline, and the 
subordination of personal identity to the collective one. Her article titled Who is a 
proper soldier? Analysis of a modern military identity addresses the essence of the 
armed forces and their organizational culture.
Nataša Troha and Nuša Gorenak conducted a demanding survey research among 
7,418 Slovenian secondary-school students. They were interested in whether the 
military profession is really so unappealing to the young people, if the interests, 
values and expectations of the young people today are so much different from the 
military profession, and whether the Slovenian Armed Forces is not competitive 
enough compared to other organizations. They share their findings with our readers 
in the article Job characteristics through the eyes of the young generation: survey 
research »Youth and their motives for military profession«.
On the sample of young people aged 18 to 30, Nina Rosulnik and Janja Vuga 
Beršnak tried to identify their interests in a career in the Slovenian Armed Forces 
within the framework of the Defence Studies Research Programme (P5-0206), 
funded by the Slovenian Research Agency. The results of the survey and the most 
important findings are detailed in their article What motivates the young people of the 
21st century to join the military.
Marjan Horvat writes about military leadership in his article Study of the military 
leadership concept in the Slovenian Armed Forces. The author’s starting point is the 
definition of leadership, which is in the Military Doctrine defined as »influencing 
people to achieve the objectives of an organisation«. He believes that based on 
Liliana Brožič
 13 Sodobni vojaški izzivi/Contemporary Military Challenges
»what a military leader does in real life (TO WORK), it can be determined what he/
she really is like (TO BE) and what are his/her professional knowledge and skills 
(TO KNOW)«.
In the article Deformed organizational culture and undesirable phenomena of 
leadership in the armed forces Franc Kalič focuses on toxic leadership and its 
impact on the organization. Toxic leadership is said to be a combination of self-
directed behaviours and impulses that adversely affect subordinates, the unit and 
their performance. A toxic leader lacks concern for others and the atmosphere in the 
unit. All of this affects the organizational culture.
The latter is also related to a sound knowledge of the basics of the profession. Modern 
operational art: between relict and phoenix of military science is the contribution by 
Miha Šlebir, who thinks that operational art is still fraught with the incompleteness 
of theory and some fundamental concepts, such as the concept of the centre of gravity, 
which limits its scientific and practical applicability. He is convinced that individual 
authors view operational art as anachronistic, but allows for the possibility that the 
discipline is merely transforming itself into a more interdisciplinary social science 
discipline.
One of the new types of warfare is hybrid warfare. In his article Hybrid warfare as 
a metod of implementing the national strategy – the case of Crimea Blaž Tomšič 
prepared an analysis of one of the most prominent cases. He considers it to be a sort 
of a proof that Russia's military and political strategic framework has adapted to the 
new global challenges of the modern world.
We wish the readers of the Contemporary Military Challenges a lot of interesting 
reading.
EDITORIAL: ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE