Anders Bollmann
Anders Theis Bollmann is a PhD fellow at Copenhagen Business School. His project explores the complex relationship between entrepreneurialism and military and security thinking, practice, and policy. Anders is particularly interested in how entrepreneurialist ideologies and discourse (1) affect the way that defense and security political challenges are understood and addressed at a macro-level and (2) increasingly permeate into military organizations shaping not only military culture and professional identity but also the concrete thinking and practice of military actors and organizations at the mezzo-level.
Previously, Anders has worked as a research assistant at The Center for Military Studies at Copenhagen University and as a research consultant at the Royal Danish Defence College. There, his research primarily focused on the relationship between emerging (military) technologies, military practice and thinking, and defense policy. Anders has published several research articles and anthology chapters around issues ranging from the technopolitics of the Danish Defence to the dual ontology of war. Anders received his Master’s Degree in Philosophy & Science Studies and History from Roskilde University in 2017. He wrote his thesis on the ethics of irregular warfare/counterinsurgency as a collaboration between Roskilde University and the Royal Danish Defence College
"Out-Compete, Out-Innovate, and Out-Hustle Everyone Else”: Entrepreneurial Institutional Logics and the Reconfiguration of Post-Vietnam Defense Management
This paper traces the transformation of dominant institutional logics within U.S. defense management from managerialism to entrepreneurialism between the 1970s and 2020s. While scholars have long documented the diffusion of business practices into the military, this study shows that more recent changes are not simply extensions of managerialism but represent the emergence and eventual dominance of a distinct entrepreneurial logic. Drawing on historical sources, policy documents, and doctrinal texts, the analysis maps how entrepreneurialist ideas such as innovation, disruption, creativity and fail fast mentality —were gradually institutionalised in military practice. The study argues that entrepreneurialism displaced, rather than merely layered upon, earlier paradigms rooted in bureaucratic control and rational planning. This reconfiguration redefined core military ideals around adaptability, innovation, and decentralised initiative. The findings contribute to business history by framing the military as a site of ideological contestation, and advance institutional theory by illustrating how institutional logics are contested, hybridised, and ultimately transformed in a slow, evolutionary process.