Socioeconomic Factors and Personal Characteristics Affecting the Retention of Officers in the United States Army and United States Marine Corps.

Abstract

This thesis addressed the question of which factors most highly influence the career decision of officers in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps who are between their fourth-year and twelfth-year of service. This was accomplished using data from the 1985 DOD Survey of Officer and Enlisted Personnel in a logistic regression model. Several conclusions were drawn from this study. Intrinsic factors appear to contribute more to the career decision than extrinsic factors. Specifically, promotion probability and satisfaction with current job have the most influence . Extrinsic factors, especially length of service and sex, are also important. The impact of individual factors, however, is generally quite small; so an effective retention program must include a combination of factors. Finally, the Army as a whole, Marine Corps as a whole, and Army medical specialists are not homogeneous and so must be considered separately when determining policy changes intended to increase retention. Keywords: Officer personnel, Personnel retention, Motivation.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 1987
Accession Number
ADA188215

Entities

People

  • Jay D. Steele

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Careers
  • Classification
  • Employment
  • Enlisted Personnel
  • Families (Human)
  • Human Behavior
  • Job Satisfaction
  • Jobs
  • Literature Surveys
  • Management Personnel
  • Military Personnel
  • Motivation
  • Personnel Management
  • Sex
  • Students
  • United States

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  • Organizational Psychology.