The Revolution in Military Professionalism: Domains 1,2,4
Abstract
We propose to conduct interviews with junior and senior officers (N=75, O7-O10; N=25, O4), distribute surveys to senior officers (N=600), and compile historical biographical data about senior officers (N=800) in the U.S. armed services in order to reassess the actual (versus rhetorical) place of professionalism in the military today. This will be the first comprehensive, theoretically up-to-date basic research on the military as a profession in over sixty years. Drawing from sociology and political science, the project updates the classic 1960 study by Morris Janowitz that laid the foundations for the field of military sociology. Like Janowitz’s project, we test five hypotheses that will allow us to make strong claims about how expertise, responsibility and identity are developed and maintained by the services formally and informally, and provide an updated understanding of how military professionalism actually functions today (our first goal). Our findings will offer a wealth of new opportunities to assess the direction of military organizational change and its consequences for readiness, organizational autonomy and, ultimately, congressional funding (our second goal). Finally, our work connects the ongoing applied research on professionalism conducted by a variety of Department of Defense agencies to the cutting edge of basic social scientific science about global patterns in work and organization (our third goal). We anticipate the findings of the project will have direct implications for: revising Professional Military Education; fostering the Professional Military Ethic; and improving collective action through service- and department-wide identities.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 12, 2017
- Source ID
- W911NF1610021
Entities
People
- Meredith Kleykamp
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- United States Army
- University of Maryland