Title: APPLICABILITY OF CIVILIAN RETENTION THEORY IN THE NEW ZEALAND MILITARY
1APPLICABILITY OF CIVILIAN RETENTION THEORY IN THE
NEW ZEALAND MILITARY
- John Capon Sasha Chernyshenko
- University of Canterbury, NZ
- Stephen Stark
- University of South Florida
2Acknowledgements
- We would also like to thank Major Rachael Stott
and Captain Stephen Kearney, of the NZ Army Field
Psychology Service for assistance in this
research.
3Overview
- Importance of retention
- Data-mining approach to modeling retention and
its limitations - Modeling retention/turnover in civilian settings
- Proposed model of military retention
- Empirical NZ study
- Implications
4The Importance of Personnel Retention
- Military forces worldwide have struggled to
maintain required staffing levels (Greig, 2001).
- In 1999 - 2000 there were 4,947 enlistments in
comparison to 6,467 separations in the Australian
Defence Force. - Increased competition with civilian employers for
talented individuals.
5The Importance of Personnel Retention
- New Zealand Army is no exception
- Staffing levels are maintained entirely by
voluntary service. - Economy is growing at a record pace
- Nationwide campaign to attract new recruits
- Active recruitment
- Adds to direct interested individuals to the New
Zealand Army website - Unfortunaltely, there is a less coherent compaign
for retention of existing personnel
6Modeling Retention in Military
- Most published studies of military retention have
involved data-mining approaches - Designed to identify demographic and
organisational characteristics related to
turnover (Walker, 2003) - Limited theory based reserch to date
7Problems with Data-Mining
- Many demographic characteristics, such as
gender, are inherent and cannot readily be
changed - Demographics-based recruiting would further
decrease the already diminishing source of
potential recruits - Research on actual causes of turnover is
neglected - E.g., female soldiers may have a significantly
lower retention rate than their male
counterparts, but no explanation for such a
discrepancy can be tested empirically - What is the psychological process that drives
voluntary turnover?
8Civilinain Retention Modeling
- In contrast
- Civilian research has treated retention/turnover
as an instance of motivated personal choice. - Focus on intentions to remain as proximal cause
of turnoover - Relatively coherent and integrated theory of
civilian retention (see Griffeth, Hom,
Gaertner, 2000).
9Civilian Retention Modeling
- Why intentions?
- Fishbein and Ajzen (1975, in Hulin, 1991) theory
of reasoned action asserts that behaviour is the
outcome of intentions to behave, which are
governed by attitudes and subjective norms. - Hom, Caranikas-Walker, Prussia and Griffeth
(1992) meta-analysis results suggest that
military samples may have even closer agreement
between intentions to leave and turnover. - Measurement of intentions is convenient, because
cross-sectional surveys can be used.
10Recent Civilian Research
- Griffeth, Hom Gaertner (2000) meta-analysis of
the antecedents of turnover - - Intentions to leave (0.39)
- - Organizational commitment (-0.23)
- - Job satisfaction (-0.19)
- - Met expectations (-0.18)
- - Promotional opportunities (-0.16)
11Modeling Retention as Personal Choice in the
Military Research
- Regrettably, there has been only a limited effort
to assess the applicability of civilian retention
theory in the military. - Notable exceptions are unpublished studies by
Walker (2003), Schreurs and Lescreve (2001), and
Van de Ven (2001) - Examined relationships between retention and
variables, such as met expectations and job
satisfaction. - Found highly predictive validities in military
settings - Suggested that other traditionally civilian
variables should also be explored.
12Modeling Retention as Personal Choice in the
Military Research
- Having a theoretical model is important
- Identifies sources of voluntary turnover
- Explicitely postulates psychological processes
behind intentions to remain - Helps in developing effective interventions and
provides basis for their evaluation - Hence, this study.
13Aim of This Study
- We proposed, tested, and revised a preliminary
personal choice military retention model. - Included a number of distal and proximal
antecedents of retention that were derived from
several streams of civilian research. - The initial list of antecedents was intentionally
broad to reflect the breadth of the current
approaches. - Each antecedent was hypothesised to exert either
a direct or indirect effect on intentions to
remain in the Army
14Proximal Predictors of Intentions to Remain
- - Organisational Commitment (Mathieu Zajac,
1990) - - Work Satisfaction (Tett Meyer, 1993)
- - Job involvement (Lawler Hall, 1970)
- Highly involvement higher intentions to remain
(Brown, 1996). - Lodahl and Kejner (1965) argued that JI is
independent of WS and OC, and contributes
uniquely to prediction of retention. - - Community identification (Mitchell Lee, 2001)
- Links to community increase intentions to remain
- In NZ Army, community involvement initiatives are
prevalent, so CI links may be more potent -
15Proximal Predictors of Intentions to Remain
16Distal Predictors of Intentions to Remain
- - Dispositions (Judge, Heller Mount, 2002)
predict work satisfaction. - Judge, Erez, Bono, Thoresen (2003) found that a
combination of self esteem, generalised self
efficacy, neuroticism and locus of control, which
they called core self evaluations (CSES), had the
highest correlation with job satisfaction. - - Workfamily conflict studies suggest direct and
indirect relationship between inter-role conflict
and intentions to remain, especially when periods
of separation is high (Castro Huffman, 2001) . - - Perceived organisational support (Rhoades
Eisenberger, 2002) is indirectly related to
intentions to remain, but relationship is fully
medited by organizational commitment - - Met expectations theory (Porter Steers, 1973)
used by recruiters to give potential employees a
balanced picture of their future job roles
(a.k.a. realistic job preview, Wanous, 1975).
17A Model of Military Retention
18Present Study
- Conducted in conjunction with NZ Army Field Psych
Service and HR Executive - Survey of 95 currently enlisted personnel
- 169-item questionnaire, consisting of robust,
empirically derived scales - Used structural equations methodology to test and
revise the model
19Participants
- Gender - 18 female and 82 male
- Age - 18 to 55 years, with a mean age of 29.5
years - Participants tenure in the NZ Army ranged from
4 months to 28 years, with a mean of 10.04. - Ethnic composition 71 European, 21 Maori, 1
Pacific Islander 7 other
20Measures
- Job involvement - 6-item, shortened version of
Lodahl and Kejners (1965) Job Involvement Scale
- Organizational commitment - 9-item, shortened
version of the Organisational Commitment
Questionnaire (OCQ, Mowday, Steers Porter,
1979) - Work satisfaction - 10-item scale from the
Illinois Job Satisfaction Index (IJSI,
Chernyshenko, Stark, Crede, Wadlington, Lee,
2003) - Perceived organisational support - 8-item
shortened scale from Eisenberger, Huntington,
Hutchison Sowa (1986)
21Measures
- Work-family conflict 5-item scale by Netemeyer,
Boles, McMurrians (1996) - Community involvement - 7-item scale constructed
based on the community variables in Mitchell and
Lees (2001) paper - Dispositions - a 12-item core self evaluations
scale (CSES, Judge et al 2003) - Met expectations - 5-item scale developed for
this study - Intentions to remain - 7-item scale developed for
this study. - All 9 measures had reliabilities ranging from .72
to .94
22Results
- Organizational commitment and work satisfaction
were significant proximal predictors of
intentions to remain - Equal weights
- R .465
- Adding community identification and job
involvement improved prediction (R .483), but
the two variables were not significant - Path analysis showed that our initial model fit
relatively well, but some fit indices were below
recommended levels (i.e., NFI .80) - Several revisions were made
23Chi-square n.s., RMSEA .01 GFI, NFI, CFI gt
.90. Path coefficients are all significant at
the .05 level
24Conclusions
- Valuable information about the determinants of
retention in NZ Army - Established relevance of civilian retention
theory in the military. - Found work satisfaction, community
identification, and organisational commitment to
be the leading predictors of intentions to
remain. - Influence of dispositions, job involvement,
organizational support and met expectations were
fully mediated by satisfaction and commitment. - Contrary to civilian findings, work family
conflict had no relation to intentions to remain
25Implications
- Several aspects of civilian retention theory
may be useful in military settings. - Results emphasise the importance of
organizational interventions targeting work
satisfaction and commitment. - Creating realistic expectations about a
military career or providing consistent levels of
organizational support are some of the strategies
for increasing retention that should be
considered.