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APPLICABILITY OF CIVILIAN RETENTION THEORY IN THE NEW ZEALAND MILITARY

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Title: APPLICABILITY OF CIVILIAN RETENTION THEORY IN THE NEW ZEALAND MILITARY


1
APPLICABILITY OF CIVILIAN RETENTION THEORY IN THE
NEW ZEALAND MILITARY
  • John Capon Sasha Chernyshenko
  • University of Canterbury, NZ
  • Stephen Stark
  • University of South Florida

2
Acknowledgements
  • 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.

3
Overview
  • 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

4
The 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.

5
The 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

6
Modeling 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

7
Problems 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?

8
Civilinain 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).

9
Civilian 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.

10
Recent 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)

11
Modeling 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.

12
Modeling 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.

13
Aim 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

14
Proximal 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

15
Proximal Predictors of Intentions to Remain

16
Distal 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).

17
A Model of Military Retention
18
Present 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

19
Participants
  • 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

20
Measures
  • 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)

21
Measures
  • 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

22
Results
  • 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

23
Chi-square n.s., RMSEA .01 GFI, NFI, CFI gt
.90. Path coefficients are all significant at
the .05 level
24
Conclusions
  • 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

25
Implications
  • 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.
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