Who Should the Military Recruit? The Effects of Institutional, Occupational, and Self-Enhancement Enlistment Motives on Soldier Identification and Behavior

• Author: Todd D. Woodruff
• Published date: 01 October 2017
• Date: 01 October 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X17695360
• Subject Matter: Mini-Forum on Recruitment

Mini-Forum on Recruitment

Who Should the Military

Recruit? The Effects of

Institutional, Occupational,

and Self-Enhancement

Enlistment Motives on Soldier

Identification and Behavior

Todd D. Woodruff

1

Abstract

The U.S. military spends millions of dollars and substantial institutional effort to

understand enlistment motives and appropriately target incentives, recruiting effort,

and marketing to prospective members. Similarly, researchers have worked for

decades to identify, understand, and conceptualize enlistment motives. Much less

effort has been made to understand the effect enlistment motives/goals have on

individuals after they join. This research uses well-established enlistment motives/

goals to identify and understand their effects on soldiers’ value to the military in

terms of organizational identification and critical discretionary behaviors. Using

multicohort cross-sectional data from future, initial training, and currently serving

soldiers, this research finds that intrinsic enlistment motives/goals, such as altruistic

service and self-enhancement, create greater relational and behavioral value than

most extrinsic/economic enlistment motives/goals such as pay, gaining skills for

future employment, and educational funding. Intrinsic enlistment motives/goals have

a strong positive effect on perceptions of the organization, social satisfaction,

organizational identification, and discretionary pro-organizational behaviors. Con-

versely, economic enlistment goals tend to be associated with higher levels of

economic satisf action but decreased organizational identification and pro-

1

U.S. Military Academy, West Point, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Todd D. Woodruff, U.S. Military Academy, BS&L, Thayer Hall, West Point, NY 10996, USA.

Email: todd.woodruff@usma.edu

Armed Forces & Society

2017, Vol. 43(4) 579-607

ªThe Author(s) 2017

Reprints and permission:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17695360

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organizational behavior. Importantly, theseeffects tend to persist among soldiers who

have been in the military for years. Contrary to the institutional–occupational

framework, self-focused enlistment goals, both intrinsic and extrinsic, can creative

substantial value for the military when they are aligned with organizational interests.

Based on these findings, the practice of using enlistment motives/goals to maximizing

enlistment without considering their long-term impact on relationship quality and

behavior appears myopic and may fail to maximize long-term value for the military.

Keywords

recruiting, enlistment motives, identification, goals, institutional, occupational

An understanding of the motives that drive youth enlistment in the U.S. military has

been a frequent focus of research and the topic of numerous technical and academic

publications since the introduction of an all-volunteer force (AVF; Moskos, 1977;

Segal, 1986; Woodruff, Kelty & Segal, 2006). From the applied perspective, the

U.S. Army uses knowledge of prospective members’ motives/goals regarding enlist-

ment and membership to attract and enlist sufficient numbers of high-quality and

qualified soldiers with the maximum efficiency.

The Army’s current recruiting paradigm views enlistment motives/goals as

important to the degree they can be used to induce membership and increase quality

as measured by high school graduation and Armed Services Vocational Aptitude

Battery (ASVAB) scores.

1

Implicit in this approach is the untested assumption that

initial entry training and socia lization will create the desire d psychological and

behavioral outcomes as part of the civilian to soldier transformation irrespective

of the soldier’s reasons for membership. On the academic side, the focus has been

identifying and understanding enlistment motives and the development of concep-

tual models (Eighmey, 2006; Segal, 1986).

The motives/goals that drive enlistment in the U.S. military are relatively well

known and have demonstrated reasonable stability over sev eral decades (Baker,

1990; Eighmey, 2006; Segal, 1986), yet the effect these motives/goals have after

enlistment has been largely overlooked. Mos kos (1977) expressed apprehension

over the use of occupational/economic incentives in the AVF, yet very little evi-

dence has been developed to address his concern. More problematic is that U.S.

military and marketing firms have developed an impressive ability to use youth

motives/goals to target recruiting efforts, enlistment incentives, and marketing cam-

paigns without fully understanding their effects on the organization after enlistment.

This research addresses these issues by answering the question, “How and to what

degree do institutional, occupational, and self-enhancement enlistment motives/

goals affect soldiers’ value to the military?” By using identification and goal the-

ories, this research examines the effects individual’s enlistment and membership

goals (their reasons for joining) have on identification with the organization and

580 Armed Forces & Society 43(4)