Dissertation
The effects of military service embeddedness on veteran calling orientation toward military service, social advice network composition, and career decision self-efficacy in the post September 11, 2001 era
Doctor of Business Administration (D.B.A.), Drexel University
25 Aug 2020
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/00000307
Abstract
What factors affect the transition of military veterans, especially those who served after September 11, 2001, to civilian employment? To answer this question, I developed new measures that assessed the impact of military service on the attitudes of veterans about their service and their post-service employment explorations and preparation behaviors. These measures dealt with service embeddedness for any veteran regardless of physical disability, branch of service, or active or reserve service, and have equal weight across all veterans regardless of their time in service and intensity of service. Rather than correlate the effects of service embeddedness directly with employment outcomes, this research ties service embeddedness to an orientation toward service, the effects on the composition of the veterans' career advice networks, the effects on their career decision self-efficacy, and the depth and breadth of the veterans' career exploration behavior. The results indicate that military veterans vary in seeing their service as a calling, a career, or a job, and contrast this attitude with how they view their civilian career. They also demonstrate that service embeddedness affects this orientation, as well as the composition of the veterans' career advice network and career decision self-efficacy. Counter-intuitively, increased service embeddedness has positive effects on career decision self-efficacy and the composition of the veterans' career advice network. This outcome differs from the negative effects that I expected. Primarily, it is career decision self-efficacy more than any other factor that has a positive effect on the breadth and depth of the veterans' career exploration. There are several recommendations for future research. Primarily, validating a service embeddedness variable for future research would bolster the arguments found here. Additional factors include a better-defined measure and the associated effects of the similarity between military and civilian careers. In addition, more study is needed about the extent to which the amount of time separated from active service and continued part time reserve or National Guard service after active duty moderate the effects of service embeddedness.
Metrics
31 File views/ downloads
45 Record Views
Details
- Title
- The effects of military service embeddedness on veteran calling orientation toward military service, social advice network composition, and career decision self-efficacy in the post September 11, 2001 era
- Creators
- Brandon M. Smith
- Contributors
- Daniel Tzabbar (Advisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Drexel University
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Business Administration (D.B.A.)
- Publisher
- Drexel University; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Number of pages
- xiii, 125 pages
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Bennett S. LeBow College of Business; Drexel University
- Other Identifier
- 991014695547604721