MEASUREMENT OF “VALUES” AND PROFESSIONAL MOTIVATIONS IN THE ARMED FORCES

Abstract

The military culture perspective of analysis in the recent decade has been focused on the research of socio-cultural patterns of military performance since the addition of the so-called “operations other than war” such as peacekeeping. The preparation for war and the non-war action, as a subsidiary mission, raises a new debate in contemporary military ethics. From this starting point, it is important to account for the different level of qualitative analysis when it comes to organizational values and those presented by military professionals from the self-perception of the activity. Therefore, the goal here is to outline the state of the art in contemporary qualitative studies of the armed forces in terms of values and individual motivations, by presenting measurement tools and conceptual categories. As an empirical base some results of previous research projects with fieldwork in the cases of Argentina, Malaysia, United States of America, Great Britain, Italy and Slovenia will be taken into account.