In the next few years, the Swedish armed forces will have a major shortage of officers. This is due to a combination of high numbers reaching pensionable age and low numbers graduating from the Officers’ Programme.The lack of newly qualified officers is a major problem for the Armed Forces personnel supply. This paper investigates what motivated current cadets to study to become an officer in order to gain a greater understanding of why people choose a profession that has become less and less popular.
This study applies Battistellis theory about motivation in a survey among the Swedish cadets at the military academy during the spring of 2019. Battistellis theory is built on three different categories, paleo modern motivation, modern motivation and postmodern motivation. The theory is used in a quantitative survey. The study examines which motivation category the cadets are most familiar with and if there are any differences between cadets.
The survey results indicate that the Swedish cadets mostly applied to the officer program because of paleo modern and postmodern motivations. The analysis concludes that depending on if the student had been working as a soldier or not before becoming a student, their motivation varied.