<p> Leader humility has been linked to a number of positive outcomes such as greater employee satisfaction, lower turnover intention, enhanced group creativity, and improved team performance. However, the study of humility is still in its relative infancy. Questions remain about what causal mechanisms link humility to the various positive outcomes it appears to engender, how contextual differences may affect humility's outcomes and how it functions, and how those interested can easily and accurately gauge an individual's level of humility. This dissertation addresses some of these outstanding questions. It comprises three papers that employed a combination of experimental, cross-sectional, meta-analysis, and text analysis methods to examine humility in a military context or during tasks in which select members of the military regularly engage. The first chapter proposed and tested a causal model to explain how leader humility affects the performance of a team pursuing a highly interdependent task in a virtual environment &ndash; much like military analysts coordinating electronically with geographically dispersed entities trying to compile a complete set of data to address mission requirements. Results from three experiments revealed that humble leaders are liked more by those they are in charge of and that they induce a greater sense of psychological safety in the teams they lead compared to their less humble counterparts. However, while conducting a hidden profile task, humble leaders did not appear to affect information flow or group performance any differently than leaders who are not humble. The second chapter examined how behaving humbly affects assessments of leadership potential among officers in the United States Army - with an added emphasis on exploring potential gender differences in how humble leaders are perceived. Results from a combination of four studies (one cross-sectional and three experimental) found that, contrary to what is hypothesized in the extant literature, humility is valued in the Army, although it may not be the only leader quality that positively affects perceptions of leadership potential. Further, results from a mini meta-analysis of the experimental data from the second chapter found that gender moderated the relationship between humility and perceptions of potential in the military, with men receiving more benefit from acting humbly than women. The third and final chapter in this dissertation proposed and tested a unique, unobtrusive means of assessing humility in a sample of cadets from the United States Military Academy and examined whether humility predicts their military performance at West Point. This final chapter also examined the effect gender has on humility's utility as a leader characteristic in the military. Results revealed that the proposed unobtrusive means of assessing humility possessed modest convergent validity, while proving to be a moderately significant predictor of military performance, even after controlling for several other demographic and experience related variables. No significant interaction between humility and gender in terms of their effect on military performance was noted.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this research study was to develop a theory about how military experience influences the obesity trend among retired veterans. The grand tour question was phrased as how does cultural socialization, attributes, predispositions, and available opportunities influence the obesity trend among retired military veterans. The sample population included 15 retired military veterans who were professionals in the government or private industry at the time of the study. Participants were between 38 to 70 years of age and were retired from active duty military service after serving 20 or more continuous years of service. This qualitative study utilized a grounded theory methodology design to develop a theory completely grounded the data collected. Data sources included demographic surveys, interviews, field journal notes, memo writing, and member checking. Overall results suggested maladaptive coping behaviors developed throughout active duty years influence the obesity trend among retired military veterans.</p><p>

<p> Thanks to the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill, veterans are entering American colleges and universities in numbers not seen since World War II. Very few of today's veterans, however, attend our nation's most selective institutions. Military-connected students constitute about 5% of the total college-going population, but make up only 2% or less of the student body at Ivy League and Ivy Plus institutions. The purpose of this narrative study was to understand the experiences of these talented few student veterans, with a focus on undergraduates. The primary research questions were: 1) How do members of the current generation of veterans make the transition from the military to the Ivy League? 2) How are these veterans faring, academically and socially, in what is arguably the most challenging sector of higher education? A series of in-depth interviews with four veterans of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines studying for undergraduate degrees at three different Ivy League schools was undertaken to address these questions. The resulting four biographies were interpreted using Vacchi and Berger's (2014) adaptation of Bronfenbrenner's (1989, 1995) ecological systems theory and from a life course perspective. Findings revealed that the veterans carefully planned their transition from the military to the academy, and eagerly sought and accepted transition support. Academically, the self-discipline learned in the military was most important to the four Ivy League student veterans' success. Social support from other veterans was also important, but to varying degrees. The four student veterans all shared insights gained from their military experience with civilian peers in Ivy League classrooms, though they disclosed their veteran status only selectively in social situations. These exchanges, formal and informal, were mutually beneficial. While some Ivy League institutions are taking steps to attract and better support military-connected students, from a public policy perspective, elite higher education is not doing enough to help close the civil-military gap in American society. To the extent that elite institutions cannot or will not accommodate more veterans as non-traditional undergraduates, a greater focus on ROTC programs could help achieve this goal, as could admitting more family members of long-serving military personnel.</p><p>

<p> This generic qualitative study investigated the experiences of male football and basketball student-athletes entering a military college. The intent of this study was to address the gap in literature present in student-athlete experiences at a unique college environment, like a military college. Criterion sampling was used to gain rich data from male football and basketball student-athletes of various ages that could accurately reflect on their experiences attending a military college. Fully structured interviews were completed with each participant. Findings revealed 3 key themes that attributed to the experiences attending their first year at a military college: Theme 1: Academic Self-Efficacy; Theme 2: Social Acceptance; and Theme 3: Emotional Responses. There were also 11 associated patterns to support each key theme. Identifying these themes could be helpful in orienting future student-athletes to having a successful transition. </p><p>

<p> The subject of this quantitative research is the effect organizational commitment and job satisfaction have on retention and turn-over. This study seeks to determine validity and reliability of the three-component model of organizational commitment and job satisfaction survey as predictors of retention in the military. The population of this study was 20,108,332 current and former uniformed service members and civilian employees working for the military. Binary logistic regression and linear multiple regression were used to analyze predictors of respondents&rsquo; intent to remain and additional years of service. Results did not support a rejection of the null hypotheses. Post-hoc Pearson bi-variant correlation analysis was conducted to measure covariance between intent to remain and each independent variable: affective commitment, continuance commitment, normative commitment, and job satisfaction. Future studies should control for the variable of involuntary (forced) separation and use a more detailed tool such as commitment profiles.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to describe and explain Veteran students&rsquo; perspectives on academic success as they enter or reenter the university setting. Recent research applied to Veteran students has primarily focused on social integration factors and to a lesser extent on Veteran students&rsquo; academic integration and student success. For this qualitative study, which was grounded in social constructivism, the primary method of data collection was the recording, transcription, and analysis of oral interviews with 11 Veteran students. The findings were aligned to the theoretical framework for this study which was adapted from Tinto&rsquo;s Conditions for Student Success (2012). The results contribute to the current body of scholarly literature that highlights attributes that Veteran students possess that may contribute to persistence including leadership skills, maturity, and acquired skills related to global and cultural awareness, and motivation. Other findings include the effectiveness of having specific programming efforts for Veteran students including Vet-to-Vet tutoring and mentoring. As for research implications for practice, colleges and universities should not presume Veteran students do extensive research prior to choosing where to apply nor are they necessarily familiar with services offered to Veteran students. They prefer face-to-face program delivery and may need assistance with meeting University requirements such as providing immunization records, establishing in-state residency, and providing sufficient documentation for receiving adequate services to be academically successful. Further research is needed with regard to a primary concern of Veteran students that they will run out of benefits eligibility prior to graduation. Results also reaffirm that colleges and universities need to continue to develop and improve conditions that are known to promote student success for Veteran students. </p><p>

<p>Civilian research has established that intimate partner violence (IPV) is not a unitary phenomenon. To further understanding of how IPV differs within a civilian population, typologies have been developed to distinguish among various patterns (Johnson, 2006; Johnston & Campbell, 1993; Messinger, Fry, Rickert, & Catallozzi, 2014). IPV research on military populations has also identified the existence of different patterns of physical violence that vary by the type of violence, levels of severity of the violence, direction of violence and risk factors for violence (Forgey & Badger, 2006; Forgey & Badger, 2010; McCarroll, Ursano, Fan, & Newby, 2004; McCarroll, Fan, & Bell, 2009) however, no formal typology of IPV has been developed yet specifically for a military population. Questions also remain as to the applicability of the existing civilian typologies to a military population. The purpose of this qualitative study was to further IPV pattern research within the military that will inform the development of a military specific IPV typology. Through the mining and analysis of case information collected by the Army as part of their IPV assessment process, this study found more specific details about intimate partner violence patterns, as well as, a proposed military specific IPV typology. Out of the 391 couples studied, the eight most frequent couple patterns that emerged included: 1. Male Mild Conflict to Female Mild Conflict (n=41, 10.5%); 2. Male Severe Power and Control to Female No Violence (n=40, 10.2%); 3. Male Mild Conflict to Female No Violence (n=34, 8.7%); 4. Female Mild Conflict to Male No Violence (n=30, 7.7%); 5. Female Unknown to Male No Violence (n=22, 5.6%); 6. Male Unknown to Female No Violence (n=19, 4.9%); 7. Male Severe Power and Control to Female Mild Self-Defense (n=14, 3.6%); 8. Male Mild Psychological Impairment to Female No Violence (n=11, 2.8%).

<p> Dissent has always existed in American civil-military relations since General George Washington and his staff dissented to the Continental Congress over funding the Continental Army. More recently, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called for more understanding of dissent, but how dissent occurs is little understood in civil-military contexts. Organizational theorists are convinced dissent is ultimately healthy to all organizations, even civil-military ones. </p><p> This study asked how dissent occurs within the civil-military relationship in positive, historical dissent events. A historiographical approach examined the chronology of dissent over desegregation of the U.S. Army before, during, and after President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, declaring &ldquo;equality of treatment and equal opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin&rdquo; (13 Fed. Reg. 4313, July 28, 1948). The U.S. Army continued to dissent 2 years after the order came out. </p><p> Conflict theory holds conflict as influential in dissent (Coser, 1957). Hierarchy and power play important roles in dissent (Kassing, 1997, 1998, 2012, 2013). Lamb&rsquo;s (2013) historical discourse analysis offered a high-level dissent analysis in civil-military relations from 1945 to 1950. </p><p> The study found that dissent occurred because of conflict, yet conflict also resulted from dissent. Previous dissent research has concerned itself with dissent up the hierarchy, but this research discovered that upward, lateral, and outward dissent occurred simultaneously. Power patterns emerged as groups in dissent displayed, battled for, and consolidated power before a weakened, final engagement marked the terminus of open dissent. Dissent reverberated outward from political and military groups in conflict, embroiling the social group. </p><p> This study contributes to dissent theory, demonstrating the influence of hierarchies and power and supporting theoretical research that dissent happens over time. Previous dissent research focused on why dissent happens. This study provided additional insight into how dissent happens, advancing civil-military theory and concluding that civil-military relations are composed of not just civilian and military authority, but a tripartite genus of political, military, and social groups. The research supports dissent as healthy to U.S. civil-military relations.</p><p>

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.