This thesis presents an interview-based study that seeks to map the various reasonings regarding what motivates aspiring officers, cadets, to end their military service in liaison to studies conducted at the Swedish defense college. This in order to provide a brief overview of the, seeming major, causes as to why some cadets chose to end their affiliation to the military context. This study utilizes Fabrizio Battistelli’s and Martin V. Covington’s respective theories regarding motivation. These theories provide the structure and serves as main focal points when constructing and conducting the interviews. The findings in the paper suggests multiple motivational factors as to why the cadets, enrolled in this essay, chose to quit the military context. The most prominent thematic is closely affiliated with the individual’s intrinsic interest and desire for more reliable control over his, or her, time. It is also clear that the respondents deem the military’s personnel policy to be severely lacking in many different aspects which in turn results in an external factor that further motivates the individual to seek a career outside of the military context.

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.