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Military Management and the Civilian Sector
The Military Prepares its Managers for the Front Lines
But does it Prepare them for the War of Big Business?
Prepared by: Joseph Foster
Strayer University
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION2
Context of the Problem..2
Statement of the Problem...3
Significance of the Study...4
Objectives of the Study..5
Research Methods..5
REFERENCES CITED...7
INTRODUCTION
Context of the Problem
The military recruits thousands of men and women a year and at the same time thousands
separate and enter the civilian sector. Some of these former service members have been
volunteers for only 2 years while others are retiring with 20 years of service. As these
people enter the civilian sector they are becoming managers and leading many companies
from small to large. They are managing and leading multi-million dollar firms the same
way most of us would. They are drawing solutions to problems from previous life
experiences.
For the majority of active service members, their life experience has most recently come
from the War on Terror. They have spent months deployed to the front lines managing
subordinates through what can sometimes life or death situations. They are drawing from
experience and training that was given to them through military leadership courses, college
degrees, and previous supervisors.
For the purpose of this study military mangers will be defined as commissioned officers.
There are a number of levels of management in the military which begin in the middle
enlisted ranks and extend upward to the highest commissioned officers. Since the officer
holds the majority of the accountability in the military it makes them a more likely
comparison to management in the civilian sector.
A service member becomes an officer through a few, sometimes very different avenues.
According to www.navy.com/officer, men and women can be commissioned through
graduation from the Naval Academy, or equivalent military institution depending on the
branch, Officer Candidate School (OCS), the Limited Duty Officer Program (LDO), the
Seaman to Admiral Program, and the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). For each
of the above programs managerial training shows many constants while at the same time
exploiting many differences.
Statement of the Problem
Military goals are very different from organizational goals found in the civilian sector. The
military operates with entirely different set of rules and diplomatic constraints. The daily
missions and strategies of the military usually cant be compared to any in the civilian
sector. It is because of these problems thatmanagement in the military will never be the
same as any civilian organization. It is because of these problems that the question of
