Introduction
The Norwegian Armed Forces (NAF) are undergoing a period of rapid transformation and expansion (Forsvarsdepartementet, 2024). Yet even as recruitment increases to meet heightened security demands, the organization faces a persistent retention challenge. Recent personnel surveys indicate that nearly one in four employees are considering leaving the armed forces within the next two years for reasons other than retirement (Forsvaret, 2025a). Although recruitment targets have been met – and in some cases exceeded (Kristoffersen, 2025) – the NAF continues to struggle with retaining experienced staff across operational, technical, and specialist domains.
This situation produces a paradox: while the Norwegian Armed Forces grow, they continue losing the competence base upon which operational readiness depends. Expertise in the military profession is cumulative, built through years of education, training, and operational experience, making attrition in key competence areas especially damaging (Wong et al., 2003). The challenge is therefore not only numerical, but qualitative: it concerns sustaining the depth, continuity, and diversity of competence required for modern defence operations.
The NAF’s situation echoes that of allied forces within the European Union, where demographic changes and a more competitive labour market require military organizations to take action to retain personnel (Manigart et al., 2018; op den Buijs & Olsthoorn, 2023). Research suggests that employees are more likely to remain when their competence is recognized and utilized in meaningful ways (Lai, 2011; Lai & Kapstad, 2009). Within the Norwegian context, studies of military personnel indicate that limited career prospects, insufficient professional development, and perceptions that specialist competence is underused are recurring reasons for considering exit (Fauske & Strand, 2020, 2021, 2023). Despite this, organizational responses have largely centred on extrinsic incentives such as location pay, stipends, and flexible work arrangements (Forsvaret, 2024a, 2025b, 2025c), while less attention has been paid to how internal career structures shape motivation and commitment.
To broaden the competence base within the officer corps, in 2021 the NAF introduced a one-year commissioning programme aimed at candidates with advanced civilian education (Forsvaret, 2021). The programme was designed to combine foundational officer training with the integration of specialist civilian competence, reflecting the organization’s stated ambition to increase competence diversity (Meld. St. 14., 2012–2013). In 2024, the programme was restructured into a two-year system, including a separate pathway for NCOs with civilian backgrounds (Forsvarets Høgskole, 2025). These reforms suggest continuing institutional recognition that modern armed forces require broader forms of expertise than those produced through traditional career pipelines.
Drawing on qualitative interviews with five officers commissioned through the one-year programme using perceived competence mobilization (PCM) (Lai & Kapstad, 2009) as an analytical lens, I explore whether such recruitment initiatives are matched by organizational practices that enable specialist competence to be mobilized and retained. Here, PCM is understood to be useful in interpreting employees’ perceptions that their knowledge, skills, and abilities are recognized and meaningfully used in their work. This perspective allows retention challenges to be understood not only as a matter of pay or workload, but also of competence utilization, identity, and motivation.
I identify three interconnected mechanisms that shape early-career experiences for officers with specialized competence: a broken promise of misaligned postings; an autonomy-feedback gap in developmental leadership; and a generalist-specialist dilemma of cultural legitimacy. I suggest that these mechanisms reflect tensions between specialist recruitment initiatives and a career system still largely oriented toward generalist breadth. In doing so, the article contributes to research on military retention and professional identity by showing how attrition risks may not stem from weak commitment among recruits, but from organizational failure to mobilize the competence it successfully attracts. Finally, I reflect on modest and operationally realistic early-career adjustments aimed at improving competence utilization and strengthening organizational commitment.
Background and Analytical Framework
This section outlines the institutional context and analytical framework for the study. First, it summarizes key developments in the NAF’s personnel and education system, including new officer commissioning pathways and the broader organizational rationale underpinning a generalist career model. These developments are then situated within a wider international context, where similar tensions between breadth-oriented officer development and the need for specialist competence have been documented. Second, the section presents the analytical framework guiding the study, combining PCM and SDT to examine how organizational structures and early-career experiences may shape officers’ motivation, expectations, and professional identity formation.
Generalist Logic in Modern Officer Corps
Most Western armed forces, including the NAF, have long organized officer development around a generalist model. Historically, this model has rested on the assumption that officers should be capable of exercising responsibility across tactical, operational, and administrative functions. It therefore emphasizes breadth, adaptability, and leadership capacity over deep technical specialization. In the Norwegian context, the generalist principle has been formalized through successive personnel reforms and policy documents, including the emphasis on the ability for officers to assume command and control in different branches and levels within the NAF (Forsvarsdepartementet, 2020). Comparable systems exist across NATO armies. For example, the U.S. Army’s officer career regulations (Department of the Army, 2019) codify rotational postings, broadening assignments, and progressive professional military education as essential components of officer development – reflecting an enduring commitment to breadth as a basis for effective leadership.
The generalist model offers several organizational advantages. First, it ensures operational flexibility, enabling officers to be reassigned across units and functions as organizational needs change. This is particularly relevant for small and medium-sized armed forces such as the NAF, where redundancy in officer roles is limited and adaptability is essential. Second, rotating officers across branches promotes cross-functional understanding, which in turn strengthens joint operations and interoperability – capacities highlighted as critical in NATO force development doctrine (NATO, 2023). Research also suggests that breadth contributes to leader development.
Studies of junior officers show that varied early experiences accelerate identity formation, confidence, and leadership capacity (Siew & Koh, 2023). Finally, generalist systems contribute to cohesion by cultivating shared professional norms and a common identity – a feature long noted in classic military sociological analyses (Huntington, 1957; Janowitz, 1960). This professional socialization has traditionally occurred through extended, immersive education at military academies, where cadets internalize the institution’s values, leadership philosophy, and “way of thinking” (Franke, 1999; Soeters, 2018). In the NAF context, the three-year academy programme serves this function, producing officers with a common professional foundation of shared experiences and norms. This institutional backdrop is important for understanding the early-career tensions identified in this study.
In practical terms, career progression in the NAF officer system is structured around broadening assignments intended to develop generalist leadership competence, following a predominantly vertical trajectory (Forsvarsdepartementet, 2020). Advancement through the lower officer ranks (OF 1–2) is largely tied to seniority, whereas promotion beyond these levels typically requires competitive application to positions and, from OF–3 upward, further professional military education. Officers are expected to rotate between roles in order to broaden their organizational understanding, meaning that those of them with advanced civilian education enter a system where progression depends primarily on generalist experience rather than specialist development.
Over the past decade, however, structural reforms have sought to adapt this generalist foundation to changing operational demands. The Ordning for militært tilsatte (OMT), implemented in 2016, restructured the Norwegian personnel system by distinguishing between officers (OF) and other ranks (OR) in line with NATO standards. The reform aimed to strengthen the specialist career track, improve predictability, and enhance interoperability (Forsvarsdepartementet, 2015). The subsequent education reform in 2018 consolidated the former service academies into the Norwegian Defence University College and established a more tiered and accredited education system intended to improve academic quality and align education more closely with the needs of operations (Forsvarsdepartementet, 2016). Together, these reforms signalled a broader move toward a more differentiated and competence-oriented personnel system.
Despite these reforms, several studies have noted persistent challenges in mobilizing and retaining specialist competence. Reports from the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI)1 show the demand for technical expertise to grow in step with technological complexity and that the organization has struggled to retain sufficient depth in several specialist domains (Fauske & Strand, 2022). The Svendsen Report (Svendsen et al., 2020) further argued that the armed forces should leverage competence development taking place in civilian institutions, noting significant overlap between emerging military and civilian skill requirements. A recent qualitative study of senior officers similarly pointed to limited competence diversity within the upper leadership (Group 1), attributing this partly to cultural preferences for organizational breadth and informal networks over specialized knowledge (Halvorsen & Leseth, 2024).
One organizational response to these findings was the introduction of the one-year commissioning programme, designed to attract candidates with advanced civilian education and integrate their specialist backgrounds into the officer corps (Forsvaret, 2021). The programme represented an attempt to supplement the generalist foundation with greater competence diversity. Its later restructuring into a two-year system (Forsvarets Høgskole, 2025) reflects continued commitment to this aim, but also the unresolved challenges of aligning specialist talent with a career model still primarily designed around breadth.
These developments create an enduring tension: while the NAF aims to expand its competence diversity, officers with specialized competence backgrounds enter a career system still primarily organized around generalist development and rotational breadth. Understanding how this tension is experienced – and how it shapes early motivation, identity formation, and career intentions – requires an analytical framework capable of connecting organizational structures to individual perceptions.
This tension may be particularly relevant in early careers, where first postings, competence use, and organizational recognition can shape longer-term motivation and retention. The next section therefore introduces perceived competence mobilization (PCM) and self-determination theory (SDT) as complementary analytical lenses for examining these processes.
Perceived Competence Mobilization and Self-Determination Theory
To analyse how officers with specialized civilian backgrounds interpret their early career experiences, this study draws on the complementary frameworks of PCM and SDT. Together, these perspectives help explain why mismatches between competence and role may influence motivation, commitment, and retention intentions.
PCM conceptualizes competence use from the employee’s subjective viewpoint. It refers to the degree to which individuals perceive that their knowledge, skills, and experience are recognized, utilized, and further developed in their current roles (Lai & Kapstad, 2009; Lai, 2011). This focus on perception is important, as a formal description of job tasks may not capture whether employees experience their core expertise as valued or underused. High PCM has been associated with stronger intrinsic motivation, greater affective organizational commitment, and lower turnover intention. Conversely, underutilization generates frustration, reduced engagement, and a sense of professional stagnation, even within otherwise meaningful work (Lai, 2011).
SDT provides the broader motivational logic for why PCM matters. The theory proposes that intrinsic motivation and psychological growth are supported when three basic psychological needs are supported: autonomy (experiencing choice and volition), competence (feeling effective in one’s actions), and relatedness (feeling connected and respected by others) (Deci & Ryan, 2000). PCM can be understood as particularly relevant to the status of competence within the organizational setting. When officers perceive their competence to be recognized and meaningfully applied, this need is more likely to be supported. When leaders also provide meaningful autonomy and developmental feedback, the needs for autonomy and relatedness may likewise be strengthened. By contrast, when these needs are frustrated, motivation may weaken or become primarily extrinsic.
While the principles of SDT and PCM are established in organizational psychology, their application to the retention of military specialists remains less developed. Existing research on military attrition has often focused on demographic factors, overall job satisfaction, or the efficacy of extrinsic incentives like pay and bonuses (e.g., Hanson et al., 2021; Fauske & Strand, 2023). International studies have also shown that specialist officers may experience frustration and elevated attrition risk in generalist-oriented systems (Danielsson & Carlstedt, 2011; Hardison et al., 2019; Kolouch, 2010). However, less attention has been paid to the subjective, psychological process through which such experiences may translate into weakened commitment or intentions to leave.
This gap is where the combination of PCM and SDT offers analytical value. By focusing on the perceived mobilization of competence, the framework moves beyond objective descriptions of roles to examine how officers interpret the alignment between their skills and their roles. SDT then helps explain possible motivational consequences: when the need for competence is repeatedly undermined, intrinsic motivation may erode, making extrinsic measures alone less likely to secure long-term retention.
Accordingly, this study uses PCM and SDT to explore the mechanisms through which specialist dissatisfaction may develop in everyday organizational settings. It examines how experiences such as misaligned postings, limited developmental feedback, and ambiguous cultural recognition may shape officers’ perceptions of competence use. In practical terms, this theoretical lens supports a diagnosis of retention challenges that can inform targeted interventions in early-career practices and leadership development.
Methodology
This study is based on a secondary analysis of qualitative interview data originally collected as part of the author’s Master’s thesis project on early-career experiences and retention among officers in the NAF. The original study explored how officers with civilian higher education experienced their transition into military roles and how this shaped motivation and retention intentions. This article reuses the material for a distinct analytical purpose: to examine organizational mechanisms affecting PCM and motivation through the combined lens of PCM and SDT. It therefore constitutes a theoretically re-situated secondary analysis rather than a re-reporting of the original findings.
The original Master’s study examined early-career experiences and retention considerations among graduates of the one-year programme, based on interviews conducted in 2025. The material is well suited for this article’s analytical aims, as it captures early-career experiences among officers with specialized civilian backgrounds who entered the NAF through the former one-year commissioning programme.
The study follows a critical-case approach (Flyvbjerg, 2006). Officers from the one-year programme represent a critical case because they embody the central tension examined here: they were recruited explicitly for specialist competence, yet they entered a career system primarily designed for generalist development. If mechanisms suppressing PCM are visible in this case, they may also be relevant to similar specialist categories in other generalist-oriented military organizations. The purpose of the sample is therefore analytical insight into organizational mechanisms rather than statistical generalization.
The relevance of the sample is further strengthened by the structure of the original population. The one-year commissioning programme operated for a limited period and produced relatively small annual cohorts. At the time of data collection, the number of officers from the programme serving in army units was estimated at approximately 40–50. The five interviews therefore represent a meaningful proportion of the accessible population, which supports the use of an in-depth qualitative design.
The empirical material consists of five semi-structured interviews with army officers who had completed the one-year programme. These interviews constituted the full qualitative dataset collected for the original Master’s project, as access conditions and cohort size limited further recruitment. Participants were selected purposively to ensure variation in academic background, branch affiliation, and length of service.
All participants are referred to by pseudonyms (Officer A–E), and demographic or contextual details are presented in aggregated or reduced form to minimize the risk of deductive identification within a small and socially bounded professional cohort. Given the limited number of eligible officers, even modest background details could have made individual participants identifiable to insiders.
Interviews were conducted face-to-face at the participants’ workplaces, lasted 40–60 minutes, and followed an interview guide provided in Appendix A. The guide covered competence expectations, perceived utilization, autonomy and feedback, experiences of inclusion, motivation for a military education, and career intentions. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim.
To ensure transparency in how PCM and SDT guided the data collection and analysis, Appendix B provides a table mapping each core theoretical construct (e.g., PCM, autonomy, competence need, relatedness) to corresponding interview questions and to empirical indicators used during coding. For example, the question “Does your current role draw on knowledge and skills gained through your civilian education?” directly operationalized PCM (Lai & Kapstad, 2009); while the question “How often do you receive feedback without having to ask?” tapped the need for competence validation within SDT (Deci & Ryan, 2000).
For the purposes of this article, the transcripts were subjected to a renewed and more focused analysis. Following principles of qualitative content analysis (Jacobsen, 2015) the work proceeded in three stages. First, transcripts were read repeatedly and coded deductively using concepts derived from PCM and SDT as sensitizing analytical categories, including competence utilization, autonomy, feedback, motivation, and belonging. Second, inductive coding was used to identify recurring themes not fully anticipated by the theoretical framework. Third, related codes were compared across interviews and grouped into higher-order explanatory mechanisms. Appendix C provides an audit trail showing examples of raw excerpts, initial codes, and their aggregation into the final three mechanisms.
Throughout the analysis, analytic memos were used to refine theoretical links and to identify mechanisms such as expectation–placement mismatch, feedback gaps, and experiences of symbolic exclusion.
The analysis was conducted by a researcher with professional familiarity with the NAF. At the time of the interviews, the author was employed as a civilian staff member in the army; with participants serving in different units, there was no hierarchical or evaluative relationship with any of the officers interviewed. While this familiarity provided contextual insight, active reflexive management of assumptions was required. To mitigate bias, a reflexive log was maintained throughout analysis; interpretations were tested through repeated comparison across interviews and attention to contrasting cases.
Sufficiency was assessed at the level of mechanisms rather than themes. After the fourth and fifth interviews, no substantially new mechanisms emerged, indicating mechanism saturation appropriate to an exploratory design focused on organizational processes. The aim was therefore not exhaustive thematic coverage, but analytical sufficiency in relation to the study’s explanatory framework.
The study complies with Norwegian research ethics guidelines (National Committee for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and the Humanities, 2019). Participants provided informed consent for the original research and for subsequent use of their interviews where applicable. All data were anonymized prior to re-analysis and stored on secure institutional servers. Important limitations remain. The small purposive sample restricts empirical generalization, and the findings reflect early-career experiences that may differ from later stages of service. In addition, although appropriate to a critical-case design, the limited number of interviews constrains the breadth of variation captured within the officer cohort. Accordingly, the findings should be understood as analytically suggestive rather than statistically representative, offering insight into mechanisms that may be relevant for similar organizational settings.
Findings: Three Mechanisms Suppressing Competence Mobilization
The analysis of early-career experiences reveals a consistent pattern where the NAF’s generalist career system inadvertently suppresses the PCM of officers with civilian-acquired expertise. This suppression operates through three interconnected mechanisms: the broken promise of initial postings; the autonomy-feedback gap in leadership; and the generalist-specialist identity dilemma.
While based on a limited number of interviews, this cohort serves as a critical case that illuminates systemic dynamics. Their experiences are not presented as statistically representative, but as analytically revealing of mechanisms that may affect a broad range of specialist categories across the NAF and similar allied forces.
The Broken Promise: Misaligned Postings and the Psychological Contract
A dominant theme across the interviews was the stark contrast between the career path outlined by the organization and the staffing reality the officers encountered. The stated intent, as communicated during recruitment and initial training, was for officers to begin their careers in roles that utilized their civilian-acquired expertise. However, for four of the five officers, this intended pathway did not materialize. Instead, their initial postings were in roles largely unrelated to their academic background, creating what can be understood as a breach of the psychological contract (Rousseau, 1989).
Officer A described this mismatch in direct terms:
If I look at my professional field, the answer is no. Definitely no. They said during selection that we are selected based on our competence, that it was intended that we should use our competence. I imagined that I would start in a leadership role and later move into something within my own field. But that is many years away if I remain in the Armed Forces.
For this officer, the issue was not simply disappointment over a preferred assignment; rather, it reflected the perceived non-utilization of the very competence that had formed the basis for recruitment. Expectations of early professional relevance were replaced by uncertainty regarding whether such competence would ever be meaningfully used.
Others described a placement process that felt arbitrary, further weakening confidence that individual backgrounds had been taken into account. Officer C explained that although the cohort was asked to rank their preferences, the final assignments seemed to depend largely “on luck and faith,” with little visible connection to prior qualifications.
This misalignment led two of the officers to reflect that the programme’s primary function seemed to be to fill quantitative vacancies within the organization’s structure, rather than to strategically leverage their specialist competence as a qualitative advantage. A similar tension has been identified in research on Swedish reserve officers as one between “using competencies or filling vacancies” (Danielsson & Carlstedt, 2011). In that study, officers’ civilian expertise was often secondary to immediate staffing needs – a dynamic that precisely mirrors the experiences of the Norwegian officers in this study.
Officer E articulated the longer-term consequences of this mismatch:
I have half a million in student loans and four years of study… so the need to use my education will surface at some point. I’ve decided to stay beyond my initial service obligation, but how long – two, four, six years – I don’t know.
For this officer and others, the misaligned posting was not just a practical misstep but a signal that the organization’s stated commitment to their specialist competence was not an operational priority, generating early uncertainty about a long-term military career.
A contrasting case further illustrates the importance of early competence mobilization. Officer B, whose first posting aligned closely with prior expertise, described stronger motivation and a clearer sense of professional value:
I specifically asked to work in my professional field. The idea was to work a bit in my own field, so that if things didn’t work out as I hoped, I would at least have developed relevant experience from my own domain. It was very nice to work with something I felt qualified to do. The work was concrete, and there was a lot of cooperation with the people around me. It was exciting, at least for the eighteen months I was there.
This contrast suggests that early-career placement may play a decisive role in shaping motivation and organizational commitment among officers recruited for specialist competence.
Analytically, the findings indicate that a gap between formal recruitment promises and actual first postings can directly suppress perceived competence mobilization. When assignments are experienced as serving immediate staffing needs rather than drawing on recruited expertise, officers may interpret it as a devaluation of their competence. In turn, this can weaken intrinsic motivation and complicate the formation of a coherent professional identity from the outset.
The Autonomy-Feedback Gap: Responsibility Without Development
Across the interviews, officers consistently described valuing the trust and formal autonomy embedded in the NAF’s mission command philosophy (Forsvaret, 2020). The participants appreciated the freedom to plan their work, solve problems independently, and exercise leadership responsibility early in their careers. However, this autonomy was also described as lacking an important counterpart: proactive developmental follow-up and regular feedback.
Officer D articulated this tension clearly: “Sometimes I feel like commanders forget that we’ve only completed the one-year programme. I get support if I ask for it – but it’s not offered proactively.”
This distinction between available support and lack of active guidance was echoed by others. Officer B described how limited managerial attention had normalized a reactive feedback culture: “He has a lot of other things to do, so he doesn’t have time to follow up very closely. It gets to the point where if things are going ok, no feedback is good feedback.”
Rather than experiencing autonomy solely as trust, participants often described being left to manage their own development. Formal responsibility was delegated, but structured professional guidance outside of the yearly reviews was limited – suggesting that high operational tempo and competing leadership demands may unintentionally shift development responsibility downward to inexperienced officers. In practice, officers were expected to identify problems, request support, and interpret silence as satisfactory performance.
From a PCM perspective, this helps explain why formal autonomy does not automatically translate into high competence mobilization. When responsibility is granted without recognition, feedback, or deliberate developmental dialogue, competence may remain underused and insufficiently acknowledged. The autonomy-feedback gap therefore risks slowing professional growth precisely in the early-career phase where the system intends to accelerate it.
The Generalist-Specialist Dilemma: Negotiating Legitimacy
A third mechanism emerged through the cultural negotiation of legitimacy within a generalist-oriented military culture. While no officer reported overt discrimination, subtle signals of status and belonging shaped how civilian-educated officers understood their place in the organization. Across interviews, participants described a need to establish themselves as legitimate officers before their specialist background could be recognized as valuable. Officer E expressed this directly: “I don’t necessarily mention my civilian background unless it’s relevant – I want to show that I’m an officer first.”
This suggests that the demonstration of conformance to the dominant military identity could be perceived as more important than the ability to draw on specialist competence. The feeling of needing to “prove” oneself as an officer first may be a direct consequence of entering a professional culture whose socialization process is designed to produce a relatively standardized professional identity. When the system encounters an officer with a different professional background, it has few tools to recognise or integrate that identity as legitimate.
Officer A described how even positive feedback could contain implicit distinctions: “Even the chief has said, ‘For a one-year student, we are very pleased with you’.” The same officer also recalled hearing that others had “just” completed the one-year programme, implying a lower-status pathway. Such comments may appear minor in isolation, yet they can reinforce boundaries between traditional and alternative commissioning routes.
Symbolic markers also mattered. Officer E described choosing not to wear a class ring associated with the one-year programme: “We got a different ring to show that we didn’t do three years. I have no need to wear it as a symbol that I didn’t do the three-year programme.”
The ring functioned less as a neutral identifier than as a visible reminder of educational difference and a perceived status hierarchy.
In response to these dynamics, officers often described drawing on transferable skills developed through higher education, even when their specific civilian expertise was not directly used. As Officer D explained: “You handle many types of people, a lot of information, many angles, and then you have to form a picture of many different opinions. Find the core of the problem. That is something you learn no matter what you study.” This illustrates a form of self-initiated competence mobilization: participants applied general analytical skills despite limited organizational recognition of their specialist background.
Analytically, the findings suggest that PCM is culturally mediated. Expertise is not mobilized simply because it exists, but because it is recognized as legitimate within the professional environment. For civilian-educated officers, navigating dual identities – specialist and officer – required ongoing relational and symbolic work, constraining the full use and acknowledgement of their capabilities.
A Mutually Reinforcing Triad
Taken together, the findings suggest a mutually reinforcing triad of mechanisms that systematically suppresses PCM. First, the broken promise of competence-relevant postings weakens trust in the organization’s stated intentions and reduces early motivation. Second, the autonomy-feedback gap limits professional development by granting responsibility without sufficient guidance, feedback or recognition. Third, the generalist-specialist dilemma constrains identity validation by placing specialist competence in a culturally ambiguous position.
Importantly, these mechanisms do not operate independently. Reduced trust following misaligned postings may make the absence of developmental support more salient, while limited feedback can intensify uncertainty regarding professional legitimacy. In turn, unresolved legitimacy concerns may discourage officers from actively presenting or drawing on their specialist background. The cumulative effect is stronger than any single mechanism alone.
At the same time, participants entered the programme with substantial goodwill toward military service. Across interviews, officers described prior military experience and a deliberate desire to return to the armed forces in a new capacity, bringing with them civilian-acquired competence. Several also emphasized the attraction of early responsibility and the opportunity to lead at a younger stage than they expected in comparable civilian careers.
This pre-existing motivation represents a significant strategic asset. The central finding of the study is therefore not a lack of commitment among participants, but that strong initial commitment risks gradual erosion when organizational structures fail to recognise, develop, and meaningfully utilise recruited competence.
Seen more broadly, the triad indicates organizational dynamics relevant beyond this specific case. Military organizations that successfully recruit specialist talent into predominantly generalist career systems may face retention challenges if competence mobilization is not supported through structural alignment, developmental leadership, and cultural recognition.
Discussion
The findings from this critical case study suggest that the early-career experiences of civilian-educated officers are shaped not merely by isolated incidents or individual leadership styles, but by the deeper structural and cultural properties of the NAF’s career system itself. The mechanisms identified – the broken promise of misaligned postings, the autonomy–feedback gap, and the generalist–specialist identity dilemma – appear to form a coherent pattern that may contribute to reduced PCM. Importantly, these mechanisms should be understood as analytically derived from a small, strategically selected dataset rather than as an exhaustive or statistically generalizable representation of all officer experiences.
While the empirical material is limited in scale, the mechanisms identified here offer a useful diagnostic lens for understanding similar tensions in other military organizations organized along generalist principles. This interpretation is consistent with broader discussions in military sociology on the challenges of balancing generalist officer development with increasing demands for specialist competence. The findings also resonate with NATO-level observations of structural tensions between individual competencies and role allocation in generalist personnel systems (NATO RTO, 2007). Given the study’s critical-case design and small sample size, however, the conclusions should be interpreted as indicative of plausible organizational mechanisms rather than as definitive evidence of system-wide outcomes.
The analysis suggests that the core challenge lies in a misalignment between the NAF’s stated ambition to integrate specialist competence and the underlying logic of its personnel system. Although analytically distinct, the three identified mechanisms appear interrelated. The broken promise of misaligned postings may weaken initial expectations regarding competence utilization. The autonomy-feedback gap may then limit the extent to which officers can translate assigned responsibility into perceived competence development. Finally, the generalist-specialist identity dilemma may constrain the degree to which civilian-acquired competence is socially validated within the organization.
Taken together, these mechanisms appear to interact in ways that reinforce one another, even if the available data do not permit any strong claims about causality or systemic closure; they should, rather, be understood as mutually consistent patterns observed across cases, which may plausibly co-occur within similar organizational contexts.
At a structural level, each of the mechanisms identified can be related to features commonly associated with generalist-oriented military personnel systems. This is important because it indicates that retention challenges may emerge not only from external labour-market competition (op den Buijs & Olsthoorn, 2023; Karasu & Çokgezen, 2024), but also from internal organizational design. The emphasis on rotational career paths may increase the likelihood of perceived misalignment between competence and posting. Similarly, the prioritization of broad officer development over specialist depth may reduce institutional emphasis on systematic competence follow-up. These interpretations are consistent with prior research suggesting that military career systems have traditionally emphasized broad developmental pathways, which may be less well aligned with officers whose professional motivation is tied to the utilization and continued development of specialized competence (Brænder, 2021).
The findings also align with international research indicating that officers with specialized or technical backgrounds may experience underutilization within career systems prioritising command experience and rotational breadth (Kolouch, 2010; Hardison et al., 2019). Comparable tensions have been identified in the Swedish Armed Forces, where a distinction has been made between “filling vacancies” and “using competencies” (Danielsson & Carlstedt, 2011). While these studies are not directly comparable in design or scale, they provide contextual support for interpreting the patterns observed in this study as part of a broader structural tension in similar organizations.
While recruitment practices help shape expectations regarding competence utilization, the analysis presented here suggests that these expectations are embedded within a broader organizational context. The recruitment of specialists into generalist systems may therefore create a recurring tension between external signalling and internal capacity to deliver competence-relevant careers.
The study also highlights how formal competence classification systems may shape the ways in which civilian-acquired expertise is represented within the organization. The NAF competence coding system differentiates between internally produced military competence and externally acquired civilian education, the latter often categorized in broad terms such as “higher education, intermediate level” (Forsvaret, 2025d). This structural categorization may limit the extent to which civilian-acquired expertise is visible within personnel planning processes, and thereby indirectly influence placement decisions. In this sense, the system may unintentionally reproduce a form of misalignment between recognized competence and actual capability.
The interaction between structural design and cultural norms may further contribute to shaping these dynamics. The privileging of generalist career trajectories as the dominant or “standard” model of officer development may reinforce perceptions of legitimacy tied to broad operational experience rather than specialized expertise (Brænder, 2021). In this sense, specialist underutilization is not only a staffing issue, but also a question of professional recognition.
The autonomy–feedback gap identified in this study appears to reflect structural constraints rather than individual leadership failure. Although mission command principles provide formal autonomy, the data suggest that this autonomy may not always be accompanied by systematic developmental feedback. This may be linked to organizational factors such as operational tempo, personnel rotation frequency, and limited institutionalized competence follow-up mechanisms. As a result, responsibility may not consistently translate into perceived competence development.
From an organizational perspective, these dynamics may have implications for how specialist competence is retained and developed over time. When employees experience persistent underutilization, motivation and commitment may erode even when pay, mission meaning, or formal responsibility remain attractive.
The findings also have potential implications in light of ongoing technological and operational change in modern armed forces. Increasing complexity in domains such as cyber operations, intelligence, and advanced systems may heighten the importance of effectively utilizing specialized civilian competence.
With respect to policy implications, the analysis suggests that interventions focused solely on short-term retention incentives may not fully address the underlying mechanisms identified here. Retention is likely to depend not only on attracting specialists, but on enabling them to experience their competence as recognized and useful once recruited. This is consistent with broader NATO-level observations that financial or extrinsic retention measures may have limited long-term effects if underlying structural issues remain unresolved (NATO RTO, 2007). Given that this study does not evaluate policy effectiveness directly, however, such statements should be interpreted cautiously; the findings suggest that attention may be warranted toward structural alignment between recruitment expectations, competence recognition systems, and career development pathways. This includes potential improvements in early-career placement alignment, feedback structures, and visibility of civilian-acquired competencies within HR systems.
Finally, the three mechanisms identified in this study should be understood as an analytical framework for interpreting how specialist officers may experience generalist-oriented personnel systems. Rather than locating attrition primarily in individual preferences or weak commitment, the framework redirects attention toward competence mobilization, developmental leadership, and professional legitimacy. Further research with larger samples and comparative designs would be valuable for assessing the extent to which these mechanisms are present across cohorts, branches, and national contexts.
Implications for Practice
The analysis reveals how the NAF’s structural and cultural features shape early-career experiences for officers with civilian-acquired competence. Rather than advocating large-scale reform, I propose targeted interventions aligned with the three identified PCM mechanisms.
First, addressing the broken-promise mechanism requires ensuring the first operational posting has professional relevance. PCM indicates that early-career competence mobilization has disproportionate motivational impact. Where branch positions are unavailable, two-step assignments – beginning with specialist-aligned roles before transitioning to broader leadership – could maintain motivation through this critical early-career phase.
Second, closing the autonomy-feedback gap demands strengthening developmental conversations beyond annual reviews. Brief, structured dialogues between officers and immediate leaders would provide essential feedback while supporting competence development and professional belonging through the practical application of SDT and PCM principles.
Third, mitigating the generalist-specialist dilemma involves light-touch systemic adjustments. Introducing simplified competence mapping at entry would systematically document civilian expertise for staffing decisions. While incorporating relevant civilian competence categories into job descriptions – particularly in technical and analytical functions where specialist utilization is most critical.
Collectively, these modest interventions target the mechanisms suppressing PCM while remaining compatible with existing organizational frameworks. Implemented incrementally, they offer practical means to improve early-career competence mobilization for a cohort increasingly vital to the NAF’s future capability needs.
Conclusion
This article has identified a critical challenge facing the NAF: the systematic suppression of PCM among officers entering with civilian-acquired expertise. Through a critical-case analysis of the one-year programme cohort, I have identified three interconnected mechanisms – the broken promise of misaligned postings, the autonomy–feedback gap in leadership, and the generalist–specialist identity dilemma – that collectively erode intrinsic motivation and undermine retention intentions.
Several limitations should be acknowledged. First, the study is based on a small, purposive sample (n = 5) from a single cohort and branch (the Norwegian Army), which limits empirical generalization. The critical-case design provides analytical rather than statistical generalizability, which is appropriate for mechanism-focused qualitative research. Second, the material reflects early-career experiences (first 1–3 years) and may not extend to later career stages. Third, the findings are derived from a programme that has since been restructured; while the mechanisms likely persist, their expression may differ in the new two-year system. Fourth, while systematic, the re-analysis of existing interview data cannot replace larger-scale, mixed-methods evaluation. Future research should therefore test the identified mechanisms with larger, cross-branch, and longitudinal samples.
Notably, these mechanisms are not unique to the Norwegian context or to civilian-educated officers. As evidenced by studies of Swedish reserve officers and U.S. Army engineering and cyber specialists, similar patterns of frustration emerge whenever deep specialist motivation encounters career systems optimized for generalist breadth. This suggests the findings reveal a broader structural phenomenon: military organizations across different national contexts struggle to reconcile their need for specialized expertise with career architectures built around rotational leadership development.
The practical implications point toward targeted early-career interventions rather than wholesale reform. Ensuring professionally relevant first postings, institutionalizing developmental conversations, and formally recognizing specialized competence through light-touch mapping represent feasible measures that directly address the identified mechanisms while respecting the NAF’s operational requirements. For practice-oriented audiences, these three interventions offer a starting point for pilot programmes, while the identified mechanisms provide a diagnostic framework for other military organizations facing similar retention challenges.
For future research, the restructuring to a two-year officer programme presents a strategic opportunity. The first cohort graduates in 2027, enabling comparative studies between OF and OR tracks within the same institutional framework. Such research could further illuminate how these retention mechanisms operate across different specialist categories and military education models.
Ultimately, as the NAF expands its technological ambitions and adapts to new security realities, transforming its approach to early-career competence mobilization becomes increasingly important. By addressing the systemic barriers identified in this study, the NAF can convert its specialist retention paradox into a strategic advantage – ensuring that the competence it attracts becomes the integrated and enduring capability required for future defence operations.
Additional File
The additional file for this article can be found as follows: