Warrior and peacekeeper role identities: associations with self-esteem, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior

Role identities are self-definitions that people apply to themselves as a result of the structural role positions they occupy (Hogg et al. 1995; Turner and Tajfel 1986). Identity theory sets out individuals’ role-related behavior. Meanings of a role and expectations related to the role are, in part, culturally derived as individuals are socialized into their roles (Goffman 1975), but an individual’s own understanding of what a role means also becomes part of one’s role identity. Role identity is a type of self-identity. Self-identity is conceptualized as a definition of self as a person who performs a particular role or behavior and defines a unique sense of the self and the relationship with the outside world. Role identity is not a static concept but varies in strength as a result of new experiences (Bartel 2001). Importantly, research has shown that role identity predicts behavior patterns and intentions (White et al. 2008).

The extent to which soldiers identify with the military role identity will guide their behavior and their ability to act responsibly (Dalenberg 2017; Thoits 1991), which will influence their performance, including their work in international missions and operations. Our earlier studies on the conceptualization of military role identities demonstrated that soldiers who identified mainly with the warrior role will not only perceive a situation differently from soldiers who identified mainly with the peacekeeper role but will also act differently, and furthermore will be prone to experience more stress (Broesder et al. 2015; Op den Buijs and Broesder 2013).

On the basis of the earlier research, we expect demographic variables to predict a soldier’s role identity. Empirical findings showed that both United States and Dutch male soldiers tend to identify themselves more with the warrior role than female soldiers do (Broesder 2011; Broesder and Op den Buijs 2015; Broesder et al. 2015; Franke 1999b, p. 115; Franke 2000; Franke and Guttieri 2009; Op den Buijs and Broesder 2013). Furthermore, several studies showed that combat soldiers are more warrior-oriented than combat-support ones (Avant and Lebovic 2000; Broesder 2011; Broesder and Op den Buijs 2015; Broesder et al. 2015; Franke and Guttieri 2009; Homan 2007; Op den Buijs and Broesder 2013). A relationship was demonstrated between rank and a command-position and military role identity; in that, officers have a less salient or persistent identity than private officials and could more easily switch between different military role identities (Broesder 2011; Franke 2000). This is probably a result of the relation between rank, a command-position and level of education. Or as Franke (1999b, p. 111) stated: “Higher levels of education are commonly associated with an enhanced ability to consider and discriminate between an increasing number of alternative choices and with a tendency to base decisions on rational judgments instead of emotional attachments,” suggesting that highly educated soldiers are more flexible in switching between identities.

A recent study concerning military role identity of Dutch soldiers in a peacetime location (Broesder and Op den Buijs 2015) shows support for the assumption that role identity varies in strength as a result of new experiences; relationships were demonstrated between warrior identity and number of deployments, and the year of the soldiers’ latest mission. For example, soldiers were less warrior-oriented during less extreme missions undertaken before 2005 than during missions in 2010 in which the level of violence was much higher (e.g., Afghanistan issue).

Self-esteem, organizational commitment and OCB have been shown to be related to identity of the warrior and peacekeeper (Broesder and Op den Buijs 2015).

Self-esteem is defined as a global evaluation of the self and involves feelings of self-acceptance, self-liking, self-respect, self-competence, self-knowledge and self-worth (Wahyu Ariani 2012). It is typically measured by the degree to which the person endorses various evaluative statements about the self (Judge et al. 1998). Rosenberg (1965) described self-esteem as a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the self. Self-esteem may also be conceptualized as the self-perceived value that individuals have of themselves within a specific organizational context. It reflects people’s sense of their own value within a particular setting and reflects the extent to which their need for self-esteem is met by performing their role in the organization (Wahyu Ariani 2012) and is required for productive behavior in general (Baumeister et al. 2003).

However, there is much discussion and indeed difficulty in conceptualization and measuring of self-esteem, and the extent to which self-esteem predicts work-related behavior is not clear. For example, an overview study showed that the modest correlations between self-esteem and performance do not indicate that high self-esteem leads to good performance (Baumeister et al. 2003). Instead, job performance in adults is sometimes related to self-esteem, although the correlations vary widely, and the direction of causality has not been established. Occupational success may boost self-esteem rather than the reverse (Baumeister et al. 2003).

Some studies support the buffer hypothesis, which means high self-esteem mitigates the effects of stress. Positive self-esteem is considered an important quality of employees to cope effectively with adversity in any demanding work situation (Lazarus and Folkman 1984), and Schacter et al. (2009) discovered, many years later, that self-esteem is related to more appropriate strategies to cope with stress and psychological well-being. Petlichkoff (2004) referred to mental skills (e.g., self-confidence, goal-setting skill, ability to concentrate and ability to control emotions) as being important contributors to psychological well-being and self-esteem in particular.

Furthermore, self-esteem fulfils an important role in a person’s status and acceptance in social groups and is related to strong feelings of competence and low beliefs in taking risks. People with self-esteem want to realize their goals and have a more stable emotional and mental stance toward life in general (Errol and Orth 2011; Rosenberg 1965). Britt (2003) stated that peacekeepers will undoubtedly attempt to make sense of the situation if they are required to act in ways that might be inconsistent with their identity. The extent to which peacekeepers derive meaning from their experience will determine how they adapt to the peacekeeping mission. If a military operation has a meaning that makes sense, then their performance will be high. Thus, the individual’s perception of the operation is relevant to the soldier’s identity and contributes to a high level of self-esteem. This is important for soldiers in handling stressful situations and persisting in task performance (Van Boxmeer et al. 2008). In general, self-esteem is important for military personnel, and therefore, we expect a relationship between military role identity and self-esteem.

Organizational commitment is a key construct in organizational research, including military organizational research (Gade 2003). The three-component model of commitment (Meyer and Allen 1991; Meyer et al. 1993) is the most common model found in organizational commitment research (Jaros 2007; Meyer et al. 2002). This model proposes that organizational commitment is comprised three dimensions. Affective commitment reflects perceptions of attachment and emotional ties to one’s organization; normative commitment reflects perceptions of obligation to one’s organization; continuance commitment reflects commitment that stems from the perceived costs (economic and social) of leaving the organization (Allen and Meyer 1990; Meyer et al. 1993). Conceptual links between organizational social identity and organizational commitment, especially affective organizational commitment, are clear; indeed, Meyer et al. (1993) posit that commitment is a psychological state that characterizes the employee’s relationship with the organization, and particularly in the case of affective commitment, which implies emotional ties to the organization.

A vast body of research shows the importance of affective organizational commitment to workplace effectiveness, including superior performance (Jaros et al. 1993; Luchak and Gellatly 2007), increased work effort (Fu et al. 2009; Mathieu and Zajac 1990), increased OCB (Meyer et al. 1993), increased retention (Bentein et al. 2005; Griffeth et al. 2000; Meyer et al. 1993; Wiley 1991) and well-being (Meyer et al. 2013).

This vast body of research extends to the military context, showing that soldiers who are committed to the organization are more motivated and more satisfied (Allen 2003; Langkamer and Ervin 2008; Meyer et al. 2013; Van Boxmeer et al. 2008). Thus, understanding the antecedents of organizational commitment, and the processes by which commitment is developed and maintained, is important and is a focus of our study. This importance also includes the degree to which military identity plays a role in the development and maintenance of organizational commitment. Because creating military role identity, and incorporating organizational goals into one’s identity, is such an important part of military socialization, we assume a relationship between military role identity and organizational commitment. Recent research findings support this positive relationship between military role identity and organizational commitment (Britt 2003; Broesder 2011; Broesder and Op den Buijs 2015).

Organizational commitment has been shown to predict OCB in turn. OCB is a unique aspect and can be defined as behaviors or activities in a workplace that involve going above and beyond the call of duty. These behaviors are independent and are not explicit and formalized in work procedures and are not directly reflected in formal systems and organizational reward. In order for an organization to function optimally, it is important that employees themselves undertake activities and develop initiatives. For example, employees can help the organization as a whole by following codes of conduct or assisting their colleagues directly, or help others spontaneously with problems in their work. It is recognized that these spontaneous behaviors are important for the effectiveness of the organization and individual performance (Motowidlo et al. 1997) and, as such, with a specific importance for the military and the “good soldier” prototype (Organ 1988, 1994). Furthermore, employees with higher OCB are more satisfied with their jobs, more flexible in their work and more cooperative (Organ et al. 2006).

Although there is no clear consensus in the literature about the dimensions of OCB and its measurement (Gurbuz 2009), there are many aspects which can be considered as OCB within an organization. The most commonly used are Organ’s five-dimensional conceptualization such as altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, courtesy and civic virtue (Organ 1988) or Williams and Anderson’s two-dimensional conceptualization such as OCB-I behavior directed toward the individual and OCB-O behavior directed toward the organization as a whole (Williams and Anderson 1991).

Despite different conceptualizations, OCB can be seen as a relevant outcome in the military context because it leads to desirable behavior (Dalenberg 2017; Van Boxmeer et al. 2010; Van Creij 2017). With OCB, military personnel feel more responsible and more flexible and are more satisfied with their job (Van Creij 2017).

A stronger military role identity results in more OCB, and because it has an element of helpfulness or altruism and a positive relationship between peacekeeper role identity and OCB has already been shown in Dutch research (Broesder and Op den Buijs 2015), we suggest that a stronger peacekeeper role identity leads to more OCB and stronger helping and supporting attitudes.

On the basis of the theory and research outlined earlier, this article examines the relationships between selected demographic variables, military role identity and work-related variables. First, the influence of certain demographic variables on the military role identities was studied. Then, we explored the degree to which military role identity is associated with soldiers’ self-esteem, organizational commitment and OCB in regression analysis. The focus of this analysis was on the understanding of the antecedents of self-esteem, organizational commitment and OCB, and the processes by which these outcomes are developed and maintained, including the degree to which military role identity plays a role in the development and maintenance of outcome variables.

Four groups of soldiers (Belgian, Estonian, Canadian and Dutch) completed a paper-and-pencil questionnaire in 2012 and 2013. Participants were asked to fill out the questionnaire anonymously in their home country while they were not on missions.

Convenience sampling was used to collect the data (Bryman 2016). The contact persons were asked to distribute the questionnaires to as many units as possible. The questionnaires were sent to various units (such as infantry battalions, supply and transport battalions and fire service command). In general, we were asked to collect about 160 questionnaires from the personnel per country, of which 100 from soldiers, 40 from non-commissioned officers and 20 from officers.

The questionnaire consisted of three main sections: questions measuring demographic variables, the WPRIS and three scales measuring the outcome variables. The original Dutch questionnaire was translated into English, French and Estonian. The Dutch version was administered in Belgium and in the Netherlands, the English and French in Canada and the Estonian in Estonia. The demographic variables were divided into two categories; general demographic variables (gender, age and marital status) and mission-related demographic variables (rank, service, type of unit during the last deployment, number of deployments, country of last deployment and function in last deployment). The variable unit distinguishes “combat unit,” “combat-support unit” and “other unit.” Function was added to distinguish soldiers’ positions during last deployment. Participants were able to choose between being a “unit leader,” “unit member” or “individual mission.”

The Warrior Peacekeeper Role Identity Scale (WPRIS) was constructed in 2011 (Broesder 2011) and further developed and tested for psychometric quality in 2015 (Broesder et al. 2015). The scale consists of two subscales: Warrior role identity and Peacekeeper role identity. Warrior role identity is measured with seven items representing the conviction that combat is the main military task, including aspects such as fighting and destroying the enemy. Examples include I consider participation in combat operations to be the most important military task and I consider it our military task to use force against anyone who disturbs the peace process. Peacekeeper role identity is measured with six items reflecting the conviction that reconstruction should be the first priority during deployment, that working together and humanitarian relief are important, and that one should always help and work with all people present in the mission area. Examples of items include I consider reconstruction to be a soldier’s main task during a mission and I will be deployed on a mission in order to aid the population.

Both identity scales were measured on a five-point Likert scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). The internal consistency of the two subscales of the WPRIS is satisfactory in this study (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.72 and 0.77, respectively; evidence for the validity of this scale is reported by Broesder et al. 2015).

Self-esteem was measured with the self-esteem scale (SES; Rosenberg 1965) consisting of ten items that measure global self-worth by measuring both positive and negative feelings about the self. In this study, some items were adapted to task performance. For example, I am able to do things as well as most other people was changed into I am able to do things as well as most other colleagues and I wish I could have more respect for myself was changed to I wish I could have more respect for myself at my work. Items were measured on a four-point Likert scale (from 0 = strongly disagree to 3 = strongly agree; Rosenberg 1965). The internal consistency is satisfactory (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.78).

Organizational commitment was measured with five items referring to the extent to which an individual is committed to the organization. These five items were derived from the Dutch Morale questionnaire (Van Boxmeer et al. 2010) in which they had been adapted to the military organization. The items were developed to measure the affective commitment, defined as emotional connection or ties to an organization. This is considered to be the most relevant component to measure in relation with military role identity because of the presumed linkage with belonging to an organization. Examples of items are I support the objectives of the armed forces, and I think that the armed forces do a good job. Participants responded to the items using a five-point Likert scale (from 1 = totally disagree to 5 = totally agree). Reliability is reasonable (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.79).

OCB refers to employees who are motivated to work, keep on working and perform additional tasks (Organ 1988). This behavior reflects the willingness of individuals to go above and beyond the prescribed role requirements and exceeds an employee’s job description (Katz and Kahn 1966; Organ 1988). Given the focus on behavior and performances related to military identity, we believe that measuring behaviors directed at the individual is therefore most relevant. The three items in this study reflect the altruism dimension of the OCB construct from Organ (1988) and were derived from the Dutch Morale Survey (Van Boxmeer et al. 2010). Items are as follows: If someone has problems with performing his tasks, I will help him; I will intervene of my own accord if that will prevent others from making mistakes and I will intervene of my own accord if that will save someone else a problem. Participants responded to the items using a five-point Likert scale (from 1 = totally disagree to 5 = totally agree). The scale reliability is reasonable (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.70; evidence for the validity of this scale is reported by Van Boxmeer et al. 2010). Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations and internal consistencies of the measures used.

The measures consisted of existing scales and were all validated and reliable scales. The psychometric qualities of these scales have been demonstrated in many studies and repeatedly reproduced.

Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 22.0). For the nominal variables, so-called dummy variables were made to prepare them for the correlation and regression analyses.

Dummy variables were created by recoding the nominal demographic variables and ordinal background variables into new variables. Gender was recoded into gender (male) with 1 = male and 0 = female; marital status was recoded into a dummy variable marital status (married) with only two categories: 1 = married or living with partner, 0 = living alone or with parents. Furthermore, we recoded unit into a dummy variable unit (combat) with two categories: 1 = combat unit, 0 = combat support unit or other.

Multiple regression analyses were conducted to assess the combined and independent effects of the two types of military role identity, after controlling for the effects of the demographic variables entered on the first step. On the second step, the military role identities were entered in the regression analysis to test their combined and independent influence on self-esteem, organizational commitment and OCB.

Table 4 shows that 8% of variance in self-esteem was explained by the demographic variables age, marital status and gender (age: β = 0.22, t = 6.13, p = 0.00; marital status: β = 0.11, t = 2.96 p = 0.00; gender: b = −0.09, t = −2.53 p = 0.01). After adding military role identity, the explained variance increased with another 3% (F(2,803) = 12.58, p = 0.00), and this was explained exclusively by peacekeeper role identity (b = 0.16, t = 4.83, p = 0.00), which is not surprising given that warrior role identity was not related to self-esteem in the first place.

Table 5 shows that 6% of variance in organizational commitment was explained by demographic variables (adjusted R² = 0.15, F(4,805) = 14.03, p = 0.00). The results demonstrate that age, unit and gender predict this variance, although age predicts a greater variance. Furthermore, the results show that after adding the military role identities, both peacekeeper role identity and warrior role identity predict unique and significant variance in organizational commitment over and above each other (F(2,803) = 43.85, p = 0.00), although peacekeeper role identity predicts a greater amount of variance (b = 0.25, t = 7.58, p = 0.00; β = 0.20, t = 5.93, p = 0.00, for peacekeeper and warrior military role identity, respectively).

Table 6 shows the results for OCB. Four percent of the variance in OCB was explained by demographic variables only (adjusted R² = 0.04, F(4, 805) = 9.48, p = 0.00).

By adding military role identities in the second step, the explained variance increased significantly with 4% up to 14%, suggesting that both peacekeeper role identity and warrior role identity predicted unique variance in OCB, with peacekeeper role identity (β = 0.29, t = 8.66, p = 0.00) again predicting a greater proportion of variance than warrior role identity (b = 0.16, t = 4.62, p = 0.00).

In this study, we faced a few methodological issues. First, regarding the sample and with all participants as army personnel, only one military service was represented. Research with larger and more controlled populations from different nations and other military services will allow a generalization of the results. In addition, we collected data from four countries which were very similar to some extent of the military culture, socialization and training of military personnel. Our study would have been more complete if more countries (and dissimilar countries) would have been surveyed. However, this sampling method would require a more complex approach in order to monitor the effects of more diverse cultural backgrounds.

In addition, in this study, we used convenience sampling, which made it difficult to determine how many questionnaires were actually sent out in the countries and how many people refused to complete the questionnaire.

Furthermore, the results may partly be influenced by common method variance because of the self-reported questionnaire that measured military role identities and the outcome variables at one point in time (Jakobsen and Rasmus 2015). More extensive research with different samples and data collection methods would provide broader evidence for the results.

For further research, it would also make military role identity studies more complete if actual behavior would also be measured next to military role identity, self-esteem, organizational commitment and OCB. The behavior intentions we measured are closely related to actual behavior during missions; however, we did not measure actual behavior or performance of military personnel.

Another issue concerns the translation of the questionnaire. Although the results show uniformity and no consistent differences were found with regard to the principal understanding and internal consistency after careful processed translation into different languages, we did not use the “back translation” technique as method for ensuring a clear, unambiguous and understandable translation of specific items in the questionnaire. This may have caused some bias due to misinterpretations or different interpretation of the items in the questionnaire. It is advisable to make use of this procedure (Brislin 1970).