Sharing the Bench: Comparing Army Civilian Executive and General Officer Elite Group Identity

Abstract

A qualitative phenomenological study was conducted in the Spring of 2015 to determine whether members of the Department of the Army civilian Senior Executive Service identify themselves as a cohesive elite cohort in comparable ways to Army general officers they routinely work for, along-side, or in some cases, over. Although statutorily equivalent in rank to their uniformed counterparts, civilian senior executives differ from general officers in terms of the levels of responsibility and decision making authority their positions are vested with. Given the differences between these two parallel U.S. Army senior leader cohorts, a central hypothesis of this study is that civilian senior executives also differ in terms of cultural and identity affiliations in ways that approximates what has been termed “organizational tribalism” in recent organizational theory literature where group identification and cohesiveness are used as primary variables. To test this hypothesis, the study utilized a cross-sectional survey designed to ensure a high response rate from both civilian senior executives and general officers. The results of the survey found that considerable differences exist between how Army civilian senior executives perceive both the nature of their work and their roles in contrast to that of their general officer counterparts. These differences also reflect a significant divide between how senior civilian and military leaders view the roles, responsibilities, and levels of authority members of the Senior Executive Service should have. Just as importantly, the survey identified a perception amongst Army senior executives that they lack a senior level champion within the Army Secretariat who they believe should serve to further their professional and personal interests as an elite group.