Research Summaries

Back Identifying Traits that May Lead to Unethical Decision Making and Destructive Behavior in Navy Recruiters

Fiscal Year 2019
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department NPS Naval Research Program
Investigator(s) Van Bossuyt, Douglas
Sweeney, Joseph W.
Pollman, Anthony G.
Sponsor NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary Recruiting for the Navy is a unique and challenging duty that requires strong ethics and sound decision-making. We propose developing an assessment test instrument that can identify recruiters who may be at higher risk of unethical decision-making and behavior. The Navy may be able to use the test to proactively provide additional training or corrective actions to prevent such behaviors from occurring.

We will use either a psychometric survey test instrument, a choice lottery test instrument, or a combination of the two methods to achieve the desired results. Dr. Van Bossuyt has experience in developing such test instruments to determine risk-taking behaviors in engineers. Regardless of the type of test instrument being developed, and regardless of if a test instrument is already available and suitable to the sponsor's needs, we will need access to a large sample population with some known unethical decision-makers. We are aware that such a data source exists on the Marine Corps side and is sufficiently large to ensure non-attribution with some intelligently designed controls; Dr. Pollman has the connections to gain access to this data source. Prof. Sweeney has connections within the Navy to access similar information and opportunities.

The research team includes Dr. Douglas Van Bossuyt, Dr. Tony Pullman, and Prof. Joseph Sweeney – all are professors in the Systems Engineering Department at the Naval Postgraduate School. Dr. Van Bossuyt previously developed a psychometric risk attitude test for engineers to determine their likelihood on five dimensions of engineering risk taking to be either more risk tolerant or risk averse. Dr. Pollman conducted the first systematic diagnosis of Marine Corps organizational culture, and his work has provided a foundation for this field of inquiry within the Marine Corps. Prof. Sweeney’s Navy experience includes serving as a Navy Recruiting Enlisted Programs Officer and trainer for the Recruiter Mobile Training Team.
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Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal