Abstract:Military staffs are composed of many smaller teams that are interdependent upon each other for a positive functioning level of the whole staff. Many factors can improve or harm the harmony of the staff. Recently, there has been an increased interest in the soft factors that may affect team performance. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the Big Five personality dimensions, political skill and perceived team performance in a multinational staff training event. The sample included 185 military staff officers (49% response rate). The results indicated that the personality dimension Emotional stability and Political skill had a limited, yet statistically significant, predictive power on team performance. Practical considerations and future research directions are suggested.

Cooperation in multinational military operations is one of the main tasks for the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF), which means that Swedish officers need to be able to meet international military staff standards. For this reason, the SAF and the Swedish Defence University organize an annual international staff exercise which aims to train officers in and increase their knowledge of North Atlantic Treaty Organization staff methods and procedures. The essence of successful staff work is good leadership and effective team work. In this article, we present findings from three staff exercises that have significant impact on leadership and possibilities for good team learning that relate to a team learning model. These findings have great potential to be of value in planning and improving leadership education and training in both military and civilian contexts.

International operations have become one of the main tasks for the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF). The SAF and Swedish National Defence College organize annual international staff exercises with the purpose of training officers to carry out effective staff work. This study analyzed a staff exercise using Edmondson’s team learning model in a military setting. The model was developed by including group cohesion. As defensive routines are a threat to team learning behavior, the possible presence of these was examined. The results indicate that team leader coaching is crucial to support all the variables in the model. The added variable of group cohesion contributed with insights on how the commander used task solving to create group cohesion. Some examples of defensive routines were also revealed but there seemed to be challenges in identifying such routines in this type of exercise setting.

During the last ten years, the Swedish Armed Forces has undergone a transformation in its shift toward worldwide peacekeeping operations. Subsequently, the Swedish government is moving away from conscription to an all-voluntary recruitment system. This transition may lead to substantial challenges in recruiting new soldiers for the Armed Forces as well as for peacekeeping operations. A key to successful recruitment is understanding what motivates young men and women to participate in peacekeeping operations. This research note addresses questions about what motivated Swedish peacekeeping soldiers to join the 5th mission to Liberia and the 14th mission to Kosovo in 2006. Fabrizio Battistelli’s motivation typology, paleomodern, modern, and postmodern, is used in the analysis. The results show that all three motives were represented but that postmodern motives were by far the most common motivator.

The critical dependence of armed forces on teams carrying out tasks in a continuously changing, uncertain and often dangerous environment, raises questions about how to better understand factors that enable or hamper effective team learning. So far there is no developed field of research into team learning in the Swedish Armed Forces. This is the first of several studies within the Swedish Armed Forces to explore and gain a better understanding of team learning. In this first study of team learning we followed a military staff exercise. The theoretical base in this study is Amy Edmondson’s theoretical model for studying and analyzing team learning. The model consists of context support, team leader coaching, team psychology safety and team learning behavior. The results of this study supports the theoretical model of team learning and describe factors that are important for creating good conditions for team learning behavior.

Civil–military relations and the autonomy of the military profession in Sweden have varied over time depending on the perceived level of external threats. In this article, we set out to conduct an analysis of Swedish civil–military relations over a period of more than twenty-five years from 1984 to 2011. Our analysis is made from the perspective of civil–military control of (1) the military officer rank system and (2) the professional officer education system, for all three services. The analysis is based on Samuel Huntington’s and Morris Janowitz’s theoretical discussion of “objective” and “subjective” civilian control over the military and will give answers on how the Swedish armed forces have been effected by objective and subjective civilian control during the late Cold War era and after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The findings of this study confirm the assumption that civil–military relations vary over time because of perceived external threats but also because of new threats, new tasks, and increased globalization and cooperation in multinational international operations.

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After the end of the Cold War, many European countries cut back so heavily on defense expenditure that they lost their capacity to defend themselves. This resulted in greater need for improved cooperation and interoperability among member states’ armed forces. One important attempt to improve the understanding and interoperability among the European Union (EU) nation’s armed forces was taken in 2008 by the creation of the European Initiative for exchange of young officers aimed to make the officer education in Europe more transparent and convergent with each other. This article presents a proposal for a generic pedagogic model for an academically professional officer education that can improve understanding and interoperability among the EU nation’s armed forces. The model helps to facilitate a process of professionalization of the military profession with an officer education that can meet the requirements of higher education systems as well as the demands of the military profession.