Meanings of military ranks

Abstract

This paper studies what kinds of meanings reserve officers ascribe to military ranks. The study builds on existing literature on reserve forces and hypothesizes that military ranks among reserve officers are subject to rendering the ranks with multiple meanings, and which are bound to create ambiguity of interpretation. To elaborate these theoretical insights a survey among Finnish reserve officers was conducted (N = 6193). The data was analyzed using factor analysis and correlation analysis. The results show that military ranks are ascribed, in addition to the functionalistic, hierarchical meaning, also with meanings of prestige, proficiency, and identity. The main theoretical contribution of the paper is in complementing the previous literature on ambiguity of military ranks by specifying four different meanings in the interpretation of the ranks.

Keywords:

• Military ranks
• organizational culture
• ambiguity
• hierarchy
• factor analysis

Notes

1. Veneri’s (2008) findings contradicted the prevailing notions that the primary means to a successful military career is through the operational or combat arms career fields. It has also been noted by Sharabi (2012), concerning promotions in the public sector, that “[t]he most important factor influencing promotion is organizational politics and it is much higher than success in projects/missions.”

2. The high standards of battle efficiency of the Finnish reserve officers was canonized by the Commander-in-Chief of Finnish Army, Field Marshal Mannerheim in his Daily Order of March 14, 1940: “I thank you all, officers, non-commissioned officers and rank and file, especially I would like to emphasize the sacrificing bravery of the reserve officers, their sense of duty, and the prominence, with which they have accomplished a task, which primarily was not theirs”. Excerpts of how the Reserve Officer legacy is created and maintained is found on manuals, textbooks, course material in officer education. The following Finnish quote serves as an example: “The struggles about Base Muna have left lasting memories of brothers in arms, whose sense of duty, fighting spirit and confidence in our ability endured in the harshest and toughest stages of the fighting. The present and future defenders shall consider the message, on what basis the battle tasks were possible to carry out, a part of the spiritual heritage of the men who served at Base Muna and other veterans.” (Kärävä 2001, p. 123) .