Military-Civilian Working Relationships

Because civilian and military personnel often must function as one unit, positive military/civilian working relationships are critical to the successful functioning of the Army. The primary purpose of this report is to analyze some of the differences between civilians who have civilian supervisors and civilians who have military supervisors. Data from FY88 Biennial Surveys of Army Civilians are used to focus analyses on attitudes regarding evaluations of supervisors, perceived supervisor support for training, knowledge and use of performance appraisal procedures, cooperation and efficiency of work groups, the perception of civilians' importance to management, and general satisfaction. A two-stage data analysis process is used. Analyses of variance are performed to focus on promising dependent variables. The significant results are followed up with regression analyses to control for unwanted sources of variation and to determine the magnitude of the effects of interest. The results should be interpreted with caution. Although the majority of the regression analyses obtain results that are statistically significant the percent of variance explained is negligible and therefore not meaningful in an operations sense. Biennial survey, Military-civilian relationships, Civilian personnel, Performance appraisal, Leadership, Personnel management, Total army, Satisfaction, Supervisors.