Active Duty Military Deployments

To explore the possible respite effects of deployments, active duty Air Force acquisition support personnel who were either scheduled to deploy (n=74), or recently returned from deployment (n=34) were surveyed. Analysis of variance compared the pre- and post-deployment group's perceived levels of burnout, emotional exhaustion, role ambiguity, role conflict, self-efficacy, organizational commitment, contingent rewards, operating conditions, co-worker satisfaction, and overall job satisfaction. Although the results indicated the differences were not large enough to be significant, many of the variables behaved as hypothesized. Specifically, burnout, emotional exhaustion, role conflict, contingent rewards, and co-worker satisfaction were all higher in the post-deployment group. Implications of the findings are discussed.