The effect of policy images on leadership support for sustainability in the military

William R. Duffy

The US Military installation, Joint Base Lewis McChord, Washington State, served as a case study to analyze the effects that policy images have on the level of leadership support for sustainability policies. Vignette based interviews were used to measure the effect of policy images on the level of support from senior leaders as a general group and for sub groups including Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, and Government Civilians from the Army and Air Force. The vignettes proposed possible changes to the installation’s energy policies. The participants were then given three sets of results each tied to three separate policy images: environmental, economic, and energy independence. Participants reported their level of support using an intensity scale for the policy changes after each policy image was applied and were then asked to rank order the three policy images and explain their answers through semi-structured interviews. The results were mixed. The study indicated that the simple act of discussing the policies led participants to change their reported preferred policy image. There was not a clear trend toward or away from a particular image, but initial ‘top of the head’ answers tended to change as the issues were discussed. There were mixed results between the three measures. Statistical significance was not achieved in the two quantitative data sets (intensity scores and rankings), which was likely due to the small sample size used in the study. However, some of the trends in the quantitative data sets were supported by the qualitative interview responses. The group indicated a preference for the economic policy image through their reported intensity scores and for the energy independence in the ranking scores and interview responses. A clear preference in the three policy images was not identified. The environmental policy was never the preferred image and elicited strong negative responses from several of the sub groups. The military acting as a leader or as a catalyst for change in the civilian sector emerged a theme from the interview responses and proved to be the strongest positive motivator identified in the study.

The effect of policy images on leadership support for sustainability in the military

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