An Analysis of the Effect of Commissioning Sources on the Retention and Promotion of Surface Warfare Officers (SWOs) in the U.S. Navy

Abstract : This thesis investigates the effect of commissioning program on career progression for surface warfare officers in the Navy. This study specifies and estimates two logistic regression models to analyze the relationship between commissioning source and officer performance using retention and promotion to O-4 as performance measures. As a measure of retention, the retention after expiration of the initial minimum service requirement (MSR) is used The data used in the models was provided by Navy Econometric Modeling (NEM) and contained information about demographics, professional and educational background, and reasons and dates for separation for officers who were commissioned between 1994 and 2004. The analysis of all three multivariate regression models indicates that commissioning source is a significant determinant of retention and promotion for SW community. On the contrary to the initial assumption, while OCS graduates have the highest probability to stay in the SW community, USNA graduates have the lowest probability. Although USNA graduates were initially expected to have higher promotion rates, the results suggest that they are less likely to promote to the grade of O-4 than officers commissioned through NROTC-contract graduates. However, they have a higher probability of promotion than officers from OCS, NROTC Regular and other sources.