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Identifier

000430189

Title

Εργασία & ένοπλες δυνάμεις : νοηματοδοτήσεις της επαγγελματικής ιδιότητας ελλήνων στρατιωτικών

Alternative Title

Occupation and armed forces : greek military professional's given meaning of their

Author

Δρακόπουλος, Θεόδωρος

Thesis advisor

Καρακιουλάφη Χριστίνα

Reviewer

Καραμπελιάς, Γεράσιμος
Τσιώλης Γιώργος

Abstract

The military profession combines two important social activities. The occupation, which is an important social value and also being involved in the chronic social phenomenon of war. During the passing of ages it suffered many major changes, with the most recent one being that mass armies turned into profes-sional. This change theoretically was viewed with suspicion by many unresolved considering what this could mean for the traditional form of professionalism that military members were appropriating. Greece is a special case because the professionalization of the armed forces, firstly is a relatively recent change and secondly it’s not a complete one since obligatory service still exists in Greece’s military system. In this context a qualitative research was organized, in order to research the meaning that Greek military personnel give to their occupation and the property of the professional military man and military woman. The investigative questions were about researching what kind of meaning do professional Greek Air Force personnel give to their property. The research was also about, what meaning do the Greek Air Force executives give to the professionalism term and the type of the professionalism that is adopted. Considering these concepts, the con-figuration of distinct collective work identities was researched taking in account , that the personnel had different posts in the internal work distribution, different educational backgrounds, different specialties or different years of service. The research was accomplished using semi-constructed interviews and the results were processed with the thematic analysis method. The research showed that professional military men and women apprehend their work as a profession with very unique requirements for the personnel, a very unique task such as defending the nation’s independence, the country’s territorial integrity and the Armed Forces contribution in civil issues. These distinct characteristics make it a special vocation, as it is characterized by high levels of altruism and it forms important social functions, without the Armed Forces personnel getting rewarded greatly in return. Overall it appears that, with little differentiations, a strategy is adopted that includes a moral code based in contributing to the public welfare, the personnel expectations which focus in the ethical recognition and the selfcompletion, high levels of commitment and loyalty to the military organization and also career-wise desire depending one’s rank and role in the military whole. The professionalism concept main values are responsibility and effectiveness of each individual during work. Generally a «pragmatistic» form of professionalism is established in which all the traditional attributes of the military profession coexist, with the military’s concerns about issues that involve life and financial state and are affected and vary by social, financial and lastly political factors. Considering all the above data a strong collective identity of the people working in the Greek Air Force is formed but also collective separate work identities are formed in the organization depending by each one’s rank, position and role too.

Language

Greek

Subject

Armed forces

Military profession

Occupation

Profession

Ένοπλες δυνάμεις

Απασχόληση

Επάγγελμα

Εργασία

Λειτούργημα