SUBSTANTIATION OF THE ROLE OF MOTIVATIONAL MANAGEMENT IN THE CAREER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM OF MILITARY SERVICEMEN TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE EXPERIENCE OF NATO MEMBER STATES

Abstract

Relevance. The development of a modern military career management system requires more than isolated material and non-material incentives. In the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the transition towards people-centred, competence-based, meritocratic, transparent, and development-oriented personnel management makes it necessary to establish a clear relationship between a service member’s professional efforts, performance, assessment, recognition, professional development, and actual career outcomes. However, the systemic motivational effect of the career-management architecture itself remains insufficiently conceptualised.

Purpose. To provide a theoretical justification for the role and place of motivational management in military career management, identify its principal functions, mechanisms, and instruments, synthesise motivationally significant practices of NATO member states, and develop an organisational and functional mechanism applicable to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Methods. The study employed analysis and synthesis, systemic and structural-functional analysis, comparative analysis, generalisation of regulatory and doctrinal provisions, and conceptual modelling. The theoretical foundations of work motivation were integrated with evidence from contemporary organisational and military research and with a comparative review of career-management approaches used by NATO member states.

Results. Motivational management is substantiated as a cross-cutting functional mechanism rather than a separate personnel-management subsystem. Its motivational potential is realised through the transparent, fair, predictable, and practically effective linkage of professional effort, performance, assessment, recognition, professional development, career opportunity, personnel decision, feedback, and new professional goals. The study specifies the functions of assessment, individual career planning, professional military education, talent-pool formation, competitive selection, mentoring, digital support, and military rank within this mechanism. It also introduces the concept of motivational dysfunction, which occurs when one or more links in this causal chain are disrupted.

Conclusions. Motivational management should be embedded across existing military career-management processes and implemented through the coordinated activity of personnel bodies, commanders, collective decision-making bodies, authorised career decision-makers, and service members. Military rank has motivational value as a form of professional recognition, a career milestone, and an institutional signal of readiness for greater responsibility, but it is effective only when linked to position requirements, performance, competence, education, and experience. The proposed mechanism can be implemented without creating additional specialised units; its practical effectiveness depends on interconnected procedures, meaningful feedback, and an integrated digital information environment.