| The United States (U.S.) is not producing enough U.S.-born scientists, engineers, and technical professionals to meet national research and development demands. Where there were once approximately six U.S.-born Science and Engineering (S&E) workers per foreign-born S&E worker, there are, as of recent record, only three U.S.-born S&E workers per foreign-born S&E worker. Foreign citizens and even foreign-born U.S. citizens are often, due to security concerns, ineligible for the security clearances required for many jobs in the Department of Defense (DoD) and the aerospace industry. If not corrected, the decreasing numbers of U.S.-born S&E workers may hinder the nation's ability to perform in those capacities. The DoD's human capital strategy includes utilizing agencies like the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) to bolster the supply of these skills. Despite the efforts, there are aspects of human capital management that are potentially negating the benefits of the efforts. The purpose of this quantitative cross-sectional study was to determine if the presence of DoD personnel policies can be used to predict an increasing or decreasing likelihood of retention among DoD engineers. The personnel policies investigated were: (a) early separation initiatives, (b) deployment policy, and (c) promotion policy. Records of graduate-level engineers representing AFIT's graduating classes since 2003 were assessed to gather information regarding career dispositions after graduation. A logistic regression analysis was used to determine if any of these policies are likely to increase or decrease the probability of completing three years of work in the technical field in return for the education. The results suggest that promotion policies may impact the odds of graduates spending at least three years in the technical field, while there is insufficient evidence with regard to deployment policy. |
