DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2020.v08i12.003

Pages: 578-585

The seemly ethno-religious classified operations and unconstitutional political participation of the Nigerian military also seem to have always influenced their job characteristics, career adaptation, person-job-fit and modus-operandi. Our study investigated job characteristics and person-job-fit as predictors of Nigerian military career adaptation based on Theory of Purposeful Behaviour. The participants for our study comprised of (199) Military personnel drawn through purposive sampling method. Three instruments; Job Characteristics Scale, Person-Job-Fit Scale and Military Career Adaptability Questionnaire were used and multiple regression employed for data analysis. Result of our study showed that job characteristics were not significant predictor of military career adaptability; person-job-fit was a significant positive predictor of Nigerian military career adaptation. The result of our study implies that soldiers need special individual abilities (person-job-fit) to solve internal threat issues (e.g., Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen resurgences’, armed banditry, political and religious uprising challenges) and adapt to military career. Our research deepened the existing body of knowledge on military career adaptation by integrating person-job-fit and job characteristics of Nigerian military with psychology of work. We recommend that to help Nigerian military personnel adapt to their career, it is important not to provide non-ethnic defense militia, intergroup discrimination, psychosocial organizational conflict, but rather grant work method control to Nigerian defense organizations. However, more research is needed on vital psychological states of soldiers such as work/non-work interference and enhancement, motivation profiles, person-organization-fit and perceived work ability for further clarification of military career adaptation generally and particularly in Nigeria.