The Future-Self Effect: How Veteran Welfare Shapes Organizational Commitment among Serving Military Personnel

Abstract

This paper introduces and develops the future-self effect as a conceptual mechanism through which serving military personnel interpret the welfare experiences of retired veterans. It serves as an anticipatory signal about their own organizational futures. This study employs qualitative data gathered from serving personnel across the Nigerian Army, Navy and Air Force. The paper employs thematic analysis informed by constructivist grounded theory procedures to examine how observations of veteran welfare inform organizational commitment, trust in leadership, morale and career intentions. The study is situated within an interpretivist epistemological stance and adopts a qualitative case study design. The researcher, a serving military officer, occupies an insider position and the paper addresses the attendant methodological implications through reflexive practice and structured analytical procedures. The findings reveal five interconnected themes (1) The awareness serving personnel have of veteran welfare conditions. (2) The construction of veterans as future-selves through which serving members project and evaluate their own anticipated post-service lives. (3) The interpretive process by which welfare signals generate or erode institutional trust. (4) The consequent effects on motivation, morale and commitment. (5) The emergence of adaptive career strategies as anticipatory responses to perceived neglect. Theoretically, the paper integrates the possible selves theory, the social learning theory, the social identity theory and the organizational commitment theory to explain these processes. The paper argues that veteran welfare is an ongoing organizational signal with real-time implications for serving personnel’s psychological contracts, institutional attachment and retention. The future-self effect extends beyond the military context and holds implications for police forces, academia, healthcare and other hierarchical professions characterized by long tenure, deferred rewards and strong occupational identity.