ABSTRACT
The commitment of individuals to organizations largely depends on the degree to which organizational and individual needs are complementary. That is, individuals increase their commitment to an organization to the extent that they fulfill their own needs while they behave in support of the organization. Conversely, they minimize their commitments when organizational and personal needs are not complementary. Military sociology in the 1950s and early 1960s suggested that military organization had become increasingly similar to industrial organization. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, scholars had recognized limits in the concept of structural convergence. Civilian industry has increasingly accommodated itself to worker desires. The most traditional manifestation of worker representation has been the routinization of the adversary relationship between labor and management through unionization and collective bargaining. If voluntary military service were regarded as a calling distinct from industrial and commercial occupations, the issue of whether worker representation should replace authoritarianism in the military organization might have been forestalled.
