Evaluating Military Advertising and Recruiting Theory and Methodology (2004) / Chapter Skim
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7. Determining Optimal Types of Incentives
7. Determining Optimal Types of Incentives
Pages 127-145
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From page 127... ...
Last, drawing on each of these areas, we conclude with a discussion of matching potential incentives and their effects to the appropriate assessment goals and evaluation methods. TYPES OF ENLISTMENT INCENTIVES Enlistment options may be grouped in various ways.
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From page 128... ...
Another group of options consists of incentives provided to encourage youth interested in postsecondary education to see military service as a facilitator of their educational aspirations, rather than as an alternative career option. (As discussed in Chapter 2, this amounts to changing their beliefs about the consequences of enlisting compared with options in the civilian sector, and it can also change the analogous views of their key influencers.)
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From page 129... ...
These can include such outcomes as increased supply through increased enlistments or market expansion (or improved recruit performance through increased supply among high-aptitude youth) , skill channeling into hard-to-fill or new spe~As is true for postsecondary educational incentives, the PaYS program is intended to change youths' beliefs about the consequences of enlisting compared with options in the civilian sector in this case by providing job training that can be applied to the civilian sector and helping the youth to be considered for employment in a related job after serviceand it can also change the analogous views of their key influencers.
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From page 130... ...
In the case of incentives designed to appeal to college-bound youth, as noted, such subgroups may consist of high school seniors, high school graduates without college, college stopouts, youth currently enrolled in college, and college degree holders. Another relevant consideration concerns the option's potential appeal to the targeted youths' key influencers or referents (see Chapter 2~.
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From page 131... ...
Incentives provided to allow youth to attend college classes following enlistment but prior to entering active duty fall into this category and thus require a longer evaluation period to cover the increased time between the enlistment and accession points. A longer period between enlistment and accession would be expected to lead to higher loss rates among enlisters before their reporting for active duty.
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From page 132... ...
For example, an enlistment option combining active and reserve forces duty can reduce reserve forces recruiting costs by increasing affiliation rates 2The benefits considered in the rent calculation can include more general benefits to society provided by the incentive, in addition to increased enlisted supply. An incentive that increased college attendance or provided civilian-related job training could be expected to improve the employment opportunities and earnings of the recipients (and the taxes paid by them)
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From page 133... ...
Regression analyses are especially helpful in assessing enlistment rates under current (or past) options and in understanding the possible effects of trade-offs among the options or of limited adjustments to the options.
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From page 134... ...
This is particularly true when the purpose of the evaluation is to estimate effects of prospective alternative incentives or options such as the preference rates for one option over another or actual enlistment rates. Surveys Surveys also can provide rapid and reasonably inexpensive assessments of existing or prospective enlistment options among youth or their influencers.
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From page 135... ...
of a substantial number of specified, alternative recruiting options; can be designed to readily assess the variation in propensity and in the effects of such incentives for key youth population subgroups of interest; and can be designed to explore the covariation of enlistment interest and the appeal of various incentives (or their specific features) with a wide variety of other factors, such as demographic factors, educational aspirations, job and career goals, reasons for enlisting and barriers to military service, discussions with influencers, contacts with the military, and awareness of current military benefits.
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From page 136... ...
While surveys provide an excellent methodology to assess the relative effects of alternative enlistment incentives, obtaining good estimates of the true enlistment rates under the options is likely to require additional data. Moreover, the specific details of the information provided to respondents concerning current or prospective enlistment options are important and can influence their answers; this involves matters both of question wording and order, as well as social desirability concerns and other response biases.
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From page 137... ...
Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs Use of experimental or quasi-experimental designs to evaluate the potential effects of enlistment options offers several advantages. The recruiting effects of prospective enlistment incentives can be quantified at low risk compared with full implementation (e.g., by avoiding unnecessary costs or the difficulties of subsequently withdrawing an established, national incentive)
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From page 138... ...
Experimental and quasiexperimental designs can also directly provide data on the magnitudes of unintended effects; as noted, such effects can include market substitution or changes in recruiter effort or time allocation in response to the change in enlisted supply created by the new incentive (such as reduction of effort as supply increases)
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From page 139... ...
Also, when new programs are tested in an experiment as compared with econometric analyses of alternative options using existing data, for example their overall cost-effectiveness may be unknown for years; this is because such a determination requires assessment not only of enlistments which can be measured in the relative near term experimentally but also of patterns of attrition, retention, and job performance, which take much longer to unfold. Finally, no matter how well balanced the test and control cells may be at the outset of an experimental assessment, the test does not control for differing intertemporal changes across the cells, such as those that could occur due to changes in local economic conditions or changes in demand-related factors, such as recruiting behavior or resourcing.
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From page 140... ...
or an individual Service would like to expand its recruiting efforts into a new or largely untapped market and is interested in developing enlistment incentives to do so. To the extent that the market is new or exploratory research on new options is desired, econometric modeling using existing enlistment data will not be especially helpful in choosing optimal incentives for recruiting this market.
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From page 141... ...
To the extent that research on new options is desired or the youth population characteristics of interest are not captured in the military's enlistment databases for example, starting and then stopping out of college before completing a year, recruits' reasons for enlisting, the level of support for enlisting among their influencers, or youths' awareness levels of specific options existing enlistment data will not be especially helpful in choosing optimal incentives. Experimental or quasi-experimental approaches would again limit the number of options that could be tested, and they might not identify key subgroups of interest without additional data collection procedures.
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From page 142... ...
They all include linking enlistment records to stated enlistment intention levels normally, from earlier surveys in order to establish enlistment rates for the intention levels. For example, this can be done for the individual levels (response categories)
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From page 143... ...
The Enlistment Bonus Experiment compared the results of bonuses differing in dollar value and term of enlistment obligations on highly qualified enlistments and the channeling of recruits into hard-to-fill occupational specialties (Polich et al., 1986~. The 2+2+4 Recruiting Experiment addressed the effects on active and reserve forces component enlistments among highly qualified youth of a program allowing two years of active duty plus training time followed by two years in the Selective (drilling)
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From page 144... ...
Youth without GED certificates have to obtain them through an attendancebased course prior to going onto active duty. Key outcome measures include the program's effects on high-aptitude enlistments among youth without traditional high school diplomas and, in particular, among Hispanic youth, who are disproportionately represented in this market; the impact, if any, on highly qualified enlistments (market substitution)
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From page 145... ...
The evaluation is assessing participation rates in the current program across subgroups (using econometric modeling) ; retention effects of the current program (econometric modeling and focus groups with participants in the program)
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