Zaleznik, Abraham. (1965). Interpersonal relations in organizations. In J. G. March. (Ed.). Handbook of Organizations. Chicago: Rand McNally, p. 574-613.
Since "organizational behavior" is a broad subject, I'm trying to mix it up by picking out articles on different topics.
In this particular article, I'll be skipping a lot of pages. Some of the things I'll be skipping at the beginning of the article include discussions of aspects of research on the topic and relevant "psychodynamic theories". I'll be picking up in the section "Structural Theories of Interpersonal Behavior," and the sub-section "Performance." In this sub-section of the chapter, the author discusses Erving Goffman's theory of "likening interaction to a stage and play" (p. 586). One of the elements of this theory is that there are separate sets of behaviors for "on-stage" and "backstage" regions.
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"On-stage activity, however, is sustained by the modes of behavior permitted only in the backstage region of the relevant group. We note, therefore, modes of behavior recurring in one region that are quite different from modes of behavior occurring in another region. A region is simply a situated time and space with its consensually established definition as to the purposes of interaction, the relevant individuals who are engaged in interchanged, modes of behavior that are expected within the situation, and ranges of deviation permitted within the expectations." (p. 587)Following this discussion the author presents a quite lengthy hotel-context example directly quoted from one of Goffman's books. While that example is helpful, it is too long to quote here; nevertheless, I'll be keeping it in mind as I discuss the Vienna mission context.
First of all, I think it would be helpful to consider what might be "on-stage" and what might be "backstage" in the Vienna mission. On-stage might include: 1) relations and interactions with churches and supporters back home; 2) relations and interactions with Austrians; 3) relations and interactions with believers in Eastern Europe; 4) relations and interactions with officials and others in Eastern Europe. On the other hand, back-stage might include such interactions as: 1) relations in the office with other staff; 2) relations with other staff outside the office, but in Austria; 3) relations with other staff in Eastern Europe; 4) relations with other staff in North America or other home-country contexts. I'll take these one-by-one.
Regarding interactions with churches and supporters back home, the mission was very clear in wanting only a certain image presented to this class of people. It was rather direct with me in this regard when it demanded that all my circular prayer letters be censored by them first and also in demanding that I shorten my prayer letter list. They may have other ways of assuring this set of interactions meets their criteria, but, since I didn't serve a second term with them, I'm not aware of how they might have tried to control such things as furlough relations. Also, they tried to limit my in-person interactions in Austria with supporters by not allowing me time off to spend with visiting supporters (which I was guaranteed in writing by office policies) and by not wanting a friend/supporter to come and help out for a short time (contrary to the common practice of others coming in similar fashion). The mission wanted a certain image portrayed back home of their activities, which precluded mention of a lot of what happened "backstage" including things that would have been more embarrassing than security-risking. This might be compared to government administrations classifying embarrassing documents. In this way, supporters back home received a monolithic white-washed view of the mission. It was monolithic in the sense of being presented in unison by all mission workers.
Relations and interactions with Austrians were similarly "monolithic" in as much as there was a single definition of the mission that was presented to local outsiders; that is, that the mission was a "publisher". This might be sort of like witnesses to a crime corroborating their story of how a crime had unfolded. In addition, how much and what kind of contact with Austrians was also controlled by the mission, although this seemed to be more individualistic, so that certain individuals in the mission would be allowed more contact with Austrians than others. It seemed to me that those with long-term office-based ministries were often allowed more Austrian interaction. I'm thinking, for example, of someone in the design and layout group and a textbook writer especially. Both of these people had been with the mission for a number of years and did little travel into Eastern Europe. Even if I hadn't been "deviant" I still would not have fit the criteria for length of service (and thus proven trustworthiness) for extensive Austrian interactions.
There were, again, a whole different set of rules (spoken or otherwise) defining how the missionaries were to interact with believers in Eastern Europe, which would mostly be the students and their families. Mostly this would involve instruction as to cultural sensitivity, as these outside contacts would be astute enough to not press for details of the work not otherwise offered willingly by the visiting missionaries.
In contrast, deception was used vis a vis interactions with Austrian officials and others. The mission might balk at the suggestion of the use of deception, but the fact was that we pretended to be other than what we were. A very explicit example of this was that in the briefing for my trip to Romania I was instructed as to how to appear to be Romanian to others (such as on the train). We would, for example, pretend to be asleep to avoid others trying to talk with us, since speaking would be a dead give away. We also dressed the part to appear like a local. We couldn't hide our foreignness from authorities needing documentation from us (such as visas), but we could frame the purpose of our visit in terms other than what it really was.
Now I turn to "backstage" interactions:
As to relations in the office with other staff, there really was a whole microcosm of life invisible to the casual eye. I hope I have by this time gotten that message across, and that some of the behind the scenes goings on were other than what one would expect of a conservative Evangelical Christian mission. The overriding issue which would differentiate the mission from your average mission would have been their view on "security" and all that that entailed. I don't think that it would surprise anyone that there were security efforts going on, but the extent and type of security precautions might not be so expected or even acceptable, say, to other conservative Evangelical Christians, or even to supporters. Since I've dealt with this so much elsewhere (a good chunk of this blog to date), I won't belabor it here.
As to relations with other staff outside the office, but in Austria, there were different sets of rules governing some of these interactions. If the interactions took place in one of the staff's homes, interactions might be much like those in the office itself, but if it took place outside the home, such as in a restaurant, then some of the rules governing interactions with Austrians would also apply in such cases. Also, there were rules, I think, as to who one should socialize with, and these rules were primarily instrumental in nature. In my case, for example, interactions with other singles and the other secretaries, and social interactions with my boss and his family would have been expected to be pivotal extracurricular relationships and interactions for me, although I think that interactions with mission workers who lived nearest me would also have been condoned. My sense is that such interactions served to widen the control net, so that members of the mission were mutually accountable in wider spheres of their lives and that those one worked closest with and might have known the most about the particular demands of a position of issues regarding the individual would have been enabled to better define the mission's relationship to the individual member. I think that it is through such interactions that the mission might have learned more about the individual's personality, knowledge and insights, and abilities, especially in areas perhaps not readily evident in the office environment. On the other hand, the mission could also learn through such interactions of potential problem areas in the individual. These social interactions were also used as a means of social control which could, for example, confirm or sanction the individual.
Regarding relations with other staff in Eastern Europe, this would mean relations with workers one was traveling with or relations with workers living in Eastern Europe. These relations shared some similarity with relations with believers in Eastern Europe and with others in Eastern Europe. However, the "in-country" missionaries would be more privy to the mission workings and as such could also be related to in ways fitting of this fact, albeit with security precautions in place because of the relations taking place in the communist country. Also, the in-country worker would not know a lot of what was going on at the mission itself as part of the segmentation of knowledge, which was a protective barrier for the in-country workers as s/he could, to a certain extent, honestly hide behind this ignorance in his/her relations with nationals.
Relations with staff in North America (or other home-country contexts) was similar, I think, to relations with staff living in Eastern Europe, except that the consideration was not the immediate communist context, but rather the felt need to present a monolithic image in the West to protect the work in the East. In this context, there had to be a certain amount of openness about the work, but within bounds and couched in mission-defined terms. Also similar to relations with co-workers in Eastern Europe was the fact that state-side interactions with colleagues were also characterized by limited knowledge of what went on in the Vienna office, because of the segmentation of knowledge, especially for security's sake. The state-side workers, however, might not have been aware of the extent of their ignorance of what was going on in the Vienna office, while the Eastern European in-country workers would have been more likely to have had some awareness, even if only in general terms, of the types of activities they were ignorant of going on at the Vienna office.
I think this covers, at least in broad-stroke terms, the various on-stage and backstage normative behaviors of the Vienna mission.
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I'm not done with this sub-section, but there's too much left to discuss in it, and I need to get going, so I'll pick up where I left off here in the next post.
