When I left for Vienna, as you may (or may not) remember, I'd already seen things that bothered me at the mission I'd had sometimes part-time, sometimes short-term connection with. But I thought it was an isolated case. Then when I sent out that questionnaire to try to choose a mission and started getting responses back I was rather shocked at some of the responses, but I still thought that there was an option B out there somewhere, and I was pretty sure I'd found it. Later on I came to believe that pretty much all the missions to that part of the world were tainted with the same kind of thing, although some may have been worse than others (but I'm not sure about that). When I came to that conclusion about the mission field, I saw no other possibility but to go it alone. There may well have been other mom and pop missions out there not caught up in this stuff, but I don't know about that either; I'm just speculating.
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The rest of the chapter is devoted to different methods of socialization and, according to the text, "[e]ach method of organizational socialization discussed below varies in the amount of effort required of a recruit." (p. 101).
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The first method is training. I wouldn't say that the mission really had any formal training in place. So socialization was pretty informal and tailored to each newcomer specifically. Nevertheless, there are a few things that might be helpful in this section, if we apply them to socialization in general.
"Organizations that conduct training programs conceive of them as imparting skills, but analysis of any particular training program always shows it to be concerned with the communication of values, the development of an ambiance, the rejection of prior affiliations and the development of an appropriate self-image." (p. 102).
This is interesting, because the Vienna mission I think would do the same thing; that is, they would say that any socialization efforts were merely to help newcomers with concrete knowledge and skills, such as how to register your residence (which was required of all foreigners living in Austria) and the basics of the job to be done. I doubt highly that they were admit to intentional socialization of things like attitudes and the like. So we see here that this is the kind of thing found regularly in researching, at least of training programs.
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"If a training program is to influence behavior, it must affect the participants' motivations, response capacities, self-images, and/or role prescriptions (Lawler, 1971a). Thus the training program may provide different influences for persons with different entering characteristics. For example, for those new members with sufficient motivation, the training program will largely consist of instrumental activities (i.e., the learning of role prescriptions and response capacities). For others, it may be a more expressive process designed to change the individual's motivation and self-image." (p. 102-103).
I can't remember any training of job skills per se. Maybe trip briefing would come about as close to that as it came, but that was particular to the trip being prepared for, and may not have exactly applied to other trips. Learning of job responsibilities was more informal in nature. But so were other aspects of socialization. It's very possible that some people came to the mission without needing much by way of "attitude" adjustment and normative learning, but there would always be some.
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"The interpretations of others or evaluations of an individual's performance during the training phase may have lasting effects on the person's later career. Those recruits who are assessed as the 'right' type for the organization may be in the best position for later advancement. Those trainees who are perceived as having an 'attitude problem' may well have future difficulties with the organization. Hence, if a new member is unable to present a 'face' which conveys the message that he has no need of expressive socialization, he may find that his success or failure to learn the specific role of his work makes little difference to his organizational future. While it is clear that organizations vary regarding the expressive content of their training programs, all organizations at least require that the new member demonstrate the 'proper attitude' - which ranges from a simple criterion, such as 'being on time' to far more elaborate criteria, such as 'speaking the organizational line.' In general the longer the period of training, the more emphasis is placed upon development of the 'proper attitudes' in new members. " (p. 103).
On one hand the Vienna mission was among those organizations that require "more elaborate criteria", but the length of time in training is irrelevant in this case. At the end I received explicit confirmation that my attitude was an issue vis a vis the organization. It's not like I was disruptive, negative or complaining, nor that I didn't do my work well, but rather that I did everything I was supposed to do but hadn't really changed my thinking to fit their demands. This I can say with certainty.
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That's all for training. The next method is education, according to this definition: "[I]t specifically refers to those learning experiences which occur outside the organization in which the individual will eventually participate." (p. 104)
There was no such outside training for the mission, although we were all supposed to be allowed some time to take German classes; but I don't think anyone ever did, although I asked about it. I ended out taking an evening German conversation class at a Volkshochschule, but that was on my time and with my dime. When I asked about this provision, I was responded to with something about how much work there was to do. But you'll see when I start my chronology up again that in my case that was a bunch of bunk because I didn't have hardly anything to do the first several months and what I was doing seemed pretty unnecessary and meaningless. I'll get more into that in the chronology.
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The next two methods are more salient to my experience with the Vienna mission, but we'll get to them tomorrow.
Adieu,
~Meg
