Continuing on with the discussion of King & Sethi ("Socialization of Professionals in High-Technology Firms"), we're picking it up again in the section "RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS," sub-section "Organizational Demography and Socialization."
"Informal networks are greatly facilitated by demographic similarity which refers to commonality in demographic features such as age, race, sex, or, as Pfeffer (1985) notes - the dimension of time of entry.
Further, demographic similarity has been seen to facilitate cohesion and reduce turnover in studies such as those by Lorence.
Hypothesis 3: Demographic similarity moderates the effect of socialization tactics on role orientation, commitment and role clarity." (p. 154)
First of all, I think this hypothesis is poorly worded; specifically, the word "moderate" doesn't clearly state the type of effect expected (positive or negative), although later discussion seems to imply a hypothesized affect of the type in the lead-up discussion to the hypothesis, namely a positive relationship (i.e., greater similarity correlates with greater role orientation, commitment and role clarity).
It does seem reasonable to, at least in a casual sort of way, to see how such demographics could have the kind of affect described here. The workers in the mission were mostly from the U.S. (one from Canada, one from Australia that I can remember off hand), were all from very similar church backgrounds (Evangelical Christian, although different denominational or nondenominational churches), and socio-economic background (middle-class). I suspect that there was also political persuasion similarity (Republican for the U.S., or other corresponding conservative persuasion for other member countries), but I wasn't so interested in this yet at the time I was in Vienna, so this is more of an educated guess. Having these similarities would have undoubtedly been a great boon to the individual and organization vis a vis socialization and the ability to create an effective and unified organizational culture.
Turning to how, specifically, I fit in with this proposition, it would seem clear on first glance that I also fit that demographic background. However, on closer look, I think there are some differences that might have made me a less likely candidate for socialization in the mission. First of all, I think that it would be best to compare me with the other secretaries rather than with the theologians (who made up the bulk of the staff - including those in administrative positions). Even there I was similar to them regarding demographics - age, race, sex. But I think there were a couple dimensions not mentioned here that made me more dissimilar, despite these demographic similarities.
The first issue is education. My education, I think, differed from anyone else's (that I can remember) in the mission, in that I started out with a basis (Bachelor's degree) in area studies (European studies with a minor in Russian) and then went to Bible school 2 years (one year for a graduate certificate, second year as "unclassified" - they didn't have a master's degree at that school yet at that time). My religious studies didn't quite qualify me for a theologian position (which required a Master's degree), but for all practical purposes it was almost the equivalent of a Master's degree, so I had a lot of the same background as most of the theologians on staff (a few had doctorates, and they tended to be in leadership positions). Also, while a lot of my area studies academic and missions experience background was formal in nature, I had supplemented it quite a bit with nonformal studies (e.g., Goethe Institut for German language), exposure and experience, and so had had opportunity on my own to come to various conclusions and understandings vis a vis Eastern Europe and missions to Eastern Europe. This supplementation, I think was unique because that meant that I didn't come up completely through the normal channel, which may have constrained my views and served to mold me in such a way as to make me more alike in my thinking to the others in the Vienna mission. To properly socialize me, they probably would have had to take into account my independent efforts (apart from a theological institution and outside of a formal mission context) to prepare me for mission work in Eastern Europe. But they expected me to be just like them.
I think also that those who had Th.M. degrees went through more of a career-oriented socialization process, whereas I think my religious studies didn't have so much socialization built in. Tacking on the second year of religious studies allowed me the freedom to take whatever classes I wanted (assuming I'd taken any prerequisite courses) but without a guiding framework by which or class cohort with whom to be socialized. So I all-but had a Th.M., but not the professional mindset to constrain me.
Furthermore, to compare me with secretaries was even more of a challenge. I can't remember if the other secretaries had degrees (e.g., Bachelor's), but if they did it wasn't a degree that would prepare them for East European missions, except maybe an Associate of Arts degree in secretarial studies. Moreover, they had all been (except one, who was the youngest person on staff who had come straight from high school to be a secretary) professional executive secretaries. So I had way more mission-relevant education (and mission experience also) than any of the other secretaries, but not the professional secretarial background.
So, yes, I was similar in age, race, sex, etc. (the usual demographics), these other differences made me a very poor candidate for socialization into the mission. Fortunately, or unfortunately for me (and the mission), it made it hard to relate to my immediate cohorts (the secretaries) and it also predisposed me to thinking for myself (unhindered by past profession-oriented socialization constraints) and gave me background to understand a lot of the major issues regarding ministry to that part of the world. So I didn't have a cohort I could relate adequately to and absent that possible influence on my mission relationship was free to independently come to my own conclusions and observations about what was going on and what should (and/or should not) be going on. Independence did not appear to be a trait that was valued; and I'd even go so far as to say it wasn't even tolerated.
In my case, then, this third hypothesis in the text misses areas that should have been taken into account by the mission when trying to socialize me.
***
I decided to skip over the "Results" section of the text because I thought that might imply I was generalizing the findings to fit my experience in Vienna, which I don't think the context and sample used warrant. However, the "Discussion" puts the findings in a broader context, so I will discuss that section.
"Previous literature has found that role innovation occurs in cases of high job discretion or freedom (West, 1987), high desire to control the environment (Nicholson, 1984), sense of creativity and need for growth opportunities (Hrncir, Speller, & West, 1985), and lack of predictability of work (Locke, 1983)." (p. 161)
I'll try to take these issues one by one, but I may do some looping back (or forward) in the process.
Regarding "high job discretion or freedom" I did have some of this, but the problem was that I was moved around so much that I didn't get to use it that much. I think that for those who stayed in their positions they did have some freedom in how to execute their responsibilities and even, possibly even in defining those responsibilities, as long as they used appropriate channels for getting the go ahead on changes of any significance.
As to "high desire to control the environment," I think this means the individual has this desire (and I assume that it's also condoned or encouraged by the organization). I don't think in the Vienna mission control of the environment, especially by discrete individuals, was encouraged. Control, I think, would have just meant either doing your part security-wise and/or leadership control of those under him/her. The latter control would probably have been security-oriented and coordination-oriented (to make sure all the parts of the mission enterprise were in sync work-wise). In any case, control of the environment wasn't anything that I could have done; rather it was something done to me in as much as I was a part of the environment that needed controlling, which generally wasn't a good thing (to need controlling).
This next one is so wrong it's almost laughable: "sense of creativity and need for growth opportunities." I had a sense of creativity, but there was practically no outlet for me to use it, except outside the mission or socially, but not professionally. I didn't know what to make of suggested growth opportunities unless they were presented to me in very concrete terms, like "How would you like to go on a ministry trip January 10 to .... " Other than that kind of concreteness I never was sure what was a real possibility (or 5% potentially real or 50% potentially real, etc.) and what wasn't, so these things didn't provide much of an impetus for me.
I can see how "lack of predictability of work" could in many circumstances lead to role innovation. I interpret "lack of predictability of work" to be the antithesis of, for example, factory assembly line work. In that sense, there wasn't much "lack of of predictability" in my work. Where there was a lack of predictability was knowing what position I'd be working in (or not working in) next month.
Taking these comments to this text in toto, it looks like I wasn't a likely candidate for role innovation while with the Vienna mission.
***
Oh, here's a good one...
"Studies such as those by Ashford (1986), Ashford & Cummings (1985), and Hanser & Muchinsky (1978) have shown that newcomers are most likely to identify supervisors as their chief sources for determining job requirements. Social tactics, especially those incorporating the presence of a mentor, are therefore most likely to be associated with greater role clarity." (p. 162)
"Supervisors as... chief sources for determining job requirements"!!! Are you kidding? N0, please tell me this text doesn't mean what I think it means. If it does mean what I think it means, I should have identified my supervisor as my chief source for determining job requirements. This might be true of my Vienna experience if I can just modify it a bit (and here I'm referring to my initial work assignment, which is why I was brought to Vienna in the first place). Here's my revised version:
"Meg is most likely to identify her supervisor as a tertiary source for determining a very small percent of some of her job requirements."
Alternately:
"Meg is most likely to identify her sending mission, other secretaries, and her boss' boss as her chief source of her job requirements."
Or:
"Meg is most likely to identify her boss as a kindly soul who knows diddly-squat about what his secretary should do, except for typing up letters for him."
This might sound a bit cruel, but there were some things he did that made me think he wasn't as naively innocent as he let on to be. Nevertheless, I will say it's possible that the mission was putting some pressures on him that affected how he related to me. In other words, I'm not sure how much was just him and how much was the mission in my relationship with him.
[4/15/11 comment: Don't feel too sorry for him, though; he's now head of the whole mission and the mission has grown so that it's in several other geographical regions of the world. The way he came across to me could have been part of the whole set up there, all the strange things I experienced.]
***
"Meyer, Paunonen, Gellatly, Goffin & Jackson (1989) segmented commitment into two types: affective (i.e., emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in, the organization) and continuance (i.e., perceived costs associated with leaving the company)." (p. 162)
I think I've already shown that I didn't have either of these types of commitment, but not exactly in these terms, so it might be worth responding to this text.
I didn't have affective commitment because 1) the reference group intended for me was a poor match; 2) I didn't have any job satisfaction (other than vicariously as being part of a mission whose ministry I was glad to be a part of); and 3) I was alienated by the mission's actions towards me. "Alienated" is actually not a strong enough word.
I didn't have continuance commitment because 1) of how the mission had alienated me; 2) I did not have job satisfaction and no guarantee that things would get better in the future; and 3) despite my support of idea of what they did, I rejected much of how they went about it and what I perceived to be the rationale for how they went about it; and 4) I came to not really like them as people.
However, despite all I just said about continuance, I might be using that term differently than the original authors. I'd have to go look up the Meyer et al article to see how they used it, but if King and Sethi's paranthetical illustration is any clue, they probably meant it in the sense of how likely attitudinal factors that might affect whether a person stays with the employer or not. Instead, my above discussion refers mainly to my actual continuance. However, in answer to the issue of "perceived costs associated with leaving the company" I'd say that this was probably the one over-riding reason I stayed with the mission for my full 2-year commitment. That is, I saw my career as a missionary to Eastern Europe as going down the drain the moment I left the mission, and I'd worked so hard to get that far. So the perceived costs associated with leaving the mission were tremendous, from my perspective. So I hung on, with no intention of changing my values and a steadily declining hope that the mission might at some point accept me straight-on as I was. In hind sight, I see that this was just a delusion and a grasping at straws in hopes to somehow salvage my career from the wreckage it had turned into. Needless to say, I was devastated, but not so devastated, I guess, as to change my values. So, in the end, it seems that my values were more important than my career, and I think that's true. I'm not sure how an organization should motivation new recruits like me in this regard; maybe it's always impossible. In such cases, then, the onus would be on the employer to change, which generally speaking probably isn't usually all that likely, although I suppose there are exceptions... somewhere.
***
"Since professionals place a high value on interesting work and achievement (Awad, 1977; Fitz-Enz, 1978), they might therefore find a 'fit' between their motivation needs and the organizational environment of high-technology firms. This would result in higher commitment and role innovation." (p. 162)
The problem (or one of the problems) for me in Vienna was that I wasn't viewed as the kind of professional I thought I was and I didn't think I was the kind of professional I was viewed as. We never completely overcame this difference of perspective, although there were some signs that the mission might have been beginning to see me as having more potential than I think they originally did. But my job title was still secretary (or receptionist). In all my work in East European ministry, the Vienna years provided me the least interesting work and least opportunity for achievement (possibly with the exception of occasional teaching ministry). So I would be an example of how the converse of this proposition could be true (i.e., less interesting work and less opportunities for achievement leading to less commitment and role innovation).
***
"As we discussed earlier, demographic similarity (regardless of the level) leads to informal networking, greater information exchange, thereby reinforcing the impact of socialization tactics." (p. 162)
Although this, in essence, parrots earlier comments, how it's stated here flushes out more meaning, I think, so it warrants commenting on. I've already shown that despite my demographic similarities with the others at the mission I had other dissimilar (from them) background characteristics that got in the way. I'm sure that this lack of a good fit with other mission members' backgrounds inhibited "informal networking" and "greater information exchange". But I think that this personal dissimilarity, while possibly having a direct influence on the effectiveness of socialization tactics, I think that at least some of that effect was indirect. That is, my actual position within the mission probably played an intervening role as well. This is how I imagine it:
1. My background characteristics played a hindering role in my relationship with the other secretaries (my formal role counterparts), and...
2. My formal role within the mission played a hindering role in my relationship with others in the mission that I might otherwise have had some similarity to. (Although I don't think I was quite their equal in formal education either, at least not in the theological realm. I might, however, have had the most area studies-relevant education of anyone in the organization, but they would have invalidated that possible advantage touting their own experiential superiority.)
So any way you look at it, I wasn't a good candidate for the promotion of in-house informal networking and greater information exchange. I was, so to speak, the odd man out.
***
That ends my comments on this text. Next time I'll start with a new one.
