I'll go ahead and start the next article while my rolls are baking. I was going to make whole wheat rolls to make salmon sandwiches with (with coleslaw), but then I found this kaiser roll recipe, and I've never made kaiser rolls before, so I thought I'd give it a try. They smell good, but they're not whole grain.
***
This next text is a chapter from a book; it's not an edited book though.
Roberts, K. H. (1991). Organizational Behavior. Boston: PWS-Kent. (Chapter 3: Organizational Culture and Socialization: Why Workers Stay, p. 108-161)
***
Here are a couple of "Key Definitions" that are fairly interesting:
"Organizational culture - no agreed-up meaning, but two main views: culture is comprised of the behaviors and structures of a group (a component of the social system), or it is a mental construct (which influences how people think and view the world or find expression in symbols and shared meanings).
Commitment - the capacity and willingness to act in ways that meet the organization's goals and interests." (p. 109)
For purposes of understanding the Vienna mission, I think the second organizational culture definition is more helpful. I say this because of the mission's concern about attitude and submission, making the mental aspects of cultural life take preeminence, I think. That is, I think that mental aspects of the organizational culture were more important than the behavioral ones. For example, if a person had a proper mental affect but did something otherwise unacceptable to the group (within bounds, of course), the error would be readily forgiven and the person instructed on how to act next time, like a teachable moment maybe. But if a person erred in their mental affect (attitude, etc.) that would be taken more seriously, and the response would be more of a reprimand. Of course, if errant behaviors were interpreted as being intentional, for example, then that would move the error into the mental affect realm. I understand that the definition here calls it "mental construct", but I'm rephrasing it a bit to fit the Vienna mission better.
[4/9/11 comment: That being said though, absent direct evidence of 'mental constructs' the more readily observable behaviors and structures of the group take on increased importance as a means of reconstructing the past, and also as a framework for trying to disentangle the 'mental constructs' of the mission.]
The definition of commitment is also quite interesting and not how I would have thought of the term, although my exposure to the field of organizational behavior is limited, too, and this would be a field-specific definition.
Taking this definition of commitment at face value I think I would have met the criteria, that is, if you use the publicly displayed aspects of the organization's "goals and interests." Beyond that, I'm not sure what else they wanted, but I may not have met those other criteria.
***
Something's going on at my neighbor's apartment now, and there are aid people there doing something in her apartment that makes a lot of noise and she's outside in a wheel chair under an umbrella. It's late (ca. 1 a.m.) so no one else was out, but I asked if there was anything I could do. It seems she's outside waiting for the workers to do something in her apartment. She's an elderly lady that has not been well. She was recently in the hospital with heart problems and then in rehabilitation before coming home again. Poor lady, I hope she's okay.
[4/9/11 comment: It ended out being the electric stove that had turned itself on automatically, or at least that's how my other neighbor explained it. I'd never heard of electric stoves doing this, but my neighbor said that that's at least the third stove that has done that in the last couple years here. These were older stoves (which they're replacing as people move out, which means I have a new one), but still, I told the neighbor that that seems like the kind of thing that might have resulted in a recall if a certain model or lot was bad like that. Evidently everything turns on - all the burners and the stove. That sounds pretty dangerous to me. Still, I felt sorry for the elderly neighbor sitting outside on a wheelchair covered up in a blanked holding an umbrella at 1:00 in the morning.]
***
"Neither culture nor socialization has been clearly linked through research to such outcome variables as turnover and commitment. Because these outcomes are important to managers and researchers alike, culture and socialization may wane as subjects of study unless such relationships can be shown (Staw, 1984)." (p. 115)
I may be taking this text to places unintended by the author (so what's new? I've been doing that all along, haven't I?), but I'm wondering if...
1. workers would stay with an organization irregardless of the culture
and
2. companies can create pretty much any culture they want and people will still stay irregardless
If this is a possible extension of this text, then is it likewise possible that the new missionaries who come to Vienna will just accept whatever the organizational culture is and therefore stay with the mission? If this is the case, then, basically these new missionaries don't give a rip what the organizational culture of the mission is and they'll just accept it pretty much without thinking. So if the mission said that every Tuesday you have to paint your face blue and wear socks that don't match, everyone would just do it, right? Obviously, I'm exaggerating and it's not like the mission would ever ask such a silly thing of the missionaries, but I purposely exaggerated the idea so you could see how this could have been at least part of how the mission got the way it was when I was with it.
***
Here's a good one:
"Managers working in other countries, then, must be aware of the cultural traits of their workers and perhaps try to adapt the corporate culture to the workers' characteristics." (p. 119)
!!!??? If the Vienna mission had operated on this principle I shouldn't have had any problems because I'm American and so are they and so were 90% of their workers, so they should have adapted their corporate culture to our (the workers') characteristics.
I wonder who's characteristics they might have adapted to, because they didn't seem to be adapted with Americans in mind. We did have an Australian, but although I'm far from an expert on Australia, they don't seem like the type that would gravitate naturally to the mission's culture, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't the Canadian missionary they had in mind, because I know a little bit more about Canada than Australia (my mom's from British Columbia, which makes me half Canadian).
***
I'd better end there because it's late and my kaiser rolls (Brötchen) are out of the oven, although they still have to cool before putting them away.
Things quieted down at the neighbor's so I guess everything's okay.
