But back to the text. I'm skipping some parts that don't seem to useful and picking up at a section titled "Types of Motivational Patterns."
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"It is profitable to consider the possible motivational patterns in organizations under six major headings... These patterns are: (1) conformity to legal norms or rule compliance; (2) instrumental system rewards; (3) instrumental individual rewards; (4) intrinsic satisfaction from role performance; (5) internalization of organizational goals and values; and (6) involvement in primary-group relationships." (p. 135)
The author discusses each of these separately and I'm going to have to follow Katz to get his intended meanings.
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"Rule compliance or conformity to system norms. Conformity constitutes a significant motivational basis for certain types of organizational behavior... Once people enter a system they accept the fact that membership in the system means complying with its legitimate rules. In our culture we build up during the course of the socialization process a generalized expectation of conforming to the recognized rules of the game if we want to remain in the game... We develop a role readiness, i.e., a readiness to play almost any given role according to the established norms in those systems in which we become involved." (p. 134)
Now this is definitely relevant to my Vienna experience, so the thing is just to flush it out. I already discussed socialization at some length here so we already know about that vis a vis my experience with the Vienna mission. When I went to Vienna I certainly had every intention of conforming and did not foresee the type of total institution and anti-Christian (in my opinion) aspects of what was going on (deception/lying, misuse of psychology, military connections, etc.).
So then you have to deal with that pesky work "legitimate" in the text. as in "complying with its legitimate rules". The rules (explicit or otherwise) that I was as illegitimate I could not comply with, and the ruler that I used to judge whether they were legitimate or not was Scripture and I thought that that was a fair ruler because this was an Evangelical Christian organization involved in Christian ministry. In this way then I could not comply or conform to the aspects of their rules that I saw as illegitimate, but I did comply to the "rules" I thought were reasonable and legitimate. This wasn't acceptable to them, however, because they were a total institution and rules were to be accepted all or nothing, as I've already discussed elsewhere.
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"Instrumental system rewards. These are the benefits which accrue to individuals by virtue of their membership in the system. They are the across-the-the-board rewards which apply to all people in a given classification in an organization. Examples would be the fringe benefits, the recreational facilities, and the working conditions which are available to all members of the system or subsystem. These rewards are instrumental in that they provide incentive for entering and remaining in the system and thus are instrumental for the need satisfaction of people." (p. 134)
Operant conditioning? In my case they also used punishment - the removal of rewards, such as when I wasn't allowed days off when supporter-friends came from the States to visit me, when the rules said we were supposed to get days off in such cases. So that was a case of punishment. Otherwise, if you were on good behavior you were eligible to receive all kinds of instruments system rewards and all kinds of warm fuzzy group belongingness.
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"Intrinsic satisfaction accruing from specific role performance. Here the gratification comes not because the activity leads to or is instrumental to other satisfactions such as earning more money but because the activity is gratifying in itself. " (p. 134)
You'd think that missionaries would generally have a lot of this, and this would have been true for a lot of the people I worked with in Vienna. But it wasn't true for me because I never felt like I did anything that used my gifts or knowledge and half the time I felt like I was just being shuffled around or not really having much of anything to do even, so this wasn't really true for me in Vienna.
So I came to Vienna convinced that the work the mission did was crucial for the growth of Christianity in Eastern Europe, although I wasn't that excited about the position I was going to, but I was told it would be okay if I had outside ministry with the Austrians so I could have people ministry because I didn't want to just do secretarial work. But when I got to Vienna the mission made it very difficult for me to have an outside ministry and they made my life hell altogether and eventually I lost faith in them although I tried to keep doing my work to the end. So at that point neither my part of the work nor the work as a whole gave my satisfaction, because I didn't like my work and I'd lost faith in the organization.
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"Internalized values of the individual which embrace the goals of the organization. Here the individual again finds his organizational behavior rewarding in itself, not so much because his job gives him a chance to express his skill, but because he has taken over the goals of the organization as his own." (p. 134)
Before I even arrived in Vienna I had embraced what I thought were the goals of the mission, but, as I've discussed elsewhere, I never internalized the values of the mission as I experienced them while with the mission. That's why I remained somewhat of an outsider until the day I left, and I may be the only 2-year termer that ever left under such conditions, not having succumbed to the mission's socialization processes.
When you think about all I went through with the mission it's pretty amazing that I didn't succumb, but I've always been the type that reserves the right to make my own decisions and I'm not afraid to be different from others.
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"Social satisfactions derived from primary-group relationships. This is an important source of gratification for organizational members." (p. 134)
I've also discussed my identification group (the other secretaries) at length, so I won't belabor it here. I'll just say that if I'd had a primary-group that I really could identify with I may have had more social satisfaction and that may have somehow changed things, although I can't say how because of so many other unknowns. I do know, however, that the primary group the mission set up for me wasn't one I felt a particular affinity for so it didn't do a whole lot for my "social satisfaction." Sure I did some things with them (mostly on an individual basis), but not really any more than with others.
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Reviewing my comments above it looks like there might be a motivational problem regarding my organizational behavior while with the Vienna mission. In light of this, it's rather amazing that I complied at all! So why did I comply? What was my motivation if none of these usual bases seem to adequately explain any compliance I may have exhibited?
One possible explanation might be found in Kohlberg's stages of moral development. I think that stage 5, the social contract, might possibly fit here. I had committed to 2 years working with the mission and I was going to adhere to my commitment. So staying, which might be a kind of compliance, and not just up and leaving could be explained by Kohlberg's theory.
The other thing is that although I had major issues with the mission, there definitely were things that I could comply with with no problem. But the thing was that, as I've mentioned before, since the mission was a total institution, the norms weren't a smorgasbord where you could pick and choose what you want; rather, you had to accept everything, the whole kit and caboodle, preferably with no questions asked. So I might as well have just rejected everything, because the mission wasn't going to play around with partially compliant members, and it's not like anything was really negotiable, especially for someone like me who was on the outs. It was really hard for me to believe the mission was as bad as it seemed it was.
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I'm going to stop here and we'll continue with this article next time.
