The next sub-section of this "Organizational Structure and Design" chapter of the book is "Professional or Knowledge-Based Systems."
"Professional structures differ substantially from hierarchic. Here role requirements come from the values, norms, ethical precepts, and codes of the profession, rather than from the hierarchy of the organization. They are transmitted through early professional traning, by professional associations, and by colleagues... [T]he professional structure per se is most clearly evident in professional organizations such as law firms, accounting firms, and research organizations." (p. 543-544)
Since we determined that hierarchic and bureaucratic prototypes weren't a good fit for the organization we need to find something else and it seems, at least on the surface, that this might promise to be a likely candidate.
If we were to seriously consider this structural type, it seems that we'd have to identify a profession that the organization might get it's values from, and, again on the surface, it looks like we should have a likely candidate in the "conservative Evangelical Protestant theologian" profession. In fact a good half to two-thirds of the office staff (not counting spouses and families) were theologians and when to seminary. So it would seem plausible that the mission might possibly get its values from the theological profession.
The problem is that most of how the mission operated was not according to theological principles and norms, but was probably closer to the profession of espionage or "intelligence" in its security efforts. Also, you might note that "intelligence" includes information, disinformation, misinformation, etc. And you might remember that it was for the short wave radio work that the one mission I worked for (before I worked for the Vienna mission) received money from the CIA for its short wave radio work. And the work of Christian missions, intentionally or not were enablers of the fall of Communism because religious groups were the main counter-government organization in many of the East Bloc countries in the lead up to the fall of Communism. Even if this was a quite unintentional effect of the work of the Vienna mission, I think it was one they wouldn't have regretted, especially when you think of someof the politicization I experienced (most glaringly at candidate's course with my sending mission) and also the military ties (e.g., chaplians as the entire H.R. department).
So you have that, and you also have the incredible focus on security, some of which I can see was needed, but the extent to which it controlled the mission was, in my opinion, unscriptural. So for such a major aspect of the mission to be apparently contrary to what one would expect to find in the theological profession, and the other reasons stated above, I think that the theological profession only had a surface sway over the organization.
You may remember from earlier discussions that the mission had a public and a private face, which is not , in general, anything unusual if that were all there were to it. But the thing was that the private face was intentionally deceptive and glossed over what was really happening inside the mission. By this I mean all the myriad of things that I've talked about already on this blog. So the mission led a double life, and the external view of the mission did make it look like the mission might have been a "professional structure," but my experience of it was totally contrary to anything of the kind. If they were a professional structure following the values and norms of the theological profession, they would not have treated me the way they did. All the discussions I've had here where I point out things about them that were unscriptural back up this assertion that they weren't a professional structure following the theological profession.
On the other hand, if I had to try to find a profession that might have fit who they really were at the core - the part of them that they tried to hide from public view (for security reasons), I'd say if anything they might have been more like an intelligence or spy agency, except that no one there (as far as I knew) had ever trained to be a professional spy or member of the intelligence community. I suppose the military chaplains on staff might have had some training in this, but I don't know that.
Another professional group might be the world of of (at that time) missions to East Bloc and otherwise closed countries. But that's not a professiona that one trained for like a regular theologian or pastor or lawyer or whatever. Rather I think it was somewhat of a hybrid type of organization. My impression from what I knew of the world of East European missions, was that they all evolved more or less independently and developed their own ways of functioning and coping in Communist countries. A lot of the groups preferred to lay low and keep to themselves to not draw attention to themselves and increase the risk of ruining their ministry, so missions could differ significantly because of this isolation and having evolved diffeently. In the Vienna mission, however, a good number of these mission came together to work on this pastor training effort. It was these missions - especially the ones that were members and sat on the board - that would have formed the professonal backdrop for the Vienna mission, moreso than, I think, the theological profession back home in the USA (most of the missionaries were from the USA, but not all).
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"In organizations of this kind, many of the activities performed by managers in hierarchic systems are assumed by the professional component as a whole. Professional organizations use committees and voting procedures extensively. The structure is flat, with status differentiation based on expertise and professional experience." (p. 544)
Let's just say that even though the Vienna mission was a seminary, it did not have tenure - it wasn't necessarily "expertise and professional experience" that made one be recognized as the leader. No, rather, it was most definitely a position in the hierarchic organization that got one recognized as a leader... and it wasn't voting nor a democratic committee that recognized one's expertise and professional experience to put one in a leadership position either. In fact, there wasn't really anything democratic about the mission.
Also, I should say that since leaving the Vienna mission I have had professional memberships (i.e., in the fields of teaching English to speakers of other languages, adult education, library science) and various involvements in them, so I have an idea of what this author is talking about, and it did not exist in the Vienna mission.
The author goes on to describe how when professional organizations grow large (e.g., CPA firm) or are embedded within a larger organization (e.g., a research & development department in a factory) they can develop hierarchic structural elements. However, I do not think that size or embeddedness were the issues in the case of the Vienna mission. Rather, it was more an issue of the environment (and their attitude about the environment) and certain influential stakeholders that influenced the mission to not be a professional structure. The mission was of moderate size as far as organizations as a whole go, although it was of large size compared to its piers, Eastern European missions. Maybe it would have had some hierarchy based on size, but not as much as it did in fact have, if it weren't for 1) the stakeholders it selected to listen to; 2) it's attitude toward Scripture; and 3) it's attitude toward the target country and politics, all of which contributed towards its security beliefs, which argued for a tightly run ship to avoid security leaks and gaffs. The tightly run ship goal, fits better with a hierarchical structure than with professional structure.
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Sorry to interrupt this discussion (I'll get back to it in a moment). I had a very long day today. I started to write this this morning and couldn't finish it before I had to leave for doctors' appointments.On my way out first thing this morning I registered with my oxymeter my heart rate going up as high as 188, but fluctuating, but it was early and doctor's offices mostly weren't open yet. I spent the next few hours (between appointments trying to get ahold of doctors to deal with the migrain medication issue because the last change was to increase one that had cardiac side affects and I was trying to get a doctor to step up and say that that was unacceptable and then to figure out some other way to manage the migraines. So my late morning appointment was for a spinal epidural - and that doctor is a pain specialist, an anesthesiologist. So he agreed with me and stepped up to the plate and he decided to try one more increase of the medicine I was using before, and if that didn't work then we'd go the botox route.
Then I ran some errands after that and finally found a garlic press to replace the one that was stolen - it had to be the plumber/electrician because he was the only one around when I had all my kitchen things out. It makes me mad that I've had to spend money to replace things that were stolen. Of course, if I'd had homeowner's insurance these things might have been replaced, but I was wanting to wait till things settled and I could get more into a routine and budget.
I was wiped out when I got home and after having a late lunch I took a nap, but managed to get my letter to the condo association hand delivered to the condo office. I decided to do it that way because it seemed that things were moving fast enough that the time factor was important, versus sending it through U.S. postal service with a signature receipt request. So now we'll see what happens there, regarding the problem with my downstairs neighbor.
Back to the text...
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This next section of the text is set apart as "Exhibit 15-12 Characteristics of Professional or Knowledge-based Systems.""1. A large number of jobs are classified as professions...
3. Learning how to do the job is based essentially on professional training.
4. On-the-job training is intended primarily for professional development....
6. Important day-to-day communicatioins are always with professionals and clients.
7. Individual efforts are devoted to professional goals.
8. The benefits of work go to work or to professional colleagues.
9. Relationships with clients are bassed on professional knowledge and trust.
10. Career development is oriented toward professional development.
11. Primary loyalty is to the profession.
12. Leaders are selected on the basis of professional competence.
13. The professional job is central to one's life and part of one's identity.
14. Professional knowlege is more important than any other type.
15. Status is based on professional and occupational competence." (p. 544)
There's a lot here, so this could take a while.
1) True. Clearly, most of the positions in the Vienna mission were held by theologians, people with Th.M. degrees or higher, who would be considered "professionals".
3) True. I'm understanding this statement as meaning learning to become qualified to do the job, learning prior to working with an organization. In the case of the Vienna mission, the professionals would have primarily prepared professionally (i.e., in seminary) for the job they did with the mission.
4) False. There was no professional development on-the-job training as far as I was ever aware. The only on the job learning was related to socialization and initial learning how the mission did things. It wasn't like they ever had a bibliology (or soteriology or....) seminar by some reknowned expert come to lead an in-service course or the like.
6) True. I think this was largely true as they'd be teaching the students and hashing things out amongst themselves or coordinating various aspects of the work.
7) False. I gave this a false because the mission wanted it's workers to be pretty focused on the work and not going off on some personal flight of fancy of where they might be wanting their next career move to be. So once you were a professional with the mission I think for most of them it would be difficult to break out of that mold. The one caveat, however, would be furlough. If something could be worked out between the missionary's interest and the mission's needs then the mission might conceivably give its blessing on workers to use furlough time to advance their professional interests.
However, within the mission there were only so many opportunities, be they horizontal or vertical moves. So if a missionary was interested in career advancement in the usual career way (i.e., moving up the tenure ladder, etc.) there may or may not have been support for such an interest, and, if you remember from earlier discussions, the mission was greatly interested in attitudes, so it would be difficult to hide aspirations for too long, I think, from them. If it found out you were looking elsewhere your trust factor, which was so all-important on the security end of things, might have taken a hit.
So it wasn't like in your usual seminary or university which might encourage professional development and pursuits on a much wider scope. The mission only had a very narrow interest in the professionalism of its workers, and to step out of that might have been a bit of a risk.
8) Half true. The benefits of work did go to clients, but not to colleagues in the sense I think it is meant here. I think of benefit to colleagues happening when one contributes to a professional association (serving on a committee, running for office, etc.), contributes to the professional knowledge by publishing in journals or presenting at conferences, and carrying out original research in the field, for example. I wasn't aware of any professional involement of this sort by any of the theologians nor any encouragement by the leadership for such involvement, so I can't say that it existed.
9) True. I think this is true, although I hesitated a bit in answering this way. I think this was true, although there was more to the relationship than the typical seminary professor-student relationship. They would also have had to trust the instructors to not put their safety at risk, since they were working in clandestine situations. And there also often grew to be more friendship-type relationships between them. These things might be more common for the missionary context than the seminary context, however.
10) ?. I am assuming this means career development within the mission. If so, then the fact that there were only limited career options with the mission (there are probably more now). However, I think that if a professional (i.e., theologian) wanted to think in terms of career development with the mission, that professional development probably would not be the way to go. Professional development, in most cases, would most likely mean getting a doctorate and when I was with the mission I never sensed that a doctorate was particularly needed to teach the courses, although one new instructor came while I was there who did have a doctorate. But I'm not sure where getting a doctorate would take someone in the organization, other than just feeling more equipped for what s/he was already doing and maybe becoming more eligible for a leadership position with the doctorate under his/her belt. For most professionals, however, there didn't seem to be a great need for "career development" beyond what they already had and there certainly wasn't a push for it.
11) False. The mission didn't like primary allegiance to anything other than itself because of the trust issue, for one. I never heard of anyone while I was there interested in or concerned about professional loyalty. I think if any of them had professional memberships it probably was mainly to get the professional journals to keep abreast of current literature and issues; in other worse, to be a recipient of professional information rather than be a contributing member to the profession.
12) False. The director of the mission would have fit this description, although I'm not sure how he was selected. But the assistant director (my boss) and the North American director most decidedly did not fit this description. The North American director didn't have a theology dectree at all (although his office wasn't staffed by theologians either) and I don't think my boss did either, if I remember right (I think he "just" went to Bible school and had an undergraduate degree). So these men were selected for other reasons, such as their ability to lead and manage, and similar considerations. I'm surmising here, though, as to why they were selected. I know my boss was being groomed for his position, which he now holds (director of the whole organization).
13) ? I think for the largest chunk of the theologians on staff their theologian identity was not primary, but rather their missionary identity was. So, basically, it seemed that their theological training was just a stepping stone on the way to being a missionary, although their role in the mission was as theologian-instructor, theologian-textbook writer or theologian-administrator, for example. So they acted out their training, but their identity was more as a missionary, which, I think, the mission wanted in order to be the central authority over what went on and make sure everyone was towing the "party" line.
I might say that the professional job is central to their life (if not so much to their identity) if you consider that the "job" uprooted them, put them on a different continent, and controled much of their life. But a good part of that equation was not, strictly speaking so much theologian-related aspects of what they did as mission-related aspects (apart from the strictly theologian-related). So the job was theologian-related, but I think it was all the other stuff and the mission itself that made them more mission-centric rather than profession-centric in their identity. Besides, it was the mission that they had contact with all the time and they'd more or less forsaken their professional bonds, so the mission became their new professional family.
14) False. I put false here because, as I found out the hard way, even if you had a lot of very good professional knowledge, if didn't meet the mission's security requirements, pass their socialization test (assuming it was possible for me to have done so, if not I'm a bad example), professional knowledge wasn't going to do you a whole lot of good. So first and foremost was the need to agree to their terms of service, which could be pretty costly if you disagreed with them with any conviction on any of these nonnegotiable terms of service. So I think that professional knowledge is only important AFTER, you've past these other trust and socialization tests. And if thereafter you regressed, I suspect you might find your professional knowledge somehow lacking once more.
15) False. Status was based on hierarchical position within the formal organization and also onces standing within the informal organization, through such things as level of trust achieved within the organization, whose wife one was, etc. I don't think professional knowledge made a hill of beans difference in status. The only way professional kowledge might have made a difference would have been indirectly if it was one of the considerations in the granting of one's position. Otherwise, things like education were, I think, downplayed in many interrelationships, giving a sense of equality and "we're all in this together" collective mindset. This mindset served to keep communication channels open at one level and make the leadership more approachable, but in actuality I think equality was pretty much a mirage or at best only a surface reality. One didn't need to dig very deep to find inequalities and disparities of various sorts in action.
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I think I've pretty much knocked the air out of the likelihood that the mission was a professional or knowledge-based system, although, once again, there were certain traits it did share with this organizational form. Still, I don't think it's enough to warrant categorizing it in this way. In the end, I suspect we'll find the mission was a hybrid of some sort, so we may come back to these earlier systems as a recap and attempt to determine if some combination of systems might work. It seems to me, though, that one system would probably have to be sort of base, but we'll see.
That's it for now though, and I need to get a few other things done this evening. This really does take a lot of time.
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Addendum, next day:
Another possible explanation, or part of the explanation, for the level of professional non-participation is that the theologians on staff knew that by deciding to work for the mission they would be giving up this kind of thing, and so the theologians on staff were those who were okay with that upfront. I have trouble with that, because I think that that would have been discouraged similarly to how my outside contacts were, but also like myself, they weren't aware of this ahead of time. In this case, they couldn't have intentionally deselected themselves on the basis of mission discouragement of external professional involvement because they wouldn't have known about it prior to their arrival in Vienna.
However, whether or not they knew about the mission's general discouragement of professional involvement (although there could have been certain exceptions on a case by case basis), they might have realized that in any event being a missionary, simply by virture of it's location would mean they wouldn't have access to the pastoral professional community involvement as back home. And they would certainly be opting out of the kind of professional involvement inherent in the standard university or seminary setting, with its publish or perish value. So whether or not the new missionary-theologians knew the attitude of the mission regarding professional involvement, they would have already made certain concessions in their thinking on their own before arriving in Vienna.
The problem would have been if any of these professionals arrived in Vienna thinking they could still keep up certain professional involvement while with the mission. The problem would have dependent on the individual and the details of the situation and their desire for professional involvement. For example, it is conceivable in my mind that if someone had come on staff already serving as revewer for a professional journal this might not have been too much of a problem, unless the new missionary persisted in placing professional values above mission norms. In this case the mission might have tried to even end this kind of involvement, (I'm saying this because it tried to interfere with my external contacts when it perceived that these were interfering with my being fully integrated into the mission, so I'm assuming that this was a typical reaction to outside involvement that proved troublesome in this way.)
