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The first "program of research" is"Culture and Comparative Management: Culture as Independent Variable"
"The field of comparative management is concerned with variation in managerial and employee practices and attitudes across countries... The literature can be segmented into that with a macro focus, examining the relationship between culture and organization structure, and that with a micro focus, investigating the similarities and differences in attitudes of managers of different cultures." (p. 343)
Maybe this would explain my "culture shock" in Vienna, the fact that the mission was using a form of management style that was quite different than that which I was used to back home. However, if that was the case, then it would need to be determined which "culture" theire form of management represented. Was it Austrian? Was it some sort of Eastern European? Or maybe it was military, influenced by the chaplains on staff? Or was it a unique East European mission style of management? Or maybe it was not something so much unique to East European missions as unique to the spy (aka intelligence) world?
Then why was the different so intractible between me and the mission and not between the others and the mission? It would have been very nice to have had researchers therre at the time to answer these questions, but, alas, there werern't, and I highly doubt the mission would have allowed there to be (or at least would have allowed there to be with trued freedom of investigation).
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"The literature is extensive and has been subjected to several major reviews and critiques...
These works share a conception of the organization-culture relationship... Culture is treated as an independent variable; it is imported into the organization through the membership. Its presence is believed to be revealed in the patterns of attitudes and actions of individual organization members...
Characterized broadly, the research agenda deriving from this view is to chard the differences among cultures, locate clusters of similarities, and draw implications for organizational effectiveness..." (p. 343)
The issue here would appear speak to how management could appropriately manage employees of different cultures and/or in different cultural settings. However, for the Vienna mission, I don't think that was their concern; rather, it was more intent on making the employee fit the management's predetermined culture than trying to accommodate the missionary's cultural background. This was, undoubtedly part of its being a total institution, and the writers of this journal article and the other articles discussed in the article probably didn't include total institutions in their works. In any case, this first research program doesn't fit the Vienna mission, so we'll have to see if any of the others do, or if it's the same thing for all of them.
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I have to run now to get ready for an appointment.