Anyway, the next article is:
Caldwell, David F., Chatman, Jennifer A., & O'Reilly, Charles A. (1990). Building organizational commitment: a multifirm study. Journal of Occupational Psychology. 63(3), 245-261.
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"Taken together, studies have revealed few consistent findings... However, one clear implication is that early experiences in an individual's employment may have a large impact on the subsequent development of commitment." (p. 246)
You will note that I didn't write this, and I had nothing to do with the this being written. I did not even know these authors; they were at California universities when I was in Seattle. However, I sure wish they had written that much earlier and that the leadership of the Vienna mission had read it and taken not of this particular sentence, because little did they know that this could have been the one main thing that resulted in me not having commitment.
They might have been set on some strange form of socialization, but if they wanted commitment from me they went about the wrong way of getting it. In fact, they went about the exact correct way of losing it. Congratulations to them on doing such a great job! Bravo!
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"In fact, Feldman (1977) argues that the most effective types of realistic job previews are those which, in addition to giving balanced descriptions about the work itself, provide potential entrants with information about advance opportunities and the general work climate within the organization." (p. 246)How I understand it, they used the excuse of there being layers of organizations needing to approve me (my mission, East Europe office, the Vienna mission, to whom I was on loan - which is how most everyone else at the Vienna mission also was there) to explain how there was a "misunderstanding" about my not having a roommate, wanting to work with Austrians in the after hours, etc. But I think they really liked that set up so they could keep their distance.
They really didn't particularly want, it seems, missionaries to know much of anything extra before they arrived. Everything was supposed to be decided by the mission, including roommates, where you go to church, etc. So for me to state in advance that these are my plans was probably out of line in their thinking. And when I offered to take the software class to learn the word processor software program before arriving, they wouldn't even tell me that!
So much for "realistic job previews."
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"[O]rganizations whose recruitment practices clarify the organizations' values for potential employees are more likely to select for and enhance internalized attachment among new recruits than are organizations who do not screen applicants for value congruence. This is because if values are clear and salient, candidates will have more information on which to determine if they agree with or can comfortably conform to those values, and organizations can more easily match prospective candidates both to the specific job and the organization culture (Chatman, 1989, O'Reilly, Chatman & Caldwell, 1989)" (p. 248)I'm not sure how many other new recruits were aware of the level of deception the mission used - that it was basically a lifestyle - before they arrived in Vienna. Or even that the mission was such a total institution. But the thing was that most new people probably would be in a position coming that they would feel totally dependent there anyway, so they would be glad to just let the mission take control and they wouldn't miss anything; it'd be fine with them, because there would be no reason for them not to be okay with that. Even so, however, there could be some that might not be so comfortable in general, having to sort of sell their soul to the mission. I've dealt with that in the socialization file discussions a lot, but that's what you'd be dealing with here.
Of course, everyone came to the mission with congruent theology, that's a given and everything's open about that stuff. So that's all above board. But actually ethics is theology too, and that's not all open, and I've said a million times here regarding the deception for security, which I thought was overboard. These guys can't be trusted because they live lives of deceptions, I know because I lived with them for 2 years. If you're going to do Christian work you have to work by Christian principles. You don't know that in advance, and you know they're not going to tell you. They don't want the believers back home to know this, especially their supporters, so they're not going to let potential missionaries know either. And part of being socialized is that they have this warped way of thinking and manipulating Scripture that sort of justifies it so that somehow it turns out that you're not being deceptive after all. Sort of a houdini act or something. But it seems to work and you have all these theologians buying into it and they do it, so it must work for them. But it didn't work for me.
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"Hypothesis 1: Recruitment processes which provide individuals with a realistic sense of what is expected, and which provide opportunities for individuals to choose not to join should be related to higher levels of commitment based on internalization and identification, but not compliance." (p. 248)
It would have been very interesting if I had been at candidate's course and maybe at the meeting with the North American board, or maybe a meeting with one or two of them separately I would have been told candidly any of the following:
1) We don't want you because of your dad's work.
2) You should know that we expect your cohort to be the other secretaries there, so that's who you'll be spending a good chunk of your time with
3) The mission wants you to have a roommate so that they can more easily socialize you
4) The mission requires its workers to live a lifestyle of deception
5) If you have any grievances with the mission there really is no one to complain to (not really; not when it comes down to it).
etc.
Since my 2 years with the mission had 0 (read: zero) similarity to what I thought it would be before heading over to Vienna, I would say that absolutely and most emphatically did not have a realistic "sense of what is expected..."
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That's all I'm going to take from that article. So we'll look at another one next time.
