"Commitment, for example, has been shown to be positively related to age..., tenure..., acceptance of the Protestant Work Ethic..., central life interest in work..., ambition; upward mobility, ..., and having a high need for achievement. Interestingly, of the personal characteristics studied to date, only education level has been found to be negatively related to commitment." (p. 449; The illipses ("..." above) replace all the references for relevant studies.)
All things considered, this would seem to point to me having a very strong commitment to the Vienna mission. As to education, I was actually one of the least educated, since the mission consisted mainly of seminarians and hence most had a master's degree at least, and I just had a graduate certificate at that point. But the thing was that the organization's very goal or purpose was such that it needed highly educated people (although some in church work don't think education is as important as others do). So if someone had a seminary degree and needed a place to work, the Vienna mission is just the kind of place they might consider working, so I don't think that the Vienna mission really fits the bill for for the "negatively related to commitment" statement.
Now, if someone had an advance degree in physics or something that might be another matter, then their commitment might very well be subject to this statement. I'm not saying that it would have to have been though, but just that it would have been more likely (in keeping with this text), I think, than for the seminarian. Even me, when you think of it, that my B.A. was in European Studies, with a minor in Russian Studies, then I got a certificate from the Goethe Institut in Grundstufe II (not very impressive, really) German, so I came with that background applied to the mission.
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"Salancik (1977a) suggested that role conflict leads to the perception of decreased responsibility, and that anything which decreases perceived responsibility also decreases role involvement and thereby commitment. Similarly, role ambiguity, as a source of role confusion, may decrease commitment by reducing or clouding the perceived linkage between the member's role and the attainment of organizational goals." (p. 451)Not only did I have this text underlined, a bar next to the right margin of the text, a star next to the text, but also an exclamation mark by the text. Wow! I think I can see why I did that.
Early on there were conflict not just in my role(s) but in what I was being told, and what I was doing. I expected to be doing regular secretarial work, not stuff like reading software manuals. So there were lots of role conflicts throughout my tenure. Conflicts in how I viewed myself and what I was doing, conflicts in what I thought the mission wanted me to do and what I thought I was supposed to be doing, etc.
And certainly these conflicts they made me step back, because I didn't trust the mission so much and I was watching to try to figure out what was going on. It didn't take too long to figure out I couldn't really trust anyone, so I figured I had to just figure things out on my own, and at different times I'd learne different things through various means to help me figure out what was going on to know what I was supposed to do and how to act and all.
I guess the "decreases role involvement and thereby commitment" would fit me to a certain degree. I did my job, so I didn't skimp on that. I never didn't do my job or slacked off on that or anything, but the same way I didn't complain about anything I also didn't jump to really offer to do anything great either. If they came up to me, fine. Otherwise, no, I'd just sit and mind my own business. Maybe that's how they wanted it anyway. But they really hated it that I was so involved in Austrian things right off the bat, I think because they couldn't socialize me or something, except it was the military chaplain/H.R. director that stepped in, so maybe it was the U.S. government that didn't like me out of control ount on my own, for all I know. Dad said in his line of work they didn't like independent people. So maybe that was it. So much for being from the land of the FREE and the brave.
Eventually my role ambiguity became just atrocious; it was awful. Now I think I can tolerate a fair amount of ambiguity, but this was awful and it was intentional and I could hardly tell which way was up. That was really horrible. That was when there were a lot of rumors going around and it seemed like there was constantly someone around me with some new rumor about something or another and the thing is that there would be some truth and some probably-not-so-truth. There were things about who was going to take over as my old boss' secretary (or before that whether I would stay or another gal that my boss' wife liked better), the possibility of helping open an office in Moscow, etc. It felt like they were trying to feed me things to confuse me so that I wouldn't know what was really truth there, like, basically, disinformation. So maybe they really were a spy organization after all. Hmm? This was all towards the end of my time with the mission.
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"Etzioni (1975) pointed out that members of utilitarian organizations are less committed than are members of organizations of organizations which are more normative in nature. No [sic] surprisingly, in an earlier study (Mintzer, 1968), it was found that members of coercive organizations are the least committed, those of utilitarian are most committed, and members or normative organizations are the most committed in their respective organizations." (p. 451)To me the Vienna mission was a coercive organization, and, true to form, I was, as would be expected, among the least expected. Maybe if they'd have tried a little love instead of coercion... All they did was drive me away from the mission. You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, right? At least it's worth a try.
To everyone else in the mission I think they would say the mission was normative in nature. The end product of socialization is internalization of the mission's norms and values as a package, not piecemeal, which would not be acceptable. It had to be an all or nothing package. So you had to be able to take the plunge and do the whole thing, even without knowing everything, because once you were in it you were stuck, you were in it.
I never took the plunge, because I couldn't do it because they turned me off the first few months I was with the mission, when they treated me with coercion, or with what felt a lot like coercion to me. I was so humiliated for 2 years; it was like I was a no one. My voice counted for nothing. I was just pushed around like dirt and treated like sh*t. No one else had so many positions I did. So it had a personal side like that, and it really did, but the toll it took on me built up over time, while the moral horror struck me quickly when I saw the early discrepancies.
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"[I]t could be argued that while goal acceptance is not prerequisite to membership in utilitarian or coercive organizations, it is prerequisite for membership in normative organizations where membership is not only its own reward, it may be the only reward." (p. 451)While the Vienna mission treated me as if it were a coercive organization, if it truly were, that would mean that it wouldn't be necessary for me to accept its goal(s), at least according to this text. The way the mission was going at me it's possible that that could be the case. If it truly were treating me as a coercive organization, it could be doing so under the influence of the U.S. government (because of my dad, who worked at Boeing as a manager in SDI). In this case, they might be just trying to get me out of there or some such thing and they wouldn't really care whether I agreed with the mission goals.
The mission itself was normative, however, and sure enough accepting the mission's goals was indeed prerequisite for joining the mission. In the case of the Vienna mission, I think there were other intangible rewards, mainly the type of thing related to effects of the courses on students and the like.
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"Bateman and Strasser (1984) found a strong association between leader reward behavior and commitment. Supportive of this contention, positive supervisor-subordinate interactions have been found to be associated with increased commitment on the part of subordinates by Lee (1971). More generally, it has been found that the more social involvement an individual has with other numbers of an organization, the higher the individual's commitment to the organization... In addition to these extra-task sources of commitment, the felt challenge and responsibility offered by the task itself was reported to have a positive effect on commitment." (p. 451)
I've written already a bit about my interactions with my boss. Both he and his boss were encouraging enough as was my mentor (my boss's boss's secretary). So as far as "positive supervisor-subordinate interactions" go I guess they were okay, but not great. The thing was that my boss said upfront that he'd never had a secretary before, which is no great sin or anthing, but he wasn't too good of a supervisor. I guess as long as all they wanted of me was to read the software manuals (!?) then I guess it didn't matter too much though, because how much supervision can one need for that? So I was on independent study for that.
However, I think I did very well as far as social involvement was concerned. The mission leaders really didn't like it that I had so much involvement with Austrians, though. So no matter how much involvement I had with them, it didn't matter, it had to be exclusive involvement with them. This flies directly contrary to what my sending mission had told me. They had said they didn't think it should be a problem if I was involved with Austrians in my off hours. So I'm thinking more and more that this might be my dad's involvement... that I was "too independent" in getting involved with the Austrians.
I can see how the "extra-task sources of commitment" augment commitment and how it did so at the Vienna mission, because the mission trips would have been this kind of thing, but even the wives at home with the children whle the husbands travel would have bound the families together through these shared experiences. So I think that really fit the mission.
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"It may be that climate perceptions affect an individual's perceptions of the congruence between organizational goals and his or her own goals and, hence, his or her role involvement. If, for example, an organization creates and maintains a working environment geared toward the attaiment of certain organizational goals and if the individual's preference for a particular environment and goal set is consistent with the environment, we would expect the individual's commitment to the organization to be high." (p. 452)
The climate in the Vienna mission, might be described as family-like, security-conscious (!), hierarchical (but approachable), strong informal communication structure, casual, etc.
Okay, so we'll start with that. Being family-like is okay, as long as it doesn't go overboard. The thing is that I like to have my own life too. I don't want to be stifled by the family... or the overly zealous security consciousness. At least that's how I saw it. As far as I was concerned, they might as well have been building another tower of Babel trying to reach heaven, that's now much they distrusted God and went off on their own sinning with deception for security. Do you think that deception pleases God? So instead of building a tower they build this mental fortress, based on their security policies that are based too much on deception. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against security, but I think caution without deception is a more biblical way. I know that's not the way the world would do it, but we're Christians representing Christ working for a Christian cause.
Anyway, on to hierarchical. The mission didn't have a lot of layers or levels in its hierarchy, but anyone who was in a position of authority was to be respected. Period. They were approachable, but they were to be respected. That being said, the leadership was not above getting in and helping out with some of the most nitty gritty things as needed, they were basically not "above" anything. And when you go on trips, those, although I didn't go on many, I think those are equalizers so that when you are on them, especially on the road situations can come up and you never know, the normally lower in position person could shine. The leadership was always good about recognizing others who had accomplished something.
Still, even with all that it was hierarchical and you couldn't get around it and the power differential was real and the buck stopped there, and you knew it, even if you had some power, even if it was some power that was different from your boss' power. That's the kind of brick wall that I faced when before I left I decided that I wasn't going to approach them to continue on; they'd have to approach me. But they didn't approach me. That's the brick wall. You can't negotiate with it. They're boss, period. You have to accept it or not. So I took the Not option. I guess you can hardly blame me either and it wold have been stupid of me to do otherwise.
As to the strong informal communication structure at the mission, I'm really not crazy about that, but that's now. Back then I didn't really know any better, I don't think. My first boss here where I live now was like that. I was flown down here for a day of interviews and whatnot and in a group interview I asked her what is her approach to departmental communications. She said she didn't have one that she didn't think it was important and she just communicated as she thought it was needed. A red flag immediately went up and that was the one things that I really hesitated about, but I came down here anyway, and sure enough she was an information manipulator. And that's the thing, when you get into the world of "informal" you open things up to manipulation and the likes. Who likes that? Not me, that's for sure.
In Vienna it was a bit different because I don't think individuals would have gotten away with that long just for their own sakes, being manipulative, but I could be wrong on this (maybe they would have gotten by for a while). But the thing is that if the mission leaders had certain objectives in mind that maybe they didn't want to reveal (at least at that time) they could use manipulation but not for individual purposes, that would be for organizational purposes. So that's more what I think would have happened.
Anyway, the informal communication structure was very strong in Vienna. I've discussed it elsewhere in more detail (maybe look up the "communication" keyword), so I won't try to duplicate that here. It was complex though. There were impromptu meetings, chance meetings in the halls, exchanges of information in social settings, etc. So I suppose if you wanted to make a name for yourself quickly you'd try to learn the ropes of the informal communication structure and make as much use of it as possible. I'm not very good at viewing people instrumentally, though, which it seems that is what it would take to do that.
The last descriptor is casual, and that's fine with me. The mission could be formal when it was called for, which wasn't very often, though. I liked the level of casualness. I'm trying to remember, but I think we could even where jeans if we weren't going to meet anyone from outside the office that day, otherwise we'd wear business casual for just usual days to the office.
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That's it for this post. There's more in this article though.