Wiener, Yoash. (1982). Commitment in organizations: a normative view. Academy of Management Review. 7(3), 418-428.
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The author begins with first describing the contrasting view: the identification approach to commitment, which he says is "the most prevalent in guiding commitment research" (p. 418)."The identification approach postulates commitment to be an attiduinal intervening construct, mediating between certain antecedents and outcomes, and views this attitudinal process as primarily affective, rather than cognitive-calculative..." (p. 418)
I merely include this definition (or at least the author's initial part of it) to give you a frame of reference. That's the kind of article this is; you're going to need frames of references, and I'll do my best to accommodate.
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"Research guided by the identification approach attempted, for the most part, to ascertain antecedents and outcomes of commitment. Essentially three classes of variables seem to emerge as antecedents of commitment. The first category includes personality-need variables and value orientations....
The second category of antecedents includes job characteristics and work experiences such as job challenge, feedback, opportunity for social interaction, task identity, group attitudes, and organizational dependability...
A third category of antecedents of commitment includes personal-demographic variables, particularly age and tenure..." (p. 418-419)
The first one is a little different than what we've discussed before, and the rest of the paragraph that I didn't include here especially makes that clear. It's basically asking the question, am I the kind of person who would fit in here?
It's actually quite ridiculous to think I should have fit in well when you think of it. As far as I know I was the only one of the secretaries with a B.A., although the director's secretary might have had a B.A.. But I'm certain I'm the only one who had any graduate studies and certainly the only one with the kind of East European or mission background. So to think that they could tether me to the mission and the secretarial role was ridiculous, unless the mission wanted that very thing to make the position unpalatable to me and make me want to leave (which would be better for my dad's work). In this case everyone seemed more concerned about protecting the US military than about whether or not my call to God's service could be heeded or not. My friend in Russia had it right: I was just a pawn.
I don't really have anything new to add to the second category about job characteristics, as that's been dealt with enough elsewhere, including regarding commitment.
As to "personal-demographic variables," I don't think they made any difference particularly, unless you count being a U.S. citizen and the daughter of my father as a demographic variable. Other than that I don't think there was anything particularly of issue here.
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Next Wiener begins to develop a case for the normative view of commitment, and starts with "Fishbein's behavioral intentions model". After spending about a paragraph and a half describing a fairly complex model (figure 1 in the article) he has this to say:
"The utilitarian, calculative, and self-oriented character of the attitudinal process underlying the approach is apparent." (p. 420)
I don't know about you, but put that way, it sounds down-right sinful. That's the initial reaction, anyway, looking at just that sentence.
The thing is, though, that while I did have emotional responses to the mission and what I experienced and witnessed while I was there, I wouldn't have been able to take a stand if it was just emotional. So it was the cognitive, informed knowledge aspects that made me really hold on and take a stand. My views did evolve some while I was there, though, as I gradually understood more and my thinking more or less clarified about what was going on. (Sometimes they made it harder, so I'd be in a tizzy regarding immediate things, but I'd still have the reservoir of build up other things to eventually fall back on.)
That being said, I need to respond more specifically to each of these words in this sentence. I don't think I was ever utilitarian in the sense of wanting to use the mission. My intention was to work for 2 years as a secretary with them (and work on the side with Austrians) and hope that another opportunity would open up to extend my work with them in another position using my skills better beyond the 2 years. That was my intention when I accepted their offer of the position and I was always upfront. While I was in North America my communication was with the North America office of my sending mission and that's how it was supposed to be. Maybe if I was already with the Vienna mission and between 2-year terms home on furlough that would be different and I might communicate directly with the Vienna mission then, but not before I got there in the first place.
As far as being calculative is concerned, I'm not a calculative type of person. To me that smacks of being manipulative, and I'm not that way.
The last one, self-oriented, might have become true as I became more and more pushed into a self-preservation position. Towards the end when they made it so hard to figure out what was going on and when people weren't responding when they needed to be and I was being shunned, it was all taking a toll. So who wouldn't become self-oriented in such situations? Nevertheless I wasn't even then completely self-oriented, because I still taught Sunday school at the English speaking church, for example.
The rest of the time I was with the mission I think you'd have a hard time saying I was really self-oriented. Just because I didn't blab what I was thinking doesn't mean I was self-oriented. Or just because I disagreed with the mission doesn't mean I was self-oriented either.
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There's more discussion of this figure, the Fishbein model, but the next section is going to be more than I want to do right now, so I'll have to save it for the next post.
