I'm going to try to do another post though. I just hate it when my health slows me down.
***
Now in this article we're on a different section, leaving the Fishbein model behind. This main section is titled: "Antecedents of Organizational Commitment.""The immediate determinants of commitment are two types of internalized normative belief held by members: (1) generalized loyalty and duty, and (2) organizational identification. Identification can be affected by practices of selection and organizational socialization. Loyalty and duty, however, may be affected only by selection process. Thus, commitment is influenced by both personal predispositions and organizational interventions." (p. 422)
I think that when I arrived in Vienna I had reasonably strong "generalized loyalty and duty" and was also primed for strong organizational identification. However, the socialization process had a strictly negative affect on my organizational commitment, so that whatever organizational commitment I had when I came with - from my personal predisposition and from the selection process - was largely undermined because of the mission's choice of socialization tactics.
***
The next quote is from a sub-section "Immediate Determinants."This is a little bit tricky, but I'll try to summarize it a bit. There's a table with 3 basic components that can range (low, high, medium, negative, etc.). They are, values congruent, values irrelevant, and values incongruent. Those are on the left hand columns (y-axis if it were a diagram). On the top you have generalized loyallty and duty. So then they meet in the squares to make the various combination options. For example, values congruent + generalized loyalty and duy high = strengh: high & type: balanced (no change).
This is where it starts getting a little messy, so if it sounds a little confusing, don't be surprised.
"Commitment was shown to be a function of internalized normative beliefs... These, in turn, may be seen as comprised of two distinct types of beliefs. First is the belief by an individual that he has a moral obligation to engage n a mode of conduct reflecting loyalty and duty in all social situations in which he has significant personal involvement. Such a person tends to believe that it is 'right' to be loyal, for example, to his family, country, friends, and quite likely to his work organization as well. his type of normative pressure is termed generalized values of loyalty and duty. The second type of normative beliefs include any internalized beliefs by a person that are consistent with organizational missions, goals, policies, and style of operations." (p. 432)
Again, these are antecedents to organizational commitment, so these would be things, for example, that I might have possessed before I arrived in Vienna to work with the mission. The "moral obligation" mentioned here might be paraphrased "Protestant work ethic" as relates to the work place, and I did have that instilled pretty strongly from my upbringing. Also, it was the normative beliefs that were most akin to my pre-existing ones that I accepted from the mission in the end, the others - as far as I knew of them - I rejected it. I didn't accept the mission's logic and agree to the parts of their values, norms and practices that I knew of.
***
This next quote is in the sub-section "Strengths and Types," also still discussing the same table.
"The two immediate determinants are largely, but not entirely, independent. As long as the dimension of value congruency is not negative, the two dimensions should combine additively to determine the strength of commitment. However, when the dimension of value congruency is negative, regardless of the level of generalized loyalty and duty, the individual may experience 'alienation.' " (p. 423)
I came to Vienna fully expecting that I had finally found a mission (especially my sending mission) with whom my values clicked, and I was very committed wo the work of the mission, and had no doubt that I was in for the long haul, that this was it. In this case my initial commitment was somewhere in the medium to high range, because as far as I knew my values were congruent with the missions (both of them - my sending mission and the Vienna mission).
However, when I arrived in Vienna, as I've said repeatedly here, I soon learned that it appeared that there must have been some different values at work to explain what was happening around and to me. So then it rather quickly became clear that our values were incongruent, although how much and exactly what theirs entailed I think would only be revealed once you became an insider, which somehow didn't seem reason enough to entice me. So before you know it I was experiencing alienation.
Incidentally, people don't like to hear about those kinds of things - alienation. They want to hear about success and how much money you make and stuff like that. A bit like what the Bible calls "tickling the ear" as in:
2 Timothy 4:3
New International Version - UK (NIVUK)
3 For
the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.
Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather round them a great
number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
But that's how thing's where, there's no getting around it: I was experiencing alienation. And it just so happened that the alienation was regarding things that I wasn't going to bend on. These were things that I had studied and come to strong convictions about, especially concerning East European ministry, but not only. Maybe for the other missionaries it would be like someone demanding that they start practicing infant bapsism; or if that wasn't an issue, something else. In such a case they, the theologians in particular, would have developed strong reasonings for why they believed as they did on that issue and they could have stood their ground mentally even if they, like myself, didn't feel it wise to verbally make an issue of it. (In these cases, though, they'd have whole denominations that would side with them - in the case of denominational missions - because they'd also be up in arms, so this isn't perfect example; I didn't have that luxury.)
When I went back to Bible school the second year the whole reason for that was to hash out issues I had regarding mission work in Eastern Europe. So I spent a whole year - plus some time before that - dealing with these issues. On my own, I might add, so I didn't have anyone to steer me in the direction missions might like me to go in.
"When commitment is based primarily on generalized loyalty and duty, it can be viewed as 'blind loyalty' When value congruency plays a major role in determining commitment it can be termed 'moral obligation.'" (p. 423)
These sentence is referring to two of the squares in the figure, the one in the top right and the one in the center left (there are two columns of 3 rows each, not counting the column and row headings). The things with "Blind Loyalty" is that "Values Irrelevant" is part of that row, and I don't think that could ever be said of the Vienna mission, so I dought that either of the squares in this row would apply to the Vienna mission, at least as far as any of the regular missionaries are concerned. Rather, I thought there was a strong values congruency, certainly the theology was congruent. So I thought I was going to Vienna with a "Balanced." I'm probably getting ahead of myself here though.
I think that when I was just starting to be uncertain about the mission I probably fit into this square, because it was no longer a high level of generalized loyalty and duty but I wasn't yet to the point where I thought our values were ingrongruent: I was just starting to watch and try to figure out what was going on.
So I think I came to Vienna as a Square A: (Strength: High, Type: Balanced), quickly moved to become a Square B: (Strength: Medium, Type "Moral Obligation"). After the fith month with the mission, when they sent me to the USA I moved to "Alienation," but I'm not sure whether I was i square E) or F) (high or low generalized loyalty or duty, where E) = High & F) = Low), but both are values incongruent.
"Commitment-oriented recruitment relies strongly on expressive communications and appeals to values and beliefs. Similarly, commitment-oriented selection focuses on assessment of values and beliefs, and on the degree of their congruency with organizational values. Such an orientation is typical to normative organization." (p. 424).
All of the missionaries (or 95% of them) come through sending missions, which means they get processed along with missionaries going to Zimbabwe, Italy, Australia, Bolivia, Thailand, etc. As you can maybe imagine, the recruitment might not necessarily always have been as focused specifically on what the Vienna mission might have been needed (as far as recruitment issues are concerned). And it's possible that in a case like mine the sending mission might not have known that the H.R. director (a U.S. military reserves chaplain) knew that my dad worked for Boeing as a manager in SSDI and maybe had certain instructions regarding me. I've talked about this before, though.
And the other thing is that even if the Vienna mission directly recruited missionarries itself, maybe through local offices or touring reps or whatever, how likely to do you think it is that they would be talking directly about their inner "values and beliefs"? In my view the likelihood is zilch. In my view they'd be more likely to test potential recruits on trust and taking orders and the like, so that they'd get a feel for how well they might take to adjusting to the regime (!).
I'm not saying I agree with that or anything; I'm just saying that's what they'd do, because there's no way they'd go public with who they really were. They even tried to confuse me, for Pete's sake! So if they didn't want me to know, then how do you think they'd let a potential recruit in on such "secrets" when they hadn't even set foot in Vienna yet?
Getting back to the text, though... he mission certainly had values, tons of them. However, they were mostly shared indirectly and learned by example and through stories of what others had done and what was praised. So you learned what was good and sort of hopped on the bandwagon. In that way it was sort of a positive thing. There was a big push to keep things positive as much as possible - although that doesn't mean that life's hardships were ignored. It's just that complaining, grumbling and that cort of thing were not accepted and would need to be dealt with behind closed doors and nipped in the bud. After I was sent to the USA I never complained or grumbled at all because I'd learned to keep my thoughts to myself.
Because the mission does not reveal its "hidden values" it makes opens (up front) selection based on theology and those kinds of values and beliefs, but as to the other "hidden values" it has to find other ways to try to ascertain if it thinks the recruit will accept the full cocktail of its values, norms and ways, and generally do this without the recruit particularly knowing s/he is being tested because the mission doesn't want to reveal the "hidden value". Sometimes, as in my case I think, the sending mission might not even be aware of this going on. I think the issue with the roommate might have been such a situation.
But that's how thing's where, there's no getting around it: I was experiencing alienation. And it just so happened that the alienation was regarding things that I wasn't going to bend on. These were things that I had studied and come to strong convictions about, especially concerning East European ministry, but not only. Maybe for the other missionaries it would be like someone demanding that they start practicing infant bapsism; or if that wasn't an issue, something else. In such a case they, the theologians in particular, would have developed strong reasonings for why they believed as they did on that issue and they could have stood their ground mentally even if they, like myself, didn't feel it wise to verbally make an issue of it. (In these cases, though, they'd have whole denominations that would side with them - in the case of denominational missions - because they'd also be up in arms, so this isn't perfect example; I didn't have that luxury.)
When I went back to Bible school the second year the whole reason for that was to hash out issues I had regarding mission work in Eastern Europe. So I spent a whole year - plus some time before that - dealing with these issues. On my own, I might add, so I didn't have anyone to steer me in the direction missions might like me to go in.
***
"When commitment is based primarily on generalized loyalty and duty, it can be viewed as 'blind loyalty' When value congruency plays a major role in determining commitment it can be termed 'moral obligation.'" (p. 423)
These sentence is referring to two of the squares in the figure, the one in the top right and the one in the center left (there are two columns of 3 rows each, not counting the column and row headings). The things with "Blind Loyalty" is that "Values Irrelevant" is part of that row, and I don't think that could ever be said of the Vienna mission, so I dought that either of the squares in this row would apply to the Vienna mission, at least as far as any of the regular missionaries are concerned. Rather, I thought there was a strong values congruency, certainly the theology was congruent. So I thought I was going to Vienna with a "Balanced." I'm probably getting ahead of myself here though.
I think that when I was just starting to be uncertain about the mission I probably fit into this square, because it was no longer a high level of generalized loyalty and duty but I wasn't yet to the point where I thought our values were ingrongruent: I was just starting to watch and try to figure out what was going on.
So I think I came to Vienna as a Square A: (Strength: High, Type: Balanced), quickly moved to become a Square B: (Strength: Medium, Type "Moral Obligation"). After the fith month with the mission, when they sent me to the USA I moved to "Alienation," but I'm not sure whether I was i square E) or F) (high or low generalized loyalty or duty, where E) = High & F) = Low), but both are values incongruent.
***
The next sub-section is "Recruitment and Selection.""Commitment-oriented recruitment relies strongly on expressive communications and appeals to values and beliefs. Similarly, commitment-oriented selection focuses on assessment of values and beliefs, and on the degree of their congruency with organizational values. Such an orientation is typical to normative organization." (p. 424).
All of the missionaries (or 95% of them) come through sending missions, which means they get processed along with missionaries going to Zimbabwe, Italy, Australia, Bolivia, Thailand, etc. As you can maybe imagine, the recruitment might not necessarily always have been as focused specifically on what the Vienna mission might have been needed (as far as recruitment issues are concerned). And it's possible that in a case like mine the sending mission might not have known that the H.R. director (a U.S. military reserves chaplain) knew that my dad worked for Boeing as a manager in SSDI and maybe had certain instructions regarding me. I've talked about this before, though.
And the other thing is that even if the Vienna mission directly recruited missionarries itself, maybe through local offices or touring reps or whatever, how likely to do you think it is that they would be talking directly about their inner "values and beliefs"? In my view the likelihood is zilch. In my view they'd be more likely to test potential recruits on trust and taking orders and the like, so that they'd get a feel for how well they might take to adjusting to the regime (!).
I'm not saying I agree with that or anything; I'm just saying that's what they'd do, because there's no way they'd go public with who they really were. They even tried to confuse me, for Pete's sake! So if they didn't want me to know, then how do you think they'd let a potential recruit in on such "secrets" when they hadn't even set foot in Vienna yet?
Getting back to the text, though... he mission certainly had values, tons of them. However, they were mostly shared indirectly and learned by example and through stories of what others had done and what was praised. So you learned what was good and sort of hopped on the bandwagon. In that way it was sort of a positive thing. There was a big push to keep things positive as much as possible - although that doesn't mean that life's hardships were ignored. It's just that complaining, grumbling and that cort of thing were not accepted and would need to be dealt with behind closed doors and nipped in the bud. After I was sent to the USA I never complained or grumbled at all because I'd learned to keep my thoughts to myself.
Because the mission does not reveal its "hidden values" it makes opens (up front) selection based on theology and those kinds of values and beliefs, but as to the other "hidden values" it has to find other ways to try to ascertain if it thinks the recruit will accept the full cocktail of its values, norms and ways, and generally do this without the recruit particularly knowing s/he is being tested because the mission doesn't want to reveal the "hidden value". Sometimes, as in my case I think, the sending mission might not even be aware of this going on. I think the issue with the roommate might have been such a situation.
***
"First, type E and F individuals should not be selected or recruited. Second, if the organization does not plan to carry out a significiant socialization program subsequent to selection, only type A and B individuals shuld be recruited and selected. Finally, type C and especially type D individuals should be recruited only if socialization is planned. " (p. 424)E & F are the alienation squares, where values are incongruent with the organization. That's where I ended out. The mission had an informal socialization system set up. I'm not sure how it worked throughout the mission, but I think it generally involved a mentor or mentors (plural). There may have been certain "tests" set up for the individual, possibly highly individualized depending on what the mission already knew of the person and their personality, weak spots, as well as the work they'd be doing.
Like I already said, just a few paragraphs ago, I think I came as a square A with values congruent and high generalized loyalty and duty, so I should have been a good pick, right? At least based on these criteria alone. But that was just based on what I knew of the mission, and I didn't know that there was so much of an underworld. It's one thing to have a certain security protocol and it's quite another to have a whole underworld, which is what they had, and it was too much for me to swallow hook line and sinker. So this theory doesn't take into account these things where information available changes the whole ball game.
When I arrived in Vienna I acted just as I said I would in conversations with my sending missions and there were no surprised there and I didn't think I was doing anything to compromised my work at the Vienna mission, but they, evidently understood otherwise or just plain didn't like it for one reason or another (I've discussed this elsewhere at length).
But when I came they had things set up that unsettled me and made me trust them less and sending me to the States was the last straw so I switched to a values incongruent, alienation - square E or F, depending on how strong my loyalty and duty was.
So their actions - my response to them - moved me from an ideal recruit to a nightmare recruit, practically overnight. Was it avoidable, or was it the way things were and it was inevitable because of what was expected of me? How much of it was due to interference from my father's work?
***
I started this yesterday, but I couldn't finish it last night - I just wasn't feeling up to it. Physical therapy really did me in and it was just one exercise in particular. And now I can't believe it's so late today.
I still have one or two posts left on this article.
