I don't have any stamina, so I'm getting up in spurts to do things.
Here's my next installment on this Wiener article, still on this same chart.
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These next texts are from the sub-section "Organizational Socialization" (still in the main section "Antecedents of Organizational Commitment")."One of the two basic determinants of commitment - generalized values of loyalty and duty - cannot be significantly modified by organizational interventions. The second determinant, however, individual-organizational-organization value congruency, can be affected by organizational practices, particularly 'expressive' organizational socialization. Such sociational (Etzioni, 1961) refers to the process by which the values, norms, and beliefs of members are brought into line with those of the organization." (p. 424)
I wasn't going to quote that whole paragraph, and then I thought that there were some things that maybe it would be worth discussing. The authors here assume that "generalized values of loyalty and duty" are aspects of individuals that are pretty well set an not liable to be changed, certainly at least not in the course of something like socialization. This may be true for the usual socialization in the average company. And research probably supported this and was performed on students or mostly white males in Fortune 500 corporations, right? Well, the Vienna mission didn't quite fit that profile and neither did I (white male, at least the male part of it). So scrap the research and lets look at what was going on in the Vienna mission.
If you remember correctly, I've demonstrated that the Vienna mission was a total institution. As such it probably was in a position where it could very likely have managed to garner a person's loyalty or bolster his/her sense of duty if it wasn't quite up to snuff. So I don't think that in the case of the Vienna mission that these things were beyond modification, even significant modification. The thing is that probably most people who came there wouldn't need a lot of modification I don't think. Most of them would have applied themselves enough to have gone through gradue school and this was a nonprofit and a religous one at that, so you had a lot zealous people there who had just spent a year going around to churches selling themselves and the work of the Vienna mission to churches and individuals. So that take a lot of loyalty and sense of duty just to do that. Granted, once you actually get there and the work is somewhat less glamorous your sense of duty and loyalty could be tested in a different way, though. But I still think that it is not beyond changing and growing. Over time one's values in these areas can change and I think that because of the nature of the Vienna mission that it was in a position to affect them whereas maybe other organizations might not have been as much.
As for myself, I think my generalized sense of loyalty and duty pretty much remained the same throughout, so that is one thing that did, and enabled me to continue to do my work and want to do a good job. When I looked back I could say that no matter what they did to me I did all to the glory of God. I did my best.
On to the value congruency issue. I'm not sure what exactly they were trying to do, but whatever it was, they ended out driving me from them. I started with value congruency, but not knowing the totality of their values, then they began the socialization process a way that drove me from them and the parts of those other values that I caught glimpses of.
I've already gone over the Espionage file so you know, if you've looked at any of those posts, that everyone has their weak point. Well, and that's why we as Christians are told to "put on the full armor of God" (Eph. 6:10-18) so that we can withstand temptations from Satan (but not all temptations are from him, they can also be from our "flesh" or old nature and "the world" apart from God). So the thing is that these guys if they really wanted to win me over they used completely the wrong way and I have my weaknesses (some of which I've shared here before, some of which they probably wouldn't use because they really were sin.). Coming at me with force - as in appearing to force me to do something - or lying, or wasting my time, and things like that were not the way to go. Those were demeaning and I wasn't going to respond to them, which I guess they learned. So it wasted all of our time and money.
Of course, if that was all they had to offer and that was the only way they could think of to relate to me then, of course, we were a bad fit,and that was all there was to it. I wish I would have known before I got there though. Otherwise, if they had approached the socialization process differently and had at the same time allowed me more expression of my gifts, maybe I wouldn't have moved into value incongruency. Of course, the clincher was when they sent me to the USA for "culture shock" (!) counseling (when it was organization shock in reality).
As to being brought in line with "those of the organization," for the mission, that meant being brought in line with the other missionaries, and that's when I found out that I was going to be in a straight jacket, which I detested. To me being a secretary was a job, and that was it, period. It wasn't an identity, but they turned it into that. So that was hard to swallow too.
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"Not all potential members of a given organization are likely to benefit equally from socialization... Some individuals, such as those in cells E and F, are not likely to develop commitment under any condition." (p. 424)
Once I moved to Alienation (E or F, whichever) I think I was pretty much a lost cause to the mission. After that point my external life was completely separte from what was going on inside me. So I lived a double life for the duration of my stay in Vienna, but no one knew it, because I was scared to let anyone know, until I was leaving, then I let mom know, when she was helping me pack up, but I thnk she only partly believed me.
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"Other individuals, such as in cells A and B, do not need to go through a socialization process to build commitment. Their values and beliefs arelready highly congruent with those of the organizations. Socialization processes, howeer, are necessary to enhance the strength or quality of commitment for individuals in cells C and D." (p. 424)The thing was that I thought I was in cell A. I think as pertained to the Vienna mission A and B should broken down into A1 and A2 and B1 and B2. A1 and B1 would correspond to A and B regular as we've been using it. But A2 and B2 would include significant experience in Eastern European missions. That would inude, for example, my neighbors who had come from another mission having spent several years already working in Eastern Europe, including living in Romania. So these people knew the ins and outs of what was what wit these missions very seriously and first hand. I had pretty good theoretical knowledge (probably about equal to a Master's degree - I'm speaking from having 2 master's degrees in other subjects now) and some practical experience, including some gained on my own without the leadership of a mission. But to be on the A2 or B2 level you really would have to have had serious long-term work in Eastern Europe with one of the missions cooperating in the Vienna mission. Nothing else, I don't think, could be substituted for that experience. That's the only way you could know the "secret" inner values to know whether you might agree with them or not, whether they would be problematic for you or not.
So looking back up at our text again, we'd have to rephrase it for the Vienna mission that individuals in cells A2 and B2 might not need socialization (except for building commitment yada yada...). Everyone ELSE like myself, would have to fit in with the C and D cells as requiring socialization, although maybe not necessary exactly of the same nature. C and D might need more. But still, it is not certain that individuals other than A2 and B2 will agree with the non-public values, so virtually everyone is a potential E or F, Alienation, like I became.
The thing is that the mission has developed a very persuasive case for its position, one that is very difficult to turn down. And if you do it lets you know that there are potential consequences, maybe like I experienced, that are enough to scare the bejeeebers out of you and make you acquiesce which might not be the kind of word they'd like to have used about their socialization prcess. Let's just say that I didn't acquiesce and it pretty much ruined my life. I can't blame the mission for everything, but I can sure blame a lot of things on the mission.
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"First, at least in the initial stages of membership in the organization, cognitive-instrumental and affective evaluations of members should be positive. That is, the organization mus carry out effective instrumental-motivational programs andreate conditions conducive to job satisfaction. A sociatlization process is not likely to result in success if organizationally relevant feelings and beliefs are negative." (p. 425)Well, they did to this, for about maybe 3 or 4 days. I arrived in Vienna, came to work on the second or third day and began settling in, but I had to regiser my address, get an apartment (because they still had me living with the other secretary). So early all this stuff started falling apart; thy had me reading software manuals and not really doing anything. It was crazy. No, the negative things started very quickly. I do remember people at first being excited about seeing me, but on the other hand there was all this other stuff going on. My computer started acting strange and no one else's was so I didn't say anything and I'd never experienced anything else like it, so I knew it was something they were doing intentionally (through a network or whatever). So much for being positive... well the evaluations of me were always positive. No one ever said anything negative about my work - or attitude, either (despite what I might be thinking).
It turned out with me that the mission reaped what they sowed.
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I think next time I can finish this article.