248. Organizational Behavior File, Pt. 1 (Nadel, pt. 1)

This next file is another big one, but the subject matter is quite diverse, so the variety should be interesting.

The first text is a journal article:

Nadel, S. F. (1953). Social control and self-regulation. Social Forces, 31(3), 265-273.

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"No one will quarrel with the assertion that social existence is controlled existence, for we all accept a certain basic assumption about human nature - namely, that without some constraint of individual leanings the coordination of action and regularity of conduct which turn a human aggregation into a society could not materialize. It is thus true to say that 'the focus of sociology and its perpetual problem - the relation of the social order and the individual being, the relation of the unit and the whole." (p. 265)

Clearly the author (affiliation: Australian National University) missed the McCarthy era (1950-1954, USA) and is excluding anyone who might believe in the "withering away" of government, which belief would seem to contradict the "we all accept..." aspect of this assertion. Or maybe he is assuming that his readers are not Marxists.

Be that as it may, I will join him in the belief that individuals generally need control, which the Bible seems to also affirm (cp. Rom. 2:12-16, where "controls" are the Law and conscience; Rom. 8:14, where the Holy Spirit is a "control" for Christians; Heb. 10:24 where fellow Christians are "controls" for each other).

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"The question arises where the control resides. Clearly, the social order as such already constrains or controls; institutions, mores, patterned relationships, and all the other constituents of social existence prescribe modes of thought and action and hence canalize and curb individual leanings." (p. 265)

From here the author goes on to discuss different views of what constitute "controls", which seem to range from society and its culture in general on the very all-encompassing end of the spectrum to the more narrow understanding that it refers only the regulatory aspects of culture. So, if I understand it correctly, the narrower view would not see the custom of taking one's shoes off upon entering a home as a "control" (although the broader view would see it as a "control"), but would see the mechanisms of enforcing that custom as being a "control." The author takes the latter view, the narrower one.

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Next the author discusses how importance being put on an action is in itself a control, and he notes that importance is identified by the actors as such and/or by other actions or individuals being dependent on the action. Then he goes on to give the example of how in primitive societies there is a low level of inventiveness because they've found ways that work, but when they see other options being used in others they are willing to adopt such practices, because they see that they work. So these people aren't willing to take risks to find something new on their own but if they see something else being done that does work they are willing to change. (These generalizations about "primitive peoples" are ones the author provides.) So the point is, then, that importance put on such actions is enough by itself to serve as a control for continuance of the prescribed actions.

Here I will stop and consider what implications, if any, this might have on the Vienna mission, as I experienced it. I think that it could well have direct implications, although I admit to not having read ahead in the text (at least not recently). I can see that the mission, once it settled on a way to do things, that is once all of the member missions had come to an agreement about them, a great importance was put on many of the things I saw and experienced in Vienna because of 1) the security concerns regarding working in communist countries and 2) the need to keep all the member missions happy. So the importance of these security features was great enough that the importance alone was enough to guarantee the continuance of them.

This, I think, could well be so if it weren't for the fact that, unlike most tribes, I think, there were periodic newcomers to the mission that didn't know of these things that had been decided on by the missions and which were seen as being so important. So there had to be a way to pass that on to the newcomers. Tribes, in contrast, would probably mostly just have to socialize children into cultural priorities and values. So, while "importance" could be enough of a control in general in the Vienna mission context, it doesn't account for how to pass that sense of "importance" on to newcomers, who, without that sense of "importance" would have no control if that were the only control in use.

So, in this way, "importance" as a control could only work with those who hold to the value embodied in the "importance" valuation, although it may well have played an important role in the socialized member's control repertoire in the mission.

When I came to Vienna my valuations were more along these lines:
1. Because of the nature of communist theory and also how it is applied in various contexts, it can be very difficult to practice one's faith where communism is the ruling political ideology.

2. Because of the nature of communist theory and also how it is applied in various contexts, missionaries need to be judicious in their activities in such contexts.

However, the mission would not have been satisfied with that and might have added something like this:

3. Because of the nature of communist theory and also how it is applied in various contexts, we have license to do whatever necessary to ensure we can carry out our work.

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"Any mode of behavior operating as a diacritical sign (i.e., a differentiating sign or symbol) is multivalent to a simple degree. Thus customs of dress, eating habits, style of residence or manners of speech, apart from attaining their intrinsic ends (protection of the body, satiation of hunger, shelter, communication), will often also indicate a person's social status, group or class membership, and generally his social relationship with others. The continuance of these indicative modes of behavior is thus reinforced by the importance of the state of affairs they indicate. Or, in terms of individual behavior, individuals will keep up a certain dialect, manner of dress, and so forth, in order to evince their status and group membership and, implicitly, to qualify for the benefits that go with them." (p. 268)

This is, I think rather important. That is, I was acting in Vienna in a way that I thought was appropriate for an Evangelical Christian missionary to act. And, while each mission undoubtedly has its own nuances and organizational cultural expectations, the mission I was with, that is the one I was on loan to at least, had significantly different ideas of how an Evangelical Christian missionary should act, or more specifically, how an Evangelical Christian mission to Eastern Europe working with them should act. And some of those mission-specific quirks had diacritical sign aspects to them. An anthropologist would have had a hay day, I'm sure, in studying them. However, I was not skilled in anthropological methods or even in the study of anthropology (other than that one class in crosscultural communications in my undergraduate studies, which included bits of anthropology).

The last sentence, however, is particularly important, I think: "...individuals will keep up [specific ways of doing things]... in order to evince their status and group membership and, implicitly, to qualify for the benefits that go with them." In an anthropological way, then, I would never really be a part of them unless I adhered to these appropriate diacritical sign ways of doing things, particularly the ways of communicating and relating to one another and outsiders.

If I may take liberties, I'd like to compare this to my experience of living in Siberia. I knew that there were different ways one could approach another culture, including, for example, rejection of it outright, assimilation or adjustment. I consciously decided that I didn't think it would realistically be possible for me to ever completely assimilate because I couldn't just erase all my prior years, identity and experiences, so I decided to adapt. That is, I would not necessarily try to do away with my past self, but augment it and adapt it to the new context, thus changing my past identity some but also letting my new experiences and context contribute to my identity. I never felt that this was a problem in my experiences in Siberia. The only thing that might have been a problem, especially at first, were my Christian values, but the Russian Christians would likewise have agreed with my stands on these moral issues, so it wasn't so much a Russian vs. American thing as a Russian unbeliever vs. American believer problem.

But returning to Austria, which is what I'm supposed to be talking about here, I think the only option the mission would have accepted would have been assimilation, and adaptation, which is what I was open to, was not acceptable and was tantamount, in their eyes, as rejection of their culture, because, as I've said before, they were a total institution, and as such total institutions are more or less all or nothing, not pick and choose. So by my adaptation approach was viewed by them as rejection and was treated as such. I needed to respond to them as the total institution they were.

However, that being said, I'm not sure in my case that even that would have been adequate, because I never did quite please them and the pesky business about my father's work. If this is true, then even assimilation would not have been adequate to please the mission, at least not please them enough to assure my continuance with them for years and years as a career missionary as I had hoped. Since I do not know for certain what would have pleased them, there is still the possibility that I couldn't have done anything to please them and the problem was not cultural at all, but political. But in any case, from the cultural standpoint I do know that adjustment was, in their eyes, not a satisfactory cultural adjustment orientation (meaning adjustment to their organizational culture).

The other thing though, was my membership in the secretary "subculture." I'm not so sure what to do with that one. The thing is that there was diversity among the secretaries in as much as they all had quite different responsibilities and personalities. So one would think that this might be a situation where diversity was accepted and it wouldn't be that "mission critical" for me to be different from them any more than they were all different from each other. So even though I felt confined by the mission's making them my reference group, my problems weren't really in that area as far as what happened between me and the mission. That is is, even if I did feel it confining, this wasn't what caused me problems with the mission, at least not directly.

What I mean is that the mission's being a total institution wasn't really role specific, meaning unique to secretaries. But it was my not identifying with the secretaries and wanting more of a hands-on people ministry that drove me to extracurricular free-time activities and involvements. In this, however, I was responding more to the work itself (which wasn't fulfilling to me) than to anything else.

There were certain secretarial norms, such as the relationships with one's boss's family and roles in group functions and the like, but those weren't at issue. I did these knowing more or less that this was the kind of thing secretaries might be expected to do, especially in that kind of context. But that didn't make it fulfilling to me, so that drove me elsewhere to find fulfillment.

In doing that, however, I wasn't breaking secretarial norms, I don't think. If I was breaking any norms it would have been the whole group's norms. But that's assuming there was a way I could have met those norms, and if there wasn't than there was something dad-related going on that meant no matter what I did I couldn't please the mission. Or at least I couldn't please the mission and be happy at the same time, because pleasing the mission would have, in that case, meant doing or being something that first and foremost wouldn't put my dad at risk, and my interests, gifts, knowledge and experience would only be relevant in as much as that consideration for my dad allowed it to be relevant.

So while there were sub-group norms at play here, I don't think they were the issue.

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I'm going to stop here for now, but there's more to come.

151. Socialization File, Pt. 34 (Feldman, pt. 1)

I'm going to go straight to the socialization discussion this time, and the next article up for discussion is:

Feldman, Daniel Charles. (1981). The multiple socialization of organization members. Acadamy of Management Review, 6(2), 309-318.

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The abstract gives a succinct summary and should allow me to pick specific points in the article knowing that you have an idea of the general context:

"An integrated model is presented of three relatively distinct views of organizational socialization: the development of work skills and abilities; the acquisition of a set of appropriate role behaviors; and the adjustment to the work group's norms and values. A theoretical rationale is developed to explain the contingencies on which progress through the different socialization processes depend. Three attitudinal variables (general satisfaction, internal work motivation, job development) and three behavioral variables (carrying out role assignments dependably, remaining with the organization, innovation/spontaneous cooperation) are suggested as criteria for measuring progress in socialization." (p. 309)

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The process variables are broken down according to the three phases of socialization, which previous works have also described. Here the phases are called "the anticipatory socialization phase," "the encounter phase" and "the change and acquisition phase." Four process variables are suggested for the anticipatory phase, two of which I want to comment on:

"1. Realism about the organization: A full and accurate picture of what the goals and climate of the organizational are really like. ...

4. Congruence of needs and values: Sharing the values of the new organization and having personal needs that can be met by the organization." (p. 310)

We've also already seen that my understanding of the mission was inaccurate, but here the author breaks it down into "goals and climate", which is a new twist. I would say that the goals of the mission were adequately stated in their public presentation, and that part of my understanding was accurate. Rather, it was the "climate" part of this equation that I was sorely mistaken in.

The fourth variable is something new altogether, I think, from what I've looked at already. What needs did I bring to the table? I think one of my main needs was to feel fulfilled and useful, which would entail a reasonable match between my skills and knowledge and the work I was given. As we have seen, for the most part, this didn't happen. I think it could also be said that I had a need also to have a reasonable means of recourse in the event there was a problem between me and the mission. The mission would say that this did exist, but I didn't trust them and I didn't think that my concerns would be listened to with other than an eye to finding a hook to draw me in. For example, could you imagine me being open about the things I've been discussing here? There's no way that could have happened, at least not without somehow having the wool pulled over my eyes leading to me wondering why I was ever even concerned about any of this.

As to congruence of values, I've already discussed this at some length elsewhere, so we already know that I eventually accepted that this was lacking.

During the process phase of socialization, there are, likewise several more process variables, although I'm just going to deal with 2 of them here:

"1. Management of outside conflicts: Progress in dealing with conflicts between personal life and work life (e.g., scheduling, demands on employees' family, amount of preoccupation with work)...

3. Role definition: Clarification of one's own role within the immediate work group, deciding on job duties, priorities, and time allocation for tasks." (p. 310)

The mission and I seemed to have quite different ideas of how I should management possible outside conflicts. On their side, they seemed to think that I didn't particularly need any outside activities, thus eliminating the possibility of any conflicts. On my side of the equation, I understood that I was a secretary for the mission and, while I understood that there could be after hours responsibilities connected with that position, for the most part I would be free to run my after hours life as I saw fit (as long as I didn't do anything immoral or the like). Thus, taking a language class, attending a German-speaking church, and the like were within the realm of what I thought would be permissible according to the mission, right? It seemed pretty reasonable to me to think along these lines, but I eventually saw that I was exhibiting to much independence or evading their efforts to socialize me by not being completely helpless in this foreign land. So, as it turned out, the very fact that I had an independent outside life at all was a conflict, and the only acceptable way to manage my outside life was to put it (along with everything else) under the control of the mission, or at least in their purview so that they could keep an eye on me and could also better influence my development. (It wasn't just me that was singled out, but their general practice, especially with newcomers. In some cases more seasoned members were given more latitude.). So this was a pretty big conflict, I think, especially when you consider that I didn't really see myself as a secretary and what they were asking would sort of force me into that all-defining mold. So then, going back to the congruence of needs I just discussed that is of concern in the anticipatory phase of socialization, my need for fulfillment would be crushed by this demand on them to so limit my outside activities, which could have served to help fill the fulfillment gap between the secretarial position and how I saw myself.

Regarding role definition, the big problem there was that the mission kept moving me around. In such cases it's hard to really "own" a position and you end out filing it like a temp worker, which I was for all intents and purposes. In this case, whatever fulfillment I might have gotten out of a longer term secretarial position was greatly diminished and (maybe you can see that) I was on a disaster course as far as meeting my need for job fulfillment.

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Now I'm going to skip over the rest of the introductory material and move on to the section titled "Proposed Model." Here he flushes out some of the earlier issues and further relates them to one another.

In discussing the "management of outside-life conflicts" variable he says, in part:

"Employees with realistic expectations about the organization are more likely to choose an organization where at least the major potential conflicts between personal life and work life can be avoided." (p. 313)

Since it is clear that I didn't have realistic expectations about the mission, it's not too difficult to see how I could have inadvertently chosen a mission whose expectations conflicted with mine vis a vis my personal life.

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This next quote comes in the section titled "socialization as the development of work skills and abilities."

"A major factor that increases the likelihood of high skill congruence is a realistic job preview. If individuals do not portray themselves correctly to the organization, or if the organization does not portray the job correctly, the chances are increased that persons (1) will be hired for jobs that they are not well suited for; (2) will not receive the type or amount of training needed; (3) will exhibit more anxiety about job performance...; (4) will be less likely to survive the first year...; and (5) will be less satisfied with the new job..." (p. 313; I omitted the references)

IF I had stayed at the job I was brought to Vienna for I think my expectations of it were a pretty close fit (although I can't be sure how the position might have evolved), but that's ignoring the seemingly needless tasks given at first - that didn't fit my expectations - and assumes something that didn't happen. I did not predict being shuffled around like a hockey puck.

According to the text there are two possible sources for a poor job match, and that is misrepresentation either by the potential employee or the potential employer. Where, in my case, did the fault lie? I'm not sure, but I don't think I presented myself to them as a secretary. They knew about my schooling, mission work to date, etc. Maybe they looked at my skills and what their needs were and decided that since I could do secretarial work that I was a good fit. It hardly seems reasonable, at least from my perspective, however, to expect that someone with 6 years of higher education to be content being a secretary, especially if all other means of self-fulfillment were going to be cut off and the primary reference group was to be the other secretaries (who were professional secretaries). So I'm afraid that I can't take the blame here, as I didn't hide anything.

But does that mean that the mission misrepresented the position? Well, not exactly. Rather all the other baggage that came with the position was omitted. So maybe, in this case, it was a sin by omission, if you will.

Okay, so now that blame is more or less squarely identified, let's move on to the potential consequences for incorrect representation by either the individual or organization. The first is that the mismatched person could be hired. Since the kind of things that comprised the mismatch involved (I believe) security controls, it would probably have to be the mission in Vienna that would have to have been the one to catch a mismatch. But they only knew me, presumably, by paperwork that preceded me.

Let me backtrack a bit here. When I applied to my sending mission I had to wait for my application to be approved by that mission, and by that mission's Eastern European committee, and then finally by the mission in Vienna, that was comprised of my sending mission and 14 others. So the mission I applied to knew me not just on paper but had interacted with me some in person as well, but the mission in Vienna new the most about their basic functioning, including socialization processes. Probably the only way the Vienna mission could have caught a potential problem during the application process, is if someone who knew me from the mission I had worked with before were at that board meeting when my application was approved. That other mission was a member organization of the composite Vienna mission. Otherwise they might well not have known that I wouldn't be content "just" being a secretary with no other possible means of feeling professionally fulfilled.

The next risk, is that training received for the position won't be appropriate. In my case this was pretty much irrelevant, although if they had known me better they might have build in ways I could have been more fulfilled and not needed or wanted to look elsewhere for this.

The third possible result is pretty irrelevant in my case. Regarding the job itself, it was very easy, really too easy for me, and I was not at all anxious about my ability to do it well. If they really did underestimate my abilities, they might not have foreseen this and might have thought any anxiety in this regard could have helped them socialize me easier.

I was less likely to survive the first year because the job was too easy, but also because of all the other stuff going on and how they treated me. And because of the mismatch I definitely was less satisfied with the job.

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The next section has a lot of things to comment on, so I'm going to quit for now.