342. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 66 (Farh, Podsakoff & Organ, pt. 2)

I did some scoping around today regarding some thoughts I'd been having lately that I might be having some pronunciation difficulties.  I pulled out my favorite go-to handbook and found several pairings that seemed somewhat difficult.  Then, since migraine seemed the mostly logical culprit I looked online for anything migraine related and I was shocked at what I found.  I guess there is something called "complex migraine" that causes pronunciation problems, but from what I found that would be much worse that mine.  So maybe if I have anything like that it's a very mild case.

It seems so strange that my migraine is so constant, but the complex migraines aren't constant either.  Still, maybe it's another piece in the puzzle.  I'm scheduled to start speech therapy in a month - the soonest I could get in.  It's not like you couldn't understand me.  It's maybe like I have a slurred speech or something.

***

The next section of text I'll be citing from is: "Task Characteristics."

"The essence of intrinsic motivation, according to deCharms (1968), is the person's self-conception as 'Origin' rather than 'Pawn.' To think of oneself as Origin is to think beyond external requirements and instrumental incentives." (p. 709)

This is really part of a larger discussion that is more in keeping with discussion about the task, as the section title might indicate, but I'm not so interested in discussing the surrounding discussion at this point.

How I understand this text is that the worker, the individual, is him/herself the origin of his/her own motivation and as such he/she is a cog in a wheel.   At the Vienna mission, however, intrinsic motivation, I think, had to be group approved.  I most definitely had intrinsic motivation, but I had all kinds of trouble with it.  I don't know if other people managed to find ways to harness their intrinsic motivation in ways that were mission-approved, but I never figured that out.

So, as far as I ever knew, intrinsic motivation in the Vienna mission was not generally well accepted.  If any intrinsic motivation at all was accepted, it would have had to have been in very narrowly defined terms, because the mission could not tolerate independence or surprises and found these types of things to be inexcusable security risks.

***

I'm  jumping over all the description of the study and going straight to the discussion.

"Overall, the data do not support the view that satisfaction is in any sense a direct or antecendent of either Altruism or Compliance: that is, a model in which mediates the effects of leader fairness and/or task characteristics is not tenable.  As indicated in Figure 1, the evidence here is more consistent with the idea that leader fairness and task characteristics are the relevant causal variables with satisfaction and OCB correlated because they are common effects of the causal factors." (p. 716-717)

Overall, I'd say the  Vienna mission leadership did exactly the right things to make me unsatisfied with my time with the mission.  Ergo, you should not be surprised when I say that I was not satisfied.  Okay?

The Vienna leadership were completely unfair with their treatment of me and the tasks I was given to do were way beneath what I was capable of doing and mostly weren't even what I came to do.

***

I guess that's it for that article too, because there aren't any more quotes in it that look helpful.  So I'll pick a new one next time.

308. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 34 (Katz, pt. 5)

I just realized I think I'm commenting on this article for the second time.  I'm sorry about that, but I'm finished now, so I'll just leave it.  If I get around to it, it might be interesting to compare my comments...  I must have had it twice in my file and hadn't realized it.

***

So I finally started my mini spiritual retreat and I didn't even know what I wanted to do.  So I just started by telling God that and sort of waiting in silence.  I have so much sadness from everything from the past year and it just never ends.

So finally I managed to find a few words and then I pulled out the Concordance and somehow decided on the word "great".  Well, that's, of course, is a pretty multipurpose word, but it helped me focus.  I knew I wanted to focus somehow on God's greatness, but then that wasn't it either.

So then I decided to open to one of the passages in I Timothy and then before I knew it I was thinking more along the lines of how one publicly reveals sin in others.  So I just wanted to quote the First and Second Timothy verses here that are examples of that kind of thing.  These are from the New King James version.

I Tim. 1:18-20
¹⁸ This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, ¹⁹ having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck, ²⁰ of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

II Tim. 1:15
This you know, that all those in Asia have turned away from me, among whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes. 

II Tim. 2:17-18

¹⁷ And their message will spread like cancer. Hymenaeus and Philetus are of this sort, ¹⁸ who have strayed concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past; and they overthrow the faith of some. 

II Tim. 4:10
 for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed for Thessalonica—Crescens for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia.

I'm just showing this because there is a biblical precedence for making public error, especially among those who minister since they can do more damage.  I'm not saying that any of these particular actions have anything to do with the Vienna mission; rather, I'm just saying that making such things public (like what I'm doing in this blog) isn't completely without biblical precedence.  The way I'm doing it, of course, is novel, and not just the use of electronic media, but the concentrated focus on it.

***

Continuing with the text, the author goes on to discuss system rewards, which doesn't apply well to the mission context, as it deals more with rewarding employees for quality and quantity of output, like in a corporation or factory, and I'm not aware that this was a problem in the mission.  The textbook end of things in the mission did have deadlines, but they knew how to work with them and didn't require (as far as I ever knew) anything like these kinds of rewards.


However, the next sub-section goes on to discuss the conditions conducive to effective system rewards and that discussion does end out, in perhaps a convoluted way, saying something worth commenting on.  


How we can make this discussion relevant is if we consider the advantages of being an insider in the mission system.  Not only does the trust factor get solidified and one becomes more of a central fixture in the social sphere of things, but there's also the issue of knowledge, so that now you might have access to more of the secret knowledge - at least as it applies to your position.  So these are great boons.  And now instead of wondering whether you'll be on the receiving end of the stick (as in carrot and stick), you might be one of the ones on the giving end of the stick helping to socialize someone else. 


So the thing is that the reward is to move inward in the system or perhaps move up, although there weren't very many opportunities for that in the mission.  Those moves could be seen as rewards and as such could be motivators.  They could be very strong motivators under certain circumstances or for certain people.

***

I'm skipping instrumental rewards (pay) as basically irrelevant), and the next sub-heading is "Intrinsic job satisfaction."


"The motivational pathway to high productivity and to high-quality production can be reached through the development of intrinsic job satisfaction.  The man who finds the type of work he delights in doing is the man who will not worry about the fact the role requires a given amount of production of a certain quality. His gratifications accrue from accomplishment, from the expression of his own abilities, from the exercise of his own decisions... This type of performer is not the clock watcher, nor the shoddy performer.  On the other hand, such a person is not necessarily tied to a given organization... He may, moreover, contribute little to organizational goals beyond his specific role." (p. 141).


This is me and this is not me.  That is it could have been me in the Vienna mission, given the right position, but not exactly either.  The Vienna mission would never ever have let me have anything like the leeway I'd have liked because they were too paranoid of everything, in my opinion.  I'm talking about if I had had a position using my skills, not as a secretary, which I wasn't  -  I wasn't a professional secretary.  


So in the secretary position I acted like the description above in that I would have preferred to contribute little to the organizational goal beyond my specific role, unless it was something of substance they were going to offer me, otherwise, I wasn't to interested.  I mean to be a secretary and on top of that more filler stuff to to in my off time?  I did it, but my heart was more in the Austrian outreach efforts.  


I'd done other East European work that fit this description, whether on short term ministry, volunteering in England at the center there, in the specialized library in the USA, etc. I needed next to no oversight and I was very self motivated and diligent and no one ever complained about my work or anything.  So I was like this person with the intrinsic job satisfaction.  But the Vienna mission did a number on me and they did it big time.  How could I go full time finally to the work that I'd prepared so long for and not an ounce of intrinsic job satisfaction at it?  Well, for one thing they never gave me hardly any work to do!  So I was so often doing filler work to do!  How demeaning is that!  So much for intrinsic job satisfaction.  Down the drain.  Heck, why did they even bring me there if they didn't have any real work for me to do?  Now that's a good question!  I hope God asks them that on the judgement day when they face Him.  (Well, of course, He knows already, but I don't - I'd like to know.)

***

The next sub-section also has to be addressed: "Conditions conducive to arousal of intrinsic job satisfaction."


"If intrinsic job satisfaction or identification with the work is to be aroused and maximized, then the job itself must provide sufficient variety, sufficient complexity, sufficient challenge, and sufficient skill to engage the abilities of the worker. " (p. 141)


This makes sense, but I still stand by what I just said that my work too often seemed pointless (virtually unnecessary) and the job was a poor match for me and didn't utilize the skills I'd trained for.  Beyond that, yes variety, complexity, challenge and skill would be important too.

***

 

306. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 32 (Katz, pt. 3 )

I got a few things done today, but I also took a bit of a break.  This week I just felt like I just needed to step back.  I promised I'd bring an apple cake to church tomorrow as they're having a group their that comes through every year from the denomination, so they'll be feeding them, but I already told pastor that I might just stay home and have a spiritual retreat.  But I promised to bring the cake so I need to get the cake there.  I also need to get some cream cheese, so I'll have to do that in the morning I guess, as the grocery stores closest to me aren't 24 hour ones.  The cake is in the oven now.  It's the same recipe that I made for the little Austrian church and that I had to translate into German and metric when they wanted the recipe.  A nursing friend of mom's gave it to her, and I got it from mom years ago.

***

The next main section of this article is "TYPES OF MOTIVATIONAL PATTERNS."  The author discusses 6 of these patterns or types of motivation.

"Rule compliance or conformity to system norms... Though people may conform for different reasons I am concerned here with one common type of reason, namely a generalized acceptance of the rules of the game.  Once people enter a system they accept the fact that membership in the system means complying with its legitimate rules." (p. 134)

This is probably the basic level that mission leadership was looking for to consider a person past the initial socialization hurdle and accepted into the group.  The word here that tripped me up in Vienna was "legitimate."  I didn't see that the Vienna mission's rules, or at least a good portion of them, wre letigimate and I thought that what they had there was an abuse of power rather than a more letigimate thing, but others seemed to accept it.  I think it was an abuse of power because I didn't think that for a Christian organization they practiced Christian use of power.  A lot of this was via the informal organization, however.

***

"Instrumental reward geared to individual effort or performance. System rewards apply in blanket fashion to all members of a subsystem.  Individual rewards of an instrumental character are attained by differential performance." (p. 134)

I think there were some rewards possible, but not like in a regular job.  For example, as one became more trustworthy and perhaps as one's knowledge and skill became known, one might be given more interesting or prestigious work, for example.  But it's not like you'd get a raise or a bonus, for example.  These opportunities might have motivated some people though.  For me, they were interesting, but I got too many cross signals to rely on these suggestions too much.  You'd really go crazy believing everything that was told you as a possibility, so then you never were sure (or at least I wasn't).

***

"Internalized values of the individual which embrace the goals of the organization. Here the individual again finds his organizational behavior rewarding in itself, not so much because his job gives him a chance to express his skill, but because he has taken over the goals of the organization as his own." (p. 134)

The mission clearly demanded this of its members.  It might have accepted rule compliance as a first step along the socialization bath, but ultimately it wanted internalization of the missions goals (and values, and norms, and rules, and....etc.).  This is part of it's being a total institution and part of its concern for the attitudes of the individual member.

***

"Social satisfactions derived from primary-group relationships. This is an important source of gratification for organizational members.  One of the things people miss most when they have to withdraw from organizations is the sharing of experiences with like-minded colleagues, the belonging to a group with which they have become identified." (p. 134)

Unfortunately, I didn't get as much social satisfaction as it seemed I should have from my primary-group (the other secretaries, because I didn't see myself having that much in common with them.  But I think for most people at the mission this statement would be true that after the stressful ministry context, close-knit working relationships and seclusion from the rest of the world (in many ways) it probably was difficult to leave their primary group relationships when they left the missin to return home.

***

As you can see, I didn't fare too well in these types of motivational patterns.  But I really did come to the mission with a reasonable amount of motivation.,  It's just that after I arrived in Vienna, the mission worked hard at eroding that motivation, which sounds counterintuitive, so you assume that wasn't their intention ... unless, of course, they wanted to drive me out of there because of my dad.  I think those are probably your two options, either they didn't mean to erode my motivation or they did mean to and it was because of my dad.

305.Organizational Behavior, Pt. 31 (Katz, pt. 2)

To summarize the rest of the introduction of this article, there are three questions the author is going to address:

"(1) What are the types of behavior required for effective organizational functioning?...


(2) What are the motivational patterns which are used and which can be used in organizational settings?...


(3) What are the conditions for eliciting a given motivational pattern in an organizational setting?" (p. 131)

Not all of these questions are equally relevant to my purposes, but consider this an advance organizer (from my teaching or reading skills days).

***

Starting with the first question, which is the first major article section "BEHAVIOR REQUIREMENTS," and skipping a couple sub-sections to "Innovative and spontaneous behavior."

"A neglected set of requirements consists of those actions not specified by role prescriptions which nevertheless facilitate the accomplishment of organizational goals.  The great paradox of a social organization is that it must not only reduce human variability to insure reliable role performance but that it must also allow room for some variability and in fact encourage it...." (p. 132)

Clearly this was very important in the Vienna mission because once it dealt with things outside its walls, especially with things "in-country" - i.e., in Eastern Europe - it needed its workers to be able to think on the fly, problem solve, think creatively, etc.  But there were also serious risks at stake that needed to be kept in mind while doing this, so there had to be, as I've mentioned more than once, trust between members, but also certain relevant knowledge and experience to be able to make good decisions.  So innovation and spontaneity was always under careful scrutiny and only permitted where and to whom it was trusted.

***

The next sub-section is titled "Co-operaton."

"The patterned activity which makes up an organization is so intrinsially a co-operative set of interrelationships, that we are not aware of the co-operative nexus any more than we are of any habitual behavior like walking...." (p. 132)

This section cites examples and how one study showed that cooperation among department members increased productivity.  In the Vienna mission this was clearly a very major value and crossed all spheres of life there, including outside the office (home life, etc.).  I think this was a part of the security system to make the organization as self-sufficient as possible and as close as possible to a closed system (a sociological term - go to p. 36) as possible.

***

The next sub-section is "Protection."

"Another subcategory of behavior facilitative of organizational functioning is the action which protects the organization aganst disaster.  There is nothing in the role prescriptions of the worker which specifies that he be on the alert to save life and property in the organization." (p. 133)

I think Katz maybe should have qualified this all-inclusiveness a bit, because I have a feeling that the Vienna mission isn't the only organization and there are also certain positions in every day firms that are told explicitly to protect something or the other of the organization.  In any case, virtually everyone in the Vienna mission was supposed to be on high alert virtually all the time (granted some times more alert than at other times).  This was not an organization where people believed in passing the buck regarding protection of the organization and anything related to the ministry.  So if anyone received a signal from a reliable source (such as their boss or the director) that something was amiss, even if they didn't understand or know what was wrong, they would immediately go in defensive mode for the sake of the ministry and be ready to take orders, explicit or otherwise as far as what they should do, if anything.

This might sound as if I'm overdoing it, but if you experienced what I did in my departure you'd see that these people all took a stand in unison against me and I doubt that they all, including my boss' teenage daughter, really knew that my egregious risk to the mission was.  Well, if they didn't know then, and they know who I am as I write this they understand now why I was dangerous, I expect.

***

The next sub-heading is "Constructive ideas."

I think this is similar to "Innovative and spontaneous behavior," but maybe it's more along the lines of planning, rather than reacting to problems as they come up.  This might be more like someone suggesting a new course to teach or learning of a new group in another city that they could contact as a potential new group of students, for example.  This kind of thing would probably be limited to the well seasoned workers, and if others had any ideas like that they would have to run it by their superiors who would present it if it seemed feasible, but it would probably be greatly re-worked in the meantime because anyone below a certain level in the hierarchy would be at a disadvantage regarding knowledge level as to what was really going on in the mission to make reasonable suggestions.  And if they did present a good suggestion there would be the issue of rank and power, and the person would still need to be kept in their place because s/he presumably was still in their position/rank for a reason.

***

The next sub-heading is "Self-training."

This is ironic, because this was exactly part of my socialization, in that I had been denied the opportunity to take a software class back home (they wouldn't tell me what software was used, saying it wasn't necessary, I could learn on the job), so I spent the first couple months reading software manuals and learning that way.  So this was a management-imposted self-training, which I don't think is quite what Katz means here; rather, I think Katz means the individual taking the initiative on their own to learn new skills.

The thing was in Vienna it was hard to do much of anything for any length of time that wasn't known by someone or the other and approved or disapproved of.  So if they found out you were doing some self-training they would have wanted to consider whether it was really necessary or not and that was their determination or not.  And they determined this not just on the basis of your technical skills, but on a whole host of other things, including whether it was more important for you to help socialize the new secretary, whether your attitude was more important than your skills, whether your boss didn't like that you just up and decided to learn something without talking it over with him first and he wanted to teach you that that's not how things were done there, or maybe your mentor could help you with it (although your mentor was very busy at the moment).

***

The last sub-section is "Favorable attitude."

"Finally, members of a group can contribute to its operations by helping to create a favorable climate for it in the community, or communities, which surround the organization.  Employees may talk to friends, relatives, and acquaintances about the excellent or the poor qualities of the company for which they work." (p. 133)

In Vienna they were mainly interested in security, that you faithfully parrot the line about them being an international printing company.  I think as far as they were concerned, that was about all you needed to ever say about them to outsiders if you had to say anything about them at all.  So then you didn't really have to worry about the negative or positive issue, just the security issue there.  Same thing is more or less true in Eastern Europe, although when you were with the students or other believers they obviously knew you weren't an "international publishing company" (catch the deception there?) so you didn't have to pretend to be something you weren't, but they were also discreet enough to know what not to ask and the like.  In private meetings outside of class sessiongs they might send greetings to others back in the mission and ask of someone's welfare (someone who had been sick, who just got married, had been in the States on furlough, etc.).

The negative/positive issue comes into play regarding communications with folk back home - or, in my case, anywhere I happened to have friends, including Australia, E. Germany, or wherever.  That's when they wanted the party line parroted back home.  They might as well have sent me to indoctrination classes or something, or maybe that's what it was inthe States when they sent me back, sort of my own little private GULAG.

Well, I just made a Freudian slip and revealed my attitude, which was not, as you can guess, up to par.  I didn't start out that way though.  They made me that way, really.  I came ready to go and serve do a good job.  I never was on a high really about it though, I guess.  I think I came level-headed about it.  I'm not sure, but that might have thrown them for a loop.  But the thing was that I'd already had all that other experience and training and I was glad to be there but just not on a high about it - not in euphora or something.

I've already written so much here about how my experiences there led to my attitude change how the discrepencies.  I was really rather bowled over by the welcome though.  But it wasn't long before I began to notice the discrepancies, like the software manuals discussed above - 2 months of pretty much non-work, a waste of supporters' money.  And these things ate away at my attitude and I refuse to take the blame for that because I didn't cause these events, the mission leadership did.  The software manual incident was a stupid, manipulative social engineering-type socialization ploy that had no place in a Christian mission and I had no responsibility to accept that kind of playmanship and for them to expect that I should have a positive attitude about it is sorely mistaken on their part.  They were wrong and they misused their power in that and in a myriad other ways while I was with them.  God is not manipulative, Got does not force submission and He does not authorize His servants to use such means either.  In contrast, this is the kind of methodology Satan would use, and also the Communists, for example, used.

This is the end of this section of the article.

304. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 30 (Katz, pt. 1)

This next article is as follows:

Katz, Daniel (1964). The motivational basis of organizational behavior, Behavior Science, 9, 131-146.

***

"The basic problem to which I shall address myself is how people are tied into social and organizational structures to that they become effective functioning units of social systems.  What is the nature of their involvement in a system or their commitment to it?


... [W]e need to cope with such organizational realities as the attracting of people into organizations, holding them within the system, insuring reliable role performance, and in addition stimulating actions which are generally facilitative of organizational accomplishment.  The material and psychic returns to organizational members thus constitute major determints, not only of the level of effectiveness of organizational functioning, but of the very existence of the organization." (p. 131)


Presumably the missionaries would come to Vienna with some kind of altruistic motivation, but there would be some range and variation as to the exact configuration this could take, such as how much one knew about the ministry before coming, which could affect (or not) the commitment to the work, what one thought of the Eastern European context of the work, the level of commitment to the ministry type (seminary), etc. And, of course, the role of the missionary in the organization would play a part as well in this configuration.  So to say that they came with altruistic motivations might have been true, but not very helpful in the mix of things.  A lot more could be learned by digging deeper into the specifics of the motivation that workers brought with them. 

In the Vienna mission, sinceit was a total institution and they tolerated close to zero deviance, this issue of commitment and motivation would have been of critical importance to the leadership and if they perceived a flagging of these (commitment or motivation) in any of their members they would have been quick to address the issue so that it could be fixed and also not spread to others.  In my opinion, appropriate levels, expressions and definitions of commitment and motivation would have been provided by the mission leadership, and the inductee and other members learned these by example, trial and error, and other ways.    I think that new members' initial motivations were brought under scrutiny as part of the socialization process (which included concerns with attitudes) and the mission approved, disapproved, tweaked or changed as needed the initial motivations.  This may or may not have happened consciously and overtly, where the new inductee realized that his/her motivations were changing, for example.

The phrase "actions which are generally facilitated of organizational accomplishment" is, as far as I'm concerned, very loaded and open to discussion and disagreement.  If that weren't so, half of this blog would not have been written.  That is, the mission had ideas of what actions were needed to do the job other than what I think were biblical.  I can't say whether or not they would have been able to accomplish exactly what they did if they had followed biblical mandates - chances are things would have ended out a lot different, but perhap they could have accomplished a lot more even if they'd trusted God and set up a ministry under His aegis.  But as things were, the mission saw actions as minimallly facilitating organizational accomplishment that were totally submissive to them and in keeping with their paranoid security norms which basically meant they ran or kept tabs on your whole life (at least while you were outside North America or your home country).  After you met those requirements, then you could go on to become a more productive member, but you had to meet those more basic requirement first... at least that was my experience.

Mission members didn't really expect, as far as I was aware, material returns.  However, it could have been that some of the theologians could have thought that the experience gained there might later on have benefited them elsewhere in their career.  The one person I'm thinking of that maybe thought like this was the head of textbook writing; I was under the impression that eventually they'd have all the textbooks completed (except they might need to keep translating them to new languages and having images made that were appropriate for that new geographical context, etc.).  So that director might have thought of his position as whittling down and his experience there as being helpful for other positions elsewhere.  I didn't know him that well, but that was sort of an impression I had of him that this could have been possible. 

Otherwise, everyone got "psychic returns," which is a very inadequate term to describe the sincere spiritual motivation held by these people.  It's possible that there was also bit of anti-Communism (i.e., political) motivation that fired people up, and that, along with some right-wing politics thrown in, was enough for the management to get away with its extreme paranoid ends-justifies-the-means security measures.  So you had the usual nonprofit altruism feel-good-for-doing-good motivation, the spiritual motivation for obedience to God, and perhaps a bit of politics thrown in.

The spiritual motivation issue might bear some elaboration as, in the world of management, these things would get broken down for the interest of recruitment, productivity, staff morale, retention, etc.  Not that the Vienna mission was particularly interested in these things, but I'm just saying... just in case.  I'm not going to go in to great detail here because it's not extremely relevant, I think to my case, but it's not completely irrelevant either.  This is just to give you an idea of the diversity of people at the mission, where there was otherwise homogeneity in many measures.

Spiritual motivation is a personal thing and I think that often individuals have a difficult time self-identifying such things.  For example, the radio interview when I was asked why I wanted to work with Russian emigrants... But then I was tired (I'd spend the night before up writing a peper for a class) and I also hadn't spent a year going around to churches telling them why I was called to work with Russian emigrants either (in contrast with the missionaries in Vienna).  So this can be a deeply personal experiential thing on one hand, but it can also be something more objectively tied to a specific event (a conversation, a sermon, a commitment call) or to a Scripture passage or passages, or some other similar specific influence.  Here are some examples of what I mean, written as if missionaries were saying them:

• I felt the call to be a missionary as a teenager and my pastors and professors confirmed my gift of teaching and I want to serve the Lord using this gift
• A missionary speaker from the Vienna mission came to speak at my church and I'd been praying for a way to serve God in the Great Commission and I knew my secretarial skills would be a valuable service in this ministry
• I read a book about believers in the USSR and I wanted to serve in a ministry in a Communist country and while I was in seminary I learned of this ministry and I knew this was where I belonged
• etc., etc.

Underneath these stories of how people came to the mission are clues to their motivation to be there.  This is what I'm talking about, but I hope you can appreciate that this is an oversimplification and that there were some 60 of these stories as well, not 3 and in fact there were 300 people including family members, although some of these 300 were children, but at least you should count spouses, so maybe there were 80 or 90 adults altogether with stories that might give clues to their motivation.

So although missionaries, by the time they arrived in Vienna, should have had a pretty good idea, at least on one level, of their motivation to serve in the mission, it's possible they still had some blindspots.  But the thing is that the socialization process could really have done a number on that initial thinking, as well.  The usual obvious motivations would be the ones that mirror the mission's mission statement and perhaps one's relationship to it vis a vis (formal or otherwise) one's role in the mission.

As for myself, though, I was really pumped about the mission's work, but not so much about my role in the mission. I was only very minimally motivated to carry out what I saw as the mission's extracurricular demands on my time.  While I didn't agree with Communism, I didn't see a need for politics in missions and I wasn't otherwise politically oriented.  I came to Vienna motivated to to have a people ministry (that is, outside the mission) because I believe that there was a need for people to hear the gospel and have opportunity to grown in the faith, and I didn't see that hanging around missionaries off hours had anything to do with that. These motivations were based on Scriptures and years of teaching and some experience and the influence of various people on me over the years.)

***

But we've only just begun the article and I'm not even done with the introduction!

Until next time..

297. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 23 (Gray & Starke, pt. 2))

It never ceases to amaze me how much I can just keep on going on the subject of my tortured tenure with the mission in Vienna and continue to keep coming up with new things that shed considerable helpful new light on what happened there.  This issue of the informal organizational is one of these such instances.

***

I've realized that I haven't been attaching dates to these blogs.  These ones that pertain in general to my time in Vienna (not counting the pre-Vienna deputation) would be 1987-1989.  I'll try to start adding these labels, but I'll have to go and retroactively add them to previous posts later on.

***

This afternoon I have physical therapy.  I'd like to start taking the Special Transit Services for trips of any distances (such as physical therapy, which is ca. 15 miles or more one way) but you have to call a day in advance to make arrangements so I can't do that for today and Friday I have an appointment with the pain doctor that works with the neurosurgeon and it's too close time-wise to my p/t appointment for STS, so I'm going to have to drive Friday too.   I'll have to start next week then.

At home I want to continue my thorough post-remodeling cleaning.  Because I'm not feeling well this cleaning is going slowly, which I think I've mentioned before.  So today I want to clean the guest shower.  That finishes the guest bath except for the vanity top, which I'll leave for now because I'm using it as my central cleaning station for sponges and rags, etc.  However, I offered to host a couple coming through from church Saturday night, so I'll clean it before then.

Then my next room will be the kitchen, so I'll start there next.  I've generally tried to have all my knickknacks and things behind glass, but my canisters in the kitchen are all on open shelves, and so my plan is to take them all down and dust them, so I'm going to start with that in the kitchen.

But I also have cooking to do today.  My next meal is going to be Russian.  Being single I cook a meal and have left overs and also freeze some meals.  Pork chops cooked in sour cream, baby potatoes poached in broth and just plain broccoli (the latter is not particularly Russian).  I also need to make juice for my bedtime smoothies as I finished my last batch yesterday.  This time it sill be ruby red grapefruit and yummy smelling peach juice.  I hope it comes out a good combination.  The peaches were on sale and smelled so yummy peachy I just couldn't resist them and the grapefruit were likewise hard to resist there I was with to fruit that I wasn't sure how they would go together, so we'll soon find out I guess.  I have a feeling it depends on the sweetness of the grapefruit as to how well they'll go together.

Anyway, back to the text...

***

This next section of the chapter is: "FUNCTIONS OF THE INFORMAL ORGANIZATION"

The following quote is the introduction to this section.

"A better understanding of a phenomenon can be achieved if it is known what function it performs.  If we analyze the reasons behind the existence of the informal organization, we can improve our understanding of how it can be managed. While all of the reasons (or functions) discussed below are interrelated, we treat them separately to sharpen our understanding of the behavior patterns operating in informal structures." (p. 431-432)

It sounds like the authors more or less equate reasons with functions, but we'll have to see if that fit the Vienna mission context as we read the text.  In any case, understanding the function and understanding the reason does sound like it could be very helpful to know.  Why did the Vienna leadership decide they needed to create an informal organization?  Why did they make it serve the functions it did?  Why did they make the informal organization in the particular form they made it in?  Why?  Why? Why?  Let's see if we can find out...

***

This section subheading is "Security."

"One of the major functions of the informal organization is to increase the feeling of security of its members... Deviant or abnormal behavior is not tolerated, and this assures members a reasonable degree of stability in their interpersonal relationships.  The informal organization also increases member security by protecting members from outside influences such as management or other work groups...

"A major reason workers find security in the informal organization is that the rules for behavior are set by the workers, not by management." (p. 433)

... Unless of course you happen to in an organization where the management created the informal organization and established the rules for behavior in it.  Well, maybe it's not right to really think of the mission in terms of workers and management, like in an ordinary workplace, but, on the other hand, should we consider the mission a spy agency?   Would your average mission in, say, Bolivia or Thailand go out of their way to purposely and deliberately create an informal organization with all the bells and whistles that might accompany an informal organization? Probably not; they have other things to do... like ministry, for example.

Getting back to this quote, feelings of security in the Vienna mission, in my experience and observation, were acquired when one succumbed and gave in to whatever it is they wanted of you so that you and the mission lived in harmony.  It had to be a relationship of complete mutual trust, no holds barred.  Without that you didn't have security, plain and simple.  People who were there shorter terms (a few months or visitors) would have been shielded from the cruel realities of this kind of thing.

In any case, the workers did not set any rules of any substance, and certainly no rules having to do with whether or not you felt secure or not.  Example of rules workers might have been able to set would be rules involved in the women's monthly meeting, as long as the rules didn't involve things like security or the like, which would be management's sole prerogative to set.

By "workers" I mean anyone below the level of department heads.

***

The next sub-section is titled "Social Satisfaction"

"We learned from the motivation chapter that people have social needs that are manifested in social contact (e.g., the formation of significant interpersonal relations and the striving to be accepted by other people). The informal organization facilitates satisfaction of those needs.  For example, the interactions required by the formal organization tend to initiate the social contacts made, resulting in the formation of attitudes, feelings, and beliefs about other people.  On the basis of these required interactions, individuals then form close-knit groups that provide maximum satisfaction and security...


Moreover, it is easier to develop a social identity in a small informal group than a large formal one.  In many cases, employees become only numbers to the formal organization; they therefore seek personal identity, recognition, and acceptance in their informal groups." (p. 433)

I think what we have here is a case of Habermasian colonization of a lifeworld.  That is, whereas individuals might want social satisfaction the administration imposed their view of that social satisfaction should look like by using their artificially created informal organizational structure to also dictate social mores and relations.  All in the name of Christian love and the great commission.

***

The next sub-section is "Communication Channel"

"As mentioned earlier, the informal organization provides an additional channel of communication for the organization, called the grapevine.  Information that is deemed important by the informal organization is sought out and quickly communicated to interested group members.  Because the information is seen as important (if it weren't the informal organization wouldn't bother with it), it tends to be transmitted rather quickly, the exact speed depending partly upon the degree of importance of the communication...


... But regardless of the accuracy of the information, the mere act of communicating necessary information tends to satisfy the needs of the informal organization... " (p. 433, 435)

Since the informal organization in the Vienna mission was a creation of the administration in the service of the administration, the communication channel was also part of this instrumentation, and such there was no room for error, at least as far as I'm aware, and I suspect that if error did come up it would be quickly corrected and an effort would be made to avoid it happening again in the future, because error could have catastrophic consequences in their work.

In my opinion, formal communication channels were largely fronts from the public view, part of the deception - the partial truths, like saying they were an international publisher.  Communication really happened 1) in informal channels, or 2) behind closed doors (some of which might have been formal channels).  So informal channels were actually pretty important and I think a lot of communication between upper management and department heads happened in informal social situations, whether it was out jogging together or a spur of the  moment discussion on the fly.

The only communication channels that might have been of any importance and also formal would have been the board meetings and the regular management meetings.  These had minutes which were available only on a need to know basis and there was otherwise no written formal communication that I would say was of any significance, other than symbolic and p.r. or fundraising.

Again, it should also be noted that the management had a monopoly on communication, including the informal organization communication.  In fact, there were times I mentioned things to a couple of the secretaries that I (naively, it seems) thought was in confidence, but later on there wee things that happened / that were said that made me think that my confidence had been broken and they had passed on what I'd said.  I suspect their bosses had asked them about out time together.  So then it's clear that the informal communication channels were in the service of the management and these secretaries were, if you will, informants.  An example of this was mentioning that I was feeling stressed and one secretary telling me about the Austrian herbs that some of the workers had tried.  This was before I was sent back to the States.

One other things about this is that towards the end of my time in Vienna, I feel I was fed a lot of dis- or misinformation to confuse me about what was going on in the mission and where it was headed.  So this was a use (or misuse?) of the grapevine.  It seems it would be in the service of the management, but where exactly the dis- or misinformation originated I'll probably never know.  That is, who thought up what to tell me and what who should tell me.

***

This next sub-section is titled "Balancing Device."

"The informal organization serves as a balancing device in several ways.  First, it has the capacity (although not always the motivation) to overcome deficiencies built into the formal structure.  Since it is impossible for formal systems to prescribe every type of decision and behavior that is necessary for effective work accomplishment, the formal organization often relies on the informal organization to take up any 'slack' that may be present or to compensate for important areas that are not specifically covered in job descriptions.


Second, the informal organization serves a balancing function by giving satisfaction to individual members that the formal structure cannot give.  A production worker receiving little respect from management can derive considerable satisfaction from being an informal group leader, by being held in high esteem by coworkers, or by having workmates laugh at his or her jokes." (p. 435)

Although the Vienna mission leadership created and managed the informal organization, if an individual was in good standing in the organization s/he would be given some latitude in carrying out his/her job, although the mission wouldn't tolerate mavericks, so it was generally accepted that regular communication with relevant colleagues and/or superiors regarding innovations needed to take place to keep everyone affected on board (assuming it wasn't something ridiculously trivial like your method of washing the windows or something).  This functioning might not be completely dissimilar to in a regular informal organization, except for the Big Daddy informal organization always looming in the background.

The second balancing device would be irrelevant in the Vienna mission because if the mission management was not pleased with you than no one would be and you wouldn't find anyone who'd cross the mission leadership because to do so would be professional suicide.  So in this case the mission management made sure that their informal organization didn't function at all.  Period.  Explanation Mark.  End of question.  Time to move on...

***

The final sub-section is titled "Source of Motivation."

"The informal organization is often a source of motivation for individuals." (p. 436)

I decided that rather than cite the text, I'd summarize the ways an informal organization can motivate individuals, according to the text.

1. One can be motivated by being recognized by ones peers (as funny, as a good worker, etc.)

2. One can be motivated by having interesting / enjoyable coworkers.

3. One can be motivated by status or position held within the informal organization.

Numbers one and three are only going to happen if you are in good standing with the management, although being in good standing with the management does not guarantee these things.  For example, you could be in good standing with the management, but not necessarily in a particularly high status.

Number two probably will also only happen when you are in good standing with management because if you are not in good standing with them your peers will use social pressure to get you to change (or oust you or whatever management wants to happen to you) and chances are that even if they are otherwise interesting and enjoyable people they won't seem so if you are not in good standing with management.

So if you are not in good standing with management, it seems that the informal organization, which is (s I've said many times already now) an instrument of the mission management, will lose it's motivational properties once you are on the outs with the mission management.

***

In this case, then, the question is what is there to make you want to correct the problem between yourself and the mission management?  The answer, clearly, is beyond the purview of this text, but it is one that seems relevant to me and my relationship (back then in the late 1980s) with the Vienna mission. 

What then is the Mission?  Stripped of a viable relationship with the pseudo informal organization (I think it's pseudo, because it's contrived rather than organic), then I'm left with a relationship with a relationship with the formal organization and, my sending organization.  We already know that the formal organization is basically a front, a shell of an organization mainly for public relations and fundraising purposes (and minimally for financial and legal reasons). That's what my relationship is with after I'm stripped of a relationship with the pseudo informal organization.

How do you relate to a shell of an organization?  How do you communicate with a p.r front? Excuse me for being paranoid.  Who are you anyway, Vienna mission? 

It's at times like these that one can start to believe that books like Alice in Wonderland may not be so fantastic after all. 

***

It is soooooo... late.  I've got to go.

294.Organizational Behavior, Pt. 20 (Kratz, pt. 5)

I just returned from church.  Next week I'll probably have to bring my foot pillow for the foot neuropathy.  It was nice to be there though.

***

We're still in the section of Katz's article titled "Motivational Patterns: Consequances and Conditions," but we're starting off in the sub-section "Instrumental system rewards."

"It is important to distinguish between rewards which are administered in relation to individual effort and performance and the system rewards which accrue to people by virtue of their membership in the system." (p. 137)

This section winds through a somewhat involved argument regarding the affects of various individual and aggregate reward systems on productivity, motivation, turnover and recruitment.  I won't discuss all of it here, but some it is does raise some interesting thoughts about the mission as it was when I was working with it.

For example, if potential theologian-missionaries back home got wind of the effective work being done and the professionalism of how it was being carried out, these things might interest them in working with the mission, or at least taking a teaching trip with the mission to try it out.  The effectiveness and professionalism would be among the "rewards" that would interest them and the professional theologian-missionaries on staff.

However, as Katz also mentions, providing rewards, say a staff fitness center, wouldn't necessarily translate into increased work productivity, although it might result in easier recruitment and also allow them to set higher work standards because the workers would be willing to work harder because of the better work amenities.

In Vienna the system rewards might be things like the monthly women's meetings, the semi-annual retreat, the monthly all-staff meeting, the monthly newsletter, the monthly birthday party, etc.

The individual rewards varied widely depending on the individual and the individual's position.   I'll try to take a stab at what my rewards might have been, although this was a moving target (i.e., fluctuated during my tenure with the mission).  When I first arrived in Vienna, my individual rewards probably included having an office to myself next to my boss, having an apartment to myself, and being allowed to attend the Austrian church. Just before I left Vienna the only thing I had left was the apartment as I was working in the reception area and attending and English speaking church, which I'd started attending because I'd gotten tired of swimming upstream against the mission.

So it is clear that the system wasn't rewarding me (understatement), which is a clue that maybe they didn't really want to retain me, because rewards  are given to retain people, right?   And according to this author, rewards are also given to increase productivity, so the mission was not concerned about productivity either when it came to dealing with me.  In fact, from the very beginning, it seems that productivity was not important to them (remember the computer manuals?)

And that's not even looking at whether they were punishing me or not. 

***

The next sub-heading is "Conditions conducive to effective system rewards"

"We have just described one of the essential conditions for making system rewards effective in calling attention to the need to make the system as attractive as competing systems which are realistic alternatives for the individual." (p. 139)

What Katz is saying here is that the systemic and individual rewards should make the individual think that this organization is better than some other competing organization.  Now think about my experience with the Vienna mission.  How likely do you think it is that I might have thought about leaving for another better mission?

Well, you're probably thinking that there is a very great chance, and on one hand you're very right, but on the other hand you're very wrong.  The thing is, and you might not have read all 293 posts leading up to this one to know this, but I was aware of a great number of the other missions working in the East Bloc countries and there were some 20 or so working with the group I was was with in Vienna and I'd written a letter to some 30+ before deciding on my sending mission and I'd gotten some very disturbing answers (rather paranoid, etc.), so I was thinking at this point that the whole lot of missions to this part of the world was a rotten lot and not to be trusted  - that they were all in bed together, more or less.  There were a very few that I thought weren't bad, but they weren't working in the areas I was interested in.  Child Evangelism Fellowship is one group I highly respect and at no time had any questions about, I even went on a vacation trip with one of their workers from Vienna to Istanbul and I had a good friend that worked in east Asia too.

But on the other hand, I did start looking for other options outside of the mission, like other fields of work even because I began to see that there was no way either me or the mission was going to compromise and come the end of my 2 year term we were going our separate ways.  I wasn't going to broach them on the issues and they weren't going to come to me either, so it was a mutual standoff, and maybe a mutual distrust, if they distrusted me, which I'm not sure about.

***

"The critical point, then, is that system rewards have a logic of their own.  Since they accrue to people by virtue of their membership or length of service in an organization, they will be perceived as inequitable if they are not uniformly administered." (p. 139)

The system rewards, as far as I can remember right now were generally equitably available, but the last few months of my stay in Vienna, my social exclusion might be seen as possibly system reward being inequitably withheld.  Also, information could be divulged or withheld in a similar manner.

***

We're skipping the sub-heading "Conditions conducive to effective individual instrumental rewards" (mostly applies to factories) and jumping to the sub-heading is "Intrinsic job satisfaction."

"The motivational pathway to high productivity and to high-quality production can be reached through the development of intrinsic job satisfaction. The man who finds the type of work he delights n doing is the man who will not worry about the fact that the role requires a given amount of production of a certain quality. His gratifications accrue from accomplishment, from the expression of his own abilities, from the exercise of his own decisions." (p. 141)

I think this could have been me in Vienna if I'd been given work that was truly meaningful and if I'd been trusted to take some initiative in my professional training.  But I wasn't.  Even the time I went on the women's ministry trip they didn't seem to really trust me and I felt like they were just testing me out and I didn't have much freedom of expression.

***

The next sub-heading is "Conditions conducive to arousal of intrinsic job satisfaction."

"If intrinsic job satisfaction or identification with the work is to be aroused and maximized, then the job itself must provide sufficient variety, sufficient complexity, sufficient challenge, and sufficient skill to engage the abilities of the worker.  If there is one confirmed finding in all the studies of worker morale and satisfaction, it is the correlation between variety and challenge of the job and the gratification which accrue to workers (Morse, 1953)." (p. 141-142)

In Vienna I never really had any variety.  In Dallas, working in the office I was kept busy, but it wasn't a lot of variety.  As a secretary in Vienna there was a bit of variety but I wasn't ever very busy and didn't have a lot of responsibility because I wasn't in the position long enough to own it, and in the reception position in Vienna I did take some initiative, but it wasn't a lot of variety there either.  Considering what I was capable of, these positions were all pretty boring for the most part, although I tried to make the most of them and focus on learning them and trying to make the position better, if I had the opportunity.

***

The next sub-section is titled "Internaliation of organizational goals and values."

"The pattern of motivation association with value expression and self-identification has great potentialities for the internalization of the goals of subsystems and of the total system, and thus for the activation of behavior not prescribed by specific roles...  The internalization of organizational objectives is generally confined to the upper echelons or to the officer personnel.  In voluntary organizations it extends into some of the rank-and-file, and in fact most voluntary organizations need a core of dedicated people - who are generally referred to as the dedicated damn fools." (p. 143).

If there were 40 people working in the Vienna mission, then there were 39 "damn fools" because I was the only one who didn't subscribe lock, stock and barrel to their "organizational goals and values." That is, I subscribed to their publicly available goals and values, but not to their internal values, in as much as they appear to differ from the public values.  Right now it feels good to now have gone along with the crowd, because I don't particularly like the moniker "damn fools."

***

Next the author describes two types of partial internalization, which is says is more common than the full internalization described above.  Incidentally, the Vienna mission generally wanted full identification, but in the area of theology, it had to allow some license in minor areas.  Theologically the mission had to take into account the 20 some missions working together and also the believers in the various countries and their theologies.

"The first [type of partial internalization] has to do with some general organizational purposes which are not unique to the organization.  A scientist may have internalized some of the research values of his profession but not necessarily of the specific institution to which he is attached...


A second type of partial internalization concerns the values and goals of a sub-system of the organization.  It is often easier for the person to take over the values of his own unit." (p. 143)


These both could have happened in Vienna, but I can't speak to them because I wasn't privvy to that information and it would have to have been someone closer to those departments to say for sure whether or not these happened or not.  If either of these did happen, the first type would most likely have involved the instructors, probably the country groups, although possibly the textbook writers too.  Any of the departments could have been "guilty" of the second type because the departments did become like second families and had their own insular life more or less apart from the rest or in addition to the whole group relations.  I think there was an effort on the part of the leadership, though, to not let any group become too detached and independent.  Still it's possible that this second type of internalization could have been a risk at the very least.

***

I'm still not done with this article, but I need to do some other things, so I'll pick up where I left off when I come back.

290. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 16 (Organ, D.W., pt. 2; Katz)

I had trouble getting on here, but it looks like it has to do with a driver, as I was able to get on via a different browser, so I'll have to work on it later.

But back to the text...

***

"Since Krebs's review, the evidence has continued to mount in support of the parsimonious explanation of mood (i.e., affect or emotional state) as a major determinant of altruism and other forms of prosocial behavior." (p. 30-31)

Having done some research on civil society and social movements, this statement (and the surrounding text) does seem to mesh with with other things I've read in those areas.  But it doesn't fit my upbringing that well, in that my family didn't think that way.  I think my parents might not necessarily have had the worst affective situation, but their upbringings weren't that great, yet they both were very altruistic and gave of time and money rather freely to help others.  So this idea of having affect determine your altruism was pretty foreign to me, I think and in Vienna I wouldn't have thought this way.  Later on, in Russia I eventually started to become burned out and sort of tired of swimming upstream.

I'm skipping over a discussion about mood because I don't think it applies much to my time in Vienna.  I think at that time I was generally a pretty upbeat person, although I'd been through a stressful time the few years before in my living situation and financially while in Bible school.  But I was certainly much, much more upbeat and positive in my outlook than I am now after all I've been through at this point in my life. 

***

The rest of the article discusses instruments developed and tested to measure organizational citizenship behavior.  The discussion is not pertinent enough to the issues I need to discuss, although motivation and job satisfaction are things we'll come back to eventually, and you can imagine that that will be interesting.

Although it's late and I could end here, this would really be a short post, so I'll begin commenting on another article:

Katz, Daniel (1964). The motivational basis of organizational behavior. Behavioral Science, 9, 130.

***

"At the practical level.... we need to cope with such organizational realities as the attracting of people into the organization, holding them within the system, insuring reliable, role performance, and in addition stimulate actions which are generally facilitative of organizational  accomplishment...

The complexities of motivational problems in organizations can be understood if we develop an analytic framework which will be comprehensive enough to identify the major sources of variance and detailed enough to contain sufficient specification for predictive purposes.  The framework we propose calls for three steps in an analysis process, namely, the formulation of answers to these types of questions: (1) What are the types of behavior required for effective organizational functioning?... (2) what are the motivational patterns which are used and which can be used in organizational settings?... (3) What are the conditions in an organizational setting?..." (p. 131)

As you can see by the "..." in this quote I'm leaving sections out, mainly for brevity.  One of these ommitted sections notes that generally organizational members are required to play several behaviors in the organization, which might entail entirely different motivations and settings.  An example of this in the Vienna mission setting might be my duties as a secretary and the informal expectations that I would befriend my boss' wife and children.  These would be exactly the kinds of things that might need to be addressed separately, so we'll see if this author has anything that might she some light on that aspect of my experience in Vienna.

And since it is after 1 a.m. I am going to call it a night, so you'll just have to wait until my next post to see if we can find anything helpful out from this text.  And hopefully I'll be able to return to my usual browser too.

289. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 15 (Organ, D.W., 1985)

I'm done with the bulk of fixing up my condo, I've started work on the family heritage cookbook, I'm feeling crummy from my variety of ailments (fibromyalgia, neuropathy in my feet which recently returned, weakness as side effect of antibiotic, and a 6-month migraine).  I need something to get my mind off my being broke from the condo expendetures, family stuff, and my health, so I'm turning to other problems... at least not current ones.  My pastor made me feel a bit better by telling me not long ago that I seem to have more problems than most people.  I know I have a lot of blessing, though too, and a lot to be thankful for, like this condo and an education that equips me to write this blog.

Since it's been a while since I've written or thought seriously about the meat of this blog I may have to work up to being in full form so I hope you'll bear with me as I get started again.  This first chapter is of interest particularly for what comes later on in the chapter, but the first part lays the groundwork.

***

Organ, D.W. (1985).  3. Accounting for OCB. In Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Good Soldier Syndrome. Lexington, MA : Lexington Books, p. 27ff.

***

"By 1970, there was already a body of empirical literature sufficient to warrant a rather lengthy review by Dennis L. Krebs in Psychological Bulletin... Krebs concluded that the studies that had examined prosocial behavior as a personality trait 'were plagued with difficulties. Because altruism is a positive trait, it is difficult to separate it from other positive characteristics.' (Krebs, 1970, p. 298)... The most that could be concluded was that there is a somewhat greater tendency toward prosocial behavior among those who are socially well adjusted, generally lacking in neurotic symptoms, extroverted, and who have a stronger need for nurturance than for achievement or dominance." (p. 28)

The issue here is organizations wanting members (employees) who will take initiative to do the right/good thing vis a vis the group and other individuals in it.  They want to know why and when people act this way so that they can encourage more of it.  In the Vienna mission I worked for this was a mandate and anything less than the very most prosocial behavior virtually all the time was, in my experience and observation, asking for some kind of correction, depending on the situation.  So the management of the Vienna mission might have been very interested in reading and studying up on this kind of thing discussed in this book.

***

"The strongest evidence that prosocial behavior arises from an internalized norm is the consistent finding that among children the probability of prosocial responses increases with age. Furthermore, some studies show a relationship between level of education and prosocial behavior and a stronger orientation toward certain forms of prosocial behavior among professional and managerial classes as compared to either blue-collar or entrepreneurial classes... But, noted, Krebs (1970), 'the danger with normative analysis is that norms can be invented post hoc to explain almost anything" (p. 295)." (p. 28-29)

It seems to me that this fits pretty well with the pragmatic way of thinking where the ends justifies the means.  So that you can justify doing something relatively antisocial because it might be for a prosocial ends.  Of course, this is not the same as coming up with an explanation post hoc.  That is, the mission didn't lie about what it did (i.e., say it was an international publisher, which was a half truth at best) and later come up with a reason for doing that.

But I do think that, for example, if my assertion that their "tentmaking" was lying and not at all what the Apostle Paul or anyone else in the New Testament would have done were pressed to them they might well have to come up with a post hoc norm to explain better how what they do might really be biblical.  (Good luck at that one... I expect they'll have to jump through a few hoops to do that...  For those who don't know me yet, I tend to agree with Jacques Ellul's analysis of the Church, so that might give you an idea of where I'm coming from if you are familiar with him.)

***

"Krebs concluded... that positive affect mediated the relationship between the experience of success and altruistic gestures.  To the extent that affect - feelings, mood, emotional states - is the underlying determinant, one may wonder just how much deliberation figures in the process by which prosocial behavior occurs." (p. 30)

I think that this probably is true by and large, and it's possible that the leadership in Vienna assumed that it would work with me too.  That is, I'd be relatively malleable strictly at the emotional level.  As discussed elsewhere here, that was true to a certain extent - that is that they had an emotional affect on me probably in some cases more or less what they were looking for - but I was too cognitively engaged and committed to ministry to that part of the world to be easily manipulated.  However, when I first arrived in Vienna I was sort of swept up in this great overwhelming welcoming flurry which could have made me vulnerable to this prosocial process described in this text, but instead it sort of took me aback as it was somewhat more that I'd expected and then the irregularities that I've already described began to take their toll too.  So this didn't really work for me in Vienna, and I think it would have had to right at the beginning or not at all.

***

"Conversely, numerous studies show that whatever may be presumed to contribute to unpleasant emotional states typically also acts to retard prosocial behavior.  Subjects put under the stress of information overload show a reduced propensity to help others... A thorough review by Cohen... documents the assertion that a reliable aftereffect of stress is a disinclination to help, or even be concerned about, others." (p. 31)

This quote, it seems to me, gives some credence to how it might have been difficult for me to show "organizational citizenship behavior" (OCB) once I'd become the target of major organization discipline.  The fact that I did show OCB I think is a wonder at all when looked at in this light.  Heck, Organ even says that patron leaving a sad movie leave less in a donation box!  I think I went through a bit worse than a sad movie - I was the star in a real life sad drama and I still did a lot by way of organizational citizenship behavior.  I'm talking about taking initiation in taking a short-term worker out for her birthday or streamlining the office supply management system.  How could I do it?  Not because of the emotional state the organization had had a great part in determining, but because of my internal norms, something I'd learned from my family, from church, from school, but not so much from the mission.

***

You see, I try to do my best and do what I think is right, even when I might have to suffer for it, and yes, I have had to suffer a fair amount for what I think is right and I'm not sorry one minute for not giving in because you know what it's like to have a clear conscience?  I have enough things on my conscience, anyway, but there are times when I've been able to stand firm for what I believe in and I've had to pay a price for it.  I must say that I've only been able to do this when it's been things that I have strong convictions about and I really believe are wrong.

There are a lot of Christians that think I'm wrong and that's why these missions are still operating today. 

***

I have to take a break now so I'll continue with this article in my next post.

263. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 11 (Zaleznik, pt. 5)

It seems I've hardly taken a break and am back already because I have to take my lunch meds, which means I take lunch.

I'm continuing from the previous discussion...

***

"The main note we should sound in concluding this consideration of equilibration theories in the understanding of interpersonal relations is that imbalances or ambiguities always exist and are of many kinds. There are cognitive imbalances (where two pieces of contradictory information are learned about the same object), affective imbalances (where two persons who like each other have different feelings toward an object relevant to their relationship), perceptual imbalances (where behavior is perceived in different ways to individuals in a close affective tie)." (p. 600; emphasis added)

Before I begin in on this, I think it is appropriate to remind the reader that these interactions with the Vienna mission took place in a context in which deception was a valued skill, and there is a great likelihood that both the mission and I ended out deceiving each other in one way or another. Thus, in this type of situation, it will be difficult to determine true imbalances with any certainty, so it would probably be prudent to consider my discussion here as coming only from my perspective and perhaps being more limited in that way that in a lot of other circumstances where deception might not have played such a major role.

From my perspective, I think that there were cognitive imbalances in that my European Studies background was somewhat unique. That is, I had professional training explicitly in that field that others didn't have. Language skill would have played a part in that, but there were others who knew German, if not Russian or French, on staff. Also, while most of the other staff had more theological background, I had enough similar background that I think I understood what I needed to considering my position in the organization. So that difference was mainly a matter of my not having the academic degree; I did have 2 years of Bible school background and was also raised in a church where Bible study was highly regarded and practiced.

The affective imbalances came to play in such areas as attitudes about communism, where I took a more cognitive approach and the mission seemed to take more of an affective one towards communism. That is, I disagreed with it in principle, but they seemed to fear it more. I think that this was also affected by my attitude towards the Bible which leaned more towards being willing to suffer for sticking with what I believed it said, whereas the mission seemed more concerned with the avoidance of suffering over strict adherence to Scripture. I think this is affective in as much as it involves valuation of Scripture and attitude towards suffering.

There seemed to be perceptual differences also between me and the mission. For example, the mission viewed my lack of total submission to them as an act of deviance, whereas I viewed it as my biblical right and even duty to be able to determine for myself if something is Scriptural or not. This kind of thinking was anathema in the mission, however, and the mission would have responded to it, if it had known I was doing it, by correcting my understanding in a way that justified their own actions. Conversely, I viewed certain of the mission's demands on me and their norms as being unbiblical (as well as unjustified under the circumstances), whereas they would undoubtedly have seem them as necessary if not also biblical, or at least permissible within Scriptural mandates.

***

"But we should also stress that equilibration as a motivational force - tending to produce behavior to secure a balanced state - does not act with equal strength on all individuals or in all interpersonal settings. Imbalances are stressful in varying degrees. Among groups of workers in which social conditioning is in the lower socio-economic classes, tolerance for ambiguity or imbalance is extremely low. Among groups whose setting resembles a closed system (primitive societies are clear examples, but there are numerous literature societies that could serve equally well), the need for balanced states is also strong. Any culture of an authoritarian kind produces individuals who have little capacity to deal with the anxiety attendant upon imbalanced states." (p. 600).

As I've mentioned elsewhere, the Vienna mission functioned as an authoritarian, closed society. Or, as I said before, as an open society that wanted very much to be a closed one. That is, as a nondenominational Christian mission, it had to have a certain amount openness to garner support back home, but its security concerns because of the communist context of its work led them to desire to be more closed. The mission was authoritarian because its mandates were virtually nonnegotiable.

However, regarding the socio-economic class factor, I think the most relevant aspect of that variable would have been education. Since most of the workers were highly educated, they should have, therefore, had higher tolerance levels for ambiguity and imbalance. I think this probably worked in the mission's favor as a security strength as the educated workers should have been able to function better in the security system (which seemed to include a lot of ambiguity - especially to the unitiated) that the mission had developed. I had perhaps even more tolerance for ambiguity than most of the others because my background included language and area studies, including experience living in Europe, so that the European part of my experience was not as ambiguous as it would have been for many of the others, allowing me to tolerate more mission-based ambiguity.

The other notable thing here is that the mission seemed to lump me rather lock-stock-and-barrel in with the other secretaries, who would have had the least education of anyone on staff. If this is so, the mission probably didn't foresee my tolerance for ambiguity being as great as it was. They probably also didn't foresee that I might have such strongly held convictions, some of which were reasonably well thought out.

As the text indicates, in cases of poor social certitude there is motivation (however strong or weak) to rectify the imbalance. The mission probably, whether consciously or otherwise, took this into account in designing its socialization methods. That is, it wanted the imbalance seeking to be unilaterally on the part of the newcomer, not on the part of the mission. It then set up situations in which it calculated that the newcomer would become adequately motivated to rectify these imbalances and become open to the mission's leading. This would be the kind of thing that might happen in an authoritarian culture, for example. In my case, however, it is not clear if the mission's intentions were to socialize me or not, and if so what the end result was that they would have been happy with, if I had gone along with them, that is.

***

This ends this section, and I think that it has been a particularly useful one for my purposes of trying to figure out what happened during my time with the Vienna mission.

78. Defense & High-Reliability Firms File, Part 4 (U.S. Navy, pt. 1)

A lot of the texts in this file are not marked up, so I'm going to have to read them more carefully to pick out the pertinent sections to focus on. So far all the materials I've been discussing on this blog have been previously marked up.

This next text is the chapter from a book:

U.S. Naval Education and Training Command. (1980). Module I (Human Behavior: Guidelines to Leadership and Management Training Courses. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Chapter 2: Influencing Human Behavior

***

This chapter begins with a discussion which is basically introducing Maslow's hierarchy of need, although it isn't exactly labeled as that. Leadership is described within that context, recognizing the influence of various needs on how an underling is functioning and responding appropriately.

Then the chapter addresses issues around the employees "will to work" or motivation and the use of various types of incentives to work.

"If negative incentives are used, as is sometimes necessary, the objective should be to use the smallest force that will ensure the desire outcome." (p. 2-9)

When we return to my chronological recounting of events, which will take us to my arrival in Vienna, it will not take long for you to see that extraordinary use of force/negative incentives was used with me. Several questions in this regard could be raised when we get to that point in my story. Such questions might include:

1) What were the objectives in how I was treated?

2) Why was it deemed necessary to use such means with me?
2a) Was it something about me personally that made it seem necessary?
2b) Was it something connected with my dad that made it seem necessary?
2c) Was it more to do with the mission (their plans, their vulnerabilities, their values...)?

3) Was any other approach possible?
3a) If not, why not?
3b) If so, ...
3bi) what other approach(es)?
3bii) why wasn't it/weren't they used instead?

***

"Of all the functions of the leader, that of generating good performance is perhaps the most important. People can be induced to do good work in a number of different ways, some proper and some improper.

The manipulative approach is improper. The manipulative leader uses understanding of human behavior to achieve an end without any real regard for the rights of others. This type leader goes through the motions of giving recognition and enriching the job but the leader's actions lack conviction; one essential ingredient is missing - sincerity. People who sense that there is no real interest in them as individuals, tend to distrust and question the leader's actions." (p. 2-9)

This was written in 1980 and maybe by 1987 this was already passe in the military, or maybe this was truism only accepted by the navy and not in whatever military branches our 2 chaplains were in.

It should come as no surprise, however, that if I say I felt that how I was treated was indeed manipulative, the leadership would point to saying this or doing that as "evidence" to the contrary. They would say that they did indeed care for me.

To give an example of what I mean, but in a different context, in dealing with my brother evicting me resulting in my move back down here, I told the psychologist (who was initially supposed to be going through behavioral therapy for fibromyalgia management until this other crisis erupted) that my brother said he loved me. He, the counselor, responded by supposing that that must be confusing for me, which I brushed off with "I think he really thinks he loves me, but I think it's a strange kind of love." That's along the lines of what I'd say about the leadership in Vienna too.

And as far as the manipulation part goes, it was all the stuff that felt totalitarian in nature without adequate demonstration that they were worthy of the kind of trust they wanted. I couldn't really see how they had my best interests in mind. Probably I was just supposed to trust that they did, but I didn't see that they could be trusted, especially after was I interpreted to be extraordinary "negative incentives."

It was like saying, "Here, trust me; now let me beat you to a pulp." After being "beaten to a pulp" if anything it would, if anything, be harder to trust the person/entity doing the beating or involved in it. Was it expected that beating me to a pulp (figuratively speaking here) would improve my trust? That seems pretty stupid except that it could have been that the fear factor (of being beaten again or worse) was expected to increase trust.

So we come again back to "Why?" Why would they use such negative incentive, if that is what it was intended to be? (And if that isn't what it was intended to be, then what was it intended to be?). It did indeed scare me shitless (pardon the expression). But it actually drove me away from them internally.

***

Chapter 4 is titled "People Under Stress" and much of the chapter is given to the discussion of different reactions people have to stress or stressful situation. I'll address a few of these that I think a used vis a vis the mission in Vienna. I'm not sure I was conscious of using them at the time, although I was conscious of sort of pulling back (out of horror and fear... you might understand when I get to that part of my story).

Apathy is suggested in this text as one example of an aggression as a response to stress. (Part of the text is cut off so I'm having to sort of guess at some of the words.)

"A person, hemmed in by barriers, confronted with continual failure, may [sustain?] a state of hopelessness and apathy. The [person] gives in, quits trying, convinces himself that he doesn't care..." (p. 4-8)

I think that as my time wore on in Vienna I used more and more of this strategy of coping. I didn't quit trying to do my job well, but I quit even giving the impression I was willing to really sort of succumb to their organizational culture. Socially I didn't pull away; it was they that pulled away from me. I became more convinced that we'd sort of reached an impasse on the "big issues" and I was the odd man out. It might sound blunt and trite to say now, but it really killed me inside. I was devastated.

***

"Compensation

The frustrated person, denied one goal, may cast about for something almost as good." (p. 4-9)

Actually, this may have started very soon after starting, because I did want to do more people ministry, but I did not foresee any conflict with me attending an Austrian church and getting involved there, for example. But this was probably a compensation strategy even from the get-go, and as my situation in Vienna became less and less fulfilling I looked elsewhere for fulfilling things to get involved in. Also, this continued after my leaving Vienna as I tried to regroup and look for something else. I'm not sure how the psychology of these kinds of things work, but I think that eventually I found something and then at some point it wasn't a means of compensation but something of value in its own right apart from Vienna.

My intentions regarding outside ministry in Vienna weren't meant to conflict with what I was doing with the mission I was with, but because of the nature of the organization I think they saw it as hindering my socialization into their group.

***

"Paralysis

If conflict is severe, the individual may simply freeze...

Many cases of so-called laziness are probably explainable as paralytic reactions to conflict...

This sort of conflict often has a lot to do with personal efficiency. Most people work as long as work promises to get them somewhere. They will not work when work promises to bring failure, or only small rewards, or downright punishment." (p. 4-11)

I think I experienced a certain amount of this, but I was of strong enough constitution that I could keep going. But immediately after the hammer really hit and I realized that they were actually going to carry out what they said that I did indeed freeze. I don't want to say any more about this yet though.

***

"Of course, any time the person tries to succeed at something it must be realized that one must 'take the bad with the good,' one must suffer some, one must run some risk of failure. If the suffering and risk seem greater than the rewards of success, however, no effort will be made. If the disagreeable aspects of work are too strong, if it looks to one as if the reward, instead of fitting the effort and performance, is a matter of luck, one's behavior will be continually jittery, inefficient, and full of conflict." (p. 4-12)

There was so much ambiguity in my experience of the Vienna mission, that I think different ones of these probably affected me at one time or another. I never shirked at my work though and the quality of my work was acceptable. But I did feel like I was probably obeying the letter of the law and not the spirit of it, in a sense, in as much as I never really accepted the less literal communications and apparent wishes. I felt like the only thing that would bring me into that sphere was full acceptance of their norms and values, which I couldn't do and which seemed to be, just as it was with SGA, nonnegotiable.

***

That's it for that text.

~ Meg