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"Though compliance with rules can bring about reliable role performance, the use of rules must take account of the following three conditions for maximum effectiveness: (1) the appropriateness of the symbols of authority and the relevance of rules to the social system involved; (2) the clarity of the legal norms and rule structure; and (3) the reinforcing character of sanctions." (p. 136)
The Vienna mission didn't have any tolerance for poor performance of role expectations or poor reliability in any particular individual, so it would have been interested in anything that might have served to increase reliability in individual reliability, so these three things are potentially very interesting and helpful to my purposes of understanding of my experiences in Vienna.
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"Appropriateness and relevance. The acceptance of communications and directives on the basis of legitimacy requires the use of symbols and procedures recognized as the proper and appropriate sources of authority in the system under consider. The worker may grumble at the foreman's order may grumble at the foreman's order but he recognizes the right of the foreman to give such an order. The particular directives which are accepted which are accepted as legitimate will depend upon their matching the type of authority structure of the system." (p. 136
The thing here is that, as I have mentioned before, I was unique in the mission in that I was raised in a mid-Acts Pauline denominational church (vs. Acts 2 denominational church). The name of my home church was "Berean" and I had Acts 17:11 drummed into me, as follows:
Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
What this says, is that anything we are told is not to be taken at face value no matter who it is that is doing the telling. Scripture is ALWAYS the final yardstick of truth. (This being said, I don't want to make them out to be perfect in this because my brother found out that there are definite limits to this when he used Scripture to question an aspect of predestination, but for my purposes I learned to think for myself and not accept human authority above Scripture's.) Since the mission was very clearly in the realm of Christian work and I thought everything about it should be held accountable to Scripture just as a church or Christian individual should be, I thought I was justified in holding Scripture as a higher authority above the mission leadership, and the mission leadership failed so badly vis a vis Scriptural mandate that I forced to make a sort of patchwork authority system, for myself, where the mission leadership filled only the parts I thought they filled appropriately according to biblical standards.
I think I did have another standard, though, that consisted of what I knew of European studies/cultural studies and missiology. I've discussed this elsewhere more in depth, but I think I need to at least mention it here for completeness of the current discussion. This mission operated by other standards and they weren't accountable to anyone. What I mean by that is, just try doing an objective program evaluation of them. Then you'll know what I mean.
So getting back to the appropriateness and relevance of the rules of the mission. The rules I saw as appropriate and relevant I did accept. But that, of course, was not enough, because this wasn't a pick and choose sort of situation. By picking and choosing I was setting myself above the organization as being able to evaluate their rules, which was not allowed. So this had to be discouraged, but I was a Berean, and my mandate was to search the Scriptures daily to see if these things were as they should be... in other words not accept the mission and their rules carte blanche, but set myself, or at least set Scripture up as above them.
What kinds of things might not have been appropriate or relevant? I've discussed some of these already, but I'll mention a few here. The forced trust in them with relatively little knowledge (i.e., no questions asked), forced relative seclusion from local Austrian life (even when my position didn't seem to need it), apparent waste of supporters' money by not giving me useful work to do, etc.
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"The acceptance of legal rules is also restricted to the relevant sphere of activity." (p. 136)
This applies to my experience in Vienna because I thought while I might have some evening and weekend mission-related activities and responsibilities, I would also have some free time that would be my free time to use as I wish (within reason of course, that is, as long as I wasn't doing anything unChristian, for example). But eventually it became clear that that was not the case, because, as I later learned in my research, the mission was a "total institution, and as a total institution "free time" is an illusion that is provided only if you are an insider knowing when how and what kinds of activities are permitted as "free time" and with whom. For those who are short-termers, however, they aren't aware of this system and they get free-time in the usual sense of the term, and others have to humor them to make sure they aren't aware of the other system and that they return home happy and unaware of the other system.
I didn't think they had the right to completely cut off my free time, especially since I didn't think I was otherwise doing anything egregious or offensive to them in my free time. Then I began to dislike them for being such "ugly Americans" and stuck in their own enclave. So that didn't help my transition to work with them. Here's my vision of what my time was supposed to be like with the mission:
secretary by day, Vienna outreach evenings/weekends
and their view of me:
secretary by day, hobnob with boss's wife and children & other secretaries evenings/weekends
So basically they wanted to throttle me in the secretary role which wasn't at all to my liking to say the least and the ethnocentrism it entailed also went against my values. So their rules (formal or otherwise) to limit my freetime activities overstepped the line with me big-time.
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"Another prerequisite to the use of rules as the appropriate norms of the system is their impersonal character. They are the rules of the system and are not the arbitrary, capricious decisions of a superior aimed particular individuals." (p. 136)Bingo. I've already shown how even though there were written rules at least 2 (days off when supporting guests visit and language classes upon first arrival) were not permitted me, and in the latter case I was told there was a lot of work to do, but in fact I spent the first 2 months doing practically nothing (I've discussed that in detail elsewhere in this blog).
Other than this, the socialization process, as I've also discussed at some depth, is mostly quite individual and as such the rules end out being - or at least seeming - somewhat arbitrary and capricious, at least, I imagine, until one becomes initiated to a certain level that I never reached. I'm not positive about this though, it's possible it always seems somewhat capricious and arbitrary, at least at the levels above which one hasn't reached yet, and/or in the areas one isn't privvy (such as in other departments).
This arbitrariness and capriciousness, as I've described before, if not exactly in those terms, is probably mainly because of the security issue and intentional in nature. That is, the leadership wants things to seem arbitrary and capricious so as to keep secrets secret from those who shouldn't know them. This includes insiders. So, for example, the East German team (remember this was in the 1980s) shouldn't know certain things about the Romanian team and vice versa, and the textbook team doesn't need to know certain things about the Women's ministry team, etc. And I, who was on the outs with just about everyone, didn't need to know much of anything, so most everything seemed capricious and arbitrary and as such the rules of the system seemed aimed at me and they didn't pass this prerequisite as being "appropriate norms of the system." In fact, they weren't really norms of the system at all, they were just capricious and arbitrary rules aimed at me, although there may have been systemic rules that allowed for these rules aimed at me, but the rules themselves that were aimed at me were not systemic.
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"Clarity. A related condition for the acceptance of legal norms is the clarity of authority symbols, of proper procedures, and the context of the legitimized decisions. Lack of clarity can be due to the vagueness of the stimulus situation or to the conflict between opposed stimulus cues." (p. 136)
There were several kinds of "legal norms" going on in the Vienna mission. There were1) those that were written down, like the ones about the right to study German when you first arrive in Vienna to work with the mission. Then there were 2) those technical aspects of the job to be done, which may or may not be written down but were generally pretty clearly specified in one way or another. Then there were 3) the organizational and social cultural norms and these were mission critical, partly because of it being a total institution and partly because of working together in East Bloc countries and the need to rely on one another sometimes in difficult situations requiring immediate response.
The first rules were clear except for their being only selectively applied. The second rules I think were pretty clear and were probably the best, although I can't speak across the board for all positions.
The third rules were the least clear, though, I think. It's possible, however, that they were the least clear to me because I didn't agree with them. I've discussed this before too, but I'll just say briefly that I don't let anyone be my end all for final decision making as far as what's right and what's wrong and I felt like that's what the mission required of me. For one thing, after how they treated me I couldn't trust them, but also, I just didn't like their values and their modus operandi on many fronts. I didn't think I'd done them any harm and I didn't see how they could justify treating me so badly, for example. But as to clarity, I all to often didn't really understand what would really make them happy, what they really wanted from me. I could surmise that "total submission" was what they wanted, but if I gave them that, then what? And if I did that, that would be going against my beliefs anyway to give such total submission to anyone other than God. So was it just the submission they wanted? Or was it something that they thought they would get after I submitted? It really wasn't clear at all to me. And being upfront and asking directly would be stupid because they'd just give you a stupid look like they didn't have a clue what you were talking about... well, it depended you you asked. It's possible one of the secretaries my be somewhat helpful, but not the military chaplain H.R. staff or my boss.
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"Reinforcement. To maintain the internalized acceptance of legitimate authority there has to be some reinforcement in the form of penalties for violations of the rules... Sometimes the penalties can come from the social disapproval of the group as well as from legal penalties." (p. 137)
In a regular job you might get a demotion, a write up, or even get fired. For very egregious behavior - say getting drunk or the like - you might get sent home from the mission field, but otherwise missions have to use other means of control. It's possible the supervisor might call you in to talk with you about a problem that's come up and try to work with you to resolve it. But usually they'll want to work with you to keep you on the field, so they'll do all they can to make things work out. After all, it's no small thing to get a missionary to the field.
In Vienna they most certainly did use "social disapproval" in the form of shunning, especially the last months I was with the mission. But they also used psychology and moving me to the States and moving me internally within the building in Vienna and within positions in Vienna. I view all of these as means they used to reinforce their rules (written or otherwise). So, basically, my whole time in Vienna was spent with them trying to reinforce their rules with me... socialize me.
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This is the end of that sub-category and I need to get on with my day, so we'll continue next time with this article where we left off.