Building Buying-in: Understanding the Anticipatory Socialization Phase of Workers in a Full-Life Organization

Abstract

This qualitative investigation explored the anticipatory socialization phase of volunteers in the missionary program of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a full-life organization. Constant comparative analysis revealed that participants experienced three phases of organizational identification within their anticipatory socialization phase: exposure, exploration, and engagement. In the exposure phase, participants were presented with socializing messages that taught participants the rules, expectations, and values of the organization. In this phase, participants accepted the organizational identity largely without reservation. In the exploration phase, participants questioned their organizational identity and explored alternative, varied, and competing identities. In this phase, participants pushed their organizational identity to the periphery of their social identity. Finally, in the engagement phase, participants recentered their organizational identity and committed to their membership in the organization. Identifying these phases assists organizations and individuals in understanding and developing organizational engagement.

Keywords

anticipatory socialization organizational assimilation volunteer identity full-life organization

Introduction

Current organizational trends—like quiet quitting and the great resignation (see Formica & Sfodera, 2022)—highlight the growing problem of employee disengagement (Handy et al., 2020). A developing literature in organizational research, and in Management Communication Quarterly in particular, has worked toward identifying the causes and remedies for disengagement at work (e.g., Kim & Leach, 2021; Uluturk, 2023). Despite a minority of workers reporting that they feel “engaged” at work (Harter, 2023), some organizations are successful in fostering strong organizational identification that allows them to recruit and retain quality talent. Such organizations tap into powerful social, emotional, ideological, and/or cultural messages to gain and maintain worker identification (Kramer et al., 2021; Steimel, 2013).

Researchers have found that for some organizations, the anticipatory socialization phase—the time period before an individual joins the organization—of the assimilation process plays a key role in fostering identification. For example, Gibson and Papa’s (2000) concept of organizational osmosis suggests that some future workers are being inculcated from an early age with messages promoting organizational values and expectations, making them more adept at assimilating into the organization’s culture. Despite Gibson and Papa’s (2000) assertion that adopting an organizational identity through organizational osmosis is “effortless” (p. 79), Cheney (1983) explicitly describes identification as “an active process” (p. 342), suggesting that organizational members are not passive receivers of organizational values and culture, but are active participants in the environment that generates identification. The current study investigates this contradiction of effortless versus effortful adoption of organizational culture during anticipatory socialization.

Most identities are regionalized, meaning that they are only enacted in specific and limited times and spaces (Scott et al., 1998), allowing individuals to maintain multiple simultaneous identities. To accommodate these multiple and varied identities, many organizations work to provide individuals with greater flexibility in how and when they enact their personal and professional identities. Other organizations, in contrast, require the organization to occupy a dominant or exclusive position within a member’s social identity, even to the subordination or elimination of competing identities. These organizations are often called totalistic (Hinderaker, 2014) or full-life organizations (Ault, 2018). Thus, members are not merely socialized into a specific position or organization but into a lifestyle. Examples of paid full-life organizations include the U.S. military, law enforcement (Ault & Brandley, 2022), and firefighters (Hinderaker, 2014). Unpaid or low-pay full-life organizations include many faith communities (Ault, 2018; Hinderaker, 2014), the Peace Corps, Americorps, and Doctors Without Borders.

Although most organizations do not aspire to become full-life organizations, understanding the anticipatory socialization process of these organizations provides vivid theoretical insights that could illuminate how organizational identification occurs more generally. Recent events—such as hardline return-to-work policies after Covid-19—have demonstrated that using coercion or ultimatums to mandate employee commitment often leads to lower commitment and higher turnover (Tepper, 2000). Most organizations do not develop organizational commitment simply by increasing the expectations for their workers. Rather, developing this type of culture requires deliberate, sustained, and long-term commitment. By studying an extreme full-life organization, this study seeks to understand how these organizations not only maintain high expectations, but also foster high levels of commitment and satisfaction through influencing the anticipatory socialization phase. To accomplish this goal, I chose to investigate the missionary program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), a full-life volunteer organization. The high expectation of commitment to the missionary program provides a rich example of how future workers develop an unusually firm identification with the values, goals, and culture of a full-life organization.

To provide context for this study, I first explain the important characteristics of the LDS Church’s missionary program and the expectations of volunteers. Second, I highlight existing scholarly research underpinning this interpretive study, including concepts of organizational assimilation and organizational identification. Third, I describe the process of data collection and analysis using in-depth interviews and constant comparative analysis (Charmaz, 2014). Finally, I consider the study’s theoretical and practical implications.

LDS Missionary Program

Preparation for missions typically begins in early childhood during the anticipatory socialization phase. In Sunday School, children as young as four years old sing songs such as “I Hope They Call Me on a Mission” and “I Want to be a Missionary Now” and listen to lessons extoling the value of missionary service. Thus, missionary preparation becomes an important part of LDS children’s identity.

The missionary program of the LDS Church is made up of approximately 55,000 full-time 18–25-year-old volunteer missionaries at any given time (Taylor, 2022). These volunteers receive no financial compensation for their work and even typically pay their living expenses for the 18–24 months that they serve on a mission (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2022). Although all LDS missionaries are members of the LDS Church, only a small percent of LDS members join the missionary organization. When LDS youth turn 18 (for men) and 19 (for women), they are eligible to apply for the missionary program. Missionaries are assigned to one of 411 missions in 120 different countries throughout the world and do not return home during the duration of their 18-month to 24-month missions. Based largely on the labor of these young missionaries, nearly 300,000 converts join the LDS Church per year (McCombs, 2015).

Once missionaries arrive in their assigned region, they are assigned a companion to accompany them at all times. Volunteers are expected to maintain strict standards of dress, appearance, and behavior. Missionaries cannot watch television or movies, listen to popular music, read non-religious books, or use the internet, other than to email or proselytize. Missionaries’ 65+-hour work week generally consists of door-to-door proselytizing, performing service, and teaching potential converts about the doctrines of the LDS Church.

With such strict rules and restrictions, this group provides a particularly theoretically interesting population for studying anticipatory socialization considering that, “extreme cases are often tremendously helpful for building or elaborating theory since their dynamics tend to be highly visible, bringing into sharper focus the processes that can exist in other contexts” (Kreiner et al., 2009, p. 707). Using a communication-centered approach to investigate the anticipatory assimilation process for these full-life volunteers demonstrates how individuals use communication to develop, negotiate, and maintain organizational identities throughout the anticipatory socialization phase.

Literature Review

Organizational Assimilation

Organizational assimilation has been defined as the “process by which individuals join, participate in, and leave organizations” (Kramer, 2010, p. 3). Communication is vital to assimilation and acts as the vehicle by which organizational members travel through the process. Additionally, communication facilitates understanding of how organizational newcomers come to negotiate their roles within the organization and how existing organizational members come to adapt to the newcomer.

Researchers have identified four phases in the assimilation process including a pre-membership phase called anticipatory socialization, an early membership phase called entry or encounter, a phase of full membership, called metamorphosis, and a final phase called exit, in which a person leaves a group or organization (Jablin, 2001). LDS missionaries experience all of these phases independent of their Church membership, making the missionary program a separate and unique assimilation experience from their membership in the LDS Church. Because this study focuses on anticipatory socialization, this phase will be explained in greater detail.

Anticipatory Socialization

Anticipatory socialization is the time period before a person enters an organization (Kramer, 2010), in this case, before they leave on a mission. This phase is made up of two subcategories: role anticipatory socialization and organizational anticipatory socialization.

Role Anticipatory Socialization

Role anticipatory socialization is the “ongoing process of developing expectations for a role an individual wants to have in some organization” (Kramer, 2010, p. 6) and has received attention from scholars studying how young adults seek out information (Aley & Levine, 2020), how they interpret messages regarding STEM careers (Jahn & Myers, 2014; Myers et al., 2010), and how the meaningfulness of work is communicated and interpreted (Scarduzio et al., 2018). This socialization process begins in early childhood and continues until organizational entry. For adolescents, the formation of occupational identity is one of the most influential variables in the development of one’s personal identity (Erikson, 1968). Research demonstrates that children intentionally and unintentionally receive information regarding occupations and organizational roles based on environmental factors such as family, education, peers, previous organizational experience, and the media (Jablin, 2001). Through each of these sources, young people learn what vocations are available, valuable, and the steps one must take to be qualified for a certain role.

Child development researchers have asserted that the development and maintenance of identity occurs in distinct phases (Kohlberg, 1984), suggesting that individuals experience role anticipatory socialization differently during different stages of development. Crucially, youth and adolescence is when individuals form what Fowler and Dell (2005) call faith, or “beliefs, values, and meanings that (1) Give coherence and direction to persons’ lives; (2) Link them to shared trusts and loyalties with others; (3) Ground their personal stances and communal loyalties in a sense of relatedness to a larger frame of reference; and (4) Enable them to face and deal with the challenges of human life and death, relying on that which has the quality of ultimacy in their lives” (p. 36). Although associated with religious contexts, faith need not refer exclusively to religious or spiritual frameworks (Fowler & Dell, 2005). Though the current study evaluates a religious organization, the findings likely have broader implications.

Organizational Anticipatory Socialization

Once individuals choose a role and receive the training and education needed to perform necessary tasks, they typically seek organizational membership in their chosen field. Workers or volunteers research organizations and through interpersonal interactions with other applicants, potential coworkers, and the worker’s social network, begin to formulate expectations regarding what roles they might play in the organization, what relationships might be beneficial or detrimental, and how being a member of that organization might impact their life (Jablin, 2001). In this phase, workers typically apply for positions, experience the interview process, and receive a membership offer.

Organizational Osmosis

Although descriptions of anticipatory socialization in research often depict role anticipatory socialization occurring before organizational anticipatory socialization, Gibson and Papa (2000) have demonstrated that role and organizational anticipatory socialization can occur simultaneously. In their investigation of blue-collar workers, they discovered that children were socialized to work at a particular factory through organizational osmosis, “or the seemingly effortless adoption of the ideas, values, and culture of an organization on the basis of preexisting socialization experiences” (p. 79). Through organizational osmosis, prospective organizational members learned the norms and culture of the organization through numerous communication messages throughout their early lives. Daily interactions were indirect teaching opportunities for children regarding how to be successful organizational members. In Gibson and Papa’s (2000) study, those who experienced organizational osmosis had a more accurate understanding of the expectations associated with organizational membership and were generally more successful in their work than those who did not experience organizational osmosis.

This concept of organizational osmosis is particularly evident in full-life organizations. For many people, religion is an essential aspect of individual identity from an early age (Lopez et al., 2011). Similar to the participants in Gibson and Papa’s (2000) study who were socialized into a role and organization concurrently, people likely do not select the role of missionary and then seek a religion for which to proselyte.

Organizational Identification

Individuals “continuously engage in forming, repairing, maintaining, strengthening or revising” their identities through the communicative process of identity work (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002, p. 626). As individuals categorize and compare themselves and others, they define who they are and who they are not (Turner & Oakes, 1989). Because individuals seek to maintain a positive status for themselves and for their own social groups, they often labor to elevate themselves within the group by exemplifying group values and to also elevate the group relative to other social categories (Turner & Oakes, 1989). Researchers have demonstrated organizational benefits of strong organizational identification such as higher organizational commitment, loyalty, job performance, job satisfaction, more extra-role behavior and lower turnover (Riketta, 2005). Further, when presented with negative intergroup comparisons, highly identified members are more likely to defend the group and work to improve the group’s relative social position, whereas low identifiers are more likely to distance themselves from the group (Veenstra & Haslam, 2000). In addition to these organizational benefits of identification, Cheney (1983) argued that “perhaps most important for students of communication, identifying allows people to persuade and to be persuaded” (p. 342). For full-life organizations, the development of organizational identification is essential to achieving members’ goals. Essentially, the LDS missionary program is built upon missionaries’ willingness to be persuaded to identify with the organization and its goals so that they will serve and be willing to persuade others that membership in the LDS Church is necessary.

The extant literature contains ambiguity and significant conflicts in its description of the anticipatory socialization process. While Gibson and Papa (2000) assert that the adoption of values and behaviors is “effortless” and suggest a smooth process, Cheney (1983), Weick (1995), Fowler and Dell (2005) and others suggest a more purposeful, messy, and disjointed process. This study seeks to address this conflict by identifying how members of a full-life organization experienced the anticipatory socialization phase. Based on the preceding discussion, the following research question is posed:

RQ: How do full-life volunteer missionaries experience their role and organizational identity construction throughout the anticipatory socialization phase?

Methods

Participants

The full-life volunteers in this study were prospective, active, and returned missionaries for the LDS Church. In-depth interviews were conducted with 38 participants. These participants included eight prospective missionaries, 10 new missionaries (less than four months), 10 experienced missionaries (longer than one year), and 10 individuals who had returned from their missions less than one year before data collection. Of the 38 participants, 18 identified as female. One participant identified as Polynesian, one participant identified as Hispanic, and the other participants identified as White. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 23 years old. All of the active LDS missionaries were members of the same mission in the Midwestern United States. Prospective missionaries were from the same region in the Midwest and would be serving in various missions throughout the world. Returned missionaries had served their missions in various locations throughout the world and resided in this region of the Midwest at the time of data collection.

Participants were recruited through the author’s network and through snowball sampling. Permission was obtained through the mission president to interview active missionaries and prospective and returned missionaries were recruited through the LDS institute of religion located on a local university campus.

Participant Observation, In-Depth Interviews, and Document Collection

This study utilized a triangulated approach to data collection in order to study the changes in role and organizational identities as they developed. Qualitative inquiry—including participant observation, in-depth interviewing, and document collection—provided a more holistic approach to understanding full-life volunteers’ identities and how these identities were developed, maintained, and/or changed throughout the anticipatory socialization process.

To gain a richer understanding of the experiences of participants, I engaged with the participants as a “play participant” (Tracy, 2013, p. 109). Data collection included ethnographic participant observation at weekly LDS Church services, missionary preparation classes, and ride-alongs with active missionaries. A total of 112 hours of participant observation were conducted. Field notes were written during activities such as church services and missionary preparation classes. When note taking would be distracting or inappropriate (e.g., during ride-alongs and lessons with potential converts), field notes were written as soon as possible. Field notes yielded approximately 50 single-spaced pages. Because returned missionaries were not actively engaging in missionary life, only interviews were used to capture their experiences.

Interview questions considered (1) how prospective missionaries viewed themselves in relation to their future role as missionaries (e.g., Describe some of the experiences that influenced your decision to serve a mission?); (2) how they communicated their organizational identities throughout anticipatory socialization (e.g., How did you communicate that you wanted to go on a mission to family, friends, or others?); and (3) how major transitions in this process induced changes in missionaries’ communication of their identity (e.g., What were the biggest changes that happened to you as you thought about serving a mission?). Interviews lasted between 26 and 53 minutes (average of 36 minutes) and were conducted in LDS Church buildings, missionaries’ apartments, or in university offices. Interviews were recorded using a digital voice recorder then transcribed by the researcher or by professional transcribers through rev.com. All transcriptions were reviewed against the audio recordings and edited for accuracy by the researcher. Transcriptions yielded 483 pages of single-spaced text.

In addition to interviews and participant observation, the LDS Church has produced an extensive library of handbooks, manuals, and sermons regarding missionary service that were used to gain insight into the organization’s procedures and expectations regarding their missionaries. These documents were accessed through the LDS Church’s website churchofjesuschrist.org.

Data Analysis

To answer the research question, I used a phronetic iterative approach (Tracy, 2020). This approach calls for researchers to alternate “between considering existing theories and research questions on the one hand and the emergent qualitative data on the other” (p. 212). I conducted this constant comparative analysis using QDA Miner, a valuable software tool that offers a systematic method for analyzing large amounts of qualitative data (Charmaz, 2014). I first organized the data according to participant category (pre-missionary, active missionary, returned missionary) and removed any data that was not relevant to the research question. Second, in the process of open coding, the data were read and reread continuously for the purpose of identifying emergent and recurrent categories. Next, while returning often to the raw data, previous literature, and the research question, the codes generated in open coding were grouped together into larger categories to determine the most significant and/or frequent categories into which all of the data could fit. This process is called focused coding. Finally, in a process of hierarchical coding (Tracy, 2020), the interrelationships among the remaining categories were identified and explored. In this phase of analysis, codes that were originated in focused coding were reexamined for possible alternative explanations that could account for the discovered interrelationships (Charmaz, 2014). Through this process of constant comparative analysis, all data was accounted for within the theoretical framework presented.

Validation

Creswell and Poth (2016) recommend that qualitative researchers use at least two methods of validation in any given study. In accordance with this recommendation, I incorporated five: self-reflectivity, time spent in the field, triangulation (explained above), member checking, and peer debriefing.

It is important to clarify the researcher’s perspective and potential biases through reflectivity (Creswell & Poth, 2016). I am a member of the LDS Church and a former LDS missionary. This affiliation provides the potential for both positive and negative outcomes. Having a deep understanding of both LDS culture and the missionary program offers opportunities for greater insights into the assimilation process. However, interpretations could reflect a bias toward presenting the LDS mission program in a way that aligns with my own experiences. Further, participants could withhold critical comments because of my cultural membership. To minimize these threats, and to provide participants with the opportunity to clarify their experience, the findings were presented to six participants. As with data collection, member checking was conducted until saturation, that is, until no new information or clarifications were encountered with each successive check. Further, four organizational communication experts not affiliated with the study or with the LDS church were recruited to review the data, interpretations, and conclusions. These reviewers were briefed on the study and conducted a thorough review of the findings. When they had questions or identified potential areas of concern, we discussed them. Minor wording changes were made due to these validation strategies, but no substantive changes were necessary.

Results

Because prospective missionaries experienced role and organizational anticipatory socialization concurrently, they were expected to conform to Gibson and Papa’s (2000) concept of effortless organizational osmosis. Indeed, the beginning of these volunteer missionaries’ anticipatory socialization phase was quite similar to Gibson and Papa’s participants who began the process at an early age. However, few missionaries in this study described their anticipatory socialization process as a smooth process or in Gibson and Papa’s words: “The seemingly effortless adoption of the ideas, values, and culture of an organization on the basis of preexisting socialization experiences” (p. 79). Instead, participants typically experienced anticipatory socialization in three phases: exposure, exploration, and engagement.

Exposure

The first phase, exposure, was the period when the role and organizational identity of a prospective missionary was initially presented to LDS children. Family members, friends, and community members use this phase to establish the future missionary identity as the default or taken-for-granted identity for the individual. Robert, a prospective missionary who would soon serve in Brazil explained, “Growing up in the church, they just always talk about when you go on your mission.” This subtle word choice of “when” versus “if” suggests that missionary service was assumed. In this phase, participants were simply given these identities with little option for rejecting them. Speaking of his ward, or local congregation, Elder Hall¹, a new missionary from Utah, explained,

They always just had that as a goal for me. When I like adopted that goal for myself, you know, I kind of got that from them. Just the leaders in primary [Sunday school for children] and in the Aaronic priesthood [program for male youth] offices, just all those leaders.

Because children have less volition regarding their associations and experiences, parents usually had control over what messages children were exposed to. Therefore, the identity-developing messages came from close others who tended to share the same belief system as the parents.

One defining feature of the exposure phase was that there were few competing identities that could hinder the development of the future volunteer’s identity as a prospective missionary. As the default or central identity, the future-missionary identity was simply accepted without question. Any deviations from this default identity required an act of agency to actively change the default. Thus, missionary preparation and serving a mission became an important part of young people’s religious identity. Additionally, not only do families and religious communities exert pressure on these young people to serve missions, but the message to young people is that “the Lord” expects missionary service. Document analysis demonstrated this when then President of the LDS Church, Thomas Monson, stated, “Missionary service is a priesthood duty – an obligation the Lord expects of us who have been given so very much” (Monson, 2010). Thus, deviation from the default missionary identity carried eternal consequences in addition to social and emotional consequences.

Of course, not all participants experienced this phase as described above. For example, Elder Miller, an experienced missionary, converted to the LDS Church and was the only member in his family. He experienced pressure from his family to not serve a mission. Additionally, Elder Thatcher, a new missionary, grew up in a family where his father and step-father were not members of the LDS Church. Instead of feeling pressure from his family to serve a mission, his father initially discouraged him from serving. He said,

At one point, initially when I was talking about it, he wanted to talk me out of it but it was only because he believed that I was doing it for the sake of other people. He wanted me to, if I was going to do something, to do it for myself.

These examples represent how those with close relationships outside of the organization experienced resistance to the development of their organizational identity. For such individuals, the exposure phase was absent or undermined, and their commitment needed to be fostered later in their lives.

Transition From Exposure to Exploration

The transition to the second phase of anticipatory socialization, exploration, typically occurred during high school or shortly after graduating from high school as participants experienced greater independence from their parents and were able to make decisions for themselves. During this transition, participants began to question their commitment to their organizational and/or role identities and other identities became more central to their self-concept. Every participant who grew up in an LDS household transitioned to the exploration phase according to Lee and associates’ (1996) motivations for voluntary organizational exit: either as a result of a shock or due to gradual disenchantment.

For those whose transition was triggered by a shock, a singular event shook their desire to become a missionary. For Elder Henderson, a new missionary from Utah, it was the loss of his father that caused him to question his identity. He described,

So, mine happened when my dad died, that’s when I had to decide, “Is God a hateful God? Is God even there?” Because my dad was a good guy, or “Is there a bigger purpose on why my dad’s no longer here?”

This example serves as highly visible instance of trauma. For other participants, however, seemingly more innocuous experiences such as moving to a new city during adolescence, a physical injury, or the illness of a family member caused considerable turmoil and led participants to transition to the exploration phase.

For those who did not experience a shock, their transition to the exploration phase was more gradual. Some participants continued to attend Church meetings during this transition, but described themselves as “unmotivated” (Sister Reed), “lazy” (Elder Thatcher), or “bored of it” (Sister Lee). They explained that they “didn’t have a testimony” (Sister Walker), “just didn’t like it” (Elder Young), or “I was just going through the motions, and I didn’t really feel committed to it” (Cathleen). Thus, the transition was more mental and emotional rather than behavioral.

Exploration

Four related categories help to define the experience of the exploration phase: weakening spiritual identity, observing others’ negative experiences from volunteer service, accumulating new identities, and identification avoidance.

Weakening Organizational and Role Identities

The extent to which participants’ role and organizational identities drifted from centrality varied. While some participants allowed their missionary identity to become peripheral, but active, others completely “went inactive” (Sister Thompson) or “didn’t consider myself like a Mormon at that time” (Diane). As an experienced missionary from Northern Utah, Elder Lewis’s comments typified the exploration phase for a majority of participants. He stated,

Before I came on my mission, I was a regular LDS kid. Just kind of did whatever my parents told me to do, but I guess I didn’t really have a testimony [personal belief in Church doctrine]. I didn’t really believe that the Church was, well, I believed that the Church was true, but I didn’t know, and a mission was something that I knew I was going to do, but it wasn’t really real.

These participants often attended Church services and accepted the mandate to serve missions because of a desire to please others, their desire to obey their parents’ directives, or because they did not have enough conviction to vary from the default identity developed in the exposure phase. This uncommitted and blasé attitude toward their religious beliefs and their future role as missionaries was common among those in the exploration phase. For many, they were never actively against having an identification with the Church or with their role as missionaries, but they were not committed enough to actively foster these identities.

Observing Others’ Negative Experiences From Volunteer Service

During this time of exploration of a variety of different identities, many missionaries expressed concern about the difficulties of enacting the missionary identity. Some participants indicated that during their exploration phase, they were aware of negative experiences or outcomes of others who served missions. These observations often caused the participant to question whether enacting the missionary identity was safe or worth the effort. Rebecca, a prospective missionary, explained some of her reservations about serving a mission because of her sister’s experiences. She said, “She had lived through the worst of it, where you’re just homesick and miserable. She had the anxiety and depression problems that went along with that.” By viewing the difficulties of her sister, Rebecca questioned her likelihood of succeeding as a missionary, considering that she was also susceptible to high anxiety. In this example we see how the participants’ observations of others’ struggles made these prospective missionaries question their desire or capability to become missionaries.

Accumulating New Identities

In the exploration phase, participants began to explore a wide variety of identities and construct a self-concept where these competing identities supplanted participants’ missionary identities as the most central identity. For example, Elder Johnson, a new missionary from Northern California, described how school work took priority over his organizational identification.

Going to college in California, it’s extremely liberal and everyone looks down on religion. I just went with the flow and didn’t really uphold my beliefs that well. I’d start making excuses like, ‘Oh, you know, I need to study. That’s more important than going to church,’ and things like that.

Likewise, Sister Walker, a new missionary, became more invested in her image and how she appeared to others. She said, “I think one thing that was important to me off the mission was like being cool, I guess.” This comment demonstrates that enacting the organizational and role identities were not considered “cool” by this participant’s social network. During this phase, some participants added identities that undermined or competed with their organizational and role identities. For example, Diane, a returned missionary who served in Fresno, California, explained that her identity as an advocate for LGBTQ rights caused her to distance herself from her organizational identity. She explained,

Actually, the prop 8 [a proposition that amended the California constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman] caused me to do that, there was a lot of confusion about, I wasn’t really agreeing with the LDS stance on gay marriage at that time … I was just confused, and that confusion made me just really angry, and I was angry for about four years.

Although this new identity as an advocate for LGBTQ rights was the instigation for her to reject her identities as a member of the LDS Church and a future missionary, she continued to adopt additional identities that further distanced her from these identities such as “go[ing] to parties” where she would “drink” alcohol, a practice forbidden by the LDS Church.

For most participants, the new identities they added to their social identities were not necessarily opposed to their plans to serve as a full-life volunteer. Instead, the exploration phase was an accumulation of a multitude of identities (e.g., sports teams, hobby groups, work groups, political associations, lifestyle choices) that demanded attention and occupied the participant’s consideration, thus allowing for less time or attention to be paid to developing their missionary identities. As these identities became important and therefore more central to the participants’ self-concept, participants often found it difficult to give them up in order to serve as a full-life volunteer.

Avoiding Identities

Avoiding identities refers to participants’ resistance to identifying with the Church organization and/or the role of a prospective missionary so as to maintain the centrality of competing identities. During the exploration phase, participants explained that they were reluctant to commit to their religious or missionary identities for a variety of reasons. Even after making the decision to serve a mission, many participants were reluctant to tell even their closest friends. Sister Walker’s experience was common. For her, identifying with the role of a missionary carried high expectations and she was afraid that if she publicly identified with her role as a missionary and then decided not to go, others would be disappointed in her. She explained,

When I got my call, I didn’t post it on Facebook, I didn’t post it on Instagram, Twitter, nothing, and I actually didn’t even tell people I was leaving. The week before I left, I was like, ‘Hey guys, I’m leaving if you want to come to my farewell,’… I think just because I was so stressed out that I would decide to not go and then people would be disappointed because I think there’s such a high mantle of LDS young adults that you have to go on a mission or you have to get married. I didn’t want to disappoint people.

Instead of embracing the commitment to serve a mission, many prospective missionaries wanted to allow themselves an “out” just in case things didn’t work out and they decided to not serve.

Beyond holding a desire to resist the pressures to socialize into the full-life missionary role properly, some participants actively derogated the organizational or role identity and expressed their desire to change what it means to be a member of the LDS Church or a missionary. Sister Thompson, who had arrived in the mission field one day before this interview, demonstrated her negative perception of her own organizational identity as a member of the LDS Church, stating:

I went on this mission because I wanted to become friends with people. That was my goal was to just be friends with you and just to know that there are actually good LDS people out there. They’re not all rude, and stuck up, and think they know everything … When I was younger, I kind of went inactive for a little bit just because of things that happened with a lot of people, I guess. When I was saying that they’re stuck up and stuff like that, I dealt with a lot of that when I was back home.

For this missionary, the assumption that others viewed LDS people negatively compelled her to serve a mission so as to be an example of an LDS person who does not exemplify those negative stereotypes.

When participants were in the exploration phase, missionary service was not seen as consistent with their current identity, so the decision regarding whether or not to serve was a question of whether or not they wanted to recenter that identity in their lives. For the majority of participants, when they committed to this recentering of their LDS/missionary identity, they transitioned to the engagement phase.

Transition From Exploration to Engagement

For all of the participants, there came a “moment of truth” when they needed to decide whether they would recenter their prospective-missionary identity or not. Because this study only included participants who decided to join the missionary organization, all of these participants made this transition to some extent. Participants transitioned to the engagement phase for three reasons: social expectation, personal commitment, and regret avoidance. During the exposure phase, the missionary identity was established as the default. A decision to not engage the missionary identity was a serious deviation from the default expectation that could result in significant social stigma. Some participants transitioned to the engagement phase due to social expectation. For example, not serving a mission could hinder a person’s marital prospects as LDS youth are often taught to date and marry “returned missionaries.” Further, President Thomas S. Monson stated, “Every worthy, able young man should prepare to serve a mission” (Monson, 2010). The LDS Church has specific criteria that determine whether a person is “worthy” to serve, including sexual abstinence, refraining from drug, tobacco, and alcohol use. If a person chooses not to serve, there are often questions or assumptions about his/her “worthiness.”

Some participants transitioned to the engagement phase because of a personal commitment. Richard, a prospective missionary, had developed an addiction to pornography during his exploration phase. He explained,

I was just fed up with being sad all the time and feeling guilty and hating myself. I didn’t want to live that life anymore. I was pretty much just tired of it … I was praying, and I pretty much had an image drawn into my head of who the person I could have been, or should have been at that time. It made me cry because that person looked really happy and like a really spiritual person, and I wanted to be that person.

Richard sought help to overcome his addiction and put himself back on the path to eventually serve a mission. Many participants talked about praying to know if they should serve a mission and receiving confirmation from God that it was the right thing for them. Others discussed their desire for self-improvement and saw serving a mission as the best way to achieve that goal.

Finally, some participants transitioned to the engagement phase to avoid regret because they recognized that there was a limited timeframe within which they could serve a mission and once that window closed, they would need to live with the consequences for the rest of their lives. Tucker, a prospective missionary explained, “The regret. I’ve heard from people when they don’t go, that they wish they would have gone. That’s also made it where I don’t want to have that regret of not going.” Similarly, Elder Cooper, a new missionary stated,

Whenever people were talking about missions and stuff, they’d ask my dad where he served, and he was like, “Oh, I didn’t go on a mission,” and that’s awkward that he always has to say that.

This missionary saw the lifelong consequences of not serving a mission and made the decision that two years of full-life missionary service was better than a lifetime of regret.

Engagement

The final phase of anticipatory socialization is engagement. In this phase, participants restored their organizational and role identities to a central position in their self-concept and committed to the missionary identity. Like the exploration phase, volunteers began the engagement phase at various times throughout their anticipatory socialization experience. Some missionaries identified strongly with their decision to serve long before they entered the mission, whereas others only became committed to their decision to serve a mission after entering the mission. This phase is defined by three themes: building and sharing testimony, feeling excitement, and sacrificing.

Building and Sharing Testimony

While those in the exploration phase expressed uncertainty about why they wanted to serve a mission, those in the engagement phase knew clearly their purpose and motivations. The word testimony is a common term in the LDS culture used to describe Church members’ set of beliefs that are held as true. All Church members, and especially missionaries, are encouraged to gain and build their own testimonies regarding Church doctrine through prayer, scripture study, Church attendance, and family discussions of Church doctrine. Richard, a prospective missionary, viewed his mission as an opportunity to further his testimony development. He stated,

I think it’s going to strengthen my membership, going on a mission … I can’t imagine my testimony deteriorating after that. Of course, I could make decisions in my life that would lead to that, but how I’m living my life right now, all I want to do is continually live better. I think that going on a mission is really going to solidify that.

Despite already having a testimony of the truthfulness of the LDS Church, because of his missionary preparation, he anticipated that a mission would “solidify” his testimony and membership and allow for further personal growth.

In addition to building their own testimonies, missionaries were expected to share their testimonies with others or to inform others about the teachings of the LDS Church. Elder Wright, an experienced missionary, described his engagement phase in this way.

I had a huge desire to serve, and not because people were forcing me, but because I wanted to … I’ve realized why I need to be on a mission. The people’s lives that I’ve affected because of my testimony, and what I’ve done to help them out.

For those in the engagement phase, serving a mission was a deeply personal goal that motivated them to prepare for missionary service. Many participants identified the joy they experienced through developing their own testimony as the source of their desire to serve a mission and help others find happiness through learning about the LDS Church.

Feeling Excitement

For most participants in the engagement phase, preparing for and serving a mission was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream (although that dream was typically lessened during exploration phase). All of the participants had strong support groups that encouraged prospective missionaries and celebrated when the prospective missionary chose to serve. In thinking about the response he got when he communicated his decision to serve a mission, Elder Wright, an experienced missionary remembered,

They were really happy. I think everyone that I talked to, there wasn’t anyone that was like, “Oh, no, you shouldn’t do this.” They all supported me. I had a couple non-Mormon friends that actually really supported it too.

Missionaries are revered in the LDS community and so the prospect of joining this group and becoming someone that others look up to was exciting. In reminiscing about the first time he put on the missionary nametag, Elder Johnson, a new missionary, stated,

Honestly, it is surreal. It’s like, “what the heck? this is actually it. I’m actually a missionary now.” All my life, I’d always looked up to missionaries. It’s like, “oh, I know these guys are perfect. These guys are awesome.”

In addition to these general feelings of excitement about fulfilling their goal and desire to serve a mission, participants viewed a mission as a challenge and adventure that would test them and provide a rite of passage (Ault, 2018). Elder Anderson, a new missionary, described himself and his feelings of commitment as he prepared for his missionary service as,

Eager, and ready to meet the challenges of the mission, knowing very well that there will be challenges at times, homesickness, and being discouraged of how the work is going, but at the end of the day, just ready to meet the challenges that the day had for the entire two years.

Despite an expectation that volunteering would include difficulties and disappointments, those in the engagement phase were excited and eager to serve.

Sacrificing

Although those in the engagement phase felt positive emotion toward serving a mission, participants outlined a long list of material and social sacrifices they had to make in order to serve. First, full-life volunteers make material sacrifices. The LDS mission program does not pay for living expenses for its missionaries. Therefore, missionaries, their families, and/or their communities must contribute US$500 per month to the LDS Church’s missionary fund for the duration of the volunteer’s mission (Taylor, 2019). For many missionaries, saving money toward missionary service begins in the exposure phase and is a symbol of the individual’s commitment to missionary service. Elder King, an experienced missionary from Utah, explained,

Since we have to save up money for missions, they’d always start out the separate fund for our missions … it was something important enough. Ever since I was really young and could get some money, they always made sure there was a fund ready for it.

In addition to sacrificing the cost of the mission, many participants referred to the opportunity cost of serving a mission. For example, 31 of the 38 participants discussed putting off a college education, and 26 referenced leaving jobs and career opportunities so they could serve a mission. These material sacrifices were real and clearly understood by the participants.

Second, full-life volunteers make social sacrifices. All of the participants expressed that one of the biggest difficulties in serving a mission was being separated from their families. Rebecca, a prospective missionary, expressed concern about leaving her family. She said,

There’s a quote that I really really love about missionaries and it’s like, “Missionaries leave their family for a time so others can be with theirs forever.” I think that’s probably something that I will constantly need to remind myself of when times get tough.

For this prospective missionary, the prospect of not being near her family was her greatest deterrent for serving a mission; however, her comment that, “at the end of the day the blessings are going to far outweigh the hardships,” demonstrated her willingness to sacrifice.

In addition to sacrificing time with their families, many participants discussed other social relationships that were affected by their decision to become a missionary. Elder Wilson, an experienced missionary, explained the social toll of his decision to serve a mission after telling his rock-bandmates that he would not be able to “chase [his] dreams with them.” He stated, “It was tough. I didn’t talk to my best friend for probably a month and a half.” Similarly, Sister Reed, a missionary nearing the end of her mission who attended college prior to serving her mission, decided to sacrifice a romantic relationship in order to serve. She explained,

I just kept dating him and like, “Well, it’s okay, you know I’m going on a mission but we can just date for now.” He was like, “Going on a mission is a great thing. I don’t want to discourage you or deter you from it at all.” He was very supportive of the mission. He tried to not date me because he didn’t want to get in the way of that but I was just like, “No, I like you.”

Although Sister Reed decided to continue the relationship into her mission, after a while, she felt the relationship was hindering her commitment to her mission and so she ended it. For these missionaries, serving a mission was not a simple decision, but had significant consequences.

Although these missionaries all experienced significant sacrifice in order to serve, they also expressed a reassurance that their decision to volunteer was the correct or best choice for them. Because those volunteers in the engagement phase were committed to their decision to serve, participants were willing to accept the sacrifices required of them.

Although all participants experienced the enactment phase to some degree, a small minority of participants explained that after their initial commitment to the missionary identity in the enactment phase, they again decentered that identity. Although she did not exit the mission, Sister Murphy began to reject the missionary role by not obeying mission rules. She said, “As soon as anybody tells me, ‘You need to be here at this time,’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, right, I’ll show up 10 minutes late.’ They tell us to bring Preach My Gospel, and I won’t bring Preach My Gospel.” This subtle resistance to rules and expectations demonstrated her desire to resist the enactment of the missionary identity and exert her independence.

Summary

As demonstrated above, for these full-life volunteers, the anticipatory socialization phase of the assimilation process was really a three-phase process that included an exposure phase during which volunteers were introduced to the organizational and role identities, an exploration phase during which volunteers’ organizational and role identities drifted to the periphery of their self-concept and were replaced by numerous other identities, and an engagement phase during which volunteers reestablished the centrality of their organizational and role identities.

Discussion

The present study evaluated the anticipatory socialization process for full-life volunteers in the LDS missionary program. The focus on full-life volunteers provided an opportunity to observe the assimilation process of volunteers for whom their volunteer identity became the dominant identity in their lives. In this study, I set out to explore how missionaries’ identities were shaped by preparation for this experience and how the centrality of an individual’s social identity was affected by preparation for full-life volunteering.

Theoretical Contributions

The results of this study extend research concerning organizational osmosis and assimilation by demonstrating that for these participants, organizational and role identity development through the anticipatory socialization phase was a tumultuous process that included three phases: exposure, exploration, and engagement. Participants experienced exposure, exploration, and engagement broadly in accordance with the cognitive, physical, and emotional development stages explicated by Fowler’s stages of faith development theory (Fowler & Dell, 2005). Further, this study aligns with organizational research which has demonstrated different phases of development within other assimilation phases. For example, the role-taking, role-making, and role-routinization from leader-member exchange (LMX) theory (Cropanzano et al., 2017) are often considered to be sub-themes of the encounter phase of assimilation, and Jablin (2001) and Klatzke (2016) identified the pre-announcement, announcement, and exit phases during instances of voluntary exit. Such a base give credence to the findings of the current study which can open avenues for future research regarding the commonalities and differences between the phases identified here and other organizational literatures.

Despite accepting the missionary identity as their default during the exposure phase, participants strayed from this identity in the exploration phase by communicating an identity of ambivalence, apathy, or anger regarding their organizational and/or role identities or by communicating a preference for competing identities. It is unlikely that this exploration phase of anticipatory socialization is unique to prospective LDS missionaries. The existence of a period of exploration during adolescence is well established in adolescent development literature (Erikson, 1968; Marcia, 1966). This literature indicates that many youth in adolescence experience an identity crisis (exploration phase) and explore a variety of identities before achieving what Marcia (1966) calls identity achievement, or a time period during which the adolescent begins to make decisions that provide direction and stability (engagement phase) based on identities that have been developed through exploration.

Through its identification of the three phases of anticipatory socialization, the present investigation extends socialization/assimilation literature by identifying how anticipatory socialization is experienced by some workers. Additionally, this study sheds light on some of the strengths and limitations of the concept of organizational osmosis. That is, participants in this study explained that they learned the rules, norms, and expectations of the organizational culture through organizational osmosis. However, their commitment to the values, beliefs, and culture of the organization fluctuated based on the development of multiple and often competing identities, and ultimately required a significant amount of effort to recenter. Therefore, organizational osmosis may serve to describe how workers come to learn about organizational culture and expectations regarding roles within that culture, but the decision to accept that culture and engage emotionally with it is better understood through the present model. This distinction is important and is likely to transfer to other contexts in which adolescents are expected to adopt specific organizational and role identities, such as emulating their parents’ careers or joining a family business. For example, adolescents who are encouraged to join a branch of the military by family members may initially accept others’ goals for them, then question whether they really want to enact that identity before finally embracing or rejecting the military identity.

Practical Implications

For organizations, anticipatory socialization is an important time to introduce organizational values and expectations to future members. The exposure phase sets a default identity for individuals that anchors an individual to their potential future organizational membership. Although all participants in this study explored alternative identities throughout adolescence, the development of these identities required a concerted effort by individuals, while the future-missionary identity was assumed. Additionally, deviation from that assumed identity carried social cost. Because of the strong tie to the missionary identity, these young people eventually engaged their missionary identity by recentering it and eliminating or subverting alternatives.

For organizations with direct influence on their future members, regular, unobtrusive, and consistent messaging (e.g., narratives) throughout the anticipatory socialization phase is important. These messages should reaffirm the future organizational identity as the default by emphasizing the social rewards of organizational membership (e.g., fulfilling family and social expectations, personal development), the value of the future member to the organization (e.g., giving back to the organization; sharing the benefits you have received from organizational membership with others), and the superiority of the organizational identity to competing identities. However, organizations should expect that future members will test various alternative identities before committing to one, particularly if the organization is a “full-life” organization.

Many organizations do not have the ability to identify or interact with future volunteers directly during childhood. In these instances, organizational values and expectations can be communicated to future members indirectly. In concert with extant research (e.g., Dailey & Browning, 2014), participants in the current study identified narrative repetition by existing or former organizational members as a powerful socialization tool. In this way, organizational messages come from trusted others rather than from organizational representatives. Participants in this study often talked about the mission stories of friends, family members, and famous LDS Church members as powerful influences on their decision to serve a mission. Additionally, Lucas (2011) has suggested that industries and even organizations can influence communities’ values in a way that makes social/cultural values and organizational values virtually synonymous. Those who grow up in these communities (e.g., blue-collar towns; Christian communities) often are not directly influenced by an individual organization, but the values they are taught track closely with the values necessary for organizational success. Thus, organizational membership becomes the path of least resistance rather than simply one of many potential identities.

Limitations and Paths for Future Research

One of the limitations of this study is that it investigated a single, somewhat unique, organization. Future research should consider how members of other organizations experience the anticipatory socialization phase. However, the in-depth exploration of this full-life organization and its practices provided a rich and nuanced understanding of how these full-life workers navigated their experience and made sense of their decision to serve as a missionary. Additionally, although the extremity of the LDS missionary experience can limit the scope of the claims presented here, the narrow scope of this study was also helpful in identifying theoretically interesting communication patterns of assimilation.

Despite the limitations explained above, it is likely that the pattern identified here will transfer to any organization that has high commitment expectations (full-life), has simultaneous role and organizational socialization practices that are enacted over time, and when individuals experiencing anticipatory socialization perceive that they have multiple options regarding identity enactment. Organizations that fulfill these criteria should be aware of what future members are experiencing throughout the anticipatory assimilation process and take steps to assist them through the exploration phase through identity-bolstering connection with existing members, as well as regular reminders of the organization’s purpose and how that purpose connects with the individual. Importantly, these organizations, members, and prospective members should recognize that the exploration of alternative identities is common and should be expected rather than feared, discouraged, or punished.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Michael K. Ault

Note

Author Biography

Michael K. Ault (Ph.D. University of Oklahoma) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Weber State University, USA. His main research interests include organizational assimilation, leadership, and organizational culture.

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