Transferring management knowledge to Russia: A culturally based approach

Executive Overview Russian managers entered the decade of the 1990s ill-prepared to manage their companies in the country's chaotic transition to a market economy. This article draws lessons for transferring Western management knowledge to Russian managers from programs conducted over a ten-year period by the Rayter Group, a cross-cultural training organization. The group's experience underscores the transitional nature of business values among Russian managers, including the need to recognize the barriers and potential opportunities that traditional culture and values can create, as well as the potential for newly developing ones to support the transfer of Western knowledge. These two sets of values must be understood and appreciated by those transferring knowledge through the design and execution of management education programs, as well as in other situations like joint ventures and parent-subsidiary operations. The lessons presented in this article are grounded in the context of a culturally based app...

[1]  Henry W. Lane,et al.  The Blackwell Handbook of Global Management: A Guide to Managing Complexity , 2006 .

[2]  Robert J. House,et al.  Cultural acumen for the global manager: Lessons from project GLOBE , 2001 .

[3]  G. Hamel.  Competition for competence and interpartner learning within international strategic alliances , 1991 .

[4]  R. Gorsuch,et al.  Beliefs, attitudes, and values , 1968 .

[5]  Anil K. Gupta,et al.  Knowledge flows within multinational corporations , 2000 .

[6]  K. Meyer.  Management challenges in privatization acquisitions in transition economies , 2002 .

[7]  Liam Fahey,et al.  Diagnosing cultural barriers to knowledge management , 2000 .

[8]  C. Cooper,et al.  Russian Managers as Learners , 1994 .

[9]  Daniel J. McCarthy,et al.  Finding the Common Ground in Russian and American Business Ethics , 1995 .

[10]  K. Lewin.  Field theory in social science , 1951 .

[11]  Henry Mintzberg.  The design school: Reconsidering the basic premises of strategic management , 1990 .

[12]  G. Hofstede,et al.  Culture′s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values , 1980 .

[13]  Eric W. K. Tsang.  Managerial Learning in Foreign-invested Enterprises of China , 2001 .

[14]  J. McCann.  Strategies for Change: Logical Incrementalism , 1980 .

[15]  Snejina Michailova,et al.  Blockbusters or Bridge-Builders? The Role of Western Trainers in Developing New Entrepreneurialism in Eastern Europe , 2001 .

[16]  M. Hitt,et al.  Organizational transformation in transition economies: resource-based and organizational learning perspectives , 2003 .

[17]  Sheila M. Puffer.  Soviet and American managers' reward allocations: A dependency approach , 1997 .

[18]  Kenneth Husted,et al.  Knowledge-Sharing Hostility in Russian Firms , 2003 .

[19]  Daniel J. McCarthy,et al.  Navigating the hostile maze: A framework for Russian entrepreneurship , 2001 .

[20]  Sheila M. Puffer.  Inside a Soviet Management Institute , 1981 .

[21]  R. Grant.  Toward a Knowledge-Based Theory of the Firm,” Strategic Management Journal (17), pp. , 1996 .

[22]  Sheila M. Puffer,et al.  Corporate Governance In Russia , 2005 .

[23]  Snejina Michailova.  Contrasts in culture: Russian and Western perspectives on organizational change , 2000 .

[24]  Sheila M. Puffer,et al.  Compensating Local Employees in Post-Communist Russia , 1994 .

[25]  Tony W. Tong,et al.  An integrated model of knowledge transfer from MNC parent to China subsidiary , 2004 .

[26]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON LEARNING AND INNOVATION , 1990 .

[27]  Rhonda K. Reger,et al.  A Review of Strategic Process Research , 1987 .

[28]  Sheila M. Puffer,et al.  Management education and employee training at Moscow McDonald's , 1993 .

[29]  Sheila M. Puffer,et al.  Meeting of the mindsets in a changing Russia , 1996 .