Page 31 - Crossing Cultural Boundaries - Cees den Teuling

This will support in improving the quality of the added value, the effectiveness and efficient interactions between actors (consultants and clients) and the suggestion of a toolkit for KT improvement.
1.5 Research strategy
The focus of the research is both the KT processes within and between trans-boundary, culturally diverse organisations (i.e. Western countries and Russia) and the perceived competitive advantages through established SVC in Russian organisations, as the result of the trans-boundary transfer of knowledge (McGill & Johnson, 2010).
The research methodology is described in detail in the Chapter Three, in the paragraphs 3.2 Methodological approach and 3.3 Research design.
The information is collected from and in regard to two separate groups, namely:
(i) Russian managers, participants in the “Presidential Programme” consisting in a training course and a (four week) traineeship in a (private) organisation, located in Germany and the Netherlands, described as sample population “A”.
(ii) "For-profit" organisations in the Russian Federation, operating both in business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets, described as sample population “B”. Organisations are selected for their involvement as knowledge receiver in one or more advisory processes in the recent past.
The geographical area of the research is limited to Russia because of the business and personal orientation and observations of the author in this area in the past twenty-five years.This was combined with the experiences gained with KT in cross- cultural environments in the process of adding sustainable value to business processes in this country.
As experienced and observed by the researcher in the daily operations in Russia, there are many obstacles in conducting a research in the field of KT (translation), such as an absence or insufficient level of common language for communication, lack of facilities and support, different explanations of the same terms and situation etc. Cooper, Schindler and Sun (2003 p. 166) argue that there are three key distinctions (suggested in the previous sections), which affect the research process. (i) “the level of the question development in the management research question hierarchy prior to the commencing of qualitative research; (ii) the preparation of the participant prior to the research experience; and (iii) the nature and level of data that come from the debriefing of interviewers and observers”. These and other components identified by various
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