Page 325 - Crossing Cultural Boundaries - Cees den Teuling

Appendix V: Guide for Focus Group discussion and in-depth interviews in English and Russian
Introduction
Please, tell a little about yourself and your organisation, its sector of activity, number of employees, financial results, trends of recent years (5 min).
Management style implementing in the organisation (10 min)
What management style is adopted at your organisation (authoritarian, delegating, etc.)? What are you guided by when making a choice in favour of one or another style? What do you think, what influence does Russian culture have in general? What management style is preferred by the leader / manager? Does the proportion of male and female employees affect the management style? What about employees from different age groups? Russians/non-Russians? What effect does the existence of connections / cooperation with foreign companies have? How is the process of learning (primarily internal) organised? How willingly do the workers / managers share their knowledge and skills?
The circumstances of applying to consultants (10 min)
What were the circumstances of applying to consultants? How did you become aware about that opportunity? Did you have any doubts in the appropriateness of the invitation? How did you feel at the time about what the cooperation with international consultants / trainers would give to your organisation? Would it create any new advantages and / or new difficulties (especially in terms of organisation of the business operations)?
Content of the consultant’s work (30 min)
Please, tell us about the tasks assigned to the consultant. Was there a common understanding of what were the limits of the consultant’s competence and what they could help with?
Who was interacting with the consultant? Who was creating their schedule?
Was there a necessity to conduct an additional training for the employees? Was it necessary to intervene for achieving respect? How ready were they to accept and trust?
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