Page 140 - Crossing Cultural Boundaries - Cees den Teuling

benefitted from an advisory programme organised and implemented by the PUM- Netherlands Senior Experts (NMCP).
The cooperation with the Netherlands Entrepreneurship Agency (RVO-NL) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and NRMTP and NMCP-PUM allowed the use of their databases to identify and approach the beneficiary organisations in Russia.
In case of the first group, an invitation to participate in the research was distributed to comply with the privacy regulations by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (RVO Agency) to the group of Alumni (A) of the Netherlands-Russian “Presidential Programme”, from the RVO database and by GIZ to the alumni of their 2015-2016 Traineeship Programme.
In case of the second group (B) from the available NMCP-PUM data base, a direct contact with the advised organisations, i.e. the entrepreneurs / managers of the top and middle level management were established. The exact position/level of the involved manager depended on the size of the organisation.
Managers-practitioners (Presidential Programme alumni) and the management of advised practicing organisations by NMCP-PUM, were invited to participate in the research on voluntary basis. An invitation letter (in English and Russian) explaining the general aim of the study was sent to the potential participants with a request to give their consent by sending their digital contact information to the research team.
From the available NMCP-PUM database, out of 1055 advised organisations in Russia, approximately 480 organisations remained after “cleaning”, e.g. removing the “doubles” and the “bounced” addresses. Completed questionnaires are received from 44 advised organisations.
From the approximately contacted 400 Presidential Programme alumni a number of 135 contributed to the research.
The questionnaires were distributed digitally (by email) to the e-addresses of companies and managers listed in the obtained databases. The Questionnaire were submitted both in English and Russian.
Focus group discussion and in-depth interviews
Outcomes of analyses of the online surveys were subject to discussion in one focus group session in Yekaterinenburg and 11 separately organised in-depth interviews with participants from around Russia. The participants of the focus group session and the interviews, i.e. owners/entrepreneurs and/or senior executives, high level and line
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