Page 162 - Crossing Cultural Boundaries - Cees den Teuling

An executive of a paint production company declared: “Management is based on the Russian business tradition and the Russian mentality. Gender and age issues are not relevant in this context.”
Another respondent, Medical Doctor and Deputy Director of a clinic, argued: “Low degree of trust in Russian society is strongly linked to authoritarian management style, while the Dutch model is more horizontally managed, but does not preclude strict managerial approach”.
As deliberated by the Director of a regional chain of convenience stores: “There is a critical note to be announced on the culture among employees with issues as endemic embezzlement, leading to additional investments in control and surveillance, not to mention bribe-extorting officials”.
Russian business mentality is very vertically oriented, since the Russian society, as a whole, is vertically organised.
The Proposition P.2 is partly accepted.
4.3.1 The effect of National Culture on the management and communication style in Russian organisations
The analyses of both online surveys and qualitative interviews unveiled interesting and partly unexpected results regarding the effect of NC on the management and communication style in Russian organisations.
The online surveys’ results suggested that different factors that had potential to affect the culture in the respondent’s organisation (i.e. influence of Russian culture, male/female composition, etc.) did not seem to determine the dominant style of management in the organisations. The analysed factors were: “The influence of the Russian culture on the organisation’s culture” (p = .698), “The influence of the Leaders’/managers’ culture on the organisation’s culture” (p = .681), “The influence of the male/female staff composition on the organisation’s culture” (p = .487), “The influence of foreign (non-Russian) workers on the organisation’s culture” (p =.156), and “The influence of the connections/cooperation with global (Western & Asian) business partners on the organisation’s culture” (p = .996).
The analysis also revealed that the very same factors did not determine the dominant style of communication in the respondents’ organisations. The overall readiness to accept and implement innovations in organisation was not determined by aforementioned factors as well (the influence of the Russian culture on the organisation’s culture (p = .682 and p = .458); the influence of the leaders’/managers’
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