Page 188 - Crossing Cultural Boundaries - Cees den Teuling

entrepreneurship declared that “The respondent is satisfied with the interaction with the Dutch consultants. He says that he is ready to repeat the programme, but needs to settle everything beforehand and to prepare the students. The consultant also should be prepared and have necessary knowledge of Russian organisations and the specifics of the local situation”.
A Managing Director, previously from the Restaurant sector stated as follows: “The respondent does not see any barriers in knowledge transfer and believes that Russian organisations may benefit from expanding know-how, originally developed in the military-industrial complex, into civil industries and services, which is where foreign managerial experience and expertise can come handy”.
The executive of a training institute believes that “Russian experience of creative solutions to unsolvable issues can help businessmen internationally”. The Head of Marketing of a shipbuilding company: Russian suffers from a lack of professionals. Respondent would like to see that all employees of his organisation are ordered to take up-training courses and take part in educational projects at least twice a year”.
The same Marketing Director stated: I believe that there is zero chance that the managers in his home-organisation would accept the recommendations of any foreign business consultant. He admitted that in his previous workplace, a programme, executed by NMCP/PUM consultants and that some of their recommendations even reached the stage of implementation. In his present organisation, the low level of trust in external resources and unpreparedness to listen to new voices make consulting almost impossible. The management’s attitude is, when you call for a consultant, you admit that something is going wrong!”
For example, as stated by a Head of Department of an educational Institute “There is a need for twofold understanding of the differences in culture and an open mind to accept these differences”. A Director of a Garment producing company declared that “differences in the mentality and the bureaucratic system among others, between the Russian reality and the expectations of the probable Western partner, hampered the creation of a joint-venture for production”.
As declared in the interview with a Vice-President of the Czech-Russian joint- venture in hydraulic equipment “The foreign consultant that aims to be successful in Russia should be open-minded and ready to understand local peculiarities context”. The efficiency of Russian businessmen in working with Western consultants depend on his/her sense of responsibility for well-being of one’s company/firm, Long-term effects of interaction with foreign consultants: once a common Russian businessmen, the
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