Page 195 - Crossing Cultural Boundaries - Cees den Teuling

being totally open for new ideas and innovation from outside sources and constantly implementing new ideas and innovations, developed internally was shown to have a statistically significant effect on the fact that respondents’ home-organisation benefited from the knowledge transferred by them (p = .025). Relationship was positive (b = .161), which implies that a larger extent of total openness to all kinds of innovations in organisations provides a greater likelihood of the home-organisation’s benefiting from the knowledge transferred during Presidential Programme. However, the F-ration for the model was low (1.218) suggesting that observed variances could not be counted upon as being reliable enough.
The participants of the in-depth interviews and the focus group session stressed the view that the opportunities to be involved in the education and the traineeship abroad turned out to be influential and are of value for the home-organisation and the personal career.
The connection with the foreign consultants and the traineeship in the host- organisation abroad and the effective dissemination of the acquired knowledge through the Presidential Programme was assumed to have an effect on the internal organisation’s culture of the Russian home-organisation and a positive impact on the financial results. The insights learned from the foreign consultants in the home- organisation and through the traineeships in the host-companies abroad was beneficial, but, as it was mentioned by the interview participants, the results in financial and organisational terms were not equally spread over the participating Russian organisations.
The Director of the agricultural cooperative stated, that “The NMCP/PUM Programme changed my management style, made it closer to the Dutch (European) style and abandoned the Russian (bayskiy) style, which was my style previously. For example, “bayskiy” style is to circumvent two secretaries before you are able to speak to the Director. I changed to the minimum of decorum, no ostentatious decorations. Everything is put into the business”.
The Director of the Czech-Russian joint venture declared that “The difference between European and Russian management practices was so enormous that would be only able to apply 30-40% of the knowledge transferred”. The Director of the Garment company stated: “The efficiency of Russian businessmen in working with Western consultants and Partners depend on his/her sense of responsibility, and on being a patriot of Russia”. The Director continued with: “The difference between European and Russian management practices was so enormous that they would not be able to apply
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