Page 82 - Crossing Cultural Boundaries - Cees den Teuling

With a vast experience in the economies in transition and with a focus on Russia, Holden and Cooper (1994) indicate that one cannot teach a Russian anything about management without changing their mind cluttered with false concepts and ideas about Western style of management. Since the early years of the reform, considerable spatial separation was apparent in Russia between the Western disseminators of “appropriate” managerial knowledge, being sourced from geographically specific (Western) areas of origin, and passive managerial learners in the transitional economies like the one in Russia after the reform. In more recent years, however, broader socio- political and institutional changes are reflected there as a result of globalisation (Michailova & Hollinshead, 2009). A conflation of respective social spaces, as such, reflects not only a reconstruction of the power relations between Western and Central and Eastern European (Russian) interest groups, but also relocation of the managerial knowledge creation in geographical sense. Key social actors (i.e. local owners/entrepreneurs and managers, consultants, business trainers and employees) in Russia are involved in re-structuring, re-defining of strategy, approach towards (foreign) markets, efficiency and innovation projects, and inclined to share and exchange management and business knowledge, translated into the “cultural language” of Russia (Clark and Geppert, 2002).
Not disseminating acquired or developed knowledge by individuals is still found as a common attitude among employees in the former command-control economies. In contradiction to a collective attitude towards the nucleus family and other in-groups, employees in Russian organisations show often an individualistic and self-protective behaviour. Knowledge hoarding in knowledge-sharing hostile environment, is considered common practice, especially in Russia, even when appropriate incentives are offered. To hoard the shared knowledge is an individual decision. However, individuals act in particular cultural, social, economic and organisational contexts. Case studies suggest that the knowledge hoarding in Russian organisations is reinforced by three additional features: coping with high uncertainty how the receiver will use the shared knowledge; accepting and respecting a strong hierarchy and formal power; anticipating negative consequences from sharing knowledge with subordinates (Michailova & Husted, 2003, p. 62). The above-mentioned three features were found important by the majority of respondents, as the result of the research by Michailova and Husted (2003), equally supported by Russians and Westerners.
The accepted way of knowledge sharing in a Russian organisation will face hostility and will be counterproductive in the majority of Western companies. Formal
80