Page 93 - Crossing Cultural Boundaries - Cees den Teuling

of Russian organisations found the options and developed the ability to “translate” the requested capabilities, necessary for being able to operate in the market-based economy. Zahra and George (2002) pay attention to the fact that for understanding the processes and outcomes of KT between Western and Russian companies, it is critical to consider ACAP-related factors associated not only with Russian companies, but also with their Western counterparts. In other circumstances, the ACAP will continue to be treated as a “black box” or as an outside factor of influence. The authors suggest and advise to pay simultaneous attention to external and internal ACAP and examine the
mechanisms that allow and facilitate the interaction between the two ACAP.
Michailova and Jormainen (2011a) argue that it is crucial for Western actors, to adjust and prepare themselves to enter into a new and different economic and social environment. An important part of a re-orientation is acknowledging that inside Russian organisations an internalised knowledge is available. It is crucially important and can be utilised, kept and improved when operating in the local, Russian environment, therefore, should not be discarded. Acceptance of the locally available, useful knowledge and experience is of considerable importance for Western actors and organisations, to be able to get actively involved in the “translation” of and even “adaptation” of co-
produced curricula of knowledge.
The study by Lowik, Van Rossum, Kraaijenbrink and Groen (2012)
conceptualised individual ACAP, provided a measure for it, and examined three of its antecedents: prior knowledge, network diversity and cognitive style. According to them “an individual’s external network diversity and a bi-society cognitive style were more important predictors for individual ACAP than prior knowledge” (Lowik et al, 2012, p. 3). The availability of ACAP on the individual level and, at the same time, on organisational level, as well as the interactions between individual and organisation are graphically illustrated in the diagram below.
Figure 5: Relationship between Organisational ACAP Routines and Individual Capacity Activities, with Knowledge Flows (Lowik et al., 2012)
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