1st Edition

Market or Mafia Russian Managers on the Difficult Road Towards an Open Society

By Wilhelm Eberwein, Jochen Tholen Copyright 1997
    270 Pages
    by Routledge

    268 Pages
    by Routledge

    First published in 1997 in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, this volume examines the situation of Russian managers in the transition to a more capitalist and democratic system. It asks whether a country of eleven time zones, extreme climatic conditions from arctic temperatures to dry stone and sand deserts, with more than a hundred nationalities and limited experience with liberal ideas and concepts or with civil-democratic traditions can be ruled in a modern world. The differences between ‘Westies’ and ‘Slavophiles’ only complicate its situation further. Further still, the authors note significant similarities between notions of national betrayal related to the withdrawal of the victorious Red Army from Central and Eastern Europe and attitudes in 1920s Germany towards World War I. The immense responsibility carried by the company directors, entrepreneurs and managers of Russia for the future of their country is the focus of this book. It follows two other volumes on Germany (1990) and an Anglo-German comparison related to Western European integration (1993).

    1. The State of Research Regarding Russian Management and the Research Conception. 1.1. Social Institutions and the Economic Situation in the Russia of Today as an Essential Framework of Managerial Action. 1.2. The State of Research. 1.3. International Comparative Management Research – with Regard to Outline, Execution and Aims of the Study. 2. The Working and Professional Situation of Russian Managers – between Planned Economy and Chaos. 2.1. The Empirical Field – Access to the Company and the Description of the Sample. 2.2. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea – the Precarious Managerial Situation of the Managers. 2.3. The Managers’ Training and Further Education, Recruitment and Professional Paths. 2.4. The Managerial Concept of Managers. 2.5. The Working Day and Private Life of the Managers – an Affinity with Western Colleagues. 2.6. The Position of Managers within the Internal Company Network of Relations. 2.7. The External Relations of the Director. 2.8. The Political Understanding of the Managers. 2.9. The Future Expectations of the Managers. 3. Russian Managers in the Process of Transformation. 3.1. Between Traditionalist Manager and Mafioso – a Typology of the Managers. 3.2. Models of Social Transformation. 3.3. Perspectives of the Social Transformation Process – Between Hope, Pessimism and Resignation.