Critical Management Research in Eastern Europe: Managing the Transition

How much can foreign assistance help in forming the cultural capital needed for the transition to the market economy in the former USSR? The evaluation exercise described below suggests it can do a great deal, even if a lot of problems may emerge (see research on organizational change in the former Soviet-type societies, Boisot 1994; Eberwein and Tholen, 1997; Grancelli, 1995a; 1998a; 1998b; Kozminski, 1993; 1995; Puffer, 1992; van Zon, 1996; Warner and Cambell, 1994). It is also possible to think that a dialectic relationship between the West and the East could ensure that Western management orthodoxy is itself challenged, adapted and reformed in line with the changes taking place in contemporary Europe. In this chapter I suggest that it may be quite misleading to think that this process could be framed within critical theory, constructivist and postmodern approaches (Grancelli, 1995b). Let us take, for instance, one of the main directions of the critical analysis proposed in this volume: the problematization of Western management models and their mechanistic application to Eastern European organizations. Generally speaking our editors are right, of course, when they state that economic policy should be formulated in the light of economic concerns but also be commensurable with societal and cultural values. But here one should be more specific. Which values? Whose values? The values of (the many) rent-seekers or those of (the not many) innovators? Who are the social actors we refer to, the Homo Sovieticus or the people who believe in democracy without descriptive adjectives? Local culture is certainly to be approached with respect. But one should not forget that it has been moulded by 40 to

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