هنگامی که حس مشترک، غیرمشترک می شود : مشارکت و توانمندسازی شرکت های روسی با مشارکت غربی

This article starts by mapping the growing (Western based) literature that deals with participation and empowerment by outlining two clusters of writings—those that glorify these phenomena and those that problematize them. The article then examines why participation and empowerment, as introduced in the Western literature, do not work in Russian organizations. Explanations are found in one-man authority, anti-individualism and dependence, tightly coupled hierarchies, lack of knowledge sharing, and double-bind situations. The arguments are illustrated by examples from two case studies of Russian companies with Western participation.

The literature on participation and empowerment is predominantly Western orientated and concerned of how to optimize employees’ relationships with their company to improve its efficiency. Most of the writings often lose sight of a broader societal concern for the context where these management approaches are applied. However, one needs to be concerned about certain preferential features, practices and constructs that form a specific system, which differs from similar systems in other national, socio-cultural and organizational contexts. The present article extends previous arguments about the problematic nature of participation and empowerment by addressing them in the context of post-socialist Russian organizations. The focus is on one-man authority, anti-individualism and dependence, hierarchical organizational structures, lack of sharing information and knowledge, and double-bind situations. As explored before, these features make exercising empowerment highly problematic and even impossible and compose a mining field for Western expatriates and managers. Does this all mean that participation and empowerment have no chance at all in the context of post-socialist Russian organizations? It does not. The findings from the two case studies prove that Western managers and expatriates are able to break previously installed patterns of thinking and behavior in Russian organizations, although only slowly and with difficulty. The first step seems to be the ambiguity created by the discrepancy between the messages they send and the signals given by their Russian counterparts: breaking the unified way of thinking and acting and creating diversity in management approaches and techniques is a move towards reducing the barriers against participation and empowerment and more important, a significant learning experience. However, the development in a particular direction needs to be sustained and expanded and double binds reduced. The challenge to become a flexible, more decentralized and market-oriented organization needs to be met by relying and exploiting internal resources. As suggested by Kanter (1983), involvement is associated with better solutions, not merely with motivation. Better solutions and new meanings are more difficult to emerge and management practices grounded in entirely different principles and structures, such as participation and empowerment, are hard to establish in an organization that struggles with two clusters of basic dilemmas: “what is” vs. “what was,” and “what is” vs. “what needs to be.” Anti-empowerment management practices (and more importantly, anti-empowerment management ideology) is a strong self-sustaining power. In times of deeper organizational changes, it could either be fractured or become even more strongly self-perpetuating.