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Foreign professionals and their role in the transformation of labour and management practices in Russia
NRU Higher School of Economics
,
2014.
Prior to its current deceleration, which began in 2009, Russia’s economy has been steadily growing, making it one of the more attractive emerging markets for foreign investment. And although this path was rather contradictory both by means and outcomes, its dynamics was clearly manifested in Russia’s improving macroeconomic performance and the opening of new sources for growth. However, this has also brought new challenges. One of them was the longstanding need for profound change in the mechanism of this growth, rather than merely maintaining certain macroeconomic stability. Among the key aspects in promoting such profound change is the question about the driving force (or forces) of modernization, i.e. those social groups or economic agents, which could, in principle, provide the economy with a certain benchmark in its development and possess sufficient capacity (experience) to implement it. We believe that one of the least studied social groups in this respect are foreign professionals (widely labelled as expatriates), i.e. highly skilled workers who are recruited from the international labour market to work in Russian companies, or subsidiaries of multinational companies that operate in Russia. The distinct feature of such workers is that, in spite of being non-residents to the ‘host’ country, they nevertheless have access to strategic decision-making in larger companies, which, in turn, may be a strong factor of influence on social, cultural and economic environment in certain enterprises, branches and even whole territories. Moreover, many of them carry the ‘cultural code’ (i.e. a certain mindset, labour and management practices) typical of the countries which currently rank among the leading ones both in terms of their economy and the capacity for social progress. Thus, our research question can be formulated as follows: Can expatriate workers (foreign professionals and managers, currently employed in Russia), indeed, act as possible drivers of modernization? To what extent does their presence and continuous interaction with the local culture affect the latter, and what is the possible outcome of this? In order to seek answers to these questions we study the internal structure of this social group in terms of its social and ethnic/national composition. We also evaluate their perceptions about Russian capitalism, which, we believe, may directly affect the effectiveness of cultural exchange, i.e. exchange in values, practices and attitudes, which could possibly be initiated by expatriates in teams and organizations they work in. Parallel to this we further look at how Russian and foreign professionals, who work in same cross-cultural teams and organizations, evaluate each other’s cultural traits and business qualities, as well as internal change which they experience in the course of continuous interactions. This enables us to identify (i.e. re-confirm the existence of) certain cultural invariants in Russian economic culture and evaluate its capacity to change itself, as well as affect other cultures.
Research target:
Sociology (including Demography and Anthropology
Priority areas:
sociology
Language:
English