Western management training in Eastern Europe: trends and developments over a decade

Abstract

This paper tracks changes in design and implementation of Western management training interventions in Eastern Europe (EE) over a period of more than a decade. The study is based empirically on three management development programmes conducted by Westerners in the transitional environments of Bulgaria and Russia from 1992 to 2003. Departing from existing literature on knowledge transfer from Western to EE, activity theory is used to identify a process of reconfiguring the zone of proximal development of East European (also abbreviated EE in the article) participants and conclude that there is a growing desire and assertiveness on the part of local participants to formulate their own strategic and managerial repertoires. At the same time, it is also observed that as a product of Western ideology of the transitional process, there has been empowerment of socio-demographic groupings who demonstrate consonant ideological inclinations towards Western managerial discourse, most notably young, educated and English proficient individuals.