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Journal of World Business 37 (2002) 180187

When common sense becomes uncommon: participation and empowerment in Russian companies with Western participation
Snejina Michailova*
Department of International Economics and Management, Copenhagen Business School, Howitzvej 60, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark

Abstract This article starts by mapping the growing (Western based) literature that deals with participation and empowerment by outlining two clusters of writingsthose 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. # 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. Participation in a company relates to employee involvement in the decision making process and to the concept of inuence. The higher the degree of subordinate inuence over decisions, the higher the degree of participation. The term emphasizes persuasion rather than control: true participation is characterized by no exercise of coercive power. Empowerment refers to the degree to which employees are encouraged to make certain decisions without consulting their superiors and to which organizational dynamics are initiated at the bottom. The notion is associated with delegating or, more broadly, with enabling. Although the ideas inherent in the terms of participation and empowerment go back to the 1920s, empowerment and participation are an important part of life in today's organizations and their managers' language (empowerment was the management word of the year in 1989). 1. Empowerment: ``a cutting-edge technology'' A sizable amount of research examines the positive effects of participative decision making and empowerment. Employee commitment to the organization is seen as an important source of competitive advantage and participation
* Tel: 45-38-15-30-35; Fax: 45-38-15-25-00. E-mail address: michailova@cbs.dk (S. Michailova).

is associated with accepting responsibility and applying creativity. The literature reinforces the conviction that employees want to possess and exercise more power and that organizations desire employees who are able to determine their own work and the development of their own careers and of the organization. The focus is often on prescribed methods, recipes and keys: various functionalist frameworks and models help explain how to operationalize empowerment by relating it to organizational culture, mutual trust, belonging, freedom, and employees' commitment (Dessler, 1999; Roth, 1997). Pfeffer and Veiga (1999) summarize the optimistic view on participation and empowerment by claiming that: [. . .] people work harder because of the increased commitment that comes from having more control and say in their work; people work smarter because they are encouraged to build skills and competence; and people work more responsibly because more responsibility is placed in hands of employees farther down in the organization. These practices work not because of some mystical process, but because they are grounded in sound social science principles that have been shown to be effective by a great deal of evidence. And, they make sense. (40) Blanchard, Carlos, and Randolph (1999) point out that ``empowerment is a cutting-edge `technology' that provides

1090-9516/02/$ see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII: S 1 0 9 0 - 9 5 1 6 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 7 6 - 7

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both the strategic advantage companies are seeking and the opportunity people are seeking'' (5). They generalize the applicability of empowerment by stating that it ``can assist any leader (who is willing to make some key changes) tap the knowledge, skills, experience, and motivation of every person in the company'' (emphasis added) (Blanchard et al., 1999). All in all, participation and empowerment seem to excite, mobilize, and energize and their advocates seem to turn them into ideas that are taken for granted and unproblematic. 2. Empowerment: a critical view Some authors contrast the optimistic and often romanticized views by going beyond their supercial value and acknowledgment. According to Beirne (1999), bland success stories have less to contribute to an empowering practice than empirically based insights into problematical experiences, false-starts and failures. Empowerment schemes might lead to failures due to uncontrollable difculties and tensions, organizational contradictions, irritation, disappointment, mistrust and political constraints. Managers often claim that participation and empowerment are used to increase equality at the working place. However, since management develops these techniques and introduces them to the workers, it actually perpetuates inequality: one (minor) part of the workforce creates frameworks within which the others are invited/motivated/forced to act in. According to Handy (1995), ``if the individual is seen as an instrument, even an `empowered' instrument, he or she is there to be used by others for their purposes. Such an instrumental contract, no matter how well intentioned or how benevolently interpreted, is a denial of democracy'' (192). Sievers (1994) asserts that ``motivating workers through incentives is a wayas it is for parentsto hide one's own contempt and the guilt feelings connected with it. And as everybody feels with a child who does not really want all these toys and sweets but takes them, workers, too, sometimes buy into what is sold to them as job-rotation, job-enlargement, job-enrichment, etc.'' (19). Participation and empowerment are among those techniques sold. Quinn (1999) argues that in most employment situations empowerment is a game of give-and-take, at the same time both liberating the employee whilst burdening him or her with increased responsibilities. Jahoda (1979) states that the participation issue is now nothing but a hobby of the academics without resonance among those who do the real work. Dachler (1978) concludes that not only the answers but also the very questions concerning participation issues remain unclear and ambiguous. Another critique is that empowerment frequently comes from technical and operational priorities, often with little sensitivity shown to the ethical issues that are contingent upon managerial exigencies (Beirne, 1999). The ethics of empowerment are seen to be as much a question of ideol-

ogies as they are of evidence (Quinn, 1999). Denham et al. (1997) highlight the fact that managers are often resistant towards reducing their formal power and authority by involving their subordinates in the decision making process. 3. Contextualizing participation and empowerment The vast majority of theoretical frameworks and models on participation and empowerment are developed in the West, mainly in the U.S.A. As such, they reect important features of the Western1 culture and are not really vocal about other perspectives of what might be appropriate in a context different from their own. They build normative recipes on the basis of a number of underlying assumptions, but are silent about the diversity of localities existing in different cultural, legislative, social, political, and organizational contexts. The present article is in line with the perspectives that detect the problematic nature of participation and empowerment. However, it tries to avoid fragmentation in the sense that reality consists of good and bad parts, which can be idealized or denied. Instead, it discusses the meaning and the applicability of participation and empowerment by seriously taking into account the specic national cultural and organizational context in which they are applied. The article highlights the need for and the importance of context to understanding widely recognized and appreciated approaches and techniques. It argues that there are contextual constraints to the success of applying participative and empowerment practices. The case material provided here clearly demonstrates that in post-socialist organizations in Russia these practices do not work at all or are not as successful as in the West. 4. Two Russian companies with Western participation 4.1. Company 1: O&G O&G2 is a Russian project organization that operates in the oil and gas industry. It is located in a major city in the European part of Russia. The company was founded in the late 1920s and had a monopoly position within its eldit
The notions ``Western'' and ``Westerners'' were introduced and frequently used by the respondents in this study, Russians as well as foreign expatriates. This is an ambiguous notion formulated on a highly aggregate level. It has gained broad acceptance mainly in terms of dichotomies, such as WestEast, Western EuropeEastern Europe or EuropeAmerica in spite of an apparent diversity within each of these aggregations and even though they are factored down to many smaller entities based on national cultures, national identities, and socio-cultural contexts. The result of this desegregation is a significant variety with regard to ``soft'' components organizational practices and forms, management attitudes and behavior, leadership styles, human resource policies and practices. 2 The company names have been disguised. They indicate the industry in which the respective company operates.
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was the main organization with the best reputation in its eld. O&G's customers were mainly from the Soviet Union, but the company also had customers from other countries such as Bulgaria, Chile, China, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, and Turkey. Currently, O&G's customers are primarily from Russia. Before 1990, O&G was a budget organization; that is, nanced by the state. It got all orders through the ministry to which it was subordinated. Both the resources of O&G and its goals were politically determined. The imperative of having to make prots, emphasizing the need for quality, efciency, and low costs were missing. Marketing practices were non-existent, and the organization did not behave as a rational economic agent. At the same time, however, O&G's employees were forced to nd pragmatic solutions to many problems due to permanent shortages of resources. In the 1970s, the number of O&G's employees was around 1,500. At the beginning of the 1990s, the number fell to around 900. Many younger employees left, especially those who were able to speak foreign languages and who started careers in foreign-owned companies. At present, O&G is a joint-stock company employing 750 people. In 1992, a large Western multi-national company began to look into the possibilities of acquiring shares in O&G. O&G's managers also invested time and effort in looking closer into potential Western investor's activities, particularly in Eastern Europe. The process resulted in the Western company buying a minor part of O&G's shares in 1996. Fifty-one percent of O&G's shares belong to the Russian government and will remain state-owned, at least for the next few years to come. O&G's CEO is a Russian who had most of his career in that organization. The six Western expatriates assigned to work in O&G occupy the other top management positions. 4.2. Company 2: Cony Cony was established in 1956 and it operates in the construction material industry. Until recently, it has been functioning as a large conglomerate (kombinat). The company is located near a major Russian city in the European part of the country. The factory was the primary business in the town and the main supplier to the regional construction industry. The diversication of its products was very high. Almost all the factory's clients were local, only one product was sold abroad. Most clients concluded separate purchase agreements on a transaction-by-transaction basis and only very few had long-term (1-year) contracts. The situation with the supplying contracts was similara few 1-year, non-binding supply contracts vs. a large number of short term agreements. Cony had no marketing department and no sales representatives working in the eld. The company never had client les or any sales material. Its distribution strategy was not clearly dened. It had an order entry department, that mainly dealt with customers by telephone on a day-to-day

basis. In 1996, approximately 28% of the sales were conducted on the basis of barter trade. Until 1999, Cony employed more than 1300 employees with an average age of 44, all living in the local town. In order to preserve the skilled workers, many of them received partial pay in periods when production was slow. The number of managers was unrealistically large, but this does not mean that all who were called managers performed management functions. The appraisal system was very rigid and inexible. In order to reward employees nancially, they were simply promoted to management positions. Cony's 60-year-old general director has been working in the company since 1967, climbing the ladder from foreman up to head of workshop and deputy general director of commerce. The employees called him ``father'' (``papa'') and they strongly associated the company's achievements with his personal abilities and skills. Cony was privatized in 1994. The majority of the shares went to a large Russian industrial holding company and a minor part was acquired by the company's managers, workers and pensioners. In 1997, while investigating opportunities for takeovers of local production in Russia, a large Western multinational company contacted Cony. Negotiations started the same year and in July 1998, the takeover was almost ready to be realized. However a number of issues prevented the signing of the contract. In August 1998, the ruble collapsed. The Western investor established a task force to work in Cony, and prepare the new round of negotiations. These reopened in fall 1998. In February 1999, Cony was reorganized and part of it, including 500 employees, was taken over by the Western investor. Westerners currently occupy all top management positions in Cony. The other part of the previous kombinat continues to operate as a purely Russian company. 5. The study This investigation applied case-study methodology. Case studies provide a rich contextual sense of the studied phenomena (Miles, 1979), a feature that is signicant for this piece of research. Most research on participation and empowerment is conducted by Western authors who collect empirical data in Western organizations using questionnaires. Additionally, case studies offer a deeper understanding (Geertz, 1973) of social phenomena and are suitable when exploring interpersonal processes as they unfold in organizations (Hartley, 1994). Twenty-six face-to-face detailed semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with Western and Russian top and middle managers in the two companies. Nineteen of the interviews (all interviews with the Western managers and expatriates in the two companies and the interviews with the Russian managers in Cony) were audiotaped. Observations and informal conversations were also an important source of data gathering. Documents, articles, letters, reports, minutes of meetings were examined as well.

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6. Why don't participation and empowerment work in Russian companies? Both O&G and Cony are traditional Russian companies. They were established during socialism and have a long socialist past. They are large organizations and the average age of their employees is over 45. Socialist management approaches and techniques were applied and exercised for decades and constitute a predominant part of the companies' everyday life at present. Since these approaches and techniques contradict the nature of participation and empowerment, a closer look into them follows. 6.1. One-man authority The Westerners can't understand that we need the fork on our neck, not all these nice words and baby techniques. The technique is the fork. (Russian middle manager, O&G) Empowerment depends on the manager's underlying philosophy towards people in the organization. Empowering employees goes along with increasing trust and diminishing formal status, power and control. Russian managers, however, dene their (one-man) power mainly in terms of hierarchy and formal status that allow only them to assign tasks and control outcomes. Since empowerment shifts part of these responsibilities to employees, and since Russian managers perceive distribution of power as a zero-sum game, the Russian managers treat empowerment as a dangerous loss of power. Consequently, they actively act against any tactics of empowering their employees. They are not yet ready for employees who participate or speak up (Czinkota, 1997). According to Puffer (1993), Russian managerial motivation is the product of communal traditions and attitudes passed on from peasant society, as well as the egalitarian principles of communist ideology and the stultifying bureaucracy of the centrally planned economic system. In the socialist past, the Stalinist management system exercised in Russian organizations included a very high degree of centralization, dominance of formal rules, authoritarian leadership style and lack of pluralism. Not only Russian managers, but also Russian employees treat one-man authority as ``given,'' ``needed'' and ``vitally important.'' Therefore, they both accept it without questioning it. Moreover, one-man authority is seen not merely as a part of the natural order but also as a premise for company success. Authoritarian leadership style is not seen as inappropriate: on the contrary, it is highly respected as a prerequisite for discipline and order and, consequently, for a positive development. A principle rule in the workplace is ``Superiors know better'' (``Nachal'stwo znaet lutche''). Employees dene a situation of not having a strong leader who makes almost all decisions, determines the direction of development and controls the processes and outcomes as lack of power (``bezvlastie'') that lead to inefciencies.

At the same time, the Western expatriates in O&G and Cony are trying to apply participative leadership methods, invoke democratic values and involve employees in the decision-making. They strongly believe that this is the way to lead. They show a clear sign of respect and recognition of employees' abilities and skills by trying to empower them. However, this orientation has the opposite effect. The Russian employees interpret these efforts as the Westerners' ``confusion,'' ``lack of clear vision and strategy,'' ``no understanding of the Russian specicity'' and even as ``lack of management abilities.'' Bearing in mind the underlying assumptions about the superiorsubordinate relationship from the near socialist past, it is not surprising that the Russian managers and employees dene the Westerners' management behavior as ``too soft'' and ``confusing.'' They explicitly claim that the Westerners should use a more powerful, (autocratic) leadership style in order to make Russian employees follow, especially when organizational transformation is heavily on the agenda. These ndings support the results of the study conducted by Welsh, Luthans, and Sommer (1993) in the largest Russian textile factory in 1990. The authors found out that participative intervention seemed to have a counterproductive effect on the Russian workers' performance and noted that participative efforts may disrupt or threaten the Russian cultural value of communal work. Another study carried out across 25 organizations in St. Petersburg, which examined 159 managers' views on managerial trials in the transformation to a free market economy, found that lack of employee involvement and motivation and a lack of skilled supervisors and managers were among the most frequently mentioned problems (Longenecker & Popovski, 1994). The study revealed that 41% of the managers participating in the investigation wanted clearly dened responsibilities and instructions and that those charged with developing Russian managers must force independent thinking and initiative. It is wrong to assume that Russian employees, in general, desire empowerment. Russian employees have been exposed to the strong-leader-concept for decadesit has been imprinted in their minds; they are used to it and respect it. They prefer directives instead of discussions and look at compromise as a weakness. It is clear that Russian employees are not interested in any serious self-initiative and action. They treat participation and empowerment as either the managers' avoidance of responsibility and lack of professionalism or as a burden that brings more work to the lower level, or both. Therefore, bottom-up and participative management techniques produce effects contrary to the ones intended by Western managers and expatriates. 6.2. Anti-individualism and dependence In the past we were dependent on our CEO. He was very good and took care of us. Things functioned ne. (Russian middle manager, Cony)

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Empowerment focuses on the individual and on the attempt to reduce workers' dependence, so they can meaningfully participate in organizational decisions. In O&G and Cony, however, anti-individualism and a strong sense of dependence prevail and that makes participation and empowerment rather problematic. Obolonsky (1995) summarizes the essence of Russian anti-individualism as to reject the independence of the person, even in relative terms. This concept of aggressive anti-individualism has at least two basic features: a leveling psychology (pseudo-egalitarianism) and a compulsive pseudo-collectivism. They are based on a dramatically anti-personal stereotype of ``all as one,'' implying situations where, irrespective of the will of the individual, he is involved in a sectarian joint activity where his personal opinion means practically nothing. The person is sacriced, victimized in a vulgarized idea of unity and conformism. (Obolonsky, 1995: 18) In the socialist collectivistautocratic system, there was no place for the individual and her/his own way of thinking, feeling, and behaving. A Russian theorist, Stolyarenko (1983), claimed apologetically that ``the development of collectivist psychology includes two types of processesplanned and spontaneous. The task of controlling development lies in extending the sphere of planned development and narrowing down the sphere of spontaneous development'' (110). The general interest in the form of class/collective interest had clear priority over the private interest. The two dogmas of the communist society, dialectical materialism and historical materialism, did not nd a place for the individual either: ``in the dialectical materialism the man does not come into view yet and in the historical materialism he is `overcome' by the deeper notion of society'' (Puchlikov, 1990: 10). The suppression of the individual at the cost of the group/collective/class/society during socialism permitted employees to distance themselves from taking action and feeling responsible for organizational behavior and results. This was natural since initiative and ambition have been continuously denigrated. Disobedient and independently thinking people were regarded as ``conict-prone'' or ``anti-social personalities.'' Moreover, by not improving or by deliberately holding back, workers could avoid the frustration of being rejected or ignored. In addition, by not truly participating or giving meaningful suggestions in front of outsiders, the workers would not put themselves in the position of expressing problems inhibiting performance, comments they may have feared would be received as complaints regarding co-workers. (Welsh et al., 1993: 74) Consequently, openness was inappropriate and frightening: If one talks openly about the problems one has, this is seen as the expression of a lack of personal qualica-

tions. In the old system, the problem was the man who came with the problem, the messenger. In the old days, the messenger who brought the bad message was killed. Unfortunately, we have the same perception in O&G today. (Western expatriate, O&G) Whereas the notion of dependence has a rather negative connotation to Western employees, Russian employees connect it closely and directly with the feeling of security. They relate it with paternalism or guardianship. The managerguardian denes the circle of needs of his employees which can be satised, and either satises them immediately, or assists in their satisfaction. This is a specic managerial orientation towards the human aspect of work life and at the same time an expression of the hierarchical division and inequality within the organization (the gure of the general director in contrast to the mass of employees). 6.3. Hierarchical and tightly coupled structures We identied seven hierarchical levels in Cony. However, the organization is very at in the sense that there is one person making all decisions, the CEO. (Western expatriate, Cony) Since people are not black boxes that can be infused with power and since empowerment cannot simply be reduced to a single method or technique, organizational structures send powerful signals that either facilitate or countermand empowerment. After all, structure is both the medium and outcome of the human activities which it recursively organizes (Giddens, 1987). If empowerment is to be genuine, organizations need to be loosely coupled or organic. If employees in tightly coupled congurations are given power, their freedom to decide when and how to exercise the power is severely limited by the very characteristics of the structure. The structure does not allow a high degree of autonomy, exibility and creativity which are key features of empowerment. Russian managers and employees, on the other side, place high importance on hierarchy and formal status. The hierarchical levels are linked through pyramidal connections and forces. No creativity is required from shop-oor workers and this is intensied by top-down, one-way communication: People are somewhat hierarchical in O&G. Most of the things are totally controlled by the managing director. If one does not get his acceptance, it will not happen. There is no real consultation. Initiative and creativity at the lower levels are missing. (Western expatriate, O&G) I am at a lower management level. That is why I cannot suggest anything to be changed at the upper level. (Russian middle manager, Cony) Vertically managed hierarchies and the command-andcontrol-tradition are embedded in a certain type of organiza-

S. Michailova / Journal of World Business 37 (2002) 180187 Table 1 Mix of messages creating double bind Western managers to Russian employees Take initiative and come with suggestions Learn from the mistakes and don't repeat them Be longer term and future oriented Think of the company as an integrated entity Russian managers to Russian employees

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Do what you are supposed to do and obey the established rules Mistakes are not allowed and should be punished Concentrate on here and now (and don't forget how it was before) Act according to your own job description and don't interfere in other people's job

tional and managerial ideology that has prevailed for centuries in the Russian context. Strong centralization, dominance of formal rules, and tight hierarchies invite powerlessness. Empowerment changes are likely to fail unless they are institutionalized in reframed structures that are able to support and reward empowerment initiatives. 6.4. Lack of sharing information and knowledge I am concerned about my own position, maybe also about my department. That must be enough. All I know is for myself and I am not particularly interested in knowing what the others know. (Russian middle manager, Cony) Empowerment entails providing the employees with access to information. Kanter (1989) suggests that empowering organizations make more information more available to more people at more levels through more devices. According to Lawrence and Vlachoutsicos (1990), Russian managers, however, rarely volunteer information. In O&G and Cony Russian managers and employees aim at accumulating knowledge and information, but not at sharing it. They approach knowledge as an important source of individual power rather than a corporate source to be shared. That can be partly explained by the experiences from the near socialist past: Everybody in Russia was trained to keep things condential. (Western expatriate, Cony) The preference not to share was perpetuated by the fear that transmitted information could be misinterpreted, often deliberately, by both the immediate and the following receivers and this would harm the transmitter (Husted & Michailova, 2002). In a highly politicized and low-trust organizational context, such as the one in Russia before 1991, such misinterpretations could lead to heavy consequences for the transmitter and her/his network. In that case, the receiver would not have been negatively affected by the misinterpretation: on the contrary, she/he would have been rewarded if able to ``substantiate'' the reason for her/his interpretation. This is very different from a situation when the misinterpretation is associated with the lack of prior knowledge on the receiver's side. In the Russian context, the receiver has a lot of knowledge, which she/he can apply to deliberately misinterpret new knowledge. Unless the lack of

sharing knowledge as a fundamental obstacle is removed, empowerment has no real chances to grow. 6.5. Double bind in RussianWestern organizations I am lost. My Russian superior wants me to do particular things in a particular way. At the same time, the Western managers want something completely else and often the opposite. What do you do then? In the beginning I tried to maneuver, now I simply wait. (from an interview with a Russian middle manager in O&G) In O&G and Cony, Russian employees are exposed to both Russian and Western managers and their very different leadership approaches and styles. Employees receive mixed signals and messages from the two management groups and this mix develops into a ``double bind.'' Table 1 lists a few examples which illustrate that. Russian managers are also caught in double-bind situations (Michailova, 2000): the Western managers demand radical changes in their Russian colleagues' leadership style, ways of communicating and motivating. The Russian employees, however, prefer that their managers preserve the long-term alliances they have built together as a result of the specic relationships between workers and managers in the socialist past (Richmond, 1996). This creates a great deal of ambiguity for Russian managers``should they serve the Czar or should they serve the people?''3 The paternalistic mentality is well preserved. A CEO of a traditional Russian company can still be compared with the largest matrioshka doll that holds all the others (the managers below and the workers) and he or she (predominantly he) continues to enjoy the support and trust of the workers on many different occasions (Ivancevich, DeFrank, & Gregory, 1992; Michailova, 2000; Puffer, 1993). As a result, Russian managers in companies with Western participation are not completely sure of their role, and how they should meet the various expectations
3 A Russian proverb says, ``He who serves the Czar, cannot serve the people.''

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from their Western colleagues and superiors on the one hand and their Russian colleagues and sub-ordinates on the other hand. Double-bind situations make empowerment problematic. 7. Conclusion The literature on participation and empowerment is predominantly Western orientated and concerned of how to optimize employees' relationships with their company to improve its efciency. 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 specic 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 postsocialist 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 eld 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 ndings 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 difculty. The rst 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 unied 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 signicant learning experience. However, the development in a particular direction needs to be sustained and expanded and double binds reduced. The challenge to become a exible, 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 difcult 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. Acknowledgments Some of the data used in this article have been collected in the framework of the action-research project SODIAC (Sculpturing Organizational Dynamics in a Context). I gratefully acknowledge the participation of the case organizations and the nancial support of the funding companies and institutions. References
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