An examination of the organizational and

cross-cultural challenges facing international

hotel managers in Russia

Norma D'Annunzio-Green
School of Management, Napier University, Edinburgh, UK

Keywords assert that one of the most difficult tasks of

Management, Introduction any international manager is to motivate and
Human resource management,
Russia, Hotel hospitality Modern tourism enjoys an undisputed lead people from cultural backgrounds
position as the world's foremost industry, different from their own. As they go on to
Abstract influencing almost every possible area of discuss, ``while leadership is exhibited in all
With the ever increasing
economic activity (Singh, 1997). Expanding societies, cultural norms influence what
globalization of the hospitality
industry, an exploration of the international travel, technological advances kinds of leadership behaviours are
issues facing international hotel and the creation of the seamless organization appropriate in a particular culture. By
managers in Russia is both timely are key drivers of the hospitality and tourism
and important. The ability to
definition, leaders stand out from their peers,
industry's rapid internationalization (Kriegl, yet they stand out without pushing the
manage people in an international
2000). Subsequently, the managers of this
context is one of the greatest constraints of cultural norms too far. If
tests of managerial skill and, in international environment have been faced
leaders attempt to behave too differently
many novel cultures, success is with a variety of concerns because of the
dependent not only on the from cultural norms, they will be rejected:
changing risks and opportunities involved in
managers' technical and however if they adhere to all cultural norms
professional expertise but also on
setting up abroad, and must be prepared for
the new and complex organizational cultures to the letter they will not be leaders ± for
their understanding of the local
culture and local staff. There are and working practices facing them in the leaders must break some norms to be seen as
many important cultural factors international business arena. No one is more different'' (Mendenhall et al., 1995, p. 570).
that impact on the expectations The challenge of how transitional managers
and attitudes of Russians about
aware of these complexities and how they
work which are therefore essential impact on both the work and social setting in
address this delicate workplace balancing act
for managers to appreciate and the hotel sector than transitional managers, is the subject of this paper which aims to
understand. The paper highlights who are a critical success factor in any joint examine the organizational contexts within
the range of challenges that exist
and illustrates those that arise
venture. which they have been placed and highlight
from cross-cultural differences A transitional manager is defined by the managerial leadership challenges faced
between eastern and western Sparrow (1999, p. 90) as ``a manager who by them when working in Russia's hotel
expectations, as well as the range moves across borders on behalf of the firm
industry. More specifically, it will:
of diverse organizational cultures
but who is relatively detached from any . review the literature on leadership
within Russia's hotel industry.
Managers must be aware of these single organizational HQ''. challenges in Russia;
differences and develop These international managers are . present three case studies which illustrate
appropriate skills and employed by multinational corporations for the different cultural contexts within
competencies to help them adapt
three main reasons. First, to provide an which transitional managers work in
their style accordingly.
element of control and co-ordination in the Russia's five star hotel sector.
local operating unit; second, to provide
The author acknowledges management development opportunities to
the help of a Carnegie Trust senior staff in the organization and provide Advantages and challenges facing
Research without which the transitional managers in Russia
primary research for this them with the opportunity to work abroad for The opportunities and challenges that face
paper could not have been a period of time; and third, to facilitate the managers working in transitional economies
conducted. transfer of skills and knowledge across global such as Russia are well documented and are
borders. Although there may be a degree of
summarised below (as adapted by the author
support offered to these managers before and
from Longenecker and Popovski (1994),
during their assignments, they are
Barnes et al. (1997), Rubens (1995), May et al.
ultimately responsible for teams of
(1998) and Holden et al. (1998)):
employees in the host country and are
1 Advantages:
charged with developing effective ways of
International Journal of . Many successful joint ventures in
Contemporary Hospitality managing the challenges which may exist on
a day to day basis. Mendenhall et al. (1995) existence.
Management
14/6 [2002] 266±273
. Abundant, relatively low cost and
# MCB UP Limited educated workforce.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
[ISSN 0959-6119] . Enormous market potential for growth
[DOI 10.1108/09596110210436805] http://www.emeraldinsight.com/0959-6119.htm
and business development.
[ 266 ]
Norma D'Annunzio-Green .Progress in successfully aligning
An examination of the Russian and western management
organizational and
cross-cultural challenges practices.
facing international 2 Challenges:
hotel managers in Russia . Many and changing rules for
International Journal of conducting business with western
Contemporary Hospitality
Management partner firms due to political
14/6 [2002] 266±273 instability.
. Cultural value differences including
different attitudes and behaviours
which create barriers to accepted
western human resource practices in
areas such as organizational
commitment and labour management
relations.
. Unpredictable labour market.
. Financial problems, such as lack of
capital, cash flow difficulties, inflation
and exchange problems.
. Customer problems created by such
factors as customers going out of
business, being unable to pay their
bills, being unable to attract new
business or switching over to
competitors.
. Corruption, including such things as
stealing, bribery, misappropriation of
funds and racketeering.
. Operational problems, including poor
productivity and bureaucratic
inefficiencies, material shortages,
logistical problems, communication
breakdowns, lack of modern
technologies and lack of financial and
informational controls.
. Personnel problems, including poor
morale, excess workers, poorly trained
workers, lack of employee involvement
and motivation and a lack of skilled
supervisors and managers.
. Legal problems created by rapidly
changing laws, ambiguity surrounding
existing laws and deficiencies in the
current legal system.
. Incompatibility of organizational
cultures and scepticism towards
western concept of developing
attitudinal alignments between
individual employees and the
corporate culture and values of the
organization.
There follows a summary of four main areas
as discussed by Rubens (1995) and validated
by others (Barnes et al., 1997; Shekshnia,
1994; Swerdlow and Cummings, 2000) as areas
of particular significance and importance for
the transitional hotel manager to consider.
First, Russia's economic situation has
resulted in lack of funds to pay wages for
many employees, creating a situation where
workers demand copious time off. This
influences attitudes towards work, with
employees potentially losing their sense of
pride and orientation to work as a result of
long delays between work done and pay
earned in an economy where inflation and
low earning potential result in poor prospects
for economic wealth.
The production orientated viewpoint of
many Russians is also challenging. Rubens
(1995, p. 155) illustrates this with a quote:
``In America the customer is king but in
Russia the aspect of scarcity made the
producer king . . . times have changed but this
attitude remains''. The impact of this may be
illustrated by a visit to a store or restaurant
where customers may be offered below
average goods at inflated prices by an
impatient or disinterested person who still
maintains this ingrained producer/scarcity
mentality. ``Getting people to alter this
mentality to one that focuses on the needs of
the customer is a demanding managerial
challenge'' (Rubens, 1995, p. 3).
Closely related to the previous point is the
challenge of developing the skills and
competencies of the workforce. Russia is
renowned for having a highly literate and
well educated workforce (Barnes et al., 1997),
but despite this, the immaturity of the
labour market, including constraints on
worker mobility and the lack of effective
employment services, results in a low supply
of qualified managers with the desired
transferable skills. In addition, the
competencies of the Russian workforce must
be aligned with the requisite skills and
attitudes of today's economy. Bearing in
mind the latent managerial potential within
the Russian workforce, western companies
who are willing to invest in the local
workforce have found no shortage of local
employees who are keen to take advantage of
the career and developmental opportunities
offered to them. The last area is the challenge
relating to the development of an effective
managerial style which somehow narrows
the gap between the common western style
and the traditional Soviet style. Rubens (1995)
identifies some of the characteristics of the
latter as follows: extremely hierarchical
structures, power concentrated at the centre,
paternalism and control orientation, lack of
information sharing, and decision making
which is conspiratorial and unpredictable.
Many of these characteristics are the exact
opposite of what western cultures would call
a progressive management style, the rhetoric
of which is characterised by openness,
consultation and participation. It must be
remembered, however, that as result of this
a different mindset exists in Russia of how
an acceptable manager should behave.
[ 267 ]
Norma D'Annunzio-Green The hotel industry in Moscow and
An examination of the St Petersburg
organizational and
cross-cultural challenges The hotel supply consists of three main types
facing international ± old, traditional hotels that were built in a
hotel managers in Russia different era but have been left to run down
International Journal of and have lost most of their former splendour;
Contemporary Hospitality
Management concrete and glass dormitories built post
14/6 [2002] 266±273 war; and new hotels built or upgraded to
international standards with involvement
from international companies.
The latest available room count for Russia
is 202,033, with 390,931 beds (WTO, 1999). Most
of these rooms still resemble the modest
requirements provided in the USSR era and
it is estimated that only 20-25,000 rooms are
suitable for foreign arrivals.
Moscow is ranked among the most
expensive business travel destinations in the
world, and the average daily rate (ADR) of the
deluxe hotels is double that of other emerging
markets. This is due to the strength of
demand and the lack of quality hotel supply
due to high market entry barriers. HVS argue
that currently the business traveller has little
alternative to the city centres' five-star hotels
as the other hotels offer little in the way of
comfort or amenities. There seems to be
general agreement (Lockwood, 1993; Travel
Industry Monitor, 1999; Travel and Tourism
Intelligence, 2000; Trew, 1997) that what is
needed in the two main cities are acceptable
three-star hotels, and business standard
hotels in the regions. Clearly there are plenty
of large hotel properties which were
developed under the communist regime, but
to renovate these would involve a large
investment. Trew (1997) reports that in the
hotel sector relatively few joint venture
projects have been set up despite apparent
enthusiasm for foreign investment on the
Russian side and strong interest from many
international hotel groups anxious to
establish a presence in this important
potential market ``many potential foreign
investors and operators say that the
environment is just'' too difficult ``and note
the marked reluctance on the Russian side to
relinquish any control or succumb to western
branding or foreign management'' (Trew,
1997, p. 32). These problems, coupled with the
challenging legal system in respect of
property ownership, complicated taxation,
issues, and the bureaucratic difficulties
involved in securing a site for development
has made foreign parties more guarded and
cautious of the Russian marketplace.
Research methodology
In-depth interviews were conducted with
17 expatriate managers, based on their
[ 268 ]
experiences working as transitional
managers in the multinational hotel sector in
Moscow and St Petersburg. The number
chosen was a compromise between obtaining
a representative sample and the resources
and time available for the study. It was
therefore seen as relevant that all the
companies were from the same sector when
this kind of relatively small sample is used.
This of course should also be seen as a
limitation when making generalizations.
The interviews were conducted between
April and June 2000 in London, Moscow,
St Petersburg and Edinburgh. To be included
in the sample the hotels had to be five-star
rating multinationals with some foreign
interest on the basis of a management
contract, strategic alliance, joint venture,
franchise or part ownership. In total 25
expatriates were contacted by the author via
e-mail, letter and phone, 14 of whom were
able to assist with the research. In addition, a
snowball technique was used to contact an
additional three expatriate managers. Thus
the total sample size was 17 expatriates,
representing five hotel properties and three
different western multinationals.
Interviewees were asked to talk freely
about examples of the attitudes, values and
working practices that they encountered on
assignment in Russia. Each example given
was probed in terms of the main management
and leadership challenges they encountered.
Each interview lasted between one and a
half and three hours. The author followed a
thematic analysis approach (Boyatziz, 1998)
when examining the data. Thematic analysis
is a process for encoding qualitative data to
identify themes and develop a code
inductively against which to analyse the
data. A data-driven approach to code
construction was utilised allowing the
author to ``stay as close to the data as possible
and interpret the meaning of the data from
within the words'' (Boyatziz, 1998, p. 30).
The validity of the data was checked during
the interview stage by re-presenting what the
respondents said for verification and
thereafter by sending the full transcripts to
the interviewees for verification and
comment, and by allowing key respondents
to read the final report (Kvale, 1996).
The findings follow, with reference
throughout to actual respondents' quotes to
clarify and amplify.
The Russian model
The first group of hotels, referred to
henceforth as the Russian model, was
characterised by a strong Russian
Norma D'Annunzio-Green management team within the hotels, a
An examination of the history of Russian ownership and western
organizational and interest in the form of a management
cross-cultural challenges
facing international contract. The majority of staff in these hotels
hotel managers in Russia were Russian nationals but an agreement was
International Journal of in place whereby for every Russian executive
Contemporary Hospitality manager there was a western counterpart.
Management
14/6 [2002] 266±273 This system operated effectively in the early
years of the contract being established when
there were 40 western managers employed.
This has diminished over the years and has
reduced to a third of the above figure.
Respondents described the working culture
as being paternalistic and hierarchical, a
control-based approach to management with
indifferent and sometimes hostile attitudes
toward transitional managers. Host country
policies and procedure predominated and the
management style was seen to be a constraint
to effective managerial leadership, stemming
from years of a control based culture where
lack of initiative was acceptable and it
was customary to follow unquestioning
instruction from the top. As a result, the staff-
management relationships and attitudes of
managers towards subordinates was
generally considered very poor. The open
management style to which many of the
respondents were accustomed was
subordinated to a situation where there
would be very little communication with
Russian managers, one of whom walked
round the hotel constantly flanked by two
body guards. The hierarchical structure that
the Russian staff are accustomed to was
noted as being very different from prevailing
practice in western cultures and required an
adjustment in mindset from both the
managerial and line staff perspective,
illustrated by the following quote:
A Russian general manager walks into a room
and it is like God has entered a church. So
when an expatriate suddenly takes off their
jacket and starts moving tables around, well,
they [the staff] are surprised. But it works
because they copy you and say ± he does that
well so we can do better than him!
The paternalistic attitude was also
demonstrated by the staffing levels. One
respondent explained that the staffing levels
were high due to the low rates of pay, the
problems in making people redundant and,
most of all, the social responsibility to keep
staff in jobs. However these higher staffing
levels were not necessarily productive from a
service point of view, demonstrated by the
following comment:
In London we would staff our breakfast
operation with half the number of people you
would have in Moscow for the same size and
quality of hotel. But staff get bored and lazy . . .
most of the time the staffing levels are
counterproductive.
Staff benefits were another example of
paternalism. The basic salary for host
country national is low, on average $250 per
month. The benefits package was good
however, with benefits such as fully funded
kindergarten in the hotel for working
mothers, fully funded trips for school
children to Greece or Cyprus, food available
to staff at cost price, in-house dentist and a
team of four doctors in the hotel for staff, on
call on a 24-hour basis.
On the negative side, however, the culture
of control was evidenced by the strictness of
rules and regulations in the hotels. Staff were
generally very scared of losing their jobs so
would generally comply with rules,
regulations and management style. Part of
the employees' salary was paid as a bonus, so
if a staff member was late or disrespectful to
a manager or had participated in unethical
behaviour such as cheating or stealing, their
salary could be reduced by as much as half.
This system and the behaviour it was
introduced to reduce was found to be a
challenge for the expatriates due to the
complete contrast with normal working
practice in the home country.
The attitude of local staff and managers
towards the expatriates was also challenging
from a managerial leadership point of view.
There was a distinct lack of trust initially
and a negative attitude towards their
presence in the hotel. There were constant
communication issues due to the large
distance maintained between the expatriate
managers and the local Russian managers.
The Russian managers were in general very
polite towards the expatriates, but beyond
this cursory politeness there was no ongoing
professional communication. The expatriates
described this attitude as being characterised
by a subconscious and sometimes more
explicit belief that the presence of the
expatriates was unnecessary. One expatriate
explained:
Officially we are part of the team but
unofficially the message is that they don't
really want us (expatriates) around. They are
a very proud race and have difficulty with the
idea that there is any need for a foreigner to
tell them what to do. For this reason the
working relationships were very strained at
times and needed very delicate handling.
This resulted in their scope for strategic or
tactical contribution being limited beyond
the level of basic operational expertise and
knowledge.
The US model
The US model is characterised by three main
areas:
[ 269 ]
Norma D'Annunzio-Green 1 a strong identification with company
An examination of the culture;
organizational and 2 tolerance of and ambivalence towards
cross-cultural challenges
facing international transitional managers; and
hotel managers in Russia 3 a predominance of home country policies
International Journal of and procedures.
Contemporary Hospitality
Management The company was taken over by its current
14/6 [2002] 266±273
US parent in 1997 also under a management
contract. Initially, the company sent in a task
force of 30 staff to set up and re-structure the
hotel. Of the expatriates, 75 per cent were
American. Now the majority of the 23
remaining expatriates are European and
many have experience of working in other
countries. The management style could be
described as open American, the systems and
policies operate as if in any other country in
the company's world-wide hotel network.
The hotels have a portfolio of training
courses available to staff as they would in
any other country, in areas such as customer
care, management and supervisory
development, performance appraisal and
even empowerment. As may be expected, the
managerial leadership challenges
experienced by these managers were
different to the previous model.
The respondents experienced ongoing
problems with the strong US culture that was
imposed on the hotels which brought with it
both strengths and weaknesses. Strengths
were that the expatriates felt more or less
comfortable and knowledgeable with the
service standards which were being installed
and the reasoning behind then, but many of
them questioned the issue of cultural fit:
It makes you question why we do things
which we wouldn't question before, suddenly
in such a different setting our accepted ways
of doing things don't make nearly as much
sense.
One of the key company values is a
commitment to service quality and the way
that this is implemented to achieve
consistent customer care through ongoing
training and development is a difficult
managerial issue, particularly regarding
service standards, as illustrated by the
following:
You can train people as much as you like, but
if they don't have the right attitude to service
you will never achieve the same attention to
service detail, we would try to train staff to
smile at the guests and they would say ``we
are an honest race, if we smile and we are not
happy then we are being hypocritical''. How
do you convince someone to be a hypocrite!!
I had never thought about this before.
The struggle to maintain service standards
was an ongoing source of frustration for the
expatriates because, despite having invested
in all the tools, they were still not achieving
[ 270 ]
the desired level of service. The very low
labour turnover experienced here resulted in
a stagnation of skills and attitudes in certain
areas that could have been improved by the
ability to recruit new blood, new ideas and
staff whose attitude to service may be easier
to develop. The different attitude towards
service dates back to Soviet times when the
buyer was never in a stronger position than
the seller, as goods were consistently in short
supply. In Soviet days all services such as
transportation, planes and buses were
provided virtually free so Russians would
never complain about the service they
received, no matter how abrupt and
unfriendly it may have been. This attitude
to service still predominates, and trying to
encourage the service operator to
acknowledge the guest as being the most
important person in the service equation is
difficult, particularly for older staff who are
particularly resistant to the western concept
of service.
Russians are not renowned for customer
service. The customer traditionally did what
he or she was told. We find that younger staff
under 30 find it relatively easy to adapt to the
service standards we are trying to achieve but
older staff are much more entrenched in their
attitudes. I asked an experienced waiter to do
something for the guest the other day and he
said ``OK, I will do it for you'' I said ``No you
are doing it for the guest, not me''. But after a
while you accept this and they carry on doing
it for you because you are a good manager
and treat them with respect.
This quote also emphasises the Russian
management style with its emphasis on
personal favours, illustrated by the idea that
the staff will perform for the manager as
opposed to the guest.
The staff had participated in a training
course which introduced them to the key
principles of empowerment and gave them
the chance to practice using role plays.
There is an ambivalent acceptance of this as
opposed to any degree of animosity or real
understanding or questioning of the
concept:
We go through the motions but we are trying
to run before we can walk ± we need to get the
basics right first and one of the most basic
pre-conditions of empowerment is a
commitment to customer service.
The final challenge related to local staff
attitudes towards the respondents. On the
one hand, staff accepted them in the
knowledge that many of the hotel's
international customers expected to deal
with an international manager and that they
were, in the main, well respected for their
expertise. This was balanced by the more
negative view that competent local staff's
Norma D'Annunzio-Green career opportunities were being blocked by
An examination of the the policy of recruiting transitional
organizational and
cross-cultural challenges managers in key positions.
facing international
hotel managers in Russia
International Journal of The global model
Contemporary Hospitality
Management
The third model is referred to as the global
14/6 [2002] 266±273
model, characterised by a resigned and
willing acceptance of expatriates, a strong
global culture and investment and
commitment to a globalization policy. This
company strove to integrate expatriates with
local staff and minimise any perceived
distinctions. The company has had a
presence in Russia since 1991 in a joint
venture agreement, with ownership two
thirds in favour of the Russian partner. From
the early days of the joint venture, the
expatriate respondents, two of whom had
worked there from 1991, stressed the
emphasis on development of host nationals
throughout the hotels, alongside a proactive
approach to using expatriates for
development and control purposes in the
Russian properties. Contrary to what
normally happens in this sort of
international arrangement, the expatriates
explained that in the early days of the joint
venture they were given a free reign to
develop policies and procedures with little
interference from head office on the basis
that:
Support was always available but they
[head office] knew that we had a greater
understanding of the issues and needs of the
property and the people than they did in the
first few years.
A clear part of the expatriates' remit early on
was to bring the Russian property closer to
western ways of working and to develop the
competencies and attitudes of staff. Now,
however, the focus has changed to more of a
global strategy where:
. . . the way we go about business in Russia,
the way we train our staff in Russia and the
attitude of our staff in Russia is more similar
to that of our global subsidiaries than ever
before.
This global perspective has taken a lot of
hard work in terms of training and
management commitment. The company has
a belief in a localization policy if at all
possible from a human resource and business
perspective:
It benefits both our Russian staff, our other
staff and our international and Russian
customers.
This policy is apparent throughout the
company and illustrated by an attitude
whereby:
. . . we are actively trying to move away from
an Anglo Saxon person working as a manager
in France or Russia. If we can put a Russian in
Germany or an Italian in the UK then we will.
One of the distinctive key challenges cited by
these expatriates from a managerial
perspective is resourcing staff. The hotel now
employ staff from three main sources:
. unemployed people from other industries
looking for any position, who may have no
service skills or competence in foreign
languages;
. young graduates in hospitality related
subjects or other degree disciplines from
domestic colleges or universities; and
. international graduates from abroad.
Clearly the training and development needs
of these three groups differ greatly. The
majority of staff now come from the first two
areas and require much training and
development to bring them up to the desired
levels of competence. For this reason training
is a top priority, with the hotel employing a
training manager, departmental trainers in
each department and a full-time English
teacher. The hotel also regularly uses a local
training consultant to assist with training
provision in certain areas. They discuss the
early days of the joint venture when there
was a vast resource of over qualified staff
availability:
Russians at that time could earn more
working with us than they could working as a
doctor or dentist ± the money attracted them
to us but more so the prestige of working with
a western company ± people with very high
levels of education were willing to be
doormen!
This has changed over the years, however,
with more western companies present in
Russia and therefore more companies
competing for the best resources and an
increase in the number of Russians going
abroad for educational purposes. This has
resulted in different recruitment criteria
more similar to the western model in terms
of recruiting staff on the basis of attitudes,
enthusiasm and ability and willingness to
work hard. Another resourcing managerial
challenge was a high labour turnover, felt to
be due to the high level of investment in
training and development resulting in staff
being headhunted. Given these constraints,
the attempts at strengthening their global
culture and developing local staff have been
difficult, with the main development tool
being exposure to other properties outside
Russia which is obviously a difficult, time-
consuming and costly process. The company
strives to use this exposure to other cultures
as part of its localization policy, sending staff
[ 271 ]
Norma D'Annunzio-Green to regional and head office placements as
An examination of the well as operating an active temporary global
organizational and
cross-cultural challenges transfer system for all levels of staff who may
facing international be interested:
hotel managers in Russia The international exposure enables the
International Journal of expatriates to adjust easier as the local
Contemporary Hospitality Russian managers are more aware of the
Management
company culture and have themselves been
14/6 [2002] 266±273
exposed to other ways of working. While the
benefits of this approach are clear we must be
careful not to push staff too quickly ± the
development process takes time and you have
to be patient.
Exposing the staff to other cultures and
different attitudes to customer care and
service is felt to have resulted in
strengthening the transfer and application of
learning to the Russian workplace and the
expatriates discussed the very positive
impact that this had on the local staff,
describing them as:
. . . among the best employees I have worked
with in terms of attitude and approach to
training ± and I have worked in many
different countries.
Evidence of the success of this company's
approach is reflected in the following: of the
38 expatriates who opened this hotel, only 11
remain, the others having being replaced by
local nationals who have all been promoted
through the ranks from junior positions.
Conclusion
The research has shown that western
management practices cannot be uniformly
applied in Russia due to very different
cultural and organizational working
environments. These different environments
have been seen to be characterised by: a
predominance of host country values and
attitudes in the Russian model; a
predominance of home country attitudes and
working practices in the US model; and some
attempt to maximise the synergy of both
home and host country perspectives by the
global model. Transitional managers in each
multinational have been forced, in each case,
to adapt their management style to try to
achieve a better fit with the work
environment in which they were placed.
These different work environments were
characterised by hesitance to take initiative,
different accepted communication methods
and a more autocratic style of management.
There was also a need to develop more
customer orientation and less risk averse
cultures to improve competitiveness and
service standards. The managers each had
their own ways of dealing with the
challenges, including the need to invest time
[ 272 ]
to develop trusting relationships with local
staff and managers, and the need to develop a
better understanding of the cultural
differences that existed in order to manage
these better. These coping strategies are the
subject of another paper (D'Annunzio-Green,
2002) and illustrate the need for flexibility
and resilience as two key competencies
leading to more successful transition.
The three models expose the difficulties
in generalising about the challenges of
working in Russia. The issues experienced by
the expatriates are very different and appear
to be dependent upon the organizational
culture and structure of both parties, the
predominant management style, the
ownership of the hotels and the perception of
local Russian staff towards foreign managers.
In the global model it is clear that the use of
progressive and resource intensive human
resource management policies were a crucial
lever, whereas in the Russian model the very
strong bond with tradition was a barrier to
change. An understanding of these factors
will enable transitional managers to adjust
their managerial behaviour in order to
achieve best fit rather than necessarily best
practice in an international work setting ± it
is this perceived compromise which is
particularly challenging.
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