Russian Management Training Programs: do corporate responsibility topics have a place?

Management Accounting Quarterly, Summer, 2004 by David S. Harrison, Patsy G. Lewellyn

What would trainees think about the importance of demonstrating strong ethics in employment interviews? The Institute of Management Accountants cites a Robert Half International survey, which states, "58% of chief financial officers said that other than ability and willingness to learn, the qualities that impress them most while interviewing a candidate are honesty and integrity." (6) Discussion can follow from either the employer or candidate side of these issues. This could lead to other human resource management topics.

All too often, we hear about how free enterprise ventures cannot compete in given markets and be "green." Or we hear that the need to attend to economic needs of developing economies must come first, with the social areas attended to later. These areas provide fruitful and provocative points of debate to incorporate with the traditional, skills-based business topics.

The above topics come to mind easily. It seems that introducing ethical areas is not the hurdle we thought it might be. Clearly these topics and associated discussions should be enough to animate even the dullest of Western business undergrads. Remember, in Russia we are generally working with (1) more mature individuals, (2) people with more deeply ingrained social consciousness levels, and (3) trainees often more eager to learn and participate because they see the potential results of moving ahead with successful businesses and the consequences of not doing so.

RUSSIAN CULTURE AND NATURAL RECEPTIVENESS TO CSR

Social and environmental concerns fit easily with Russian cultural norms and expectations because the Russian culture is more socially oriented than its Western counterparts. In Russia, working for the common good and individual sacrifice for the good of the group are culturally indoctrinated norms of expected behavior. Russians are used to operating at the group norm level, not individually. Sarov has a history in Russia as a special place whose sole purpose was to collectively work toward world peace. On the other hand, Russians find Western values--individuality, objectivism, self-interest, and that old "invisible hand"--a complicated and sometimes disillusioning set of principles that are hard to equate with the common good and socially responsible actions.

In terms of moral development, Russians arguably have reached a higher plane than more advanced economies. A modern adaptation of the original theory of moral development and behavior offered by Anne Colby and Lawrence Kohlberg explains moral development and behavior over six stages (see Figure 1). (7)

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

In stage one, the actor simply avoids punitive results. In the next stage, the actor's motivation is to obtain reward. This is the highest stage achievable for business organizations whose primary motivations are profit without regard for social and environmental costs. Although Western capitalism has operated at times as though this motivation is overarching, thankfully a growing trend in activism and investor awareness is making this stage a strategic disaster recognizable by most global managers. Certainly it is a worthwhile goal to prevent Russian business managers from "stalling" at level 2 while building a capitalist economy, especially as they have a long tradition of operating at a higher level of moral development from their work under a communist regime. One can see that certain strategic advantages are possible at level 3, where the actor considers the approval of others. When the business builds an awareness of and consideration for the expectations of the stakeholders of the organization, for example, strategic opportunities and the avoidance of potential disasters become possible.