When asking about the exemplary manager, we found only one firm where the chief was praised unambiguously by the lower management. One manager said that his boss was a good manager because he knew how to build a team, to have great relations and not to have any rivalries. Everybody gives their all to the team, working at least from 8:30 in the morning till 9:00 in the evening. The other person celebrated his manager because that manager "understood that the business should be done by the local people who knew the market."

The American advisors assigned to this firm were extremely critical of the management, however. Their criticism was similar to what I have already discussed. The advisors recognized the management's energy, but couldn't find anything exemplary. They couldn't identify anything they learned from the local management. One intern praised the management's energy, but they "needed to take a step back and see what they were doing and focus in on and pay attention to some of the details of running an operation". Their business was growing so fast that the management team didn't "have control right now of all the aspects of the business, have the control that they ought to." They also didn't listen. This concern over openness is a common basis for praise, or criticism, of East European managers by those who would advise them. Another intern said,

The managers ... would get sometimes frustrated in some situations... they weren't as open in sometimes talking about some issues. They sometimes believed their way was maybe the right way, and they weren't very open to getting some comments... A few times we suggested, well, have you ever thought of this? And, instead of listening and maybe working with us, they kind of would listen in for a few minutes and then say, "No no no that's not our way. Won't work in our market."

As if to emphasize how unreasonable this was, she compared them to other managers.

(The others) were very friendly, very open. Very much wanting to learn. If we had any information to share with them, they wanted it. I mean whether it was right, wrong, whatever, I mean, they wanted to see it first, and talk about it with us, and ... they would say, Well what do you think? Do you think this is right for our market? Even though I'd only been there for like [laughs a little here] two weeks. So I found that very refreshing."

It is difficult to assess how 'typical' this setting would be. The indigenous management team being critiqued had grown up in socialism's "second economy" together. They were almost like family. Their business was growing very rapidly. One manager said that their success was enough to answer a question about managerial accomplishment. He said that in the first three months of their operation, they had nearly three times more output than their predecessor had in the previous year. And then in the following year, they were asked to double their production, a task they accepted from the parent firm. And they nearly doubled that. Rather than focus on techniques or methods for demonstrating competence, this manager pointed to results. The advisors took this very condition and pointed out that the rapid growth could hide their managerial inadequacies.

	Thinking Point
	Do you agree or disagree with the manager who claimed that mixing locals and expatriates makes for a less effective team? Why?

The East European manager attributed the success of their firm to the fact that an East European ran the firm. Expatriates are poor in this job, because it takes a lot of time to understand the mentality of the market, and during that time, they make a lot of mistakes, and have a hard time recovering from them. He specifically recalled his parent firm's mistake to rely on an expatriate manager to estimate the size of the potential market. They radically underestimated what could be done. From that and his previous experience, he drew some general lessons:

1) When locals and expatriates are mixed, the team is less effective in part because there are very different time horizons.

Having both foreign and local managers create problems which is like a division of the team. To some degree you always see them as outsiders, who are just coming... to do, you know, something, you know, (that has a) higher priority. But at the same time they are not seen as the long-term partners or long-term colleagues... But at the same time, because I said they are seeing themselves higher, this uh--the team does not, I think, uh cooperate. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so....

2) In these mixed teams, condescension is typical even when claims to competence are dubious:

Sometimes the expatriates see themselves as the teachers for (the locals)... I know that probably the, the business knowledge of Americans, of Westerners is bigger than the East Europeans, in, in some areas. But at the same time, the understanding of mentality, or even the contact with clients are not compatible. I mean you can't compare what the expats can do and what the locals can do.

3) The global corporation is too much like the past: there is no responsibility because everyone is too much obliged to the narrow vision of their own department, and too dependent on those higher up:

So even if they understand me, they are not independent, this is the problem. So, we should have support from the top management. I think, uh, they're always...this is always a problem with a big company. They are not flexible. .... people work for the big company, but they work for their department. This is the problem, so...I work for my boss, and I...if he comes to me and says I have no problems, for me this is the most important thing. So, therefore I cannot agree with people from outside, even if they introduce logical arguments, but, OK, but my boss wants me to have a product. Some of the processes are, reminds us of 40 years of the communists. I mean...it cannot be compared, because they are completely different systems. But something that can occur in a big corporation happened in the past in our country.

4) The global corporation needs a different strategy for its support of indigenous firms:

(At the same time) I feel that we don't have enough support in the beginning from our parent company.... I mean assistance, some kind of set-up procedures, things like that. And it doesn't have to be done with another manager who works with the company. Could be done to some degree as a consultant, or someone who stays for a month or two or three, whatever, just to help and, you know, maybe give some advice. But not being seen as a decision maker.... an outsider. Just to maybe help us, to help create the system. To put the, uh, procedures in motion. To establish criteria for, uh, you know, for getting your clients..... And but, but this is not a big problem.

Contesting this interpretation, one of the firm's American advisors complained that the company insisted on special treatment from the parent company when in fact that special treatment wouldn't be necessary if they had the right kind of expertise and were more careful in collecting data. More generally, this American found that the indigenous management was "stubborn and pig-headed" when it came to dealing with the parent company. He found that they thought they could do it all on their own, but they couldn't. From that he took a general lesson about the relationship between the parent company and smaller countries:

One thing that you learn is that they (the indigenous managers) really need to learn, the managers in them because you see how they react, because they really need to be explained things in detail, to lead them along where they're going, and they need a charismatic leader, that they can trust. They don't need the financial people, I don't think that. Financial people, people who are not just willing to listen to them and also someone who has the strength to tell them when they are wrong, and that they respect, that is what's really required.

More critically,

One of the general lessons is that they need to learn to take care of their own house before they start complaining about what everyone else is doing to them. So, martyrdom is not a good call at all times. And, to work with the corporate office, you can't always just keep saying what's wrong or else crying "wolf" too much can ruin your credibility.

This particular set of interviews was among our most interesting precisely because it offered very different perspectives on what managerial accomplishment meant, and how that was dependent on the kind of expertise and reference groups ones enjoyed. In this case, the East European invoked their success, the weakness of multinational bureaucracy, and an expertise based on a fusion of local knowledge with global business practices. In many ways, they embodied the realization of transition culture's promise. On the other hand, their critics could identify particular weaknesses in the way that manager worked, and especially criticized his blaming the parent firm. Indeed, his Western critics could return to the socialist model and invoke particular images from it to undermine the East European's claim to competence. To be "closed-minded" or unsophisticated in financial planning are all attributes of the socialist culture that are to be expunged.

	Thinking Point
	How might multinational corporations resemble state socialist firms in local markets?

The deviance of this case from my general analysis--the outright contest over claims to competence between foreign actors and successful local actors--suggests something extremely important about transition culture. Transition culture's assimilation of local culture and opposition to socialist culture is not only about demarcating who is in and who is out. It is also about building up narratives of accomplishment and inferiority that, regardless of objective merits, can be used by differently positioned actors to identify who is best. Even in conditions of success, Westerners can undermine the claims of locals by identifying elements of that East European's practice that resemble the socialist past. If our East Europeans in this section are any example, however, East Europeans can also use the narratives of transition to bolster their own claims to competence. In a terrific inversion, they could argue that the multinational is inadequate before the emerging market economy. Socialist culture is not an East European disease, but the result of an organization out of touch with the local market's dynamics.

Although this was only one case, one might suggest that this is the case that anticipates the future. Indeed, it suggests the very dynamic some authors recognized in accounts of "corporate imperialism." They argue that the successful multinational firm will move away from asking how they can export current business models around the globe, and instead inquire into how emerging markets might require rethinking the price performance equation, brand management, the costs of market building, product design, packaging and capital efficiency. Most importantly, it will require rethinking where to look when looking for managerial talent.

Conclusions

Thinking about transition in terms of Bartók's artistic fusion of art and folk music is thus insightful but also misleading. The results of Bartók's fusion--magisterial compositions and performances before learned audiences--may be what East European managers and their Western advisors, or employers, would wish for their firm. But the market is not likely to be similarly cultivated as Bartók's principal audience. The firm's performers are unlikely to be so disposed to follow their boss as musicians their conductor. And there are few managers who can claim Bartók's distinction in recognizing the proper combination of elements. Everyone, however, might perform transition a bit better if one were to make explicit how transition is not only a political economic transformation affecting how firms behave, but also a cultural formation that bestows credentials on some and burdens on others.

It is broadly acknowledged, but rarely articulated, that East Europeans can move up the hierarchy of Western firms most easily when they avoid challenging Western presumption and flee their socialist past as quickly as possible. The East European manager who challenges global management practices risks being identified with the East European socialist past, whose identification with a national condition is always at risk. Identifying any manager with that socialist past would mark them as inappropriate for transition, and outside the future.

As fusion takes place, however, global privilege in transition culture ought to decrease. Indeed, the relative weighting of East European local knowledge ought to increase, and the claims to competence in assessing firm practices might rest more among East Europeans. One of the best markers of transition's completion may very well be when the West's claims to superior competence no longer invoke the rhetorics of an Eastern Europe defined by its socialist past. Or perhaps an even better marker of transition will be found when the East European bases his claim to superior competence on the traces of socialism to be found in the multinational corporation. And we have found that already.