Features of Russian management: main approaches to their application in practice. Russian modern management and its features Approaches to understanding Russian management

Modern Russian management was formed under conditions of transition from an overly centralized, planned economy to a market economy, in a short time. It largely inherited the features of the previous administrative-command system. And this is quite natural. Many modern organizations, using new organizational and legal forms, were formed on the basis of former Soviet enterprises. Many key positions in them are occupied by managers raised in Soviet times.

At the same time, organizations - economic entities have been operating for several years in the conditions of a market, although still very inefficient Russian economy, and have acquired some of the most important features characteristic of subjects of market relations.

Significant impact on reform Russian management have had and continue to have very specific general economic factors, and above all:

  • - economic and political instability in the country;
  • - decline in industrial and agricultural production;
  • - high level of unemployment;
  • - high level of taxation of business entities;
  • - high level of inflation;
  • - low solvency of many organizations;
  • - imperfect and unstable legislative and regulatory framework for the functioning of the economy;
  • - the use by state and local authorities of models and solutions that are inadequate to the current conditions. In some cases, they reflect the experience of a stagnant period and the excessive rigidity of vertical hierarchies and administrative and bureaucratic structures; in others, on the contrary, they are characterized by excessive, unjustified liberalization. There is an ignorance by these bodies of the obvious primacy of horizontal system formation, self-government and thereby horizontal management, and their insufficient consideration modern trends in the development of socio-economic systems;
  • - corruption of government and local authorities economic regulation;
  • - chronic asymmetry information space, business information, which makes it extremely difficult to formulate transactions for the purchase and supply of goods and increases economic risk;
  • - underdevelopment of market relations, market infrastructure, information environment; high level of uncertainty and risks in the market for goods and services;
  • - high level of criminalization of the economy, vulnerability of entrepreneurs from criminal structures.

We can highlight some features of modern Russian management, namely:

  • 1) the predominance in organizations of vertical, formal connections and relationships, pyramidal, hierarchical organizational structures. Underestimation of horizontal connections and relationships, soft structures. Poor consideration of modern trends in the development of organizations and the use of new types of organizations - edhocratic, participative, market-oriented, etc.;
  • 2) the presence of a command system in many organizations. Their managers still suppress the initiative of their subordinates. Such a system prevents organizations from adapting to new economic conditions, and they are forced to mark time or go through bankruptcy proceedings;
  • 3) management’s desire to control its entire business, subordination of sales (its trading house), settlements (pocket bank), deliveries (up to all previous stages of component production). The fuller vertical integration The more complete the set of related productions is, the more confident the manager of the central business feels, because everything is under control. IN lately this trend extends to power - the largest corporations are actively sending their people to government bodies;
  • 4) managers senior management avoids delegating authority and responsibility to the second echelon of management; they strive to do everything themselves and personally control it. The reasons for this: distrust of subordinates, insufficient qualifications of the latter, but most importantly - the inability to effectively motivate hired managers. Research shows that best way Similar motivation is involvement in the business, vesting of shares in the business with a managerial block of shares, and where this is not possible, bonuses, payment of interest on profits. It is also important to draw perspective career growth, and be sure to combine this with a refresher course, especially since many Russian managers love to learn;
  • 5) managers to a small extent involve employees in managing organizations and departments in various forms. This does not allow us to adequately take into account the knowledge and experience of workers, who often know problems better than managers and see ways to solve them directly in production (commerce);
  • 6) blind copying of Western methods of doing business and managing an organization. The contribution of Western, primarily American, theorists and practitioners to the development of management is indisputable. However, it is unacceptable to formally transfer their ideas to Russian soil. Much of what is good in the USA or Germany is unacceptable for Russia. It is necessary to use only the best, taking into account the characteristics of the national economy;
  • 7) lack of flexibility among top management. Directors of many organizations tend to act out of habit and do not know how to respond flexibly to changes in external and internal factors influencing the situation of organizations, and therefore cannot take effective measures and decisions, adapt to new conditions;
  • 8) shifting responsibility to the government, the habit of hoping for state help, which has survived to this day. Many managers of organizations blame the president, the prime minister, or anyone else for their failures, believing that the state should be responsible for their helplessness and ignorance, for their inability to adapt to new situations. Of course, in Russia, organizations depend on the government, on laws that sometimes contradict each other, etc. However, the survival of organizations now depends almost entirely on who runs them and how they are run. If organizations are managed by knowledgeable, experienced managers who effectively use all available resources, including labor, then organizations will achieve stability regardless of what is happening in the country;
  • 9) poor knowledge and consideration by managers in economic activity Russian, regional and local legislative and regulatory acts, legal nihilism;
  • 10) lack of necessary established norms business ethics business, violations by entrepreneurs of basic ethical rules when carrying out business operations;
  • 11) lack of deep knowledge among managers of all ranks about the market, economics and management itself as a science of management. A small part of managers possesses this knowledge or strives to obtain it in order to use it in practice. Most of them work on the principle: the main thing is to earn as much as possible at any cost more money Today. This leads to the emergence of a huge number of fly-by-night companies that provide nothing to society, which negatively affects the building of a market economy;
  • 12) significant dependence of the conditions and remuneration of employees on relationships with managers, and not on their qualifications and work results - “feudalism of relations.” There is a lack of rights for hired workers, their “slave behavior” and the arbitrariness of management and officials. This is due to unemployment and low managerial culture and is most pronounced in small towns;
  • 13) disrespect for people and disregard for management ethics. It is no secret that people working in public and private organizations are considered by management to be “cogs” that can be thrown out and replaced with new ones at any time. Employees at all levels in many organizations are powerless and defenseless against the arbitrariness of management. Each of them can be fired without explanation or payment of earned money. Transactions, and therefore the money of the new employee, can be appropriated by management and divided between him and the main “backbone” of employees, etc. Deception and rudeness have become the norm of behavior for some leaders. This especially applies to the so-called “pulsating” companies, the specificity of which is the constant recruitment and dismissal of new employees after a short period of time without paying them;
  • 14) low level mechanization, automation and computerization management processes, although the level of informatization and computerization of domestic organizations in recent years has increased noticeably.

Despite the listed characteristics, Russian management is still in the stage of formation and development.

Features of Russian management

Today in Russia there have been significant changes in many public areas, including in the economic sphere. Particularly important are those transformations in management areas that occurred due to changes in the socio-economic system, the emergence of new requirements for the management of organizations, determined by market relations. At the same time, competent and qualified management is the basis for the success of the enterprise.

Features of modern Russian management

From the perspective of management today in Russia, three approaches to its application and understanding have been identified. The first approach is based on the intuition of entrepreneurs, since most managers of fairly large companies previously worked as programmers, teachers, doctors or engineers. Such managers did not study management theory and then apply it in practice. That is why all management decisions are made based on one’s own ingenuity and intuition. Therefore, such features of Russian management are typical for small and medium-sized businesses, which are characterized by simple financial and business transactions. Absolutely all innovations in this case come down to optimization or even minimization of taxation. Also in such enterprises there is rapid adoption of management decisions, high flexibility of economic policy, in which marketing comes down to finding the only right move.

Experience of Western management and the possibility of its application in Russia

Using the experience of Western companies that operate in Russian market, represents a second approach to understanding and applying domestic management. Features of Russian management can be presented within the framework of this approach in the form of the presence of design and technological delights (a specific type of office interiors, communications and computers, emphasized polite treatment on the part of managers).

"Soviet" management

This name is usually understood as management, used in management quite large enterprises Russia, which were created back in Soviet times. The peculiarities of Russian management with this approach are the exact copying of methods and decision-making procedures for enterprises industrial sectors, similar to Germany and the USA. They remain unchanged today (for example, joint stock companies).

Problems of Russian management

One of the most pressing problems of our time is low-quality management, as well as the lack of highly qualified managers. Therefore, in modern conditions It is advisable for Russia to use fundamental training and retraining of personnel. Also, great importance must be given to the development and implementation in practice of specialized programs aimed at anti-crisis management, which will allow the enterprise not to lead to bankruptcy.

We all very often hear what comes to us from English language the word “management”, literally translated as “administration, management”. Today there are a huge number of definitions of this term, and all of them are correct.

Management is a special kind professional activities a person who is focused on achieving his goals.

Management is a specific system of forecasting, planning, and organizing the production of goods or services aimed at making a profit in the future.

Like any other type of activity, management has its own characteristics. The Russian management system is undoubtedly different from the European one. This is due to many factors. In Russia, management appeared relatively recently; with the emergence of market relations and its development, (employees) and

Features of Russian management are:

  • extremely high speed the course of political and socio-economic processes in the country, which cannot but have a significant impact on all spheres of human activity;
  • a combination of factors that contribute to the development and strengthening of the management system or, conversely, hinder it;
  • special traits of a person.

The peculiarities of Russian management also lie in the fact that the very concept of “manager” in our country is very vague. In the narrow sense of the word, a manager is a manager, head of an enterprise, large company. In our country today this term means different type activities. IN Russian companies a secretary, an administrator responsible for minor paperwork, is also called a manager, which is not entirely correct.

In terms of the level of development of market relations, Russia lags behind Western countries by at least half a century. Today our country is going through the stage of development of market relations that Europe went through several decades ago. In Russia there is no such rich experience in managing enterprises in conditions of free competition as there is in the West, and therefore such problems of Russian management are noted as:

  • insufficient knowledge of demand. The demand for a particular product is determined only by achieving the final result of the activity;
  • lack of long-term business development goals;
  • absence independent assessment activities of Russian managers;
  • lack of a leadership reserve school, corruption, inability to achieve the desired result of one’s entrepreneurial activity without connections in high circles, cash etc.

The peculiarities of modern Russian management are most evident in four main factors:

  • infrastructure and socio-economic conditions of its existence;
  • setting priority tasks and directing efforts towards their implementation;
  • a set of measures aimed at developing the sphere of management in Russia;
  • a feature of social consciousness, the change of which requires a very long period of time.

Today, many managers of Russian enterprises are trying to adopt the management experience of Western companies, which does not always end well. It should be understood that some laws and management rules that successfully work in Europe are completely unsuitable for working in Russian conditions. Features of Russian management are considered as the main distinctive feature in managing a company in Russia and the West. A person who grew up in our country and received Russian education, has its own approach to solving a particular problem, reacts in its own way to various situations, which creates certain difficulties in following Western This does not mean that one should completely abandon the experience of developed countries in the field of management and look for new ways from scratch. Taking into account all the main features of Russian management, thoroughly studying the experience of a country that has leapt far ahead in the field of management, one can be very successful in many areas of activity available Russian entrepreneur and the manager.

Management as a type of management in a liberal economy can and should be used in the conditions of reforms and further economic development of Russia.

The model of Western management should not be transferred in its pure form to Russian reality. It is necessary to take into account specific specifics and look for a combination of the general and the special. Only this can give a real effect.

IN Russian history and in reality, there are many factors both conducive to the use of management experience and complicating its understanding and practical implementation. It is necessary to make a balanced assessment of what hinders and favors management in Russia.

1. Regional-political aspect of economic development Russia creates management difficulties. Economic ties turn out to be highly dependent on political processes, complicate communications, create an atmosphere of fear when investing, sometimes there is a clear exaggeration of national-regional goals and economic features, and centrifugal tendencies. The processes of development of market mechanisms occur unevenly across different regions.

But at the same time, there is a developed inclination towards charity and sponsorship in Russia. IN difficult situations During the transition period, it plays a certain role in solving problems of management reconstruction.

2. In management important role professionalization of management plays a role, which is determined primarily by the training of managers, economists, and financiers. In Russia the training system professional personnel Managers, despite its rapid development, are still at the stage of formation and search for the content of this specialty, as well as methods for their training.

However, there is a good tradition in the Russian education system that can speed up the process of training managers and work towards the high quality of their education. This is a decades-old tradition of focusing on fundamental training, on scholarship vocational education in contrast to the purely pragmatic training that exists in many Western countries.

3. Each country develops its own traditions in organizational culture. This manifests itself in relation to certain types of organization. The most noticeable features of organizational culture in the world are in Germany and Japan. Russia also has its own organizational culture, which has developed historically and which leaves its mark on modern management. Western and Russian organizational cultures often collide in Russian management. But there is also a quality of Russian culture that contributes to management. This is a high scientific and intellectual potential, which is recognized throughout the world and which can play a positive role in the understanding of management and its effective use. After all, the more deeply a person is able to understand what he needs to do, the better he will do the job.

4. Current state The Russian economy is characterized by a deformed structure. Our national economy has many highly concentrated industries, economic complexes, and military-industrial complex enterprises. But until now, small and medium-sized businesses remain undeveloped. Much in management depends on the structure of the economy. However, we also have good experience state regulation of the economy. If it is used in accordance with the new tasks of reforming the economy and management, it can give the necessary effect and contribute to the formation of a new management. One must be able to use experience, understanding its positive and negative sides. This is relevant for us now.

5. There are also previous traditions of a technocratic approach to management in Russia., which is characterized by a shift in the focus of the manager’s attention to problems of engineering and production technology to the detriment of solving specific problems of economic and socio-psychological motivation. This is management that is not balanced economic factors development, contributing to the strengthening of the administrative approach to solving problems. The manager is the commander of production, and everything must work like clockwork for him. At the same time, our experience in mastering high technologies and managing these processes cannot but be useful in building a new management. The development of high technologies depends on management, and if we were able to master these technologies, then our management experience contains those features that are necessary in the management of scientific and technological progress.

6. In economic development, our country is rapidly moving towards market economy, but one way or another we are still experiencing a transitional period when both old and new management methods exist and operate. This also creates certain difficulties for management. But the spirit of enterprise has not disappeared over many years of command and control management. It flared up with renewed vigor in the processes of economic reforms and plays a very important role in the establishment of management as a type of management. After all, there can be no management without enterprise and entrepreneurship.

7. The Russian mentality is also characterized by certain features in solving problems, their choice, approaches, reactions to certain situations. It differs from the Western one and affects the use of Western management models, while creating certain difficulties. But there are also qualities in our mentality that are well consistent with the ideas of management and meet the conditions of this type of management. We mean the need for purposefulness, an understanding of the mission. Much in the history of Russia contributed to the consolidation of this property in the Russian mentality. Today it must play its role in economic reform and improved governance.

Modern management has a number of general and specific features depending on the conditions of its formation and development. The general features include the socio-economic formation, economic model, level of scientific and technological development.

The specific features are: the national specificity of society, historically established features of its development, natural and geographical conditions, cultural factors and other factors.

The history of Russian management is closely connected with the history of the country itself. National management cannot arise out of nowhere; it developed naturally in the process of development of our country, and its origin has deep roots in history. Based on this, blindly copying Western or Eastern experience in relation to Russia poses many intractable problems. The reason for this is that the mentality of the Russian person has always been determined by polarity, inconsistency, and taking every situation to the extreme.

Features of the modern domestic management system

One of the features is the absence of optimization requirements, which makes the control system infantile; it does not need to change, since it can work with any output. The information base about costs and results becomes unnecessary, and the manager is deprived of the main tool for identifying places where there is a mismatch between all components of the system. As a result, changes are random in nature and often have no effect on the final result.

Another feature of the management system in Russia is related to the fact that it has never been installed key factor success, the main strategic advantage, without achieving which it is impossible to survive. There was no such tradition, there was no need, and the skills to do this work were not formed.

It is natural that managers use disparate “improvements” that do not produce tangible results. Often the focus is on increasing sales volume, believing that an increase in production volume can always be ensured, i.e. the starting point is clearly external, but the logic in reality is different. Knowing what is valued by the consumer ensures the production of products of appropriate quality, which proper organization implementation and will increase sales. So, external actions are reinforced by internal ones.

Last feature Russian system management is directly related to organizational culture. In the socialist economy, organizational culture was actively used, it perfectly supported ineffective decisions and actions carried out in the name of well-being in the future. She developed pride in our “successes” and her “advanced enterprise.” The rejection of these values ​​has caused an increase in social tension, a decrease in motivation and initiative for high productivity, and a crisis of confidence.

Approaches to understanding Russian management

In understanding domestic management, there are three approaches:

  1. Creation concept Russian theory management, which comes from taking into account the specifics of the Russian mentality using aspects foreign experience management. At the same time, it is impossible to blindly copy Western or Eastern experience, as well as completely reject the achievements of Western and Eastern schools of management. Both the first and the second are equally inapplicable. Based on this, management in Russia should be filled with its own specific content, form and management methods that correspond to the specifics of the mentality.
  2. An approach that determines that one should not exaggerate domestic specifics; it is necessary to take a ready-made management model and use it in management, since the processes of scientific and technological progress are the same in all countries. This approach does not take into account the peculiarities of the Russian mentality. To master the theory, you only need to translate Western textbooks into Russian. And then, without changing anything, use their provisions in practice. The likelihood of this concept being put into practice is quite high due to its simplicity and the habit of mindlessly copying the experience of the West. Note that it also carries serious danger. Suffice it to recall the use of the concept of “shock therapy”, theories of “monetarism”, and voucherization, which are not adapted to Russian conditions.
  3. The concept of adaptation of Western management theories, which involves partial consideration of the peculiarities of the Russian mentality, is not blind copying, but rather the adaptation of Western theories to the conditions of our country. However, the main problem that arises is which of the Western management theories will be adapted. The management systems of the USA, Japan and Western Europe differ significantly from each other. Let us note that with any choice we risk applying a theory that takes into account the specific features, conditions of economic and social development of these countries, and the mentality of their population. The result may be that the adapted theory, which poorly takes into account the specifics of reality in Russia, will not be able to give the domestic economy what is expected of it.

There are many studies of Russian management conducted by domestic and foreign researchers.

The most famous of them was held in the mid-90s. Wharton Business School (USA) within the framework of the GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organization Behavior Effectiveness) project. This study was based on empirical data from a theory that explains the influence of national culture on the effectiveness of behavior in organizations. At the same time, as key characteristics business leader and management used the same parameters for comparison as in G. Hofstede’s model. The result of the study was the “profile Russian manager"(Table 1).

Table 1 - Profile of a Russian manager

The crisis at the end of the 90s played a positive role in the development of the Russian managerial class. Main competitive advantage became the level of professional preparedness of the company's management team. Consequently, the idea of ​​domestic management has changed a little, and its advantages are:

  • having a penchant for innovation,
  • taste for risky activities and games,
  • self-criticism,
  • ambition,
  • tendency to be unselfish in helping,
  • desire to learn.

The disadvantages of management in Russia are its politicization, derogatory attitude towards one’s country and oneself, wastefulness and squandering of time, greed and self-centeredness; wide-ranging. Domestic projects are characterized by a regional approach to the study of features, due to the fact that Russia is a huge and multinational country, and depending on the region, the management of a company differs significantly.

Domestic researchers highlight the main features of Russian management:

  • participation of regional administrations in the formation of management teams of companies;
  • semi-legal regulation of activities;
  • the power of informal relationships;
  • widespread use of force methods;
  • diversification of activities and high risk appetite;
  • lack of skills for regular and painstaking work;
  • desire for unique and large-scale projects involving a large number of human and material resources;
  • the desire to eliminate the practice of delegation of authority from the highest level to the lowest;
  • indifference to career values;
  • high level of centralization of management functions (clanism in business).

On at the moment This is not a complete list of factors characterizing modern Russian management. Let us note that domestic researchers look at the problems of Russian management differently than foreign ones.

Modern management in Russia is still far from the parameters set by globalization at all levels: from an individual enterprise to society as a whole. But the years of market reforms have laid positive preconditions for the formation of market principles of management and another generation of managers with new attitudes and views. They can establish and organize a business, sign deals, manage wisely, know ways to reduce the cost of production and the volume of goods, look for suppliers and consumers. They care about their own image and reputation. Typically, this is a highly educated class, where two higher education or a PhD is not uncommon. Most of them studied at prestigious universities abroad and completed an internship in a successful company. This class has its own associations, associations, alliances and initiates through them the solution of local, regional and national problems, the state is obliged to take into account the new class, and society is obliged to comprehend this new phenomenon of life.

Conclusion

So, in conclusion, it can be noted that management in Russia at the present stage is characterized by a creative understanding of foreign experience, taking into account the specifics of our country, that is, it is a synthesis of international experience effective management and domestic experience, existing on the basis of the national-historical specifics of our culture.