Reforming the Russian Industrial Workplace ─ International Management Standards Meet the Soviet Legacy

Based on extensive original research, this book explores how far Soviet patterns of industrial workplace organisation, characterised by high levels of management discretion and authoritarian control and punitive methods on the shop floor, have been replaced by a more international approach, with a greater emphasis on a lean organisation which involves employees in product quality and improvement. The book outlines how the market reforms of the 1990s led to a greater emphasis on product quality but without a change in management methods, and how the increased internationalisation of the Russian economy in the 2000s did begin to bring about some changes in some companies. The book includes a rich in-depth study of different kinds of Russian companies, and argues that changes in approach, and a move away from Soviet era practices, are more likely to occur in multinational companies and those companies with strong incentives to implement and uphold international standards. The book also shows that, despite everything, some other companies continue with the old methods.

Elena Shulzhenko is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Business and Social Sciences at Aarhus University, Denmark