The Company They Keep: Some Observations on Russian Management

In recent remarks delivered at Harvard University, Boris Brevnov, former Chief Executive Officer of Russian energy utility giant Unified Energy Systems (UES), noted that Russia's greatest challenge since 1991 has been learning how to manage its tremendous resources effectively. This comment highlights a critical component of the Russian economic transition process: the management of Russia's privatized or semiprivatized enterprises. This memo addresses four issues that influence the relative effectiveness of Russian companies' management: 1) strategy and innovation, 2) social costs, 3) external partnerships, and 4) the role of government. These observations come from visits in the spring of 1998 to ten companies in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod, conversations with top-level managers, and published sources. […]

Read full text (PDF)