Organizational Change: Towards a New East— West Comparison

Abstract

This paper contains some ideas intended to contribute to a rethinking of East— West comparative organizational research after the collapse of the Soviet-type economies. These ideas are presented in the first section and, in essence, they amount to a further elaboration of some points of complementarity between organizational economic and institutional theory which have emerged in recent debates in the West. In the second section, a reassessment of two East-West comparative frame works is proposed with the aim of highlighting two basic shortcomings. The first, common in the past, was that of exploring workers' behaviour through a 'workerist' perspective, the second, common today, is that of focusing on strategic management while neglecting what is happening on the shop-floor. In the concluding section, a new comparative framework is discussed which tries to address in an integrated manner the issues of efficient management, bureaucracy and entrepreneurship. This framework is informed by a modernist perspective which remains the most suited for an assessment of the legacy of 'fake modernity' left by state socialism, but also present in Western countries.