Charting the Evolution of Russian Firms from Soviet “Producer Orientation” to Contemporary “Market Orientation”

Abstract

Customers in business-to-business transactions in the Soviet Union were dominated by suppliers who were in such superior positions that the situation facing customers might have been described as “supplier orientation,” with customers absorbing almost all risk as well as tolerating poor quality and irregular delivery. Economic changes in the last decade of the twentieth century introduced an outlook in Russian business which might be viewed as a form of “market orientation,” particularly among new types of firms represented by private ownership and privatized state-owned enterprises. However, political and economic turmoil characterized the Russian economy for most of that decade. This paper examines characteristics of Russian marketing management during this period including marketing orientation, innovation and aspects of organizational culture closely related to marketing management. Based on interviews with one hundred large Moscow firms in the late 1990s, the new kinds of organizational forms (privatized or private) hadmore entrepreneurial and less bureaucratic corporate cultures, but this difference did not carry over to improved performance. Firms that perform well were more market oriented, more competitive and less consensual in terms of corporate cultures, and more open and participative in terms of organizational climate.

Key Words:

• Privatization
• Russia
• Soviet Union
• corporate culture and climate
• innovativeness
• market orientation