Publisert: 25. juli 2010 Interesting differences

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	SEE YOU: Both President Joar Nyborg, TFoU and visiting researcher Marcin Staniewski looks forward to more cooperation.

Working life in Norway is significantly different from Poland, states visiting researcher Marcin Staniewski, who in these days ends his stay at Trøndelag Research and Development.
- The cultural differences are larger than I thought when I came to Norway, says Marcin Staniewski. This makes it difficult to conduct comparative studies, but has also been a learning experience in itself.

Av: Morten Stene

Marcin Staniewski, University of Finance and Management in Warsaw, Poland, are doing research on innovation management. He has been visiting researcher at Trøndelag Research and Development (TFoU) in spring 2010.

 

Staniewski has previously conducted a survey among Polish business leaders, asking about their way of working with innovations. The ambition has been to compare the findings with innovation management in Norway.

 

The Norwegian way…

- To obtain comparable data the plan was to use the same questionnaire as in Poland. But I soon got advice from my Norwegian colleagues to reduce the scope, said Staniewski and smiles.

 

- Another important experience has been to try out e-mail-based data collection. In Poland we do not have the possibilities yet, said Staniewski. It seems that the method also provides guidance for the design of the questions.

Staniewski had a wide scope when he invited Norwegian companies to participate. The response has been a little bit less than he hoped. But the data set is good enough to perform comparisons.

 

Interesting differences

- The Nordic way of doing innovation is exciting, says Marcin Staniewski. I have not explored the data yet, but it is obvious that knowledge management is different in Norway and Poland.

 

- The attitudes towards working life are different. In Norway you are better to prioritize privacy and family life over the job, said Staniewski. Maybe this has something to do with different labor markets. In Poland, unemployment is a social challenge, and one of the most important things for us is to take care of our jobs.

 

Different organizational cultures

- The organizational culture and the relationship between employees and managers are quite different in Norway and Poland.  In Poland leaders are very pushy, while in Norway management by objectives and self-management seems much more widespread, according to Staniewski. In Poland, there are much greater status differences between the workers and the managers.

 

More cooperation

- It has been both enjoyable and educational to have Marscin with us, says Joar Nyborg, TFoU. As spinoffs we have made agreements about research collaboration, student exchange and joint publishing. I guess that is international research cooperation.

- At the same time, we have learned that having joint projects would have generated even lager effects and better integration.

             

Les mer om:
Marcin Staniewski
Joar  Nyborg