Dioscuri Research Project
Eastern Enlargement – Western Enlargement
Cultural Encounters in the European Economy and Society after the Accession
DIOSCURI Final Conference
Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna
April 20-22, 2007
Ildikó Erdei and Kamil Mareš
FROM LOCAL TO INTERNATIONAL AND VICE VERSA –
COMPARING FIVE CASE STUDIES OF PRIVATIZATION IN FOOD AND DRINK
INDUSTRY
Work in Progress
Please do not cite or circulate without permission of the author
Only for conference discussion
Introduction – an analytical frame; local vs. international
The aim of the paper is to compare cases which deal with privatization processes in
food and beverages industry, within the research frame of Dioscuri project. Our preliminary
hypothesis is that the success could be explained as a combination of international and local
aspects of an organizational and business change in food and beverage industry enterprises.
We shall, firstly, introduce ideal type of historical sequence of privatization and
internationalization as we have derived it from seven cases described in five case studies of
the Dioscuri project1. Having outlined ideal historical sequence type of privatization in several
dimensions of the process, we present particular cases relating them to the proposed ideal type
scheme. The second part of the analysis will be devoted to more speculative analysis using
concepts of locality and internationality, and embedded and disembedded, to explain different
faces of the enterprises. Notions of these concepts will be briefly introduced in the first part of
the paper.
The basic idea leading us to formulate our main analytical concepts was the fact that
all the cases related with FDI [except a Romanian case, but here it will be purposefully used
as familiar, still in many respects different and particular case] are about foreign international
companies privatizing local enterprises.2 Enterprises concerned were different by scope, type
of industry, economic activities. Still, what is common to all of them is that all went through
privatization and reckon their privatization as successful. According to preliminary
comparisons between the cases of brewery privatizations, and informed by a recent empirical
research and theory on transition in Eastern and Central Europe (Verdery, 1991; Burawoy,
Verdery, 1999; Humphrey and Mandel, 2002; Dunn, 2004; Kovacheva et all 2005;
Tchalakov, 2005) which argue against simple transfer or import of foreign [western,
international] values, institutions and procedures, we started with assumption that the success
of the privatizations had to be related to the interrelation of global and local aspects of
organizational change. The beginning assumption was that the organizational change
observed and documented was marked by two interrelated, opposite but complementary
processes, which reveal different types of power and knowledge, and tend to produce different
discursive practices and representations, and of course produce various possible outcomes:
Bulai, Alfred. „The success of Romanian FDI enterprise”; Erdei, Ildiko. „The Success Story of Serbian
brewery: or How International Company out Local Brewery“; Mares, Kamil. „Czech Brewery: from Socialism
to Internationalism“; Mester, Tibor. „Takeover by privatisation in a Southern Hungarian Brewery 1993-2006”;
Topolic, Davor. „The Croatian brewing industry: Case study of two breweries“.
2
Although it is questionable whether this simple dichotomy could suffice to precisely and suficiently grasp the
complexities of the encounters, we shall spell out it at the beginning, and latter we will expand the analytical
frame, adding the „third“ possible aspect that is to be taken into consideration to better understand what was
happening in various empirical situations.
1
2
1. The power of the transnational [standardized] organizational structure and
practices, and their success in bringing about organizational changes [systemic
change, gradual change]. In the cases of brewery privatizations the power of the
transnational can be read as bringing of internationally recognized business culture, its
institutions, norms and values into the local firms and their respective communities.
2. The power of the local experiences and values– although we are dealing with cases
in which a high degree of homogeneity may have been expected as a result of the
relatively standardized set of structures and practices introduced by the international
actors, we are in fact faced with respecting the capacities of local environments and
local enterprises, which then results in rediscovering the importance of the notion of
locality. Thus, instead of a supposed ‘clear’ and ‘full’ internationalization of the
companies, we are facing the combination of international structures and standards
with local values, habits, historical experiences, that are, maybe unexpectedly,
strengthening the aspects of local identity. This process is, as is documented in many
cases, then employed as a tool to relate to the change, both on organizational and on
personal level.
On organizational level we see a process of “localization” whereby international actors
are putting down their business policies into local neighborhoods, local contexts, among local
customers. This makes issues of locality important for marketing strategies that rely on
tradition, local history and mythology, and concepts as ‘local pride’ [Czech, Serbia, Hungary],
appreciation of local knowledge [Croatia], inventing local traditions [Hungary]. International
companies make themselves alive and functioning through their possibility to connect with
the local, and not to transform [homogenize] it, not to erase it. They have to “make peace”
with the local, producing new kinds of local diversities [investing into the development of
local community, projects of local identity]. Therefore, our focus is on the interrelation of
‘international’ and ‘local’ aspects of change, and we attempt to show in which aspects
companies could be said to be ‘internationalized’ and in which aspects, in which contexts and
with which aim they were ‘localized’. In another words, in which aspects they are trying to
connect with the international dimension of their existence [say, creating universal
organizational structures, products, working procedures, standards, languages for official
communication, frequent relations between the center and branches, unified marketing and
sales policy etc.], and in which aspects are they prefer to connect with the local, be it local
neighborhood, local community, local authorities, local tradition, hometown, a region of
origin [as in Romanian case], or a sense of closeness, familiarity or “being at home”, that is
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evoked in many of advertisings for beer [Serbia], or even in company image management
[Romania]. Furthermore, we will present how the ‘local’ and ‘international’ are interrelated
and articulated, in order to go beyond the already established concept of hybridization, and to
be able to provide more subtle accounts of the dynamics of the change, and its outcomes.
Through the paper we are lead with belief that by the concept of ‘locality’ it is possible to
comprise different frames of narration used to interpret the encounter. This makes the concept
of locality multifold, as it is able to embrace different meanings, references and connotations
that are employed by our respondents in their narrations of change. This also shows that the
concept of locality might be broad enough to embrace different notions used in the cases
analyzed, such as: rural culture, informal relations, local tradition, sociality, experience of
socialism, all of which attempt to describe the opposition towards something that is perceived
to originate outside the community and is usually phrased as urban culture, formal relations,
Western culture, valuation of money and things, capitalism. The characteristics of different
aspects of locality, used to explain the changes in enterprises brought by privatization, will be
explained in more detail later in the text.
It is, however, possible to recognize the existence of a level “in between” the two
suggested opposites. This can be named variously [and the respondents indeed do it], but the
common denominator of the various naming is the fact that this level is recognized as “not
exactly local and not truly international". In some of the cases this context is referred to as
“regional”, and in the cases it is found to indicate to several different contexts which all are
situated between the local and international level. Different notions of the “regional” could be
discerned depending on the point of view. Thus from the perspective of the local the term
“regional” could be used to indicate a kind of supra-local context, as it is used, for example, in
the Czech study to describe distribution and marketing policies for promotion of certain kinds
of beer, traditionally produced and consumed in a localized, usually restricted area. From the
much broader perspective [international, global] and from the point of view of the
international player “regional” could mean supra-national, or in some cases even national
context [e.g. Western Balkan, Eastern Europe, former Yugoslavia, ect.]. As will be explained
in following lines in some more detail, the later notion of “regional” context appears to be of
great importance for beer producers in many aspects of their operations, from production and
distribution, to marketing strategies and consumption.
There are several reasons that justify adding this aspect into analytical frame. First,
local subsidiaries of the international companies are part of their spread and establishment in
the region, and are commonly conceived of as parts of regional positioning of the big players.
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Thus local breweries represent important focal points for development of regional markets,
which is sometimes accompanied by a regionally sensitive marketing, able to target more than
just local audiences. The employees of the local branches of the international companies
usually participate in regional networks of company led educational courses, where they can
share experiences and get acquainted with the regional know-how solutions. Second,
concerning the idea about where the capital comes from, it is not unusual to indicate rather to
particular areas or countries, than to some incomprehensible “international” destination. It
could mean that people experience “international” as an aggregation of a more or less
pronounced “national” entities, but it could point to the fact that the respondents find it easier
to exercise some kind of mental economizing, simultaneously making things appear more
intelligible that way. Third, the findings of single case studies, supported with explicit
statements of the respondents, indicate that the regional experience of managers who were the
leaders in the privatization process was critical to its successful course. It relates particularly
to experiences of general managers, and is most clearly pronounced in Croatian and Serbian
cases, where previous regional experience has lead to a successful understanding of local
knowledge and that, in return, rocketed their business results. Fourth, the usually [in the
presented and analyzed cases] thin strata of foreign managers brought with them different
management styles and business cultures, some of which were characterized by some of the
employees [and sometimes by the managers themselves] either in national [Belgian, Dutch,
Austrian] or regional terms [South American, Oriental]. Finally, this “no longer and not yet”
level justifies itself in the fact that all the companies analyzed participate in the regional
competition for increasing their market share, in the situation where national markets are
divided among the four to five big players, who are trying to expand regionally. In short, we
see that conceptualizing some kind of “intermediate” level will substantially contribute to the
complexity and subtlety of analysis. It is proved to be both a part of corporate policy in
reaching and transforming new markets, and it is recognized by the respondents as a level
through which changes could be interpreted and better understood. In majority of cases it is
the level on which they can comprehend the operation of the international business, and the
level on which even the domestic managers actually experience the consequences of “going
international”.
The process of mutual articulation of the local/regional/international maybe is most
pronounced and most easily recognized and illustrated in the area of marketing and overall
image of the company, but it could be also revealed in the other faces of enterprises and in
other aspects of their organizational and business change. This would include the manner in
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which international companies approached local markets, that is the way they established
contacts and relations with local authorities, potential business partners, and local citizens. It
can also be recognized in a way organizational restructuration was oriented, for in most of
the cases the projected change was interpreted as a move toward greater modernization
[internationalization] of the company. That, at least initially, has affected the employment
policy, for it meant that people with substantial working experience in international
companies, or even abroad, should be employed.
Still, if internationalism as a new organizational principle and value was supposed to
become a part of the local business and to really has effect on the change of privatized
enterprises, than it should be in a way locally embedded, that is to be connected with local
values, and, most important, local people should be in some way persuaded to accept that
values as their own. Although it could be also interpreted as a way of strengthening the image
of the company, and part of its PR campaign, personal stories of the employees of one
Croatian brewery, offer us an example of how a corporate narrative finds it local
interpretation through stories of professional and personal growth, thus firmly embedding the
change, and showing how an international company and the influence and type of knowledge
it brings could be transformed and used for producing of local working identities, and
personal empowerment. Generally, under the changed economic circumstances that include
orientation towards the economies of knowledge, it became a common practice to invest
much more than before in education and upgrading the skills of the employees, and in some of
the cases [as interviews with top managers from both Croatian cases show] it is one of the
most pronounced tasks of the new management. It could be said that this continual and
growing investment into the development of cultural and social capital of the workers,
especially in the middle managers and even shop floor operators, represents one way of
embedding business practices of the international companies. In that way international
companies though indirectly, are contributing to the economic betterment of the local
economy and has positive impact on the quality of local working force. This will contribute to
creation of particular forms of corporate cultures, closely connected with what top managers
from one of Croatian cases usually name “local mentality”, which will produce a kind of
“local internationalism”.
In short, as is indicated so far, success of organizational change lies not only in
scrupulous and systematical introduction of internationally checked rules and procedures,
standardizing and homogenizing the business practices in the enterprises that are situated in
the local communities with majority of local employees and operating under local and
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national legal regulations, while having to deal with local customs and “mentalities”. It also
became evident that this success is equally dependent on selective, cautious and careful usage
of the notions of “internationality” and “locality” that are discursively produced and
reproduced. These notions participate in the organizational change through various narrations
about the change, as well through images that are produced about the company itself and
about its most important products. This could be best seen in the top manager’s narration of
changing company cultures after the privatizations, and in various advertisements for the
rejuvenating local brands. In that respect we witness the intentional “playing with culture”,
whether culture is understood in terms of “collection of values relating to how to conduct
business”, or in terms of more interpretative anthropological understanding of the “system of
meanings”.
Embedded and disembedded - notions
Analytically we can discern two ways of employing or using notion of
locality/internationality: embedded and disembedded. Using category “embedded” we have
in mind an anthropological notion of the term, that means that something [in this case the
notion of the local, that also could be used as locality, as property of things] is closely related
to the production and maintaining of social relations and identities on local level. This means
that locality/internationality functions as a property of local identities, both on organizational
and personal level. The use of embedded notion of locality can be revealed, for example, in
the stories about why a particular factory, among others, has been chosen to be a subject of
privatization. Also, on organizational level the policy of rejuvenating local brands, and
particularly their connection with the local traditions of beer producing and culture of beer
consumption, can contribute to the development of an organizational identity and the identity
of the local branch of the company as strong local player. In addition, the strength of the
rejuvenated local brand can be employed as a means of production of the various forms of
local culture, through local fairs, festivities, and various events. Locality understood in this
way also can function in the conceptualizations of the factories as extended families. In short,
this is to say that the embedded notion of locality has to do with reproductions of social
relations in the local community, and that in this respect locality is more closely that not
connected with the properties and boundaries of the concrete local places [e.g. factory and
local community]. Embeddedness could be used to refer to internationality as well. For
example, every international company has its local life; it is reproduced through local
practices, which constitute the embedded notion of internationality. It produces a kind of
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“local internationality”, which can be recognized in internationalized procedures, sense of
connectedness of the local employees, characteristic pride of working for a famous
international company etc.
On the other side, the “disembedded” aspect of locality could refer to those elements,
actions, strategies, aspects of the perceived change, which are not immediately connected with
the particular local places [and spaces], but intend to evoke closeness, familiarity,
understanding, easiness, usually connoted when having the notion of locality in mind.
Consequently, the concept of disembedded internationality could be used to describe and
explain elements, actions, strategies, aspects of the perceived change that tend to evoke
something that could be termed as “pure internationality”, and that is usually connected with
high mobility, non-places (Auge, 1995), multilingualism and multiculturalism, sense of global
citizenship and cosmopolitism. In short, if in the case of embeddedness we could say that we
are dealing with the locality/internationality as a “structure of [real] feelings”, than in the case
of the disembeddedness we are dealing with different evocations of locality/internationality,
with different [and indeed more abstract] transpositions of the notions of the
local/international. For example, if in the case of the Czech brewery [and also in other
breweries analyzed] the idea of the factory as a home [or family] is shared among the
workers, and represents a part of the construction of their working identities [while it is really
connected to a particular factory and organization], than we have an embedded notion of
locality at work. If we, on the contrary, are dealing with the advertisings for beer [as is the
case with one whole serial of the adverts for Serbian brewery] in which the story is situated in
the local pub, trying to evoke the atmosphere of home and friendliness, than we have a
disembedded notion of locality at work.
It is important to stress that, although it could seem that embedded notion of
locality/internationality is somehow more “natural” and that it is in some way “directly” or
immediately related to the local social context than it is the case with disembedded notion, it
is not the case. As for the locality in particular, it could be further suggested that both
embedded and disembedded notions of locality could be said to contribute to the process of
„re-rooting“, put as a social project against the „un-rooting“, as are the usual social
interpretations of international [global] changes and their consequences in local contexts [here
our closest reference is Giddens, and his mechanisms of distantiation and disembeddedness].
We start with outlining of ideal historical sequence of a beer producing company
between years 1989 and 2005 in CEE. We outline historical sequence as an ideal type in
Weberian sense of the word. We start with this ideal type which was outlined in the way that
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it is even the most extensive historical sequence, the longest story, which could we put above
practically all beer case studies compared in the project. Of course some of our cases fit to our
ideal type very well [Czech case and one of Croatian cases], some of them skip or miss some
stages in sense of historical development or at least in some aspects or categories of this
development, and Romania case is a very distant one to our ideal type. We use and explain
these differences as far as possible and we even try to outline some general hypotheses using
some more detailed categories as typical values, types of persons, products and types of
organization.
Typical development of a brewery: ideal type of historical sequence
As far as particular cases we are comparing were outlined as stories of privatization or
at least parts of case studies were structured by their authors as histories, we decided to
outline and compare these cases shortly in comparison to overall typical historical sequence
we have derived from them as an ideal type [in Weberian sense of the word] of privatization
of a brewery in CEE between 1989 and 2005. We know that our approach has number of
limitations and we will try to consider few of them as type of the brewery or type of a national
market, but despite these limitations we suppose that our imagined ideal company is a good
way how to present number of relatively different cases.
Our beer producing ideal company was found in nineteen century and was expanding
gradually to the region of original town beating down its local competitors, it survived World
Wars and after the WW II. it was nationalized like many others in these times. After
revolutions, which throw off socialist regimes of Soviet satellites, the new international
history of our brewery started. This is the moment when started our story and we wave
practically all long history of our companies aside and concentrate to explanation what
happened with our ideal company after year 1989.
During the first stage of our typical historical sequence a company had been privatized
into hands of number of shareholders of national origin and started to act as a private
company or, better to say, as if private company. We have said “as if” private company,
because this first stage of post socialist transformation is typical by strong remnants of
socialist institutions and mentality. We can see this stage clearly in the Czech case and even in
Croatian cases. In these cases this part of history was seen by contemporaries as a
consequence of privatization of company into hands of number of small owners and was by
respondents characterized by chaos of incompetent management, fractionalized ownership
structure, lack of capital, and working habits inherited from real socialism. Czech brewery
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was, as a consequence of voucher privatization, owned by number of small owners and by
more than twenty bigger owners, namely privatization funds, majority of shares of one
Croatian and of Serbian brewery was owned by small shareholders who had been used to be
involved in management of the brewery before in socialist times of “self-management”. We
can see that neither radical changes nor investments were introduced to these companies
during this first stage.
After few year later management or shareholders of our ideal type company realized
that it is unavoidable to get married with one of foreign strong players to get a portion of
reasonable investment and to avoid the fate of many others who were closed down. The first
value of making beer business in these times was survival of a company. Survival of a
company, of a production unit, is value which is in beer business relevant for companies even
today [and could be articulated even within the frame of internal competition within a
holding] and is sometimes mixed together with other values and is not easy discernable from
questions of identity. Nevertheless, as it is pronounced today in memories of contemporaries,
at the end of the first stage it was the most prominent and strongest articulated value related
directly to company as a local production unit; and it even was the main reason our ideal type
company started looking for foreign capital – and new owner.
The second stage of our ideal type historical sequence is the most frequent one in our
case studies and we can shortly characterize it, regarding ownership structure, as a stage after
takeover by foreign transnational company. The second stage foreign owner typically was the
first foreign owner of national beer producing company and it was often a relatively small
international player [sometimes only few production units, but never more than about one or
two ten of production units in beer production area], coming form nearby country. During this
second stage, large and deep technical, organizational and cultural transformation happened,
while, in few years, reasonable number of workforce changed, reasonable amount of upper
and middle level managers were fired and hired, reasonable amount of money was invested,
technological equipment was built up or rebuilt, organizational structure was differentiated.
We can see that in our case studies, in parts of history of breweries corresponding to this
stage, usually new values arose, new types of transformational managers were introduced and
distribution of power within organizational structure of producing company changed. We can
see that typical values of this stage are related closely to success and that as to be successful is
conceived not only the survival [as persisting latent value on declining European beer market]
but namely expansion of production and market, promoting quality of production and even,
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last but not least, cultural success of capitalist transformation of company, which is often
defined against previous socialist working ethics and habits.
In the third stage, after years of happy or sometimes not so happy and not really
successful cohabitation with foreign capital and owners, our ideal type company was sold
once again, typically to hands of big international player in the field of beer business. Using
the term “big international player”, we have in mind a giant, one of the biggest world players,
with an experience of making business in various cultural environments, on different
continents. This third stage of our ideal type of historical sequence is typical by progressive
organizational and cultural change. This change brings into process further organizational
differentiation and specialization required by organizational standards. Within this third stage
we can even see not only organizational but even cultural standardization, which comes
evidently up as change of inner organizational structure and introduction of new universal
names for working positions. Furthermore, new values of transnational corporate culture
become important factor of governing local production units and local businesses and we can
not see this change simply as ongoing standardization, because these core explicit values and
policies, as for example omnipresent social responsibility, are articulated locally in different
ways within different fields of doing business. Consequently, these new corporate values and
cultures play with local circumstances and several cultural hybrids come into scene. We can
see that the most often and typical hybrids could be seen within fields of marketing and sales,
where local cultures and personal relationships, as important factors of success, interplay with
international values and transnational standards, but that the exact proportions of the mixture
are even influenced by local or regional markets in economical and cultural meaning of the
word, by distribution of competitors and attitudes of consumers.
Overview of ideal type historical sequence in few dimensions
We use our ideal type historical sequence as shortly outlined above as a scope by
which we hope get overview of differences and similarities of our brewery cases. Now we
step on and elaborate this attempt in short scheme into set of dimensions which could be used
for comparison of particular cases and which can thus illuminate how far could be our ideal
type of historical sequence outlined in section above applied to particular cases. We will,
firstly, elaborate our ideal type historical sequence in general plan using few dimensions
which we found as succinct notions for more detailed analysis. After having dimensions of
ideal type historical sequence elaborated, we will shortly specify how particular cases in
background of the comparative study do fit to our ideal type.
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Ownership
The first stage ownership is ownership of number of owners as a consequence of
privatization into shareholders company.
The second stage ownership is ownership when majority of shares is owned by one
foreign company.
The third stage ownership is ownership when majority of shares is owned by big
international player.
Economic culture
The first stage economic culture is typical as remnant culture of real socialism with
fragmented ownership structure, incompetent top management, eroded authority of middle
management, and loose morals. The value strongest pronounced is survival.
The second stage economic culture is typical as culture of changes introduced by
foreign owner: changes of staff, technological equipment, and of organizational structure.
Prevailing values of this stage are quality of production, efficiency of production, and
expansion of production and markets.
The third stage economic culture is typical as culture of changes bounded to
international way of governing of transnational owner. This third stage of corporate culture
retains and sometimes newly articulates values of former stages. The stage is typical by new
values of explicitly pronounced corporate culture, namely by values of social responsibility.
Organizational structure – departments and distribution of power
The first stage organizational structure is typical as similar to socialist enterprise and
slowly changing structure of departmental division. Organizational structure is not
successfully integrated; production department is seen as the most important part of company.
The second stage organizational structure is typical as more differentiated
departmental division with more stress and power put at controlling, marketing and namely
sales department.
The third stage organizational structure is typical as newly differentiated not only by
pressures of market and by related functional “values” of efficiency and growth, but even by
internal demands of communication and cultural change within holding. The second stage
organizational departmental division is now slowly and continually restructured, firstly to
adapt production unit to transnational corporate standards and secondly to keep up with
changes of corporate structure. Stress is put on human resources, marketing and logistics, top
leadership structure is wider than during the first and the second stage type.
Types of personalities – typical employees
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The first stage typical types of persons are inherited from times of real socialism and
they are incompetent [narrow minded, i.e. not able to be with changes and consider even other
aspects of business than only ones’ own department] top managers, middle and low
management without authority, and drinking muscled workforce with loose morals.
The second stage is typical by radical change in staff and consequent emerging of new
types of persons. Operators not able or willing to comply with working standards and hours
left, new types of “transforming managers” emerged.
The third stage, as for personality types, is typical by emergence of new international
manager type - we describe this type below as “wandering manager”, and by spread of
“transforming managers” into lower levels of organizational structure.
Products
The first stage typical product is beer of unstable quality and taste. Portfolio of
product is a traditional socialist times portfolio, marketing of this portfolio is hobby of few
freaky managers.
The second stage typical product is beer of standardized quality. With new quality
standards of the product, often bounded to technological investments, becomes actual problem
how ensure local original taste of standardized quality product. Portfolio of products is
enriched by beer specialties and rejuvenated local brands.
As for the third stage production and marketing, basic local portfolio of products
remains usually the same and is enriched by main international brands of new owner.
Licensing of production of international and even of local brands is introduced.
Particular cases compared to ideal type historical sequence
All of our breweries are of comparable size of middle size brewing company with total
volume of annual beer production about few hundredth thousand hectoliters. Except of
Romanian company, all the companies are breweries; Romanian case is food and beverage
company producing even beer as one among its products. In the following section, we will
compare each and every of seven production units included in five studies which have been
source material for this comparative study. We start with Czech brewery as one of our cases
which fits very well to our ideal type of historical sequence [the second one is one of Croatian
breweries] and then we will consider “irregularities” of every case in comparison to our ideal
type in basic dimensions as outlined above.
We can see that there are two breweries described within Czech case study. The major
brewery described in Czech brewery case study fits very well to our ideal type historical
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sequence. We can see the ideal type historical sequence developed in its full length, beyond
the dimension of types of persons, where we face to phenomenon called by author of the
study “absentee owner”, when “wandering manager” [see typology below] is not personally
present in the third stage. Another moment, not to be neglected considering Czech company,
is its special position in the market, respectively different kind of national market in
comparison to other case studies, whereas the difference is in regionally specific beer brewing
technology, in different density of regional competitors, and in related marketing attitudes.
We will come back to this aspect of our comparative study below in the section devoted to
markets and marketing. The second brewery, presented in the Czech case study, was
originally privatized by small number of local owners and then taken over by bigger regional
player, the first Czech brewery. Just about at the same time this bigger brewery was taken
over by big transnational player. History of the second brewery thus could be interpreted like
the first stage had been skipped over and the role of the second transforming owner has been
performed by owners and managers of native origin. We can see that, in this case,
transformation to the third stage was moderated by intermediate Czech owner and that, for
employers of the second brewery, it was more difficult to cope to the fact they are, suddenly
and after long years of successful national development, taken over not only by transnational
company, but even by regional competitor at the same moment.
Another case study including description of development in two national breweries is
the Croatian case study, which comprise of two separate cases. The first case fits sufficiently
to our ideal type historical sequence beyond one important difference: in contrast to our ideal
type historical sequence, this first foreign owner of the brewery from the second ideal stage
was not middle size owner from Europe but big non European transnational player and years
of its governance were not conceived as a success story not only in eyes of contemporaries
complaining to management style of the owner, but even with regard to market share which
dropped down. The second case study from Croatia was untypical in similar way, because
during the second stage of ideal type historical sequence the foreign owner had been holding
only minority of shares for years, being one of two big shareholders of the brewery, before it
became a majority shareholder.
Serbian brewery has been privatized in 2003 in second wave of privatization started
after the end of the war. We can take this brewery, even today, as typical second stage
brewery owned in its majority by the first foreign middle size owner, with only one difference
to our ideal type historical sequence: despite of the fact that new foreign owner is a middle
size company and not really big world player, as for number of breweries owned and quantity
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of liquid produced, it is an international player as for the structure of international portfolio of
products and relatively big number of countries involved. On the other hand, we can see that
even at the level of corporate culture and explicit values of corporate governance this foreign
owner does not fit to our third stage international company, nevertheless it is trying to keep
abreast with big international players even in this regard.
Hungarian brewery was privatized directly into hands of small foreign owner at the
beginning of 90’s. Declining Hungarian beer market in conjunction with tax changes and with
growth of raw material prices caused that, despite the brewery got hold relatively constant
market share, forthcoming years were not conceived to be real success of clearly profitable
company. As far as original foreign owner is still owner of the company, we can not speak
about third stage ideal type of historical sequence in Hungarian company, but, on the other
hand, the company has been subject of management changes and of changes in marketing
strategy few years ago, which are similar to changes internationalized companies from other
case studies are undergoing, and which caused slight improvement in profitability and net
selling. Shortly, we can say that Hungarian brewery is even today a typical second stage
company trying to keep pace with international competitors governing national beer market.
Romanian company from Romania case study is successfully growing FDI enterprise
producing even beer. The company was founded as new business by few repatriates who
mixed a proper blend of western economic knowledge and local cultural knowledge. Secret of
the success of beating well known international companies lay in fact that development
strategy was from very beginning founded in distribution network constructed in way relying
on familiarity with local culture and circumstances. Just this knowledge of national
demography, local routes and tastes, and rural culture enabled owners of the company were
faster and more successful than their competitors. Romanian case study is the most distant
one from our cases to our ideal type. Historical development of Romanian case shows to us,
firstly, that limits of our general statements and of the ideal type, are national markets and
cultures, and attracts, secondly, our attention to general fact that there is, in Romania and even
in CEE countries, common shift from putting stress on production to putting stress to sales,
marketing and logistics.
Types of personalities of employees
In this part of the paper we submit tentative typology based on types of personal
attitudes of the employees and their relation toward the change. The majority of the types of
social personalities of the employees we describe fall into the category of managers. This is in
15
the first place due to the methodology and choice of respondents in the original case studies,
but could be also justified with both theoretical and empirical fact that managers do have a
decisive role in the organizational change, by introducing, directing and maintaining changes
while simultaneously being subjected to them. Nevertheless a category that describes typical
characteristics and prevailing attitudes of the operators and shop-floor workers is included, in
spite of scarcity of existing data on them within the frame of Dioscuri research. For each
suggested category, social and demographic characteristics of its prevailing members will be
presented, as well as their characteristic relation towards the change. Our hypothesis is that
each category of managers could be connected with certain phase of ideal type of historical
sequence development [as shortly outlined above in the section Overview], and that each of
them play particular role in it. It could be supposed that major differences between the
categories of managers will be softened in the long run, and that a more modest version of a
transforming manager will prevail. He will have to be able to respond to the continual
changes in organizational and business policies in the context of global political economy,
and to accomplish a demanding task of “fine tuning” between the centralized policy designed
at the headquarters and the specificities of the local context of production and consumption.
In the course of the time, all the employees start to adapt to the new business
environment, and to the new rules brought and presented by the new owner. Nevertheless,
some of them feel more local in their identities [both personal and professional] more
connected to the particular factory [they used to call it “second home” during socialism],
while the more ‘international’ staff do not connect to the factory in that way. Most often they
comprehend it as an operation of a bigger, famous company they are eager to work for. They
are characterized by a significant mobility; don’t hesitate to change jobs, positions and
companies. For them, any company in which they work is more a sign of achievement,
possible contribution to the amount of cultural and social capital with which they are moving
further. According to this, employees [mainly managers] could be divided into following
categories:
1. “Wandering managers” – this category could be termed as “the most international” of
all. It consists of top managers, mainly foreigners, who have a “truly international carrier” in
global proportions. This makes them highly mobile and concentrated to the jobs they are to
accomplish. They initialize transformation. In analyzed cases these were mainly general
managers of the factories, who came after the international companies privatized, and leave
the company after 1-2 years, after it was basically reorganized and initially stabilized. Some
of them moved from the region, continuing to work worldwide, and the rest of them stayed in
16
the region, either in the same company/same branch of production, or changing companies. In
the later case it became evident that the regional experience and specific type of knowledge
related to it, played significant part in the development of their carriers. The most obvious
example is the transfer of the general manager of Serbian brewery [after he spent 2 years
reorganizing the enterprise] to a recently privatized mineral water factory in Serbia,
considered to be a company of national significance.
These are managers with a strong working discipline, full dedication to a job and a
post they occupy, and usually with a personal vision of change, able to inspire and energize
other members of the top management, particularly “transforming managers”. Sometimes
“wondering managers” are seen as alike each other, probably because they are strongly
dedicated to their job, functioning in the “company format”, and establishing impersonal
relations at work. This can raise suspicion, even criticism, among the domestic staff and
collaborators. As a member of management in one of Croatian breweries said: “When you met
one, you met them all. No matter whether they come from Holland, Belgium or France, the
first great difference from domestic managers is the great responsibility towards signed
contracts. They don't abuse shortages of domestic legal system. Second great difference is
that they think systematically, have all defined, everything is according to defined procedures,
manuals, no improvisation. And they function as they would in their home country. This may
pose a problem because they also expect from domestic people to act in the same way. And
business environment is not the same.”
As for their age, they usually are more mature, with both professional and personal life
experience, in order to be able to cope with new and challenging situations that often face in
new societies and working environments. They have already gained profit from being part of
an international company, present worldwide. Company values from one of the companies
analyzed could serve as an illustration what is required from the highest management strata in
all international companies: “Company value very well reflect what is expected from
managers (…). These are innovation, creativity, efficacy, being open-minded and easy going
in social contacts, having high professional goals”.
2. “Transforming managers” – these are managers who, unlike the first category,
could be less transient, and some of them even could tie its carriers to the company they work
for. They usually come after the “wandering managers” initially stabilize the company, bring
about restructuring and reorganization of the enterprise. They could be said to bring the
transformation to the company, they facilitate it, and contribute to the sustainability of the
change. They also embody change, and are seen as “ambassadors of their company”. Among
17
this group are those managers who are changing meanings of the basic concepts, such as
work, organization, responsibility, team-work, cooperation. This category could be divided
into two fractions, according the same criteria used for division of the main groups:
a) Younger managers [mainly domestic, but in some cases in initial phases of
transformation international actors, coming from the headquarters] up to 35 years, with
working experience in local branches of international companies: bring transformation and
facilitate transformation, help changing the meaning of the basic working concepts. They are
mobile, carrier oriented; consider changing jobs and position, ambitious. According to one
business partner, supplier, their style of leadership is closely dependent on their age, and
differs from the management style of the older managers: “Style of the leadership depends
primarily on the age of the managers (…). Standard way of thinking of a modern manager is
that basic goal is to make money and profit for the company. To think about prosperity and
stability of the company. And have a long time perspective (…). I think that about long lasting
of the company managers over 4o think more than the younger ones (…). Younger managers,
after the university, think only about their carrier and advancement – so called management
robots. Such managers are present in Croatia more and more; it is not only characteristic of
the West”. Still, among these “transient” managers, we have examples of those who stayed for
a prolonged period in order to build up new image of companies, and solidify new spirit of
togetherness. The general manager of one of Croatian breweries, whose management and
leadership style other managers highly appreciate, sets such an example. He talks a lot with
the employees, has a lot of presentations, and organizes official and unofficial meetings. The
most popular of all is the social gathering of all the employees, named “Friday beer”. As top
manager from this factory confirmed, “men from the shop floor like to see the Managing
Director – as well as other managers – is mixing with them; it makes a sort of the unity”.
Thus it could be said that these fraction of the “transforming managers” is responsible both to
introduce the notion of individual responsibility and autonomy at the work place, that
represents part of the new definition of the work, and to contribute to a new way of “unity
building” contemporary management requires.
b) Older managers [domestic], between 35 and 50 years, with regional [and local]
experience: embody possibility of change, providing the sustainability of change, since they
are seldom mobile, and tend to connect to the company they work for. In many cases they
have been working to the company for years and don’t consider changing a job. This seems to
be the most critical management strata for accomplishing the desired change, and make it
sustainable. As top manager of Croatian brewery considers, “in our brewery it is not the
18
problem top management team, but the middle level management, which sometimes act as a
filter between top management and workers. Top managers have been working in the
company for some time, they have been exposed to our system, they have been to a
headquarters, they have seen their colleagues from other countries, pass certain educational
programs. But different situation is with the middle level managers.” In a view of the same
respondent, as a local company they should hire local managers, and constantly strive to
empower the domestic middle management. He denounces his position, somewhere between
the “wandering” and “transforming” manager, admitting that “on the long time scale I don’t
need to be here, I should not be here”.
c) Young production managers, between 25 and 35 years [in some cases even older],
able to learn quickly and use that knowledge; they also have served as transmitters of
knowledge to the operators. It could be said that they together with the more mature section of
the “transforming managers” are embedding the internationalism brought with the change.
These categories of working persons could recognize how their immediate surrounding has
been internationalized, and how their everyday working habits has been changed into a more
network- like, they feel more connected to the world. Still, they are much more “centered” or
“fixed” than members of top management, and even higher middle management strata, who
are more mobile and fully international in terms of their carrier paths and overall perspective
and worldview. Some of the companies dedicate particular attention to this category of the
employees aware that the “crisis of meaning” is more probable on the lower positions that on
the higher ones. Therefore, all working positions and all working experiences should be
provided with meanings that connect personal change and improvement with the company
development.
3. “Receivers of change” - lower managers and operators – We suppose that they do
not have an active, or pro-active role toward the change. We assume that they are rather
interested in much more local dimensions of their work, want to preserve security, got regular
salaries, and in general do not change more than necessary. Although in some companies part
of the HR department policy is to make a personal plan for development for every single
employee, we do not have enough material to conclude in which way this policy has really
affected the shop floor workers. In some of the cases, in Serbia, for example, we have some
evidence that supports the hypothesis that shop floor workers developed mainly passive
attitude towards change. It is also true that they initially tried to oppose changes in some way,
was it by spreading rumors and complains about the new owner, or a kind of organizing by
unions aimed to question the legality of the privatization process. As for Serbian case, where
19
the pro-active stance of the workers was connected to putting in question the privatization, all
the other pro-active attitudes to the change were absent. It seemed that shop floor workers
adapted to the change on the level of the changing technological process, and that they are
basically most interested to have a decent and regular salary. Since we do not want to
essentialize the category of working class, by turning them to “passive”, “disinterested
receivers of change”, it should be said that this category of employees is the most discouraged
one. They could be said to be the biggest “losers” of transition, for the automatization of
production made a lot of them redundant. Also, they are discouraged to organize and take a
more pro-active stance toward improving their working conditions and social position,
because exactly during this transformation they realized the importance of a secure job and
stable salary. This is probably the main reason that keeps them silent and concentrated only to
their immediate working surrounding.
Business culture and belonging
“Corporate” or “business cultures” are notions used in different texts in different ways.
We can speak about explicit corporate culture presented on web pages of TNCs and consider
how it is consciously built and reflexively employed, or we can even use the concept of
corporate culture in strict analytical way using categories of values and attitudes, and we hope
we offer some kind this analytical elaboration in our study. Respondents in case studies speak
often about corporate cultures as, firstly, about management styles as bounded to national
natures of managers, secondly, about corporate values, which need not be the same as the
explicit corporate culture values, or, at least need not be ranked in the same manner, and,
thirdly, about ownership and belonging as international, foreign national or local ownership
and emotional identification or non identification with owners. Thus we can read about values
of transparency and change within the Czech case, but we will not find “change” as a value on
the list of corporate culture values of the international owner. We can read about local
families in breweries owned by local owners. We can read, in our case studies, that managers
are really international because they have experience of doing business from different
countries and, what more, this nation is really international nation. We can read about oriental
and accidental values and management styles and in one Croatian case an exotic management
style of an exotic national nature of owner is conceived as at least one among main reasons of
business failure of the company: “With these directors from America I had kind of feeling
like: We are Indians. They were, if you can understand what I mean, like characters from the
Mexican soap-operas.”
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Business encounters represent situations of contact in which internationality and
locality, as values, face each other and interpenetrate. Internationality as a company value is
often spelled out as an explicit company goal, part of the company culture or its mission
statement. Internationality, as a value which the company is striving to, is commonly
contrasted with locality, in the meaning that is close to parochialism, and which is to be
substituted with the “new locality” which is understood as a product of internationality. It is
best seen in the narrative of change told by managers belonging to top management strata.
Members of top management are very well informed about company values, and are able to
reflect on them, and to connect and implement them to their working identities. They usually
understand internationality as a creation of international working environment, characterized
by a spirit of openness, and offering a lot of possibilities for movement, establishing
connections, learning and advancement. Thus international environment appears as a
guarantee for continual learning and improvement, as member of top management in one of
our Croatian breweries said: “The fact that I can exchange experiences, that I can call a
colleague in Bulgaria, Serbia or Denmark and ask them to tell me how they solved that
problem is very interesting”. Internationality as a value often figures in the narratives of the
change in its disembedded notion, it evokes openness, exchange, dynamism, non-limitedness,
and is sharply contrasted to the disembedded notion of locality, most often associated with
closeness, inertia and parochialism. This notion of locality is mentioned by a top manager in
one Croatian brewery, who recognizes that “a brewery has a lot of potential, also has got a
lot of local heritage, so that people’s mentality is very much local and not yet internationally
oriented mentality”.
On the other hand, we can see embedded aspects of internationality and locality at
work, enabling the international business to operate and gain success in places and social
contexts as diverse as Africa, Asia and Europe. For example, internationally
projected/produced/constructed corporate cultures, through their local/national life get
embedded qualities. That is to say that local context becomes a significant context for their
reshaping, readjusting to various circumstances [social, cultural, political, historical], and
make them able to function [and create success stories] in diverse places. Part of this process
are, for example, employment policies that are oriented toward employing people “for really
long period” [Croatia], establishing firm ties with the local community through sponsorship of
local events, investing into local development, sports, art, and supporting local people in
positions of middle managers to stay, develop new business policy and guarantee long term
sustainability to the business operation. In this respect, locality functions as an important
21
value, one that will provide first local, and then regional success to an international business
player.
Notions of local and international are interconnected in an interesting way in the
narrations of the sense of belonging. Sense of belonging has undergone transformation after
the international players bought local companies. This brought to the fore the duality of
embedded/disembedded aspects of the employees’ working identities, and their identities in
general. They came to realize that they simultaneously belong to their familiar working
organization they have been working for [sometimes for a dozens of years] and to a new,
much wider, working environment [network] they can barely comprehend [at least at the
beginning]. What they are confronted with is a difficult task of negotiation between embedded
sense of belonging to the immediate surrounding of “their” factory, to the observable,
tangible, understandable space in which they perform everyday communication and
interrelation, and disembedded sense of belonging to a much wider community that majority
of them could grasp only virtually, with more difficulty and employing abstract concepts as
“global family”. One vivid phrase aptly describes the changing experience, comparing it with
a movement “from an island to a global family”. Before the privatization, reckon the
employees of most of the local factories, they felt as if they were separate universe,
disconnected from the rest of the world and concentrated on themselves and their immediate
surrounding. Some of them stress that they have been working as if they were a family. In all
the cases analyzed, employment policy during socialism did contribute to creation of a work
place as extended family environment. With the privatization of enterprises and
internationalization of business practices, all the breweries were first “defamiliarized”, which
meant that new employment policy has been introduced, which relied on professional
expertise and business skills of the job seekers, instead on their familiarity and connections
with people already employed in the brewery. In some cases, such as in one of our Croatian
breweries, the first owner introduced a rule that it is not desirable that more than one member
of the same family works in the company. Foreign managers think this kind of local
connectedness could harm a business, because people tend to conflate personal relations and
emotions with doing business. They prefer impersonal relations at work, and attribute this
kind of relations to the way international business is conducted: “Well, I don’t know, it can be
an advantage but also a disadvantage. If you have people from the same village or the same
place there can possibly be some amount of jealousy and insinuations. But if you have an
international team that are not dependent to each other, that have in common only thus
business goal, than I think it can be an advantage” [middle level manager, brewery, Croatia].
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Afterward, when the internationalization of the firm would advance, new sense of
“familiarism” started to grow. This time, employees began feeling as being a part of an
international, even global, family. For them, it means to be connected with colleagues in other
countries, to communicate with them on a daily basis, to have easy access to the company
know-how, available to anyone who belongs to the company throughout the world, to
participate at seminars and get professional knowledge, meet people from other breweries. In
short – strengthening “family ties” within the international company.
Nevertheless, the desired goal for international companies is not just to manage to
implement its rules, procedures and business philosophy to the newly bought enterprises, nor
just to manage to rise and strengthen the international spirit. The ideal way of transforming
the newly bought company, but also to contribute to the development of the mother company
as a whole, is to invest into young, successful local managers. After acquiring professional
experience, and interiorizing company culture and its values, these young managers are ready
to become part of the winning team of the internationals, to be recruited to a category of
“wandering managers” and contribute to development of company business throughout the
world. This is, as top managers say, turning people into international [“real international”]
players: ”You mean they are going international? Yes, definitely. We are looking a lot for a
local talent, after to be proven successful here in our brewery to go abroad. We already
started shifter employment abroad, for 6 weeks or two months. Several people already worked
for that period in another company. Like in Polland or in Slovenia…We do believe in that
sharing (…) But I hope that from our brewery we will have good international managers that
can move everywhere globally. We always need good people”.
Markets and marketing images
Within all our cases we face some organizational changes have been undertaken
during last years. In some of our cases we relate these changes to process which we called the
third stage of ideal type historical sequence. On the other hand, we can see similar changes
even within companies which have not changed their owner within last few years and / or
which are not owned by international companies, by giants. The most apparent shift in the
sense of these changes is shift in marketing policy, which, at first sight, looks like localization
of marketing strategy. Our respondents tend to speak rather about local brand and rather about
national or regional market. We suppose that this localization is not simply overall change in
behavior of companies from our case studies, which suddenly started to act more locally, and
we analyzed this phenomenon in our paper regarding different points of view. At this part of
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our text we try to grasp this process regarding interlacing of geographical and economical
aspects with symbolical level and we will even ask how markets intervene in breweries’
marketing.
We start with simple question: what are the markets and how are they defined? Our
respondents from case studies usually spoke about national markets and national market
share, about declining European market or about position on regional market. From point of
view of actors doing marketing policy or managing sales in a brewery, a market is an area a
product is or could be sold and it is practically defined by behavior of consumers and
competitors. The beer market is usually divided into two basic segments of draught and
bottled beer and we can discern these two segments in current marketing products. While
typical advertisement of bottled beer works with images of special events of private life
within closed number of kin, draught beer advertisement is typical as an image of
consumption on disembedded local place, in a local pub. We can often see very similar
division in brand marketing. As far as our breweries are owned by international or, in some
cases, transnational players, their typical portfolio of brands is build and proclaimed to be a
mix of strong local and international brands. International brands are conceived and marketed
to be brands for special occasions, local brands for everyday consumption.
We know, from our Hungarian case study, that endeavor of Hungarian brewery
owners to communicate rejuvenated local brand as a special occasion beer on national level
was not entirely successful, despite the fact, that during socialist times of economy of
shortage non local beers in Hungary were conceived as beers for special occasions. In one of
our Croatian cases we witnessed how reasonable national market share hold by company
declined after first privatization and that company is today communicating common typical
regional marketing strategy as a mix of international and local brands. What is suspicious at
the first glance is that, despite of this evident endeavor to reach national level via extending
regional consumption, brands are communicated namely as international or local. It looks like
regional markets without regional brands.
Before we try to generalize this fact and to understand it, we have to say few facts
about national beer markets, its dynamics and position of our breweries in these markets. All
national markets from our comparative studies, beyond Romanian market, are markets of
comparable size and history of recent development, characterized as slightly declining
markets with sharpening competition. Today, there are typically three or four big international
players having reasonable majority of a market and than number of smaller breweries. No one
of our companies is a really big national player and we can see that they are typically strong
24
in its own region and not having important deal of national market. On the other hand, all of
these companies are trying to get bigger portion from national market. That means that they
compete on national and even on regional level. It is relatively attractive to pursue to get
bigger national market share and even marketing strategy is relatively clear as far as
symbolically strong images of nationalism are at hand to be mobilized. On the other hand this
position is not easy to achieve and to get directly to be a national brand. The other, harder but
passable, way is to increase local or regional market share gradually and get bigger national
portion.
Regarding structure of beer markets at national levels around the Europe we can see
two different types of countries today. The first type could be called beer country or country
of German type and structure of its beer market is typical by number of small breweries. The
second type country is country of French type with only few small breweries. This difference
is clearly evident from data presented at The Brewers of Europe web page (Division of
brewing plants by production (in 1000 hl) 2004). As for our cases we can say that, despite
reasonable decline in number of breweries, the Czech Republic still belongs to the first type
while Hungary, Serbia and Croatia, with relatively small number of breweries, belongs to the
second type. Regarding this difference we suppose that our Czech brewery is forced to
compete not only to national and regional breweries [and to international breweries of its
owner in inner competition of production units] but even to some local breweries. An enquiry
of small national breweries was not a part of Czech case study but it is certainly interesting
question of a context of the case study: how could disembedded and universal images,
accompany with financial strength and international know how, compete to embedded local
image of small beer producers with Czech owners, i.e. non-international companies of second
stage of ideal historical sequence [in terms of our typology]. We suppose that marketing of
images is more important today than spatially closer “real” embedded local.
The “local” in marketing images is communicated as a place of production with its
history and tradition, or as a place of consumption. The second image is often communicated
as an image of disembedded locality. As was repeatedly said by respondents from Czech case,
“brewing beer is a special kind of business” and we can add: it is, just because of the mixture
of two notions of locality, locality of production and locality of consumption, plays its role in
marketing and identification with the liquid product. To demonstrate our statements even
beyond material evident from text of our case studies we decided to introduce two additional
short analyses of recent TV beer adverts related to our original case studies we wrote them in
Dioscuri project, i.e. from Serbia and from the Czech Republic. The first example is an
25
example of a shift in advert from playing with regional / national difference to explicitly
pronounced playing with international / regional difference using as regional symbol
disembedded image of rather national than regional place. The second example is from Serbia
and is playing with international / national difference using topical disembedded images of
these two environments.
Shift from playing with regional / national to regional / international
difference in the Czech Republic:
We have noticed that strategy of advertising in TV spots campaigns changed
after the takeover of local brewery by international player. As far as we know
from the Czech case study, structure of the national company changed after
takeover by international owner. A separate marketing division was created
and new marketing manager experienced in international company was hired
[transforming manager of ideal type 2a; see above]. Marketing strategy, brand
marketing and campaigns are today worked out and communicated in
cooperation with headquarters’ consultant and marketing managers use
knowledge of transnational company accessible in form of case studies on
intranet of the company.
A few years ago, in times when brewing company was owned by foreign
owner who was not a really big international giant, advertising spots for beer
brand were built upon Czech national legends about how first Czechs came
into land and upon similar legends. These spots were reformulating national
legends into shrove burlesque using local argot of the town district where
brewery is situated and was clearly jibing at Czech part of population of the
Czech Republic. Contemporary international spot works with disembedded
notion of typical locality framed within international context. In this spot you
can see two fishermen in their bark fishing in foggy night on a level of a
fishpond, when, suddenly, something big and heavy take the bait and they can
see through the fog typical contours of Loch Ness beast sailing to them. Of
course, they pull for their live desperately and you can see that Loch Ness
beast was nothing more than plastic swam stolen from carousel and sailed by
company of drunken young guys holding beer flasks of preferred brand in
their hands. We can see that due to the change of the aim of advertisement
from local [town] to regional [surrounding villages] even the locality
presented in the advertisement was disembedded from original and
26
incommutably features of local town to more generalized but typical
disembedded image of village [explicitly regional, but de facto national]
where even strange [foreign and international] things could happen and we
can see that spot is articulated through international context using global icon
of Loch Ness beast.
Playing with national / international difference in Serbia:
In the case of Serbian brewery, locality is strongly implied in the marketing
and advertising of the rejuvenated local brand, while international brand is
advertised with phantasmagoric images that tend to associate with an
unlimited and unrestricted world of possibilities, and with spaces full of
phantasy and dreams [under the slogan “Live up to your dreams”]. If we
compare the first and the third set of adverts for the rejuvenated local brand,
produced after the takeover by foreign company, we’ll be able to see how the
dominant narrative of the advert has shifted from that directed towards
nationalization of what used to be a local brand [under the slogan “Our brand
name - the right Serbian name for good beer”], to the recent one which
engaged with local/international nexus, suggesting that drinking beer is a
highly local, simple, friendly activity. In order to convey this message, the
creators of the advert have been exploiting the current public debate over the
local version of an international media format, Serbian Big Brother. Shortly
after the show has been started, one of the inhabitants of the Big Brother
House decided to leave the House, because he couldn’t bear its atmosphere
and was not able to get along with other, rather superficial and frivolous
inhabitants. On living the House, he gained enormous popularity, and was
praised by the public for his openness, directness and simplemindedness.
Miki, a simple carpenter from a small village in Vojvodina, finished just an
elementary school, but turned out to be surprisingly knowledgeable and
skilled in contemporary literature, film and rock music. Over the night he
caught the frenzy of the Serbian public who proclaimed him almost a national
hero, an ordinary man who resisted a temptation of “Western materialism” and
saved the most precious thing – personal freedom and dignity. The brewing
company reacted promptly, and soon an advertising with Miki in leading role
appeared. The plot of the advert takes place in an international restaurant, the
interior of which suggests an ambience of delicate and distinguished taste,
27
where Miki and his friends went to celebrate an important event. The scene of
ordering a meal and drink is a moment when local and international values
and lifestyles meet, for the waiter recommends French wines and delicate
food, indicating their quality and rarity by the place of origin and time of
production [e.g. “Chardone from 1872”]. In a way we could think about the
ambience of the restaurant as about the disembedded notion of
internationality, contrasted with the notions of Norwegian capital, German
company or Malaysia as a place of international experience, which can be
thought of as an embedded notion of internationality. For the spectator of the
advert it is obvious that this international flavor doesn’t match the taste of the
ordinary company. They impatiently wait until the waiter finishes reciting the
offer, and then Miki proudly spells out his [common taste] order: “Pork ribs
and a three glasses of our favorite beer brand from 1848”. Next we see the
company sitting in an ordinary, popular pub, surrounded by music band and
other people drinking beer and toasting, obviously relaxed. Contrast of
international and local food and drinking tastes, but also different ways of
socializing and, we could say, different kinds of social persons. The advert
quite openly uses the public popularity of a new popular, common celebrity
and employed his opposition to an international media format and values it
proposed [individualism, materialism, obedience to rules imposed by Big
Brother, restriction of movement and everyday exposure to the public]
connecting the public valuation of his common sense and self-proclaimed
locality, to a local beer brand. This suggests that the quality is not always
brought about from outside, that it is not necessarily an outcome of
internationalization, so to say. It suggests instead that things and businesses
local have traditions and qualities of their own that has to be appreciated and
which clearly [to which the advert points] contribute to the local pride of
consumers.
Conclusions
Although dichotomy local/international was suggested as a comparative analytical
frame at the beginning, closer investigation of the five cases revealed the importance of
trichotomous conceptual frame local/regional/international for description, analysis and
interpretation of the socio-economic-cultural processes that take place during the post28
socialist transformation. This tripartite frame reveals the complexity of the dynamics of
change, which is simultaneously occurring on all the levels mentioned and which could be
properly understood only if all of these levels are taken into account in their interrelation.
In that respect neither of these analytical levels should be taken independently. In
addition, processual character of each of the levels, which are relationally produced and
reproduced should be acknowledged. This means that notions of neither local, nor regional
and international could be represented in any simple sense, as fixed and unchanging entities
that are contrasted by a principle of simple dichotomies, such as national interest against
foreign interest, old ways against new ways, particularities of the local against universalisms
of international. Rather we witness the relational production of the notions of local, regional
and international through their interrelation in the newly developed context of global
interdependence [the importance of global interdependence is also stressed in the analysis of
TNCs
and
hybridization
comparative
paper].
The
interdependence
of
the
local/regional/international contexts could be seen in the trend of global localization of the
products of international and MNCs, when same products are modified and differently
marketed for different societies and cultures and their respective consumer markets. It is
revealed as well in the new notion of locality that is able to capture the embedded aspects of
both locality and internationality, thereby producing some kind of local internationalism,
particularly evident in the social personhoods and working identities of the so called
transforming managers, but also in various marketing and advertising products.
The analysis showed the importance of the medium level [in various understandings of
the regional] for the operation and representation of the five enterprises. While it is
manipulating with the concepts of locality and internationality in their embedded and
disembedded notions that brought about the organizational (re)structuring, introducing of the
new technologies, rejuvenating renown old brands, creating and developing company culture
and establishing company’s relations with suppliers, customers and local community, it is in
fact the regional level of operation that fosters the development in the long run, for
competition between producers [between “big players” that have the biggest shares of the
market] often takes place in a regional context [in the meaning of national and supra-national
level]. Daniel Miller (2002) concluded in his analysis of production of cola drinks on Trinidad
that competition is often driven by rivalry between “local” producers, and not by the tasks and
requests of the consumers of particular brand: “… it is the actions of rival companies rather
than the actions of the consumers that is the key to understanding what companies choose to
do. Money spent on advertising, for example, is justified in terms of one’s rival’s advertising
29
budget rather than the needs of the product in the market”. Our research and available data do
not provide for the possibility to justify such conclusions for our comparative cases, but we
still have enough proof to argue for the relevance of the regional context for understanding the
operations of enterprises, and to indicate to the relevance of regional perspective in their
further development and growth.
Localization/internationalization appeared to be instrumental and selective processes
whose combination should have brought organizational and business success to the
enterprises. Thus “selective” internationalization and localization could be recorded, which
depend on the phase of transformation and the business section [enterprise department].
Internationalization is more pronounced in those departments and sectors of the firms which
are less “country specific” [production, finance, partly human resources], and less pronounced
in more strongly “country specific” departments []egal procedures, sales and marketing and
human resources). Different combinations of international and local aspects of business
enterprises are recorded in comparative cases, which either the local actors or the case studies
authors singled out as a “recipe” for “success”:
a. International goals - local means
Croatia: mission of the first general manger in Serbian brewery from TNC was to
“implement TNC business systems in the brewery”. Topolcic reveals that he and the other
managers tried to modify this goal through the strategic negotiation between ”international
standards and goals” and “local means”, and “local means” were used to further
implementation of “international goals”. “Local means” meant networking, that was
considered by Westerners a feature of local business practices. “It is important to know (right)
people to get things done – it functiones as a network” [Croatia]. The same could be said for
Serbian case.
b. Cultural blends: International business and local culture
The best case is when international and local values constitute a successful mixture, a
winning combination: “To live corporate values in our way” [Croatia]
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