Transferring management knowledge from the west to the Balkans: dilemmas, diversity, and the need for congruence.

The paper presents and discusses the insights resulting from an evaluative study of a collaborative educational initiative which was essentially set up to enable the process of transferring Western management knowledge into the region of Serbia and Montenegro. Drawing on insights from the literature associated with this kind of international ventures, and utilising a critical framework for a value-centred evaluation of complex social arrangements, we have identified a number of closely interrelated tensions within the collaborative project. These tensions and concerns reflect the issues of pedagogy and participation, the problem of disconnection from local practice; signs of ideological invasion and linguistic imperialism; and problematic nature of western management knowledge and its de-contextualisation in these specific circumstances. Analysis and discussion have resulted in some practical and constructive recommendations for changes in the current conduct and process of the initiative. The key argument is to refocus attention from a mechanistic input-output mode of knowledge transfer towards acknowledging diversity, power asymmetries and inherent complexity in this type of social interventions, and facilitating collaborative learning and open dialogue among the involved actors.