‘I Felt the Need to Move to Another Country and Culture to Further Develop My Research and Teaching’

Romie Frederick Littrell came to St.Petersburg School of Economic and Management in 2017. He is a Professor of Management in the Department of Management. In his interview, he talks about his working experience, living in St.Petersburg, interest in Russia, and plans for the future.

Romie Frederick Littrell

To Saint Petersburg from New Zealand

In 2012, when I was teaching at university in Auckland, New Zealand, Dr. Valentina Kuskova, HSE University Deputy First Vice-Rector responded to my online advertisement for research collaborators for a global management and leadership project. In 2013, in cooperation with Prof. Kuskova, we organized the First Leadership in Russia and Global Context conference, held alongside the HSE Annual Conference on Management.

Thereafter, Prof. Kuskova joined my research consortium, the Centre for Cross Cultural Comparisons. We collaborated on several research projects in Russia, collaborated on a leadership in Russia project that led to published journal articles, and met a few times at academic conferences.

In 2016, I felt the need to move to another country and culture to further develop my research and teaching. I mentioned this to Prof. Kuskova and she informed me that HSE had openings for professors of management in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. As I had already met those on the selection committee in Moscow, Prof. Kuskova arranged interviews and teaching demonstrations at HSE-Saint Petersburg. After the interviews I was offered a position in 2017 in either Moscow or Saint Petersburg. It was a difficult choice as I am quite fond of both cities.

My avocation is reading history, and I was less familiar with Saint Petersburg, so I chose this city to learn more

I have professorial duties in both the Department of Management and the Business and Politics in Modern Asia programme.

The Zeitgeist of Russia

Being a specialist in cultural differences and cross-cultural experience, I began international travel outside the USA several decades ago, to Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Carribean Islands, the UK, Ireland, and Germany. In my work with IBM, the Intercontinental Hotel and Resorsts Group, and as a university professor I have worked for several years each in China, French-speaking Switzerland, Germany, New Zealand, and Russia. I have worked as a visiting professor in New Delhi, India; Guangzhou and Dalian, China; Izmir, Turkey; and briefly in Oslo, Norway.

My major problem is that I am a poor linguist and struggle with learning new languages. I very much enjoy living in and learning new cultures. I was discussing living in Russia with Prof. Kuskova a few months ago, and actually I find the Zeitgeist of Russia to be quite similar to the USA in terms of non-verbal body language, use of voice, and general public and private behavior.

I find my Russian neighbors and those I do business with to be exceptionally kind, considerate, and helpful with my lack of language skills. I like it here

Teaching and Working in the Pandemic

All my courses this year are online, through the Zoom online teaching system. The courses I have been teaching are master's level in Introduction to Business and Cross Cultural Communication in Modern Asia, Research Seminar in Academic Writing (in English), and I moderate an on-line MOOC, Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies. I see face-to-face teaching as more effective and fun. I enjoy personal interaction with my students.

I can see value in blended teaching, and I will likely design my courses as blended in the future. I find Zoom meetings to be an excellent medium for one-on-one student meetings, especially for my post-graduate research papers and thesis students

I am based in Saint Petersburg, and at the moment I work in my home office. I live in an apartment hotel in the Petrograd District, and my hotel wi-fi service is very fast and reliable, and I always have a scanner/printer/copier at home wherever I live. My days are arranged such that I set my alarm based upon what time my first Zoom class or meeting occurs.

I work throughout the day and well into the evening for a 12 to 14 hour workday; to do a good job with my workload of research and research publications, class preparation and delivery, and grading of assessed homework and tests, and supervision of several master's theses per year require a 7-day work week.

I'm enjoying living in Saint Petersburg. The people are friendly and helpful; the bus and metro system is excellent; taxis are plentiful and not too expensive.

Due to my workload, I don't have much time for recreational walking; most of my walking involves shopping, and commuting to and between home and the Kantemirovskya 3A and Griboyedova 123 HSE campuses.

Current Projects and Future Plans

I am a country collaborator for the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) 2020 project, investigating leadership and culture in Russia. In addition, I facilitate a consortium of international researchers through the Center for Cross Cultural Comparisons, at the moment we are working on these projects:

A study of the effects of societal culture on employee attitudes toward empowerment in their work;
Collecting data for our preferred leader behavior and societal culture in Chongching, China; Rostov-on-Don and several Balkan countries;
Attempting to arrange collaboration with a university in Georgia, and seeking collaborators in Central and Eastern European countries;
Developing a paper on field survey research methodology with a colleague, Dr. Jasenko Ljubica in the Department of Management at HSE-SPb.

I also plan on developing data and a paper discussing the fallacies of using the same labels and descriptions of values and behaviors of Boomers, and Generations X, Y, Z, and whatever is next across countries with diverse cultures and histories.

This year I am planning to take part in the following events with presentations:

Academy of International Business (AIB) 2020 Conference - Online (Miami, Florida, USA). Presentation: Preferred leader behavior comparisons amongst business people in three Muslim-majority countries;
Analytics for Management and Economics Conference - Online (Saint Petersburg, Russia). Presentation: Response Set as a Cross-Cultural Variable: Recent Empirical Data from Cross National Samples.

Planned for next year are EURAM 2021 (European Academy of Management), Academy of International Business AIB2021, and Analytics in Management and Economics 2021-Saint Petersburg.

November 19, 2020