Soviets Visit UCI to Plan Exchanges in Management Field
Three Soviet citizens interested in bolstering the skills of Soviet business managers visited UC Irvine Friday to plan for exchanges of business professors, students and managers.
According to their host, Dennis Aigner, dean of UCI’s Graduate School of Management, the visit will probably result in groups of Orange County business managers and students visiting Moscow to learn about the Soviet economy; Soviet graduate students studying management at UCI, and an annual seminar on international marketing alternating between UCI and Moscow.
Leonid Evenko, head of management studies for the Soviet Institute of the U.S.A. and Canada, said the trend toward decentralizing the Soviet economy is placing new demands on managers, who are used to decisions being made in Moscow.
“We need new functions: strategic management and planning,” Evenko said Friday in an interview. “Until recently, these were made at the top in bureaucracies. Now the manager needs some skills for decision-making.
‘Need American Professors’
“We need some American professors to teach us strategic management. Also marketing. Until recently, our executives considered international marketing only. But now we need also some marketing knowledge for domestic functions.”
Evenko was accompanied by Victor Krasilnikov, vice president of the central board of the All-Soviet All-Union Economic Society, and by Alexander Dvoretski, director of international programs for the Institute of the U.S.A. and Canada.
The three arrived Sunday at San Francisco State University, which arranged for their visit. They traveled to Orange County Thursday night, conferred with officials at UCI on Friday, attended a dinner party Friday night at Aigner’s home in Laguna Beach, and were scheduled to visit Disneyland today before departing for San Francisco.
They will visit Duke University at Durham, N.C., and New York City before returning to the Soviet Union on Thursday, Evenko said.
Successful Visit
“I consider our visit pretty successful,” Evenko said. A formal agreement to exchange students and professors with San Francisco State is “very close,” and the UCI proposals are “very interesting,” he said.
The proposed seminar on international marketing is being arranged by Evenko and UCI professor John Graham, Aigner said.
“It sounded to me that they were keen on getting this seminar organized very quickly,” he said. “It would probably be in Moscow first. Evenko sounded like he really wanted to move on this very quickly.”
Evenko said the seminar would teach Soviets how to negotiate with Americans and vice versa. “I see rather big enthusiasm on the American side,” Evenko said.
