Institutional mechanisms for the adaptation of managerial practices in the USSR in the 1960s

The article examines the attempts to adapt Western management in the 1960s in the context of the formation of a managerial culture within a planned economy. The history of attempts to implement scientific management methods in the USSR demonstrates the complexity of synthesizing various disciplines. Despite the borrowing of Western theories and the development of domestic concepts, management theory has not been able to become a fully independent science. Key problems included the fragmentation of research, bureaucratic resistance, and the inefficiency of the management training system. Despite attempts to integrate Western experience (e.g., visits to Harvard Business School) and the creation of new specialized centers (VNMTS), the Soviet management model remained fragmented. The main issue was the disconnect between theorists and practitioners: managers viewed scientific developments as abstract models that did not take real conditions into account, while scholars criticized officials for ignoring advanced methods. The analysis of sources and archival materials revealed mechanisms of formal borrowing of management practices without their methodological integration. It was concluded that the failure of the institutionalization of management was related not so much to the absence of scientific foundations as to the mismatch of the organizational environment. Attempts to bridge academic science and management practice led to the creation of new institutions, educational programs, and industry research, but these measures could not radically change the situation. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the comprehensive examination of the processes of institutionalizing management knowledge in the USSR as a form of cultural and organizational transfer. Unlike previous works, the focus is not only on borrowing foreign ideas but also on the internal logic of Soviet managerial culture, its contradictions, and limitations. It is shown that the Soviet management model combined elements of scientific planning and ideological control, which hindered the development of management as an autonomous discipline. As a result, management in the USSR remained more of a rhetorical project than a real management system, and its experience serves as an important example of the limitations of modernization in the context of an ideologically closed economy.