The development of electronic links among American and Russian students and professors would be facilitated by focusing technical assistance in the education field on disseminating the needed technologies among educational institutions and on sharing American experiences in distance learning and interactive methods of education with Russian teachers and professors. These two experiments lead us to believe that there may be an emerging new role for business schools in the global economy. Management schools could become an important link for communication between American and Russian businesses, especially small and medium-sized companies. The American students were impressed that communication via academic networks was much easier than via telephone or fax. Although there were other methods of communication available, email was the most convenient method because of the low cost of communication and because of existing access to the necessary equipment.
Email is cheaper than communicating by fax.
Presently American universities have the highest rates of usage for all internet applications. We believe that a growing role for business and management professors and students may be to help establish links via email among small businesses in different countries. Usually educators who can provide such linkages have already been cooperating for several years. Hence, they can also serve as consultants and as mediators assisting entrepreneurs in overcoming language and cultural barriers. The American students soon realized that the American approach of simply proposing a joint venture was too impersonal for the Russian students.