In 1991 Alabama management professor James K. McCollum and his wife Barbara undertook the challenge of becoming visiting scholars in Romania just as that former communist country was embarking on its uncertain transition from a dictatorship to a democracy, from a centrally planned state-run economy to a free enterprise, market driven system. The McCollums set out to be not merely advisors, but to keep a diary that would document the step-by-step journey, as nearly all facets of a society had to abandon engrained habits of thought and action, formed during forty years of marxist indoctrination, and absorb an utterly new paradigm of attitudes and strategies. After over a decade of involvement, consulting on management practices with Romanian businesses, writing textbooks and lecturing to students, this book relies for accuracy of memories on diary notes to refresh and recreate the nuances of the McCollums' experience with Romania's transition, which still is continuing.
