New managers in central and east European companies were faced with daunting challenges to manage their companies through the transition from central planning to competition and to change their companies radically so that their firms would be capable of competing effectively. Based on the analysis of six longitudinal company cases from the Czech Republic, I identify the key skills that new managers had to have and where they were able to obtain those skills. The seeds of current managerial expertise could often be found in experiences under central planning, despite the fact that central planning more generally rewarded behaviors that were counterproductive in market-based competition. Results are discussed in the context of leading radical organizational change.
