ABSTRACT
Like many new universities, Nazarbayev University has a largely expatriate faculty and a largely local non-academic workforce. The development of such an institution requires the leadership team of the institution to understand the dynamics and efficiencies of such a cross-cultural workplace in order to meet its goals. This chapter addresses four specific examples of where the cross-cultural interactions impact the building of the organization and when and how the leadership of this largely expatriate faculty needs to take action. These examples include tacit assumptions, academic freedom, administrative misconceptions and organizational development. The chapter describes some tentative conclusions about the nature of expatriate leadership in knowledge-intensive enterprises. Leading expatriate knowledge-intensive industries requires a much more formal and project-oriented mindset than faculty are sometimes comfortable with. The leadership of the institution has to try and build as much of the organizational processes, leadership, and management teams before recruiting faculty or admitting students.
