separation is surrounded by all manner of taboos about things they must not do, and new ways in which they are expected to behave. In addition, they may witness totem ceremonies and recite myths (Van Gennep 1908/60). MTD appears to serve as an initiation rite in which novitiates are imbued with new knowledge (including the corporate culture) that will allow them to fulfil the more challenging duties of their next career level. A comparison of tribal initiation and MTD is depicted in Figure 4.Unlike the Kurnai and other Australian aboriginal tribes, where the novitiates are considered dead (Van Gennep 1908/60), the managers at IP are simply in a state of limbo: they have been removed from the previous office and career level, but have not yet acquired the status and trappings of the next. They have left the profane behind, but have not yet acquired the sacred. The liminality of their sojourn at the Centre and IPI confirms the neophytes' imminent membership of the high-flier corps. Thus, the liminal nature and desired consequences of MTD can be said to legitimize the corporate ideology that urges managers to participate in MTD activities and subscribe to the corporate culture.Conclusions and implicationsThis paper has analyzed the use of culture transmission processes to train and develop a cadre of managers, and how this training and development in turn serves to reinforce the shared beliefs about desired managerial behaviour. This recursiveness is sustained by an ideology that urges the creation of shared values and acquires acceptance and legitimacy because it is consistent with managers' career aspirations, and because it yields desirable material and symbolic outcomes. The MTD-culture dialectic thus emerges as a potentially powerful mechanism for managing headquarter-subsidiary relations by creating a sense of identity and potentially integrative values. In developing these insights, we encountered some limitations. First, this stud...
