Theory of institutional and economic disfunctions in the Russian school: Retrospective and prospective views

The article challenges the stereotype which underestimates the accomplishments of the national scientists which generate and develop the current institutional and economic dysfunction theory and provide the pragmatic opportunities for the dysfunction theory. The research aims to consider the contribution of the modern Russian institutional economic school into generating and developing the institutional effects theory with the focus on its tool segment - the theory of economic and institutional dysfunctions. Methodologically, the article is based on the economic theory of institutions, provisions of the modern theory of institutional effects, including the institution dysfunctions, management theories for the economic systems of different complexity levels, as well as the comparative analysis, elements of mathematical modeling, and solutions of the differential equations. Tool capabilities of the dysfunction theory are illustrated for the developing of management recommendations, a measurement device is created to identify a dysfunction and to apply it in order to access the quality of the institutions and economic systems, the possibilities for applying the dysfunctions in the institutional modeling are defined. To do this, a function equation for the financial support of the institution is obtained to examine the connections between the institution monetization, the quality of their functions and their dysfunctions. The differences between the lock-in and dysfunction effects which characterize their connections with the categories, including stability, efficiency/inefficiency, institutions’ quality, are specified, and a dysfunction is defined as a dynamically changing condition, while lock-in can be static. The article points out the key prospective developments of the institutional and economic dysfunction theories: 1) better tools for measuring the dysfunctions; 2) evaluation of the institutional efficiency and functional potential of the institutions, as well as the quality of the institutions and economic systems; 3) dysfunction modeling, including at the level of its connection with the macroeconomic parameters. Further research into the Russian institutional school of the economic science is seen in the development of the dysfunction theory and its methodological tools for its application to analyze different socio-economic phenomena.

Diagnostics of weaknesses and strengths of a region’s socio-economic and innovative development: Methods and its application

The article offers methodological tools to diagnose the weaknesses and strengths of a region’s socio-economic and innovative development. The topicality of the issue is determined by the need to define the priorities for the regional strategizing. The methods of analytical diagnostics, expert survey, SWOT and PEST analyses underlie the methodology of the study. The article applies the diagnostics tools to the economy of Lugansk People’s Republic and gives the results. The study characterizes the local factors of the regional economy affecting the level of the economic and innovative development in Lugansk People’s Republic. The article also gives the conclusions made from the analysis of the possible external impacts (opportunities and threats) in the COVID-19 pandemics in terms of social, economic, and innovative trends. For example, PEST analysis is used to calculate consolidated weighted indicators for the socio-economic and innovative development in Lugansk People’s Republic. A group of political factors is seen to have an adverse effect due to the Republic’s status as a breakaway region and a threat of military escalation. A lack of properly functioning banking and financing systems, flight and railway connections, low investment interest in the region’s economy show the most serious detrimental impact among other economic factors. A weighted indicator in the group of social factors is positive due to the following institutions: protection of health and labor, education, culture and sport. A negative weighted value for a technological component could be explained by an extensive physical and moral depreciation of the fixed assets, a low use of production capacities, a lack of local raw materials resources. Cross-sectional SWOT analysis makes the authors conclude about a significant impact of the weaknesses on the socio-economic and innovative development of a region, which should guide the development of priority measures in the public economic strategy. Further research is seen to be connected with the justification and development of the efficient strategy for the sustainable self-development of Lugansk People’s Republic.

ENTERPRENEURSHIP: NATURE, CONTENT, AND ESSENCE

I n recent times, entrepreneurship is given a special attention to as entrepreneurship is customarily seen to be a virtually free and unlimited factor of economic growth. Meanwhile, the question of its nature, content, and essence remains unresolved. This leads not only to a misunderstanding of the entrepreneurship mechanism and the behavior of entrepreneurs, but also to mistakes in economic policy in relation to entrepreneurship, in particular, associated with over-expectations regarding the entrepreneurs’ focus on social needs. The problem is aggravated by the fact that scientific literature claims that there are at least three approaches to entrepreneurship analysis: 1) entrepreneurship as an economic category, 2) as a management method, and 3) as a type of economic mindset. Each approach has its right to exist due to the versatility of the entrepreneurship phenomenon itself. The aim of this article is to study entrepreneurship as an economic category. This is driven by the fact that the other two aspects of the analysis can be appropriately described only if they are derived from the true nature of the phenomenon. Having the principles of the systemevolutionary approach in mind, the author shows the inextricable connection between entrepreneurship and the development of exchange and market economy. At the same time, it is proven that the variety of approaches to entrepreneurship stems both from the evolution of entrepreneurship itself and from wrong exploitation of its analysis methodology. This approach is novel because the article looks at entrepreneurship as a special type of business behavior. This gives a substantial conclusion that the content side of entrepreneurship is the conquest of competitive advantages, while its essence means “non-violent acquisition”, i.e. accumulation of property through market transactions. Understanding the nature of entrepreneurship as a result of exchange process and a market change agent gives promising prospects for studies in the area of evolution of exchange forms and the forms and methods of entrepreneurship existence.

A MODEL FOR EVALUATING AND ELIMINATING THE PROBLEMS OF “SHOСK” TRANSITION TO DISTANCE LEARNING IN A MODERN UNIVERSITY

T he current epidemic situation in Russia and the world caused by coronavirus infection requires prompt solutions to eliminate the consequences of the pandemic in almost all sectors of economic activity. The isolation of the population from mutual contacts was one of the effective solutions to the problem. This arose the need for the educational institutions to promptly switch to a remote mode of education. Those involved in the distance learning process faced a wide range of different problems, which defines the topicality of developing the efficient measures aimed to overcome the challenges of the distance learning process. The subject of the work is the analysis of the processes arising from the sudden transition of the educational environment of the university to the distance learning format, the development of a rating model designed to grade the problems which are important for the students and which are determined by the transition to the distance learning format, and the development of directions for solving the established problems. The aim of the study is to identify the problems that have arisen from the transition to a distance learning format among the students and to develop an organizational and managerial tool to fix these problems. The study relies on the information taken from a secondary data analysis performed by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) and the results of their own research by the students specializing in Economics at the Institute of Economics and Management in Penza State University. The research methods included SPSS based comparative and frequency analysis. The scientific novelty of the work is as follows: 1) a rating evaluation of the problems arising from the transfer of the educational process of the university to a distance learning format in the context of a "shock" transition associated with force majeure caused by coronavirus infection has been developed; 2) University students’ satisfaction with distance learning and students’ readiness to apply the technological distance learning tools and possibilities of Moodle based electronic educational resources in the distance learning format have been identified. Statistical processing of the research results with nonparametric criteria contributes into the reliability of the findings and the recommendation. The practical significance of the research lies in the developed concept of the organizational and managerial mechanism for overcoming the problems arising from the transition to the university’s distance learning environment. This mechanism refers to the social and informational areas, reduces the time of transition to the distance learning format, and accounts for the interests and readiness of the teaching staff and students. Further research is seen to be connected with monitoring the validity of the revealed problems in their dynamics with a one semester lag.

MODELING OF THE SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX STRUCTURE IN THE DIGITAL ECONOMY

T he dynamic development of the digital economy creates new business conditions that catalyze crossindustry cooperation of enterprises and accelerate technology transfer between various market entities. This determines the need for the efficient integrated structures in the industrial sector of Russia with high scientific, innovative, digital, and production capacity. The purpose of the research is to develop and operationalize a competitive model of the scientific and industrial complex in the digital economy. The content of the scientific and industrial complex is determined, and the differences between the complex and the industrial cluster are identified. The competitive advantages of a scientific industrial complex in relation to autonomous enterprises are highlighted. The scientific novelty and practical significance of the study unfold in the development of theoretical provisions and structural and functional parameters of the model of the scientific and industrial complex in the digitalization of the social economic systems, as well as a cluster analysis based methodological approach to its operationalization. A methodological approach to the operationalization of the model of scientific and industrial complexes performing in the digital economy includes four stages: 1) identifying the prerequisites for the integration; 2) choosing the goals for establishing a complex; 3) enterprises clusterization and modeling of scenarios for establishing a complex; 4) development of a complex’s functioning and development mechanism. The basic, industrial and technological, innovative digital, institutional and managerial, structural, financial and market criteria for clustering enterprises and organizations to establish a complex have been worked out. The approach was tested and options for establishing scientific and industrial complexes were modeled from cluster analysis of 37 enterprises of the Central Chernozem region of Russia by the G-means method. With the results of the analysis in mind, the authors recommended to set up radio-electronic, electrical engineering complexes in Voronezh region and a machine-building complex in Lipetsk region. The article offers a list of members, goals, types of strategies, integration projects and expected results of the modeled complexes performance. The model of the scientific and industrial complex and the approach to its operationalization can become a methodological tool for the management of enterprises when some options for setting up, organization types and scenarios for the development of integrated structures in the industry of Russia are considered. Further research is seen to be in developing the models of strategic and sustainable development during digital transformation of scientific and industrial complexes, as well as in developing organizational and economic mechanisms for institutional transformations of industrial enterprises in the digital economy.

SPATIAL NON-HOMOGENEITY OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IMPACT ON SOCIAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF RUSSIAN REGIONS

T he global nature of the COVID-19 pandemic outlined new challenges for the economic studies aimed to define the factors measuring the difference in the scope of the coronavirus-induced crisis consequences for the national social economic systems. The purpose of this research is to develop the tools to define the COVID-19 pandemic impact on the social economic development of the Russian regions and the resilience of the regional systems to the pandemic in terms of demographic factors. The methodology of the research includes statistical analysis and econometric modeling. The authors defined the economy resilience to the pandemic and developed a resilience index of the regional economy to the COVID-19 pandemic. The resilience index includes groups of homogeneous indicators characterizing the factors of the regional economic growth. Resilience of the regional economy to the COVID-19 pandemic is measured to reveal a negligible positive impact of the population density on the resilience of the RF regions’ economy to the coronavirus-induced crisis. The regions were clustered by the resilience index of their economies to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the leaders-regions, the regions with a moderate level and outsiders-regions were defined. A higher level of the regional economic development is found not to guarantee a more resilient economy to the COVID-19 pandemic. The obtained scientific results could be used to choose customized tools for the recovery of the regional social economic systems with due regard to the area with the worst dynamics of the indicators. Further scientific research is seen to be in analyzing the spatial non-homogeneity during the pandemic compared with pre-pandemic and post-pandemic periods, as well as in measuring the detrimental effects of the coronavirus and other external shocks on the RF regions’ economies in the context of demographic factors.

IMPROVED METHODOLOGICAL TOOLS FOR EVALUATION OF INTERFIRM INTERACTION EFFICIENCY IN THE CONTEXT OF DIGITALIZATION

T he development of efficient interfirm interactions for the sustainable development of particular business entities and their strategic structures calls for special tools and management methods in the context of economy’s digitalization driven by a wider openness of economic systems and more extensive network development. This determines the demand for a methodology designed to evaluate the interfirm interactions to improve their efficiency under the digital transformation of the social and economic system. The purpose of the study is to develop methodological tools to measure the efficiency of the interfirm interactions, and these tools can be derived from identifying and analyzing the factors contributing into the result-focused exploitation of the information communication technologies. The authors hypothesize that a model of efficient interfirm interactions is defined by its three components: interaction strategy; availability of the resources for interfirm interactions (information communication technologies); resource management. The article analyzes evaluation approaches to interfirm interactions to identify a number of shared features and to systematize efficiency factors. The heads of the industrial enterprises were surveyed, and the motivation factors for the business entities to develop their interfirm interactions were defined: 1) lower risks of contracting liabilities; 2) better coordination of entities’ activities. A multi-factor model of digitalization factors which affect the efficiency of interfirm interactions is developed. This model complements theoretical methods which describe the impact of digital technologies on the relationships between firms and will contribute into their sustainable economic development. A matrix of firms’ strategy types has been derived from their exploitation of information communication technologies. It describes the strategies of involvement, awareness, monitoring, and integration. The authors came to conclusion that the development of the information communication resources is turned out to be fundamental for the integration and the key factor to shape and to develop the efficient interfirm interactions in modern economy. A further research is seen to be in developing a tool and algorithm based approach to examine the behavioral strategies for the business entities so that to define their status in the interfirm interactions and to develop measures aimed to increase the efficiency of interfirm interactions with regard to forecasted digitalization.

Human centered development of Russian megacities: Opportunities and limitations

Currently, the role of the big cities in the development of economy and society, the organization of high-quality urban space for people are widely discussed. However, there are still many unresolved urban issues with the crucial one being the need for the city-person interaction. Better interaction, diversity in satisfying the population’s needs, feedback from an active citizen who influences the development of the city are the attributes of modern metropolis that competes for any person. City’s advantages result in a greater population size and better quality of their life. Otherwise, the city shows the degradation signs and population decline. The purpose of the study is to justify the need for a multi-criteria assessment of living conditions in the Russian megalopolises under the citizens’ needs and the improvement of modern urban space. This assessment could guide the managerial decisions in defining the strategic priorities in city development. The following methodological tools were used: experts’ assessments of urban environment quality, demographic analysis of urban population movement; positioning of Russian megacities by criteria ‘urban environment quality’ and ‘population’s cost of living’, their grouping by the qualitative characteristics of urban environment; content analysis of the strategic documents for the development of the largest megacities. The novelty of the study is a new interpretation of the concept of ‘place’ in terms of the urban area. It is defined in a broader sense rather than a particular localization with the borders. It is an urban environment with a set of different opportunities to meet citizens’ growing needs. The study arrives at the approaches to a multi-criteria assessment of the living conditions in million cities under the citizens’ needs. To do this, the authors applied the methods of the Ministry of Construction, Housing and Utilities in the Russian Federation and analyzed the conditions and dynamics of the urban environment, studied the demographic processes, and evaluated the megalopolis attractiveness under the income and cost of living ratio. This revealed the challenges of the cities which could be theoretically solved in the strategic documents of megalopolis development, while the development of efficient mechanisms could help in the practical implementation of the solutions (municipal programs and projects). The article offers to analyze and constantly update the strategic documents of the million cities with regard to the public opinion and the needs of city dwellers in high-quality urban space. The authors worded the need to re-define the urban space which used to be interpreted as a place for living and the human role in its development. The results of the study could be of interest to public authorities and local governments that strategically manage the million cities. Further research is seen to be connected with the development of a comprehensive integral multi-criteria assessment for the current condition and dynamics in the urban space quality to define the megalopolis competitiveness in terms of their interest for the citizens.

Theory of industrial organization: The problem of defining the subject.

The object of analysis in the industrial organization theory remains debatable. A comparative approach applied to solve the problem in the study shows that the object in the industrial organization theory is conventionally interpreted as different forms of applied, i. e. industrial, microeconomics. The author views industrial market as a structural component of economy with its own laws of development. If the object of analysis in the industrial organization theory is the industry itself, then the subject should be focused on studying the driving forces which determine the direction of its development. The objects of analysis in the current industrial markets theory and in microeconomic analysis match due to their common methodology – the statistical analysis. Given the industry’s dynamic nature, it would be the most appropriate to reproduce the approach which combines systematic and dynamic methods. This approach demonstrates that industry’s evolution is driven by the resolution of contradictions between the firm and market conditions. The direct cause of market changes are shown to be the changes in the productive forces, and the direct driving force is the firm. While changing, the firm creates new market conditions which accumulate and trigger qualitative transformations of the market, forcing it to adapt to the changes in a new way. An on-going contradiction between them becomes the engine of development for both the industry and the firm. This interpretation of the object in the industrial organization theory and the reproduced methodology used provide ample opportunities for solving two theoretically and pragmatically crucial problems – defining the causes and factors of the industrial markets development, and defining the patterns in product markets development, which allows us to predict the process of market evolution. Further analysis of the internal development will reveal the evolutionary nature of the industries and markets and give some insights into the nature of their interaction with the society’s productive forces and public institutes being the reflections of the production relationships.