Article
The Behaviour of Russian Industrial Enterprises under Transformation
Increased attention and focus has been laid on the strategic importance of intellectual capital for modern management. However, intangible resources appear difficult to measure. Today, there are several methods, both financial and nonfinancial ones that allow managing them, to provide benchmarking and analyze its value added function (Sveiby, 2007). The rare investigations of intellectual capital in Russian enterprises show that “Almost in all industries it is still more profitable to invest in tangible assets rather than in intangible ones” (Volkov, Garanina, 2007). Still, some investigations on the micro level show that there are enterprises with high level of technological capital and innovative activity. The researchers called them “innovative leaders” and empirically proved that they have high labour productivity and are awarded by market through extra profit (Gonchar et al., 2010). Using the research sample and Pulic’s Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC™) the authors investigate empirically the dynamics and structure of VAIC, and study the relation between the intellectual capital and indicators of organizational performance, such as labour productivity, sales growth and profitability. Additionally, the VAIC™ model allows analysing the role of human, structural and physical capital. This paper outlines the study based on 350 Russian industrial enterprises’ annual statistical and account reports from 2005 through 2007. Besides, the authors adopt the VAIC calculation according to the Russian accounting system’s specifications and limitations. The findings support the hypothesis that a company’s intellectual capital influences favourably the organizational performance, and may indicate future competitiveness. A proof showing that the explanatory power of models is higher when considering the additional variables such as investment in fixed capital, R&D expenditures and a company’s size is represented. The results extend the understanding of the intellectual capital role in creation of sustainable advantages for companies in developing economies where different technological advancements may bring different implications for organizational value creation efficiency.
The third topic of the lecture course «Firm-Level Empirical Surveys: Tools and Practice» is presented in this issue. The topic «Qualitative information: tools for collection and analysis of data» includes two lectures and describes existing methodology and application of qualitative research to firms behavior studies: in-depth interviews, case-studies and focus groups. Special attention is paid to organization of an empirical survey as a set of in-depth interviews with top-managers of enterprises including methodology, field-work procedures and questionnaires. Limitations and advantages of top-managers interviewing as a tool of collecting qualitative information and its possible distortion are discussed.
The article examines differences between two Russian regions – Moscow and Bashkortostan – through the following socio-psychological indicators: perceived social capital, trust, civil identity, life satisfaction, and economic attitudes.
We consider comparative analysis of civic identity, socio-economic attitudes and models of economic behavior in the three regions of Russia. The features of civic identity and its interconnection with models of economic behavior in the Central Federal District, the Far East and North Caucasus are shown.
The paper examines the structure, governance, and balance sheets of state-controlled banks in Russia, which accounted for over 55 percent of the total assets in the country's banking system in early 2012. The author offers a credible estimate of the size of the country's state banking sector by including banks that are indirectly owned by public organizations. Contrary to some predictions based on the theoretical literature on economic transition, he explains the relatively high profitability and efficiency of Russian state-controlled banks by pointing to their competitive position in such functions as acquisition and disposal of assets on behalf of the government. Also suggested in the paper is a different way of looking at market concentration in Russia (by consolidating the market shares of core state-controlled banks), which produces a picture of a more concentrated market than officially reported. Lastly, one of the author's interesting conclusions is that China provides a better benchmark than the formerly centrally planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe by which to assess the viability of state ownership of banks in Russia and to evaluate the country's banking sector.
The paper examines the principles for the supervision of financial conglomerates proposed by BCBS in the consultative document published in December 2011. Moreover, the article proposes a number of suggestions worked out by the authors within the HSE research team.