?
Inclusive Growth of Russian Companies as a Driver of Socio-Economic Development: Insights from the Metallurgical Sector
Inclusive growth has increasingly emerged as a central framework for understanding how firms can align economic performance with social inclusion and environmental responsibility, particularly in emerging markets characterized by institutional volatility. In the context of geopolitical shocks and economic sanctions, such as those faced by Russia during 2022–2023, the normative meaning of inclusive growth is redefined toward prioritizing employment stability, industrial continuity, and strategic resilience at the firm level. This study aims to develop a systematic and transparent firm-level measure of inclusive growth that integrates strategic resilience with long-term business model potential. It further seeks to empirically assess cross-firm heterogeneity in inclusive growth performance within the Russian metallurgical and mining sector under geopolitical disruption conditions. This study constructs a composite Inclusive Growth Index using publicly available financial and non-financial disclosures, combining indicator normalization, variance-based weighting, and geometric aggregation. The index is applied to a panel of major Russian metallurgical and mining companies for the period 2021–2024 to evaluate their strategic resilience, business model potential, and industry-level dynamics under sanctions. The results reveal substantial heterogeneity in inclusive growth performance across firms, with higher index values being associated with stronger strategic resilience and more stable operational outcomes. The analysis further identifies a divergence between improving resilience and declining business model potential during 2022–2024, indicating a trade-off between short-term stabilization and long-term inclusive growth capabilities under the geopolitical stress. The findings suggest that inclusive growth at the firm level in a sanctioned emerging market context follows a distinct sovereignty-oriented logic in which employment stability and operational continuity take precedence over long-term innovation and governance enhancement. Overall, the proposed Inclusive Growth Index provides a robust analytical framework for assessing corporate adaptation to structural shocks and informing managerial and policy decisions in emerging market economies.