Home – Home – Jornals – Region: Economics and Sociology 2011 number 1

The paper analyses the cooperation of competitors (cooperative competitiveness), and it introduces a notion of cooperative competitiveness and its economic treatment. The author shows how a spatial strategic planning may positively influence the institutional environment through stimulating innovations and cooperative competitiveness both between and inside regions which could result in better socio-economic development. Potentially negative impacts of cooperative competitiveness are also analyzed.

The paper analyses the innovation dynamics of regional systems through a synergic approach. Such innovation dynamics reflects non-linear interrelations of non-equilibrium processes of capital renewal, technological changes and economic growth in regional industrial systems. Non-linear dependence of the economic growth on the innovation dynamics are shown in case of some regions.

The paper develops basic elements of the modeling and methodical support for assessing the competitiveness of regional economies, and presents an econometric model for Kemerovo Oblast which allows identifying the most important factors and their impacts on regional competitiveness. We show that the more innovations are implemented by any RF unit, the higher competitiveness of such unit may be.

The author presents her analysis of the resource supply for reproducing human potentials both in regions and sectors. The international comparative position of Russia in human development is shown. The author concludes that most of Russians, due to their low wages or salaries, have not enough resources available to human reproduction while the public expenditures on education, healthcare and culture do not cover the lack of individual investments. The author, being based on the works of well-known economists, tries to answer the question whether a vicious circle of «a low labour productivity - low wages and salaries» could be destroyed and whether priorities of Russian social policy addressing contemporary challenges could be found.

The paper offers a sociological approach to diagnose innovation potentials of a territorial unit as well as the authors' understanding of the structure of innovation potentials and its elements such as environmental and human potentials. This approach, which was tested on the data concerning the Novosibirsk Research Center of SB RAS, allows identifying the strong and weak features, barriers, capacities and threats of the future innovation development.

The study considers the key factors of building and further development an innovation economy and peculiarities of Russian institutional system of the post-soviet period. We show how a natural resource rent has defined a character of the built institutions, and we also prove the necessity of reforms in public administration to overcome a «resource curse» of Russian economy and ensure its innovation development.

The paper analyses how Russian industrial policy could be improved to ensure the innovation development of the country. We show that a service-resource orientation of the Russian economy originates from lack of the active policy aimed at the priority development of high-tech industries which must be accompanied with the arrangements to build the innovation infrastructure through applying foreign high-tech technologies. The conclusion is that macroeconomic factors significantly define a sectoral structure of the national economy, and due to this fact the industrial policy should be supplemented with flexible measures of building more favorable conditions for the development of a manufacturing sector in Russia.

The paper analyses development capacities of the research centers considered as a key element of the national innovation system. We show the current management problems in such centers and kinds of supports provided by the government. The ways how to reform the operation of such centers to enhance better cooperation of all elements of the innovation system are presented here.

The paper deals with an empirical survey of small innovative firms in Siberian region, and the problems of innovative business are discussed. Some ideas how and what innovative entrepreneurship could be supported are suggested.

The study presents the results of the development and introduction into practice of nanotechnology projects implemented in the large intellectual centers of Siberia such as those located in Novosibirsk and Tomsk. The survey of the governmental support for the nanotechnology infrastructure is presented. Key problems of the introduction of nanotechnologies are identified.

The paper analyses the conditions which favour all the stages of an innovation cycle and the reasons why the works on some energy-efficient technology projects have been locked-in. We identified and ranged the economic, financial, scientific and technical, technological, institutional and legal barriers encountered during implementing such innovation cycle.

The study analyses how the climate changes considered as a new factor may influence the innovation development in Russia. We identify and analyze the adaptive and preventive innovations. Practical application of both innovations requires a complex of both institutional and technological innovations, i.e. an improved law and regulatory basis and an «eight technologies packet» which is of critical importance, respectively. We emphasize the special importance of those innovations where a multiplicative effect is beyond the scope of a «climatic» specter since the development and implementation of such innovations will bring a higher efficiency of production as well as the resolution of many problems of human environment and health.

The paper analyses the experience of an innovation project on building a special economic area in Tomsk to promote implementation of technical innovations. The results obtained are discussed. A special focus is on building a regional innovation system.

The study analyses the development problems of small cities and rural municipalities in the context of transition to the innovation development of economy. Since many of Russian rural municipalities are not yet fully industrialized, the innovations must take place first of all in governance which, in its turn, could stimulate technological modernization of traditional sectors and the development of regional clusters where municipal units may yield the advantages they have and thus have higher competitiveness.

An industrial corporation is considered as a self-organized and self-managed producing economic system. We formulate the special conditions and mechanisms of influence which allow more successful development of such corporations through applying the innovation entrepreneurship strategies implemented by all divisions and a corporation as a whole.

The paper shows that a new system of incentives, organizational structures and management technologies could be regarded and applied as the management innovations. We identify the barriers such management innovations may encounter during their implementation and show the ways how to overcome them. An innovation policy in relation to the enterprise management is understood here as a set of objectives, principles, rules and goals which allow the better management development of an enterprise

The paper compares the rating methods for analyzing the international positions of Europe and Hungary in R&D competition, and considers the correlation of elements of the national innovation system in Hungary. The author concludes that still there is no satisfactory technique to have reliable comparisons but despite the methodological shortcomings the deteriorated respective positions of the EU and Hungary in the global economic competition, as some indicators show, can be observed within the recent decades. Reasons why this happened and the arguments for current necessity of greater R&D expenses to increase the competitiveness of the EU are presented.

The paper presents the results of studies on identifying a set of indicators to assess innovation development and its applying to innovation management. Using the EC data, the author shows the situation in this sphere characteristic for this most advanced region. As such indicators are mainly of the analytical characters, the necessity to apply a widen set of indicators to solve both analytical and managerial tasks is obvious. The innovation strategies developed by EC are also considered here, and the key indicators of major strategies are offered.