Tech, Smart Cities, and Regional Development in Contemporary Russia

The postindustrial economy did not take the place of previous types of economy. More than that, by definition, it hasn't become “post”-industrial in point of fact: relations with regard to the production of tangible goods define the imperative of industrialism, yet with a modern science and technology stage of development. The present-day production becomes increasingly automated, leading to the absence of demand for psychophysiological properties of man and labor in general. At the same time, highly qualified personnel who are able to control complex information management systems come to the fore. New types of energy and manmade materials appear; socioeconomic human living environment becomes more complicated. These processes are an objective phenomenon. However, the technological revolution is manifested differently in the “central” and “peripheral” countries. In the Russian Federation, formation of the innovational takes place in the conditions of integration of the resource model and opposition of the institutes that fund it. The crisis stimulates the conceptual search and does not deny the scientifically based classics.

This chapter studies the importance of implementation of innovational projects of technological growth through public–private partnership (PPP). The authors determine the probability of implementing a project of PPP depending on distribution of risks between its participants. Usage of the mechanism of PPP allows optimizing possible risks during implementation of innovational activities, attracting large business for creation and implementation of new technologies, and forming sustainable ties between R&D departments and business structures. The types of risks in the projects of PPP are given, as well as tendencies of their emergence depending on the stage of implementation of the innovational project, including the following: formation of policy on development of PPP; preparatory, implementary, commercialization of the results of joint activities; and monitoring and control over execution of the project. The algorithm of the system of risk management in innovational projects of technological growth on the platform of PPP is presented. The methods of overcoming the risks that appear during implementation of an innovational project of technological growth within PPP are given. A special attention should be paid to the fourth (distribution of risks) and fifth (reduction of risks) stages. During implementation of innovational projects with application of a business model of PPP, the risks are dealt with by the participant who can manage them better. Reduction of risks is achieved better if several strategies are used – for decreasing the influence of the risk on the innovational project (strategies of risk evasion, acceptance of the risk situation, compensation, transfer, and reduction).

This chapter is devoted to the study of the standard control of the material costs of production as a factor of technical growth of an enterprise of manufacturing industries: ways of integration in a single information space of information that allows you to manage the cost and quality of products at all stages of the value creation; theoretical and methodological approaches to the implementation of control functions of material costs (technological waste and production losses) according to preestablished consumption rates in the value creation of an industrial enterprise, especially in a number of machine-building factories of Nizhny Novgorod industrial cluster; theoretical methods of synthesis and comparison data, structured description of characteristics of the object of study, system analysis, as well as empirical methods of observations and descriptions of the subject area. The necessity of further improvement of effectiveness and methodology of a control function of a standard cost accounting system in the aspect of maintaining the technical growth of an enterprise is substantiated. Current condition is analyzed, and ways of modernization of organizational, managerial, methodological, metrological, and competence types are proposed. Also, sets of conditions for implementation of standard control and procedures incorporated into instrumental information space are substantiated. It is proved that the application of standard accounting of material costs for production within the framework of a system of standard accounting effectively contributes to noticeable technical growth and meets modern criteria and parameters of an effective management. It is substantiated that conditions for the implementation of a standard control of material costs for the production of an industrial enterprise that contributes to technical growth are availability and comprehensiveness of organizational, managerial, methodological, and metrological types of security control of material resources in the production; compliance with technical standards for processing, warehousing, storage, transportation of material resources; and matching competencies of management personnel with their functions. It is expected to introduce a standard control of material costs within the framework of a standard accounting system in practices of machine-building enterprises, as a significant factor of technical growth. Scientific understanding of an essence of the standard control of material costs within the framework of a standard cost accounting system, justified and outlined by the author, ensures incorporation into practice of effective production management, contributes a noticeable technical growth of industrial enterprises of the processing industries; provides a significant improvement in a quality of accounting results in general.

This chapter analyzes the technological growth of the modern Russian economy through the prism of evaluating its effectiveness from the position of costs and profits. It also determines the factors of this growth and develops recommendations for managing them in the interests of acceleration of rate and increase of effectiveness of technological growth of the modern Russian economy. While technological growth in Russia shows high effectiveness, the model of technological growth in Russia has its specifics, connected to the unconventional influence of a standard set of the factors on technological growth. The influence of the factor of the number of organizations that implement R&D is insignificant, and the influence of the number of personnel involved with R&D, volume of private expenditures for R&D, and the number of used leading production technologies is negative (reverse). We offer recommendations for increasing the effectiveness of technological growth of the modern Russian economy, which are connected to increase of the volume of state expenditures for R&D (recommended volume – USD 35.09, its growth as compared to 2018 constitutes 191.76%) and increase of the number of developed leading production technologies (recommended number of these technologies – 2350.05, its growth as compared to 2018 constitutes 62.34%).

The study reveals how the role of the largest cities – regional capitals in the urban settlement system – and the economy of the country changed during the period of social and economic transformations at the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The object of the study is the largest cities with a population of over 1 million people, the administrative centers of the regions. Unlike Moscow and St. Petersburg, these are administrative centers or “capitals” of large territories that have the status of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation. The authors emphasize the special role of cities – regional capitals in post-socialist and developing countries – where there are significant and rapid changes in the distribution of functions between the center and the regions. At the same time, cities – regional capitals – are not considered as isolated objects, but as elements of a national settlement system, the leaders among Russian second-tier cities. The common features of the evolution of the largest regional capitals, the continuity of the factors of city formation, are revealed. Considerable attention is paid to assessing the consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union for the development of the urban settlement system. It was concluded that the “compensatory” nature of the accelerated growth of the largest regional capitals in post-Soviet Russia. “Compensatory” growth is considered as a form of adaptation of the urban settlement system to the weakening of links between its essential links. A methodical approach is proposed that allows a comparative analysis of the role of the largest regional capitals and the capital of the state in the economy of the country. In the process of testing it, an assessment was made of population dynamics, as well as key economic indicators, such as the volume of products shipped, retail turnover, investments, the volume of work in the construction of major regional pages, as well as Moscow and St. Petersburg. The evaluation results allowed the classification of the largest regional capitals in terms of their role in the economic development of the country, as well as in terms of the extent of the gap between the indicators; on the one hand, the largest regional capitals, and on the other, Moscow and St. Petersburg.

This chapter examines the possibilities of economic growth in Russia from the perspective of the development of organizational capability, namely through the study of best managerial practices of multinational companies (MNCs) doing business in Russia, and their use by Russian companies. With tightening competition, companies are forced to focus on the development of organizational capabilities. Our large-scale empirical research into the managerial capabilities and management practices of MNCs and Russian companies employs a comprehensive sample of 1,530 companies and 1,245 companies in 2016 and 2017, respectively, covering the 10 main sectors of economic activity in Moscow and the Moscow region. The analysis was performed across five managerial capabilities: communication, leadership, problem-solving and decision-making, conflict resolution, and motivation, each subdivided into five management practices. Using statistical methods, we identified the major statistically significant differences in and between the managerial practices of MNCs and Russian companies operating in the Russian market, and their dynamics from 2016 to 2017. Taking MNCs operating in the Russian market as a benchmark, we discover that Russian companies need to close the gap in 17 out of the 25 managerial practices in order to maintain competitiveness in the Russian market and be able to influence their economic growth in Russia.

In the last 15 years, the high-growth economic rates of the Russian Federation (RF) have been caused by expansion of the country's participation in the world's raw and energy markets. Now the economic growth opportunities at the expense of these factors are generally exhausted, Russia is faced by problems of high-quality updating of all aspects of socioeconomic and sociopolitical life. These tasks are dictated as external “major challenges” of global character, and internal processes. To confront the challenges and to minimize risks, Russia needs to change the raw model of economic growth which poses the threats for stability of social and economic development.

First, the scientific, technological, and innovative policy which is carried out by industrially developed countries and some new industrial countries is to create the answer to a challenge of maintaining competitiveness and achievement of high productivity rates now. Its purpose is to stimulate development and deployment of advanced technologies, whose productivity significantly exceeds characteristics of traditional technologies.

The happening changes are so considerable that the world enters, perhaps, in the largest technological transition for all history when the richness of natural resources and low cost of work stop being major factors of growth. In total, these changes are estimated as “new industrial revolution” or, in narrower sense, as “technological revolution” which are based on the transition from mass production of the standardized production to the flexible high-performance production which is turning out the individualized products.

In this regard, the productive inclusion in new technological revolution, the implementation of the structural maneuver in economy and social system, can become one of the main objectives for Russia until 2035. The RF should pass a new development model which is based on high-tech industries. It is about the start of the big national project (program) “National Technological Initiative” (NTI).

The implementation of project-planning office functions of NTI is the priority direction of management and modern tool for business which is provided due to the development of NTI planning office, its full-scale expansion, and removal on operational power for support of development and implementation of the plans of measures (“road maps”) of NTI and projects for implementation of “road maps.”

The purpose of the work is to model disproportions in development of regional economy of Russia and to determine perspectives and recommendations for overcoming them and achieving the balance of the economy. The applied methods are based on Popkova's methodology of calculation of “underdevelopment whirlpools,” which allows conducting dynamic modeling of disproportions in development of regional economy. The research is performed in three consecutive stages. At the first stage, the dynamic model of development of the Russia's regional economy is compiled with the help of the methodology of “underdevelopment whirlpools” in federal districts of the Russian Federation based on GDP per capita. At the second stage, the key factors of emergence of disproportions in development of the Russia's regional economy are determined and models of multiple regression of development of the Russia's regional economy are compiled. At the third stage, target parameters of the determined factors are set for reducing the “underdevelopment whirlpools” in the Russia's regional economy by automatized solution of the optimization task with application of the simplex method and recommendations for overcoming the disproportions in development of the Russia's regional economy are compiled. As a result, it is concluded that regional economy of Russia is not well-balanced, as it has deep structural disproportions. These disproportions are caused by insufficient attention to peculiarities of regional economic systems during development and implementation of regional strategies of state management of economy. For more precise accounting of the influence of the key factors of appearance of disproportions and highly-effective management of them for overcoming the “underdevelopment whirlpools,” the algorithm of overcoming the disproportions in development of the Russia's regional economy is developed by the authors, which envisages various managerial measures depending on peculiarities of each Russian region.

This chapter examines the experience of Russia's cities in the implementation of smart solutions. Previous theoretical and empirical studies cover a variety of dimensions, involved in the concept of a smart city, and practical issues concerning technologies, urban management, business models which improve urban residents' quality of life through digital technologies, artificial intellect under the conditions of creating appropriate infrastructure. In this chapter, we present the results of the analysis of some significant information about smart solutions deployed in Russian cities nowadays. We show how smart solutions get allocated among Russian cities and among different domains of this kind of solutions. Unlike most of other countries, smart solutions in Russia are less concentrated in such domains such as sustainable development or transport. Instead, a large number of relevant projects in Russia are concentrated in the field of informatization of urban life and energy efficiency. This feature is associated with budget centralization, the implementation of national programs by the Russian Federal Government. Consequently, in general, the Russian model of a smart city is less focused on demand, but to a greater extent it can be classified as supply-driven.

This chapter identifies the determinants of economic growth for the newly formed countries of the former Soviet Union and the Socialist Bloc. Starting from a neoclassical theory of growth this chapter adds recently identified contributing factors such as human capital, economic freedom, and financial developments to find the determinant of the growth in the region. Other control variables such as population are also included. There are numerous variables that can measure any of the theoretically suggested factors, most of which are correlated. The study checks for multicollinearity among variables. It also accounts for differences in development stages of the countries under study. The data are measured in levels. Tests of normality and randomness are performed to assure compliance with theoretical requirements. This study utilizes panel data analysis using both fixed and random effect models, tested for relevance using the Breusch–Pagan method. The chapter identifies relevant factors and concludes that there are differences among per capita gross domestic products of the countries even after controlling for contributing variables.

This chapter models industrial, tech, and financial cooperation between Russia and the countries of the Asia-Pacific region. We use several complex methods of economic and mathematical modeling to analyze specific features of such cooperation and determine critical factors in industrial, technological, and financial development. The preferable choice for the Asia-Pacific region is cooperation with Russia, which is ready for an increase in imports of industrial and high-tech products as well as joint industrial innovational entrepreneurship. Investments would lead to synergetic effects, ensuring simultaneous industrial, technological, and financial development.