ПРОЕКТИРОВАНИЕ ПРЕДПРИНИМАТЕЛЬСКИХ СЕТЕЙ: ОЦЕНКА СЕТЕВОГО ПОТЕНЦИАЛА РЕГИОНА АРКТИЧЕСКОЙ ЗОНЫ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ

Modern conditions for the development of society include informational socio-economic relations, the system-forming role of entrepreneurship in the knowledge economy, and the need for business process performers to undertake social distancing due to the global pandemic. All these conditions actualize the need for the development of network forms for business organization, the virtualization of management systems, and improvement of the principles of their design. When designing, an important task is to select strong actors, in particular large corporations, whose potential and interests are most “useful” to the network; therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the role of large corporations in the design of entrepreneurial innovation networks. To achieve the goal of the study, a method is proposed for assessing the entrepreneurial potential of corporations and determining their role in the projected networks. This method is based on the system and network approaches, using correlation and network analysis tools. Using the example of corporations operating in the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation, the capabilities of the method are demonstrated. For this aim, operational data from open sources were collected, the entrepreneurial potential of a pool of the largest corporations was assessed, a network model of corporations’ potentials was visualized, and a network analysis of individual corporations as potential actors of entrepreneurial networks was presented. It is concluded that the hypothesis that all large corporations are potential effective actors for the formation of entrepreneurial alliances is not confirmed. The potential of each corporation must be assessed taking into account the specific requirements of the projected network. In the course of further research, it is planned to expand the pool of potential actors of entrepreneurial networks, develop a methodology for assessing their entrepreneurial potential, and form a methodology for selecting actors for multicomponent or multilevel models of entrepreneurial networks.KeywordsNetworksManagementEntrepreneurshipCorporationsCoronavirusVirtualityDesignEntrepreneurial potential

Civil society is a concept central to most, particularly Euro‐American, understandings of politics. Broadly conceived as the area of political activity that takes place outside the state, civil society has often been seen as a space of liberal political freedom or, from a more radical perspective, as a space of bourgeois hegemonic control. Since the collapse of state socialism, “civil society” has become a key term for political and development geographers seeking to understand how processes like economic and cultural globalization have shifted political activity into “new,” transnational forms. These debates did not do away with radical theorists' concerns that the potential of civil society as a domain for transformative political change has been overblown. Current debates concern the utility of “civil society” as a concept that adequately expresses the diversity of political forms occurring today. In particular, the concept of political society has been posited as a subaltern zone of difference to an elite civil society. An engagement with civil society then remains a key part of a framework for understanding the relations between politics and society.

The financial viability is one of the most important element in achieving sustainability for a civil society, especially in post-Socialist states of Eastern and Central Europe. Despite positive assessments of the role and potential of civil society in Ukraine from scholars and analysts and comparatively high score of civil society organizations’ sustainability index taking in comparative perspective for a whole region, its financial capabilities remains its weakest part during decades of Ukrainian independence. Having comparatively friendly legal and political environment and achieving some impressive results in advocacy, building coalitions and networks and enhancing its organization capabilities Ukrainian CSOs still remain dependant from international donors. Some shifts in financial resilience of civil society demands not only efforts from its side, but finding a consensus with a state on the model to achieve. Three typical models of interrelations by civil society and government, emerged in contemporary Europe are provided, they could be distinguished based on the social and political role of CSOs and their functions in public services provision. These models based on the scales of institutionalization and level of independence of civil society relatively to the authorities and include Social-democratic (Scandinavian), Liberal (Anglo-Saxon) and Corporativism (Continental) types. Ukrainian civil society, regardless achievements in organizational capacities and sectoral infrastructure, still remains in the «emerging» transitional spot due to the extremely small amount of public funds it attracts and based on uncertainty of its role on national and local level. Perspective destinations for civic-state dialogue are emphasized, among which there are finding the consensus of desired model and adopting new National Strategy of Stimulation Civil Society in Ukraine for next five years, changes in legal framework for local self-government, social entrepreneurship, taxation of charity and means earned by CSO themselves and establishing new practices and institutions for public financing of CSOs on national and regional levels.

This is a summary of the author’s Candidate of science Thesis, supervised by Professor Oleg Fomin (Department of Political Science at the P.A. Stolypin Volga Region Academy of Public Administration, Russia) and defended on December 18th, 2009 at the Saratov State Social and Economic University (Russia). The thesis is written in Russian and available from the author upon request. It retrospectively analyses different theoretical approaches to studying state–civil society cooperation, defining those which are mostly suitable to analyse such type of social interaction, specifically in comparative context. Consideration of constantly increasing role of civil society practically elsewhere in the world, on the one hand, and evident appearances of democracy crisis, on the other, became the basic prerequisite for the analysis with a focus on the potential of civil society as a key actor in the process of interaction. However, author expresses critical research view pointing out objective conflicts inherent in civil society as the arena with the plurality of interests and identifying not only positive but also negative aspects resulting from state–civil society interaction.

Civil society contribution to social and economic development has been acknowledged and documented in the literature. Ruefully, despite the disappointing results of development planning concentrated at the national federal level and imposed from the federal capitals of Nigeria from the gaining of political independence in 1960 to the 1990s and the decision at the dawning of the 21stCentury that the rather “top down” approach towards development management was doomed to failure and deserved replacement. That compelled the initiation of the economic empowerment and development strategizing by Nigeria’s National Planning Commission as a better and more effective approach that should be adopted by all levels and entities that manage development activities (governments at the federal, 36 states, 774 local government areas and thousands of communities). Appropriate methods (case study and so forth) were used to analyse the operation of the CRSEEDS processes in the Cross River State since 2005 to the present. The findings are presented as follows. The government and its agencies or representatives have been reluctant to adopt participatory development management strategy involving engagement of (and partnership with) multiple stakeholders (civil society, faith organizations and private businesses) as recommended by development philosophers and practitioners including UN Agencies, conventions among others. While the State Planning Commission took about 17 months to develop the zero draft of the CRSEEDS-2, it gave civil society about seven days to make inputs into the plan. Additionally, it ignored previously submitted papers suggesting policy thrusts, targets and strategies submitted by a civil society network whose members had researched, analysed and reviewed the CRSEEDS-1 and provided information for improving CRSEEDS-2. The Cross River State government’s ignorance, downplaying and misunderstanding of the distinctive contributions, experience and potential of civil society in the State Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (CR-SEEDS-1 and the ongoing CR-SEEDS-2) has been compromising the output and outcome of development management in the state. Consequently, the CRSEEDS processes have been devoid of innovations in the application of environmentally (and climate) -friendly technologies and approaches (especially sustainable-renewable and efficient-energy and environmental governance) being advocated by the global development community. This obtains in the state despite the existence of civil society networking actively with reputable global organizations in various aspects of sustainable development. The implication of this exclusion of stakeholders for development policy is that the reversal of the habit of exclusion of civil society and stakeholders from the development process towards their inclusion in a good governance framework or process is urgent and imperative for optimizing the mobilization of human and natural resources from the region’s vast but poor grassroots communities under the participatory development management strategy that has led to the achievement of revolutionary changes in Brazil and surrounding countries. Key words: Economic empowerment, development strategy, participation, stakeholders, state.

In the past few decades, the frequency of floods has increased in Pakistan. Climate change and poor policy-making and management system across the country is the main reason for the increasing floods in Pakistan. However, the role and potential of Civil Society has not been acknowledged by different stakeholders in disaster management. The aim of the study to explore the role of civil societies contributes to the flood-affected area also how their efforts can be more meaningful for the flood-affected communities. A quantitative study based on a questionnaire conducted in village Ghangwal. The study reveals that Civil Societies responses are quicker than the government response to the flood-affected areas. The major role of Civil Society is in rescue and recovery phases. However, in mitigation and rehabilitation phases the role is limited. The government can reduce the risks of floods if the Local Government system and coordinated efforts at all level are ensured. In the conclusion, the study identified four major areas where Civil Societies support the affected communities are civil society’s response is quicker and more immediate; rescue the affected people and nature of help extended by the civil societies; basic needs of the affected people so the need-based assessment was carried out to compensate and rehabilitate the prospective flood victims. Lastly, the study discovered the methods of distribution of relief-goods among the victims.

The article considers the concept of “digital economy” and its relationship with the concept of “knowledge economy”. It is concluded that the digital economy is officially considered the previous stage before the development of the knowledge society (knowledge economy). A review of the opinions of specialists from different fields of knowledge about the positive and negative effects, as well as the possible risks of the development of the digital economy, is presented. It is proved that despite the objectiveness of the process of moving towards the information society, and further towards the knowledge society, humanity must make efforts that this path will not be destructive for its previous achievements in various fields. From the perspective of system economic theory, an analysis of the system effects and risks of the development of the digital economy in Russia is made. For this purpose, an assessment of the system balance of the distribution of funds in the national project “National Program “Digital Economy of the Russian Federation” is performed. The results of federal projects are classified by system types and the system balance indices are calculated for assessment the financing volumes of the four basic types of economic systems (object, environment, process, and project). The obtained values of the indices of system balance of distribution of funds of the national project “National Program “Digital Economy of the Russian Federation” showed the presence of significant imbalances in the volume of financing between systems of various types. It was revealed that priority support was given to the systems of environment and process types responsible for the development of infrastructure and protocols for collecting, processing, storing and disseminating data. This circumstance should be taken into account in the formation of the country’s economic policy since both the economic systems of the four basic types and the conditions and factors of economic growth should develop proportionally. Application of the presented approach to the development of the digital economy in Russia will make it possible to efficiently distribute financial resources between subsystems, to avoid both duplication of functions by systems of various levels and excessive strengthening or weakening of one or several types of systems.

We investigate whether democratic aid flows, which are directed toward the democratization of recipients by covering democracy‐related programs and government and civil society activities, affect the future political regime of recipient countries. We introduce a multinomial multivariate logit model and we use 5‐yr averaged data covering the period 1972–2004 for 59 democracy aid‐recipient countries categorized into three broad classes according to the prevalent political regime. We find strong evidence that democratic aid flows are positively associated with the likelihood of observing a partly democratic or a fully democratic political regime in democratic aid‐recipient countries and that this result is robust to the potential endogeneity of democratic assistance.(JEL D70, F35, C25)

Within current literature on global governance and conflict management, it is assumed that a functioning civil society is a prerequisite for a functioning and healthy democratic polity.1 The very phrase civil society,, has become absorbed into the lexicon of academic discourse and has accompanied the rise of that other great mantra of the post-Cold War era, global governance. Despite the terminological vagueness of such phrases, those working and writing in the fields of conflict management are intrigued by the potential of civil society, and increasingly view it as a useful item in the tool-box for reducing, or even preventing, the outbreak or escalation of violent conflict.

Background: This article is based on a case study research on evidence use in Africa, drawing from four cases to focus on the role of civil society in evidence use. The countries included Benin, South Africa, Kenya and Ghana and sectors included agriculture, violence against women and children, sanitation and wildlife. Objective: The objective of this article is to discuss emerging lessons from the experiences of engaging civil society in evidence-informed policy-making and practice in different countries and sectors. Method: This research examined processes enabling and hindering evidence use using a demand (policy) rather than supply (research) perspective. It was guided by an analytical framework using a behaviour change approach to understand the evidence journey. It used a case study approach applying qualitative methods. Results: The cases show that civil society organisations (CSOs) can make a valuable contribution towards evidence-informed policy and practice through a variety of different roles. They also demonstrate the implications of participation levels and relationship types between government and CSOs as well as within CSOs. The cases equally demonstrate the significance of evidence-informed engagement processes. Conclusion: Deliberate efforts need to be made to maximise the value and potential of CSOs in evidence-based policy and practice. This includes establishing relationships and trust through dialogue, supported by strong facilitation, knowledge brokering and well-defined guidelines and incentives. This requires ensuring that the right capabilities are in place for the different actors to engage effectively.

ABSTRACTCivil society remains the most challenging and all-pervading of concepts, yet too rarely is it examined empirically. The potential of civil society is that it better allows understanding of local political structures as well as cross-class associational activity. Its alternatives, while many, are principally ‘public life’ and ‘influence’, both of which have their own highly respected traditions. It is argued here that civil society offers a powerful analysis of structure and action in the urban world, and that it is one mediated by municipal government. To operationalize this definition, this article will introduce three further concepts: ‘enshrinement’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘legitimacy’. Each of these is linked to the relationship of the municipal state with that at Westminster, the formal mechanism through which the stability of civil society in nineteenth-century Britain was negotiated.

PurposeEntrepreneurs are networking with others to get advice for their businesses. The networking differs between men and women; notably, men are more often networking for advice in the public sphere and women are more often networking for advice in the private sphere. The purpose of this study is to account for how such gendering of entrepreneurs’ networks of advisors differs between societies and cultures.Design/methodology/approachBased on survey data from the Global Entrepreneurships Monitor, a sample of 16,365 entrepreneurs is used to compare the gendering of entrepreneurs’ networks in China and five countries largely located around the Persian Gulf, namely Yemen, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.FindingsAnalyses show that female entrepreneurs tend to have slightly larger private sphere networks than male entrepreneurs. The differences between male and female entrepreneurs’ networking in the public sphere are considerably larger. Societal differences in the relative prominence of networking in the public and private spheres, and the gendering hereof, correspond well to cultural and socio-economic societal differences. In particular, the authors found marked differences among the religiously conservative and politically autocratic Gulf states.Research limitations/implicationsAs a main limitation to this study, the data disclose only the gender of the entrepreneur, but not the gender of each advisor in the network around the entrepreneur. Thus, the authors cannot tell the extent to which men and women interact with each other. This limitation along with the findings of this study point to a need for further research on the extent to which genders are structurally mixed or separated as entrepreneurs network for advice in the public sphere. In addition, the large migrant populations in some Arab states raise questions of the ethnicity of entrepreneurs and advisors.Originality/valueResults from this study create novel and nuanced understandings about the differences in the gendering of entrepreneurs’ networking in China and countries around Persian Gulf. Such understandings provide valuable input to the knowledge of how to better use the entrepreneurial potential from both men and women in different cultures. The sample is fairly representative of entrepreneur populations, and the results can be generalized to these countries.

"Chapter 11: The potential of civil society and human rights organizations through third-party interventions before the European Courts: the EU’s area of freedom, security and justice" published on 29 Mar 2013 by Edward Elgar Publishing.

In the article, a review of Russian and foreign literature was carried out, which allowed to consider the main standards of risk management and quantitative methods of risk assessment. The correlation-regression analysis of risks revealed the most significant risks affecting the efficiency of corporate innovation implementation in industrial companies. These include: misunderstanding the importance of innovation for the company; lack of financial resources for innovation; low level of support for the company’s top management for the introduction of innovative processes. A regression model of the impact of risks on the effectiveness of corporate innovation was built, which will predict the degree of impact of risks on the effectiveness of corporate innovation. Recommendations on improving the risk management system for various levels of innovative development of industrial companies are proposed, which are aimed at increasing the efficiency of introducing corporate innovations in industrial companies and ensuring a high level of competitiveness of companies.

In the article, a review of Russian and foreign literature was carried out, which allowed to consider the main standards of risk management and quantitative methods of risk assessment. The correlation-regression analysis of risks revealed the most significant risks affecting the efficiency of corporate innovation implementation in industrial companies. These include: misunderstanding the importance of innovation for the company; lack of financial resources for innovation; low level of support for the company’s top management for the introduction of innovative processes. A regression model of the impact of risks on the effectiveness of corporate innovation was built, which will predict the degree of impact of risks on the effectiveness of corporate innovation. Recommendations on improving the risk management system for various levels of innovative development of industrial companies are proposed, which are aimed at increasing the efficiency of introducing corporate innovations in industrial companies and ensuring a high level of competitiveness of companies.