Le chef d'entreprise sovié­tique et l'innovation: un modèle de comportement

Abstract

The Soviet Manager and Innovation : A Behavioral Model. The objective of this paper is to employ the utility approach and formulate an optimization model that is capable of explaining the observed behavior of the Soviet firm. The analysis concentrates on some utility maximizing policy adjustments consistent with the special set of institutional constraints under which the Soviet manager is forced to operate. It points the way to better understanding of the possible patterns of managerial behavior, permits greater insight into the operation of business firms in the Soviet Union and yields some original results. The model developed in this paper shows that, despite the constraints established by the central production plan, the Soviet manager is able to secure a set of opportunity choices with respect to the firm's output — inventory policy. In fact, the manager's ability to create and then preserve that range of opportunity choices turns out to be his major survival requirement in the Soviet system. The analysis shows that, under static conditions where the set of institutional and technical parameters is fixed, the range of the Soviet manager's policy options necessarily diminishes over time and choice must ultimately disappear. The utility-maximizing manager has, therefore, strong incentive to change his economic environment and, in the process, renew his set of opportunity choices. A way to achieve such renewal is via cost-saving innovations. 'The paper argues that, contrary to the conclusions of most authors, the Soviet system has a built-in incentive for the manager to search for cost-saving improvements, provided the manager can choose the rate which the effects of these improvements are made known to the state. It is the Soviet manager's ability to innovate and conceal the full effects of the innovations from the state that determines his capacity to survive. The existence of this innovative potential is important, of course, because it helps to explain how the Soviet economy can experience some economic advances in an environment which is ridden with waste and inefficiencies.