Governance Structures in Russian manufacturing: assessment using sample survey data

The analysis of governance structures in Russian manufacturing does not only enable exploring the industrial organization and upgrading of companies, but also brings forefront the transaction costs faced by market participants. From this perspective, it is important to examine Russian industries, since models of organizational structure have been developing in Russia only within the last 20 years, under the influence of transaction costs associated with the transition economy. Despite the importance of governance structures within the framework of analysis of markets, competition, and inter-firm cooperation in transition economy, the model of Russian organizational structure has been studied insufficiently. The main objective of this work is to fill the gaps in studies of alternative governance mechanisms in Russian industries, and to review organization and behavior of enterprises as a part of hierarchical, market, and hybrid models. The empirical analysis is based on the data obtained from interviews of Russia’s mid-sized manufacturing enterprises. Preliminary results show that, first, in contrary to expectation, hierarchical governance does not prevail in the manufacturing industries, and second, governance structures affect organization of corporate control, willingness to priceand non-price competition, investment decisions, incentives and possibilities to upgrade and also the assessment of contract risk and contract protection in directions predicted by institutional theory and theory of value chain

Upgrading Russian enterprises from the value chain perspective: the case study of tube & pipe, and furniture sectors

The paper is the first analysis of the competitiveness of Russian enterprises from the perspective of value chains, with a focus on the example of tube & pipe and furniture producers. In both industries, Russian firms enjoy an advantage on the raw material side. Nevertheless, the overall competitiveness level of Russian producers remains modest. Domestic industries primarily owe decreased competitiveness to the inadequate operation of the final links in the value chain: from end-product production to the end-user. In addition, the competitiveness of domestic producers is limited to the ability of key players in the chain to redistribute additional gains in their own favor. Study shows that any non-selective methods of supporting enterprises (such as tax reductions) exert extremely limited influence on the status of players in those chains where one of the links is characterized by serious entry barriers and related opportunities of rent redistribution in favor of a particular player. Paper suggests several policy measures which aim to improve the ability of the producers to reposition themselves along the chain or to modify the chain itself