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Russia is one of the leaders in outward FDI from emerging market economies and at the same time Russian MNCs have their specific features. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze characteristics of Russian MNCs by researching relationship between specificities of Russian economic and political model, on the one hand, and specific features of Russian MNCs, on the other hand.

For these researches, traditional instruments of neoclassical theory are basically used.

The principal finding is that specific characteristics of Russian MNCs reflect specificities of Russia’s economic and political model. To some extent, they correlate with characteristics of MNCs of other two leading emerging economies – China and India.

Russian MNCs operate in line with principal theories of FDI, that is, on the basis of their country and firms’ comparative advantages. However, they possess specific features: many of them are state-controlled MNCs; private MNCs are controlled by oligarchs; all of them have tight relations with offshores and offshore conduit countries. The comparison with China and India shows that some of these specific features are typical of Chinese and Indian MNCs to more or less extent.

The empirical part of the chapter analyzes scope, industrial and geographical profiles of Russian MNCs, their motivation and management, impact on Russian economy and regional integration.

National MNCs with their offshore affiliates are the leading tax evasion economic agents in Russia. Moreover, stable FDI outflow reduces gross capital formation in Russia which is insufficient (19–25% of GDP) for substantial economic growth by standards of emerging economies in this decade (from 4.3 to −3.8 in Russia, from 6.8 to 9.5 in China, from 5.1 to 7.3 in India).

The principal value (originality) of the chapter is its comparatively detailed review of main aspects of Russian MNCs’ worldwide activity made from the point of view of its connection to Russia’s economic and political model.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how supply chain strategies emerge and evolve in response to contextual influence.

A qualitative single-case study presents the journey of a supply chain strategy, conceptualised as the idea of transport independence in the Russian Arctic context. Data from 18 semi-structured interviews, personal observations and archival materials are interpreted through the institutional concepts of translation and editing effects.

The study reveals how supply chain strategies evolve over time and can affect institutional factors. The case study further reveals how contextual conditions make a company reconsider its core competencies as well as the role of supply chain management practices. The findings show that strategy implementation through purposeful actions can represent a powerful resistance to contextual pressures and constraints, as well as being a facilitator of change in actual supply chains and their context. During the translation of the idea of transport independence into actions, the supply chain strategy transformed itself into a form of strategic collaboration and thereby made supply chains in the Russian Arctic more integrated than before.

More empirical studies on strategy implementation in interaction with contextual and institutional factors are suggested. An institutional process perspective is applied in this study but the authors suggest that future research should include a human dimension by an exploration of day-to-day routines and challenges that employees face when strategising and the actions they take.

The study provides an understanding of how a new supply chain strategy emerges and how it changes during implementation. In this process-oriented study – merging context, process and strategy content – it is further shown that a supply chain strategy may affect the context by responding to contextual and institutional challenges.

This paper focuses on an analysis of the factors that contribute to differences in political attitudes and political participation of Russian capital owners. Such factors may include different size and type of capital, the degree of past political socialization, the respondents’ age and generational experiences, past/present well-being comparisons and education. The paper begins with a discussion of different theories that make hypotheses about the political behavior of capital owners. These hypotheses were tested in a small, exploratory study of Russian capital owners that I conducted in Russia in the late 1990s. The results of the study are then analyzed within two different but closely interrelated contexts: the wider historical context of social, political and economic changes of the first decade of post-Soviet transformation, and the micro-context of the respondents personal political, economic and social history. In the end, I return to the analyses of the original hypotheses and conclude with a discussion of which theory comes closest to predicting and explaining the results of the study.

State ownership has been common especially in industries with restricted competition. In Russia, state-controlled firms represent around 41 percent of the market value of all listed firms (Deloitte, 2015). Yet, there is a significant gap in the literature regarding the effects of various forms of government control in listed firms. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by exploring the impact of the complexity of state ownership and competition on the performance of Russian listed firms.

The sample consists of data for 72 firms (360 firm-years) in the Russian MOEX broad market index during 2011–2015. The complexity of state ownership is captured by studying forms of state control including majority/minority, direct/indirect, federal/regional, mixed structures and golden shares.

The authors find significant differences in performance relating to different forms of state ownership. State control is negatively related to firm valuation and the sales/employees ratio. Performance is weakest when state ownership takes the form minority, regional or direct ownership. State control through golden shares typically outperforms other state-controlled firms. The authors find indications of employment prioritization beyond the economical optimum. In addition, the relation between state ownership and profitability becomes positive in sectors where state firms appear to enjoy lower competition.

While the effects of state ownership have been studied on many markets, there is a lack of studies on the effects of different forms, or the complexity, of state ownership beyond direct and indirect ownership. The authors contribute to the literature on the performance effects of state ownership by studying a multitude of forms of governmental ownership as well as the role of competition in Russia. Especially the profitability of state-controlled firms is significantly affected by industry characteristics. Implications of the results are discussed both from firm and policy maker perspectives.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the present state of employee ownership in Russia and reasons for its decline due to the drawbacks of economic reforms on the country.

The design of the article includes the analysis of the Russian model of ESOP and its differences from the U.S. analog. The author also describes the practical experience of the Russian people’s enterprises and the drawbacks in the legal foundations of their work.

The key finding of this work is that the correction of these drawbacks would lead to broader development of employee owned companies in Russia.

The author’s ideas of changing focus of the market reforms in Russia and facilitating the development of economic democracy in the country constitute the major social implication of her research.

It may have practical implications both for developed market economies and economies in transition.

The originality of the paper is determined by drawing a logical link between the development of employee ownership and overall market reform in Russia, as well as by presenting a comparative analysis of the U.S. and Russian models of ESOP.

This chapter analyzes the early post-transition privatization and enterprise reform efforts of three major countries: Poland, Czechoslovakia (subsequently the Czech Republic), and the Soviet Union (subsequently Russia). For each, it discusses the prevailing ideologies of key decision makers and their external advisors prior to and during the transition process, the initial conditions faced by reformers and advisors, the policy frameworks that evolved, the results achieved, the mistakes made, and the opportunities missed. The ultimate conclusion is that while privatization could have and probably should have been done better, it nonetheless had to be done. The Czech Republic and Russia, and others in the region, are better off after the flawed privatizations they carried out than they would have been had they avoided or delayed divestiture. Poland, which did quite well at first in the absence of mass and rapid privatization, now finds itself burdened with a number of expensive and unproductive state firms. This chapter shows how and why these outcomes came about, and discusses the role of external advisors in the process.

The purpose of this research paper is a theoretical understanding of the most general trends of Russian economic development during the country's pre‐Soviet, Soviet and post‐Soviet time frames.

The objectives are designed in such a way as to include a historical aspect in the research. An attempt is made to grasp (rather cursorily) a logical internal progression in all stages of the Russian development for the last 150 years. In this, the paper shows no need for so‐called great historical personalities to explain the great historical events.

In the course of the work, it was found that Russia had experienced alternatively five different socioeconomic systems of: late mixed feudalism which was on its way to democratic mixed capitalism (the 1850s‐October 1917); state feudalism which was pregnant with authoritarian mixed capitalism (1918‐1921); authoritarian mixed capitalism in whose womb there was ripening totalitarian state capitalism (1921‐1928); totalitarian state capitalism which was carrying within itself the seeds of authoritarian state capitalism (1928‐1990); finally, authoritarian state capitalism which was moving toward authoritarian mixed capitalism (1991‐present).

The original value of the paper is in its fresh approach to the great events that have been taking place in Russia since the 1850s. The events have been analyzed not as they should be according or despite some theory but as they were and are. The paper, therefore, will be valuable to those who are interested in the socioeconomic development of Russia and who would like, one way or another, to attempt to predict the country's nearest future.

To analyze internationalization patterns among large Russian multinational corporations (MNCs).

Case study analysis of systematic internationalization attempts within three industries: IT, banking, and steel. For case studies, secondary data was used along with industry expert interviews.

The first finding is that Russian firms actively pursuing internationalization strategies through mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and greenfield investments were not as successful as several optimistic assessments had earlier suggested. Few global corporate champions emerged among Russian MNCs, despite a decade of record high outward foreign direct investments (OFDI). Secondly, we observed the unique trend of splitting operations between international and Russian businesses, which proved more sustainable than operating as a single firm. For example, the IBS-Luxoft group achieved success through gradual legal and organizational separation of branches in order to serve rising demand in developed markets and from its Russian business within the same industry. This double-headed strategy divides a business into two parts that are controlled by the same owners, but operate independently: one firm operates within the home market, while another firm aims to expand globally. This seems to be a typical trend, confirming recent findings for Russian small and medium enterprise (SME) internationalization and reinforcing earlier literature on institutional constraints in the Russian economy.

We analyzed major cases from three actively internationalizing industries. For each industry, we extensively analyzed one main case in particular. Industries’ choice also affects specific internationalization strategies.

This study identifies two distinct approaches in the literature on Russian business internationalization and attempts to combine both. We will also highlight organizational dilemmas as well as patterns in Russian businesses’ successful and failed internationalization strategies over the last decade. We identified an original double-headed internationalization strategy consisting of the separation of the national and global businesses, rather than leveraging their synergy. We will also question the established optimistic assessment of Russian MNC internationalization.

This paper aims to investigate the role of culture in managerial sensemaking and conceptualization of business networking.

The authors apply qualitative methodology through the sensemaking approach on three Finnish and three Russian managers in mutual buyer–supplier business relationship dyads.

The results imply that the cultural background of the manager determines his perception of the level at which business networking occurs. Finnish managers conceptualize business networking as an organizational strategy, whereas their Russian counterparts conceptualize the phenomenon squarely at the individual level.

The authors suggest that the underlying cause of the differences in the conceptualization of networking may be that Finnish business networking relies more on concepts derived from Western European business culture, whereas Russian networking relies more on the traditional culture. Consequently, they suggest that the concept of business networking in extant research may suffer from ethnocentricity. Limitations of the study include the limited extent of generalizations from its qualitative nature.

The results imply that business network relationships should be managed differently in different cultures, and that depending on the cultural background of the business partner, managing both the organizational and the individual levels of business networking is needed.

The study contributes to limited literature on culture and the role of individuals in managerial conceptualization of business networking. This is one of the rare studies to illustrate differences through individual sensemaking on both sides of the relationship dyad and account for both Western European and Russian market environments.

The distribution of state property to the private sector has always been and will continue to be intensely political. Relinquishing hiring, production, investment, and other enterprise decisions constitute a significant loss of potential rents to those who exercise control rights in state-owned enterprises. Additionally, the large transfer of wealth that privatization on a large-scale entails, combined with the potential for unemployment, loss of access to enterprise-based social services (which were substantial in state-socialist economies) threatens to undermine public support for privatization and reform in general.