Previous studies of firm’ competitiveness at HSE

The Institute for Industrial and market studies has carried out two empirical projects based on two rounds of manufacturing industry surveys. Moreover, some of the core questions in both rounds are comparable to the questionnaire of the Investment Climate Assessment project (ICA) of the World Bank. This survey has been completed in more than 50 developing countries.

The first project was conducted in 2005. This project was commissioned by the Ministry for Economic Development and Trade. The information base of 2005 study was created in the course of a HSE-World bank partnership project involving the survey of more than 1,000 firms in 8 NACE sectors. The survey was conducted over the period from September 2005 to February 2006 by GFK-Rus Company using the method of direct interviews with top company managers based on a standard questionnaire comprising more than 200 questions. We have used the stratified representational sampling based on NACE code segmentation and size group of enterprises. Each sector was represented by at least 90 firms of all sizes except extra-large ones with more than 10,000 employees. The bottom level of the size was 100 people. The survey was conducted in 49 regions of Russia. On the whole, the surveyed firms make up 5% of the aggregate total with 600,000 employees and more than 384 bln rubles’ total output in 2004.  After the survey was completed, the subjective data from questionnaires was supplemented with financial and accounting information purchased with project funds from the SPARK database. Furthermore, experts from the Development Center, the CEFIR and the Finance and Energy Institute think tanks were involved in the research part of the study.

The 2005 survey data was employed in several research papers and two edited volumes. Among them: “Russian manufacturing at a crossroads: why can’t our firms be competitive?//Voprosy Economiki, 2007, №3 [Российская промышленность на перепутье: Что мешает нашим фирмам стать конкурентоспособными // Вопросы экономики, 2007, №3]; Can Russia Compete? Enhancing Productivity and Innovation in a Globalizing World. Raj M. Desai and Itzhak Goldberg, eds., Brookings Institution Press 2008. Russian manufacturing during the stage of growth: firm competitiveness drivers//ed. K.Gonchar and B.Kuznetsov. M., Vershina, 2008 [Российская промышленность на этапе роста: факторы конкурентоспособности фирм /под ред. К.Гончар и Б.Кузнецова. М: Изд. «Вершина», 2008].

The second project on the evaluation of manufacturing industry competitiveness was also commissioned and supported by the Ministry for Economic Development of the Russian Federation and carried out by IIMS. The study focused on the drivers and dynamics of business competitiveness, including changes in firms’ behavior during the period before the crisis (2005-2008). Our primary interest was to find out what firms and to what extent succeeded in capitalizing on the strong economic growth before the crisis to catch up with their competitors and gain a sustainable competitive position in the market. The survey underlying the report was conducted in the spring and summer of 2009. Additional dimension of the study was to assess firms’ behavioral responses to a changed business environment during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

Table 1. 2005 and 2009 samplesbysector

Table  2. 2005 and 2009 samples by enterprise size group

In 2009, about 1000 top managers were surveyed using a comparable questionnaire with the previous 2005 project. The survey, performed by  Levada Center,  was completed in February – June 2009, applying the method of face-to-face interviewing. The second round of the monitoring was targeting the same companies as in the first round, while, should this prove impossible, the earlier sample characteristics were to be preserved  (by sector and enterprise size). The panel part of the survey, covering firms surveyed both in 2005 and in 2009, accounted for about a half of the total number of respondents. The sample enterprises employ about 9 percent of the total average payroll in the total population of manufacturing enterprises. In 2007, these enterprises produced 6 percent of the total manufacturing output. The survey excluded small businesses and mega enterprises employing above 10 thousand people. On the other hand, the panel part required including a considerable share of enterprises employing below 100 staff. The latter largely represent those enterprises surveyed in 2005, which had downsized considerably by 2009.

The results of 2009 project were first summarized in the report “Industries and Markets Revisited: Two Rounds of Surveying Russian Manufacturing in 2005-2009”, HSE publishing House, Moscow 2010. Later the edited volume was published: B.Kuznetsov (ed.) Modernization of the Russian industry: enterprise performance and behavior”/ Очерки модернизации российской промышленности: поведение фирм». In addition, more than XX papers have been published in various referred international journals.