The Innovation Activity of Russian Enterprises: Effectiveness, Factors, Bottlenecks

The influence of the innovation activity of Russian enterprises on social-economic development of the country is investigated. In considering the characteristics of the influence, international comparison is carried out. In the course of the comparison it was revealed that the situation was paradoxical in some aspects. It is rather unexpected that for some groups of indicators there is a strong resemblance to the situation of a number of West European countries. The paper allows one to find out the main reasons of resemblance and differences lying in the models of the innovation behaviour of Russian and European enterprises. The factors defining the innovation activity of Russian enterprises are investigated and decomposed to clarify the reasons of the deviation of Russian enterprise activity from established standards of innovation activity in industrial developed country. The factors of the deviation are divided into the following groups. In the first group there are factors determining the conditions of the balance of stimuli and antistimuli of innovation activity. The second group includes the characteristics of innovation paradigm of Russian enterprises. The internal and external factors of innovation activity are disclosed during the process of the building of a cause-effect chain. They are characteristics, which, on the one hand, have the significant impact upon innovation activity, on the other hand, they determinate the availability and accessibility of the entry into the activity. As a result of this analysis, one succeeded in revealing the positive and negative aspects and bottlenecks, stimuli and antistimuli of innovation activities of Russian enterprises. The paper suggests the main directions of forming and improving the institutes and institutional instruments that could provide innovation development of Russian entrepreneurship. The proposed measures can help to eliminate the bottlenecks of the National Innovation System (NIS) and draw it out to the qualitative new level of functioning. It could give an efficiency that is close to the NIS level of industrial developed countries.