This paper is a reaction to the polemical article by Andrei Vernikov, How much substance is there behind the concept of "Institutional Trap"? (Journal of Institutional Studies, 2020, 12(2), pp. 25–37). This article concludes that there is no necessary scientific rigor and constructiveness of the concept of "institutional trap" (IT), and therefore it is proposed to introduce a kind of academic ostracism in the form of a scientific moratorium on this concept in the form of its ban on the pages of academic journals and in the programs of training courses. The proposed article shows that the term IT has all the properties of strictness when defined at the verbal, i.e. the most generalized, level. At the same time, it is demonstrated that when switching to specific model constructions, the concept of IT acquires mathematical rigor and applied operationality, which is confirmed by a large number of IT models developed in Russia and abroad. The article also refutes A. Vernikov's Lemma, according to which there is no economic or social phenomenon in modern Russia that cannot be declared an "institutional trap". This is done using such striking counterexamples as the liquidity trap and the Malthusian trap, which do not fall under the definition of IT. Special attention is paid to identifying differences in terms of IT, "Institute dysfunction" and "lock-in effect". Typical errors in the use of the term IT are demonstrated and it is proved that the fault for this lies with the authors who produce errors, and not with the term that does not contain any specific flaws. The thesis is put forward that the purity of the terminological field of institutional analysis should be provided by the expert community at the stage of reviewing articles, and not by methods of prohibiting scientific concepts. It is concluded that the popularity of the term IT is due to the fact that it is both a strict scientific concept and a beautiful metaphor.

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“Institutional Trap”: Both a Productive Concept and a Fine Metaphor

This paper presents the main provisions of the intelligence-based theory of the firm, which is a new direction in studying microeconomic entities. The objects of the theory are firms, whose activities to a decisive extent depend on the capacity and efficiency of using the firm’s intellectual abilities. These abilities allow analyzing the structure and characteristics of the firm’s internal and external social and economic environment in space and time. Intelligence features as a leading factor of production in interaction with the firm’s mental abilities and material resources are investigated. The requirements for models reflecting the influence of intelligence on the firm’s performance in strategic and tactical aspects are determined. The types of intelligence are classified depending on its participation in the formulation and solution of the firm’s tasks. Perspective directions of development and application of the intelligence-based theory of the firm are outlined.

Интеллектуальная теория фирмы

The process of possible automation of developing control actions is considered and presented in the article as the mathematical model that shows the economic mechanism of one or more business processes along with the formalized description of management accounting and controlling procedures. As a result, the information space model of the economic management system is obtained which is filled with a set of possible states created.

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Information space of the economic management system in the business management system

Strategic Planning and Systemic Optimization of the National Economy

The scientific problem of involving creative potential in development of national ecosystems in current conditions of deep technological transformations is becoming more and more relevant and in demand. The creative potential of ecosystems is a powerful intellectual force that transforms and cognizes modern ecosystems, generates qualitatively new ideas to meet the challenges of the new economic reality and is capable of creating effective capital combinations based on these ideas. The authors focus on conceptual representation of the ecosystem as one of the progressive ways to organize economic activity and its components, formation and use of creative potential within national ecosystems, the value of intellectual capital as a capitalized value of the human creative potential, and creation of adequate mechanisms to involve creative people in self-development of national ecosystems. Through the prism of the pursuit of strategy for incorporation of a high-quality human creative potential into the Russian economy, the authors consider the key challenges and contradictions of modern transformations on the path to innovative ecosystem development, assess vectors of productive cooperation, experience exchange between Russian and foreign creative industries and recognition of significance of the creative sector in economic, social and institutional processes of local ecosystem development, and offer practical tools for problem solution at different levels of socio-economic transformations.

Creative potential in the development of national ecosystems

The paper examines the problems and factors in the development of ecosystems in the financial sector and related sectors of economy. It demonstrates the prospects for expanding the population of ecosystems in both the global financial market and the Russian banking system. Special focus is on two main prerequisites for the ecosystem development: digitalization of the entire economy and the emergence of innovative information-communication technologies in the financial sector (fintech). The study aims to juxtapose theoretical concepts and definitions of ecosystem with the real practice in Russia and the prospects for the development of ecosystems in the financial sector in order to produce recommendations on activating and regulating the transition from a traditional to an ecosystem economic model. Methodologically, the research rests on system economic theory, which implies that economy is a field for creating, interacting and developing socio-economic systems of various kinds – object-, process-, project- and environment-based systems. Within the framework of this approach, an ecosystem includes: an organizational component represented by a cluster as an object-based subsystem; infrastructure – an information-technological platform as an environment-based subsystem; communication and logistics component – a network as a process-based subsystem; innovative component – a business incubator as a project-based subsystem. Ecosystems in the financial sector are analyzed for compliance with this requirements. We scrutinize the case of FinTech Association as the most technologically advanced community of banking institutions. The research methods are content analysis, ranking score and logical grouping of research objects. The findings show that it is expedient to create a regulating institution that combines the functions similar to those of the FAS of the RF and the Central Bank of the RF in relation to the ecosystems’ activities.

Development of ecosystems in the financial sector of Russia

Purpose: Determining the reasons and factors for the displacement of firms of a traditional form of business from the top lines of the ratings of the most expensive companies in the world by firms that implement ecosystem strategies.

Transition of Firms from the Traditional to Ecosystem Form of Business: The Factor of Transaction Costs

In the article the firm is considered as: a) the aggregate of individuals who have concluded contracts with the employer; b) an independent economic entity; c) the element of the national economy complex. Within the framework of these three approaches to the essence of a firm, the object of research is the behavior of the firm as a producing system, as a subject of management and the institution of society. The article consists of two parts. In the first part of the article the firm is considered as a production facility, in connection with which a brief description of the basic theories of the firm reflecting the influence of intra-production factors on the behavior of the enterprise is given. The approaches connected with agent-oriented modeling, variants of the neoclassical theory, J. Forrester's theory of industrial dynamics are disclosed. The agent-oriented approach makes it possible to link the actions of agents-individual participants in the economic activities of an enterprise-into a single whole. The expanded application of agent-based modeling also allows reflecting the influence on the firm of decisions taken by individuals outside the personal of employees or owners of the firm. The neoclassical approach is based on the notion of the firm as an independent, purposeful system that pursues the goal of maximizing a fixed criterion of optimality (rationality) of behavior. Such a criterion may reflect the interests of owners, managers or employees of the firm. A certain combination of similar criteria is also possible. The principle of optimality is often criticized, but it gives an opportunity, firstly, to describe the results of various processes within the enterprise in the most capacious form and, secondly, to ensure the study of the enterprise as a holistic economic phenomenon. For neoclassical models, the assumption of complete awareness and perfect rationality of persons making decisions concerning the behavior of an enterprise is characteristic. The main task of J. Forrester's theory is the analysis of the influence of the dynamic characteristics of the processes and structure of the enterprise on the results of its production activity. Management in the model is represented as a process associated with the formation and transformation of material and information flows.

Venera A. Karpinskaya

Papers

Development of ecosystems in the financial sector of Russia

Transition of Firms from the Traditional to Ecosystem Form of Business: The Factor of Transaction Costs

Behavior of the Enterprise in the Models of the Theory of the Firm. Part 2