Institutional configuration of regional business environment

Abstract

The subject of the article is effective institutional support of entrepreneurship in Russian regions. Modern conditions of Russian business activity are characterized by a significant level of uncertainty in the institutional environment, which considerably varies in different regions. In order to improve the quality of institutional parameters of the business environment research in a spatial context, it is proposed to use the institutional configurations methodology. The authors assume that real differentiation of business conditions in the regional context is determined by the parameters of the institutional configuration of the business environment. As a result of the study, the definition of the concept of "institutional configuration of regional business environment" was clarified. According to it, effectiveness of formal institutions is determined by the nature of their interpretation and application by economic agents in the course of interaction between basic and additional regional institutions and stakeholders. Even in conditions of a formally identical institutional environment, officials in different regions have a free hand to apply different "rules of the game" to business entities. The authors substantiate the idea that most of the time the power structures interpret and apply formal rules to business entities in a format that increases administrative pressure on business and leads to additional withdrawal of business entities' entrepreneurial income. The authors propose a model of assessing parameters of the institutional configuration of the business environment basing on the criterion of administrative pressure on business entities, which allows to calculate trends and possible scenarios of interaction between government and business structures in the Russian regions in the context of existing institutional configurations of the regional business environment. The results obtained in the article can be used in the institutional designing process of business environment while justifying parameters of the system of the state regulation of entrepreneurship at the regional and federal levels.