Influence of Top Management’s Human Capital on Efficiency of Adaptation of Russian IT Companies to Cancel Culture and Structural Crisis

Abstract

Since March 2022 Russian companies have faced a structural crisis, with the IT industry being the most affected. The paper investigates the impact of quality of top management’s human capital (HC) in the domestic IT companies on the effectiveness of their adaptation to this crisis. The novelty of the paper is underpinned by (1) an insufficient number of relevant studies at times of permanent structural crises; and (2) analysis of the entire top management team. The results showed that the HC of top managers moderately and positively impacted the effectiveness of companies’ adaptation to crisis. No difference in the strength of impact of CEO HC and HC of the rest of the team was discovered. Such HC qualities as (1) young age; (2) taking office before the crisis; (3) experience in international companies; (4) experience in IT industry; and (5) openness to stakeholders were the most instrumental in promoting the adaptation to crisis.