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The paper addresses the gap existing in the scholarship and provides an analysis of the energy security performance made by the group of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) over the total of 25 years, from 1990 to 2015. The research is based on a comprehensive approach to understanding energy security as the total of four dimensions: Availability, efficiency, affordability, and environmental stewardship. An energy security performance index operationalizes each dimension of energy security with three indicators, which allows to quantitatively measure the progress made by the group of BRICS in terms of ensuring their energy security. The research conducted surprisingly shows that the overall energy security of BRICS as a group of states has not changed over the years. However, each country has experienced considerable changes in energy security performance, with the most dramatic ones made by Russia (growth) and China (decline).

Purpose The working hypothesis of this research is that specifics of activities of university that provides remote education does not allow using the same evaluation criteria for assessment of its competitiveness that allow assessing competitiveness of university that provides traditional education. The purpose of this paper is to verify the offered hypothesis, study the modern Russian experience of evaluating the competitiveness of university that provides remote education and develop methodological recommendations for improving this process. Design/methodology/approach The authors use the existing scientific approaches to determining competitiveness of a company, including university, for complex and comprehensive study of the set problem. The information and analytical basis of this research is formed of methodological materials of the ranking of best universities of Russia for 2017 according to independent analytical agency “RaExpert” and “Announcement of open competition for state support for leading universities of the Russian Federation for the purpose of raising their competitiveness among the leading global scientific and educational centers of the Ministry of Education and Science of the RF.” Findings The offered hypothesis was proved. It is concluded that modern Russia uses the same (common) criteria for evaluating competitiveness of universities, regardless of the form of provided educational services. This is incorrect from the scientific and methodological point of view, as the work shows that most criteria are characterized by different applicability as to the university that provides traditional education and the university that provides remote education. Originality/value Methodological provision of evaluating the university’s competitiveness that provides remote education is elaborated by the authors by development of additional criteria. It is recommended to assign weight coefficients to all criteria depending on the level of applicability (importance) as to the university that provides remote education.

PurposeThe purpose of the work is to solve the set problem and to study the competition and perspectives of division of labor of humans and machines during creation of intangible assets in Industry 4.0.Design/methodology/approachThe research is performed with the help of regression and comparative analysis by building regression curves and with the help of the qualitative structural and logical analysis.FindingsThe authors perform an overview of the factors that determine the advantages and limits of participation in creation of intangible assets in Industry 4.0, determine the perspectives and compile recommendations for division of human and machine labor during creation of intangible assets in Industry 4.0.Originality/valueThe results of the performed research confirmed the general hypothesis that machine technologies allow improving the innovative, marketing and organizational and managerial activities and activities in the sphere of R&D through automatization of certain stages of the process of creation of intangible assets. The authors determine the factors that define the contribution of machine technologies in this process and their competitive advantages as compared to human intellectual capital during creation of intangible assets. These advantages prove the possibility and expedience of division of human and machine labor during creation of intangible assets.

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This paper investigates international experiences and perspectives on how entrepreneurs can improve management practices while minimizing the COVID-19 pandemic’s social drama. The paper probes how companies deal with the myriad challenges they face amid the unfolding pandemic and how these processes’ economic and cultural dimensions may exert an enduring effect. A novel dataset analyses how entrepreneurs manage the change of management processes in a sample of ten countries. Three economic impacts on entrepreneurs caused by the pandemic were observed: (1) a deficit as a result of social distancing reduced due to the growth of Internet retailing; (2) a deficit resulting from a fall in demand decreased due to innovations that mitigate this demand-side change; (3) a social crisis in the labour market due to social distance and relocating many employees to remote working practices. In countries with the most considerable number of cases of COVID-19, it is recommended that attitudes towards entrepreneurial risk be raised. In countries with the vastest number of fatal cases per 100,000 people, implications for change management in entrepreneurship are an increase in Internet retailing level, a reduction in entrepreneurial fear of failure, and an increase in entrepreneurial risk awareness. Besides, an anonymous sociological survey among companies’ directors and managers in Russia on management initiatives taken on between late 2020–early 2021 shows that companies maintain a 60.21% readiness for such systemic challenges while their readiness for change increased under the influence of the pandemic. The contribution to the literature of this article lies in rethinking the COVID-19 crisis from the standpoint of social drama, which made it possible to clarify the cause-and-effect relationships of change management in entrepreneurship. For the first time, the paper proposes systemic—socio-economic recommendations for improving the practice of change management against the background of such a social drama.