Intangible-Intensive Strategies of Russian Companies

Abstract

This paper explores strategic behavior of Russian companies with regard to intangible resources and its link to different types of performance. Additionally, the study addresses the question, whether companies in intangible-intensive profiles have specific characteristics in terms of industry, size, company age and type of ownership. Following intellectual capital view, the study provides a cluster analysis considering four attributes: human resources, innovative capabilities, information and communications technology (ICT) capabilities and relational capital. Analysis of more than 1,000 Russian public companies over the period 2004-2014 reveals three profiles of strategic behavior considering the employment of intellectual resources. The majority of Russian public companies (60%) follow the non-intensive intangible strategy. Only 13% of companies constitute the intangible-intensive profile having endowment of all intellectual resources higher than the sample average. The rest 27% of companies also persuade the intangible-intensive strategy with the focus on innovative capabilities.

Intangible assets and the efficiency of manufacturing firms in the age of digitalisation: the Russian case

“…Focusing on listed companies from the manufacturing sector, the stochastic frontier model is applied to estimate the role of aggregate intangible assets as a determinant of technical efficiency. Its role as a production driver is still modest due to low investments and the level of accumulation (Shakina & Molodchik, 2014;Shakina et al, 2016;Paklina et al, 2017). Firms from high-tech sectors enjoy more extensive effects of intangibles on inefficiency decrease.…”

“…The academic literature considers intangible assets more broadly. They have key features, such as high value, a rarity for an organisation, complexity for imitation or substitution (Bontempi, 2016;Paklina et al, 2017). A comprehensive IA framework was proposed by Corrado et al (2005) and is most often used in comparisons of countries Engineering Management in Production and Services and cross-countries.…”

“…This category of companies makes a crucial contribution to productivity and overall investment. Previously, Paklina et al (2017) also studied listed companies and assessed their strategic choices regarding intellectual capital.…”

“…Recent studies show that the growth of ICT plays a key role in the TFP increase in emerging economies due to larger investments compared to other intellectual assets and primarily R&D (Shahabadi et al, 2018). In search of new innovation sources, digitalisation may play a role as a factor for production efficiency and the development of new products (Paklina et al, 2017).…”

“…Several papers consider particular intangible assets and get similar patterns with other countries, particularly related to R&D and its link with technological change (Apokin & Ipatova, 2017;Pieri et al, 2018). Russian authors focus on company strategies for using IA (Shakina et al, 2016) and the taxonomy of firms based on this (Podmetina et al, 2011;Paklina et al, 2017), and addressing research and development in detail (Dezhina & Ponomarev, 2014;Simachev & Kuzyk, 2014;Gershman et al, 2018;Simachev & Kuzyk, 2019;Zemtsov et al, 2019).…”