Public procurement and innovation policy in Russia: a perspective of narrative economics

Abstract

Objective: to identify narratives describing the use of public procurement system for innovation policy implementation and to critically analyze them.Methods: quantitative analysis of the frequency of narratives, qualitative analysis of narratives to identify protomodels, institutions and social context.Results: in the modern Russian economic system, public procurement is used as a tool for implementing the national innovation policy. The analysis of legal acts regulating public procurement of innovative and high-tech goods showed the trends that potentially reduce the variability of procuring entities' actions and the transparency of procurement procedures. Based on the tools of narrative economics, the authors analyzed the attitude of actors (representatives of the state, business and academia) of the Russian innovation system to the existing practice of public procurement in the context of the national innovation policy. As a result, the work presents a typology of public procurement problems, discussed in mass media, for Russia’s innovative development.Scientific novelty: the considered narratives show that, in relation to the Russian innovation system, the public procurement subjects can act in the logic of the “principal-agent” theory, while the tendency to reduce transparency is welcomed by some actors.Practical significance: institutional analysis of the recent changes in public procurement, including the rules governing the procurement of innovative and high-tech products, has revealed the devolution of formalized rules aimed at the implementation of state innovation policy. Together with the increased level of privacy in organizational activities of procuring entities, this carries the risks of not only increasing the level of opportunistic behavior of the public procurement market subjects, but also decreasing confidence in the entire public procurement system.