CC BY
48
UDC 338.2
E. M. Kozakov
SOCIAL RESPONSiBiLiTY OF BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT AS THE BASiC SCIENTIFIC AND PRACTiCAL POSiTiON OF REGiONAL STUDiES
This paper describes social responsibility in regional studies as a base of scientific and practical position has an interdisciplinary character and is a key in economic theory topic, referred to as «behavioral economics». The strategic aspect of social behavior should eventually become a daily norm at all levels of administration and corporate governance in all spheres of human activity. Tactical objective of regional and municipal authorities is development and implementation of research-based socially responsible policy. The level of social responsibility cannot be measured using a single universal (integral) indicator. The idea that «The economics has as much science inside, as much as it has mathematics», as formulated in the XIX century, in the beginning of the XXI century should be rephrased the following way: «The economics has as much science inside, as much as it has humanity».
Keywords: social responsibility, regional researches, behavioral economics, social and economic policy
In the latest decades of the previous century, in economical science in addition to traditional studies on the problems of increasing the economic efficiency of utility activities in businesses and industries (mostly in the industrial clusters) — in the regional, national and global scale, all the more widespread become the researches of the socio-economic orientation [2, 22]. This tendency was reflected in the scientific substantiation of such concepts as socioeconomics, integrative economy, economy of social humanism, social and other clusterism etc. Works on corporate social responsibility, or (equivalently) social responsibility of business were spread widely enough. In our point of view, social responsibility as a base of scientific and practical provisions for regional research needs to be understood much broader for interpretation, we should talk about that socially responsible behavior, ideally, should become the norm for all decision makers, regardless of location they occupy in the social hierarchy — from the leadership of the country and region to the head of the family [5, 20]. If we try to isolate the subject area of the considered interdisciplinary problem in the economic science, then, in our point of view, it is necessary to focus on the following details: to decide, which direction of the economic theory should include the concept of «social responsibility» in terms of content and how important the identification and implementation of socio-economic policies at all levels of government is; what exactly is meant under socially responsible behaviour and what is the role and place of science, education and the media in shaping and refining the concept of «social responsibility» in modern society.
We believe that the economic category of «so-cial responsibility» should become the kernel one in the field of socio-economic knowledge which was intensely developed during the last decade, referred to as behavioral economics. We emphasize, that along with the apparent legality of the question of social responsibility of business and government (or other economic actors), the decisions are made by specific individuals who should be aware that, in addition to criminal, administrative, or, let's say, financial responsibility in the broader sense, there is a civic social responsibility. In this connection, let us turn to the interpretation of the concept of «civic responsibility» as given by F. Brockhaus and I. Efron back in 1907: It is — (in accordance with modern spelling and stylistics), «responsibility for the damage and losses inflicted by officials (civil servants in the government, public institutions and estates), indemnification of losses and damages sought in court» [3, p. 422]. Today, such an interpretation (along with its unconditional meaningfulness) is considered as extremely limited, but modern science has not yet formed a single coherent section dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of various aspects of social responsibility both at the national and regional scale. In economic studies, social responsibility is often equated with social justice. At the same time, it remains out of sight that «strati-fication of any society is a natural process, corresponding to human nature. Large-scale social stratification in different societies, which may be seen in the history, is having different names. Different terms have been established: «class», «estate», «caste» etc» [11, p. 138]. This raises the question
of the correctness of the authors, who claim that «... the free market and distributive justice at the present stage of society development and the state get along well with each other and have effect on each other... the European Community... in some cases put in the first place not market mechanisms bust just social justice» [4, p. 37]. We believe that if such «distribu-tion of places» was a reality, one could justifiably assert that the issue of social responsibility of government no longer exists in the EU. In fact, throughout the world, this problem becomes more acute, particularly during the economic crisis, when the social responsibility of the political and economic elites repeatedly increases.
With respect to the domestic political elite, the economic and sociological literature is dominated by negative evaluations of the processes of concentration of the elite at the Center. There are proposals for the necessary administrative measures to limit the possibility of «relocation» of the most enterprising members of management and business corps to Moscow and / or into the capitals of the Federation subjects. We believe that such proposals in a democratic society do not have any meaning, the elites are being formed by «natural selection» both in the Center and in the field, and the problem lies not in the policy of limiting the outflow of executives (managers), but in the improvement of their professionalism and culture (including Of course, the awareness of social responsibility). We consider the thesis as extremely important that «... the political system and economic success are interrelated. And the political system is not only a team of personalities or talents that appear in the public rhetoric, but an integral part of the national system of governance. And if, for example, personnel recruiting is being more and more dominated by the principle of trust to the team, then, unfortunately, the principle of professionalism suffers in the same proportion — the degradation process of the management quality is being launched» [6, p. 60].
As for the income of the economic elite («oli-garchy»), then researchers and economists do the most popular comparisons of income in the most and least affluent strata of society on the Gini coefficient and to indicate that if the developed countries have this ratio at 5-7, then we have it over 20, and in some regions — even over 30. Meanwhile, our people are concerned mostly not because of the value of this coefficient but the level and quality of their lives, security of their families and friends. From our point of view, a significant factor in social desta-
bilization in Russia is not the quantity but the «inci-vility» of wealth, a brazen demonstration of luxury by our newly born bourgeoisie, including fabulous yachts, palaces on the Cote d'Azur etc. At the same time, the «ethic of success requires to achieve goals by all available means to the principle of «what is not forbidden, is allowed». On this basis, it is easy to develop the social-Darwinist complexes of cult of force and contempt for the weak and unfortunate ones, outsiders and losers of competition» [7, p. 16]. It is pertinent to remember that this issue was concerned at the turn of the XIX and XX centuries. The eminent economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen, who in his classical works «The Theory of the Leisure Class» (1899), «Large businesses and ordinary person» (1919), did not oppose private ownership of means of production, has convincingly shown how socially irresponsible can be the behavior of the economic elite. At the beginning of the XXI century, missing and intangible owned business, with wealth (stocks, bonds, derivatives etc.) is not directly connected with the scientific and technical progress, in increments of scientific knowledge, with the development of production. We share the view point of some experts who believe that it is the use of such type of property for speculative profit, fabulous with insatiable greed of the modern «leisure class» is the main cause of the current economic crisis [16].
A very controversial issue is the possibility of quantitative measurement of the integral indicators of social responsibility level. Particularly zealous in this regard are the applicants of scientific degrees offering the appropriate mathematical formulas. Known is a thesis of economists-mathematicians that everything in the economy is measurable in principle. Perhaps it is theoretically true, but in practice, especially in the socio-economic approach, everything is more difficult. Amenable to calculation are financial, substantial, material and other direct and indirect costs. One can measure and summarize the time spent on the solution of a problem. But infinitely more difficult is an «integral» assessment of socio-economic outcomes, especially the social component, which is directly related to social responsibility. Here, along with the generally accepted quantitative indicators of the level and quality of life, the sociological surveys are extremely important, characterizing the degree of material and spiritual satisfaction with the life (the so-called economics of happiness), social well-being of citizens, their confidence in the future and so on.
Consideration of social responsibility as a basic aspect of the economic theory in the regional researches requires scientific analysis of the formation of an adequate policy of regional and local socio-economic systems. The most common economic and social policies are considered separately. In scientific disciplines, a conditional «division of labour» was developed: the main thing for the economists is economic growth, for social scientists
— the society, living conditions and social wellbeing of the population. Meanwhile, at the end of the last century in the United Nations, the postulate that «a man is not a remedy but a goal of economic growth» was formulated. In this regard, in order to develop a common social and economic policy, one can only welcome an attempt to «connect the methods and knowledge of basic sciences (philosophy, history, law, physics and mathematics), applied sciences (economics, political science, sociology, psychology, demography, ecology and management), branch sciences (by the types of economic activity and other segments of the economy) and specially developed methods for the design of state-manage-ment practices» [6, p. 56]. It is clear that we are at the initial stage of an integrative approach to the use of methods and knowledge of science in the formation of social and economic policy. At the same time, in favor of fashion in special literature and in accordance with the political rhetoric of the recent times, the term «modernization policy» is widely used. In our opinion, the concept of «modernization» is associated mainly with the material-technical base of machinery, equipment etc. The same concepts of «development» or «correction» of economic policy in the direction of increasing values of the social components more clearly reflect the essence of the matter and do not include any «fashionability». In accordance with the theme of this paper, we will restrict ourselves with fragmented presentation of the authors' statements on the following aspects of the socially responsible policy: the role of government, forms and methods of participation of the expert community, choice of the national economy type and exploration of foreign experience adaptation possibilities.
Usually when it comes to determination of the state's role in the development and implementation of socio-economic policy, the attention of researchers is being focused on the actions of the federal government. We believe that this approach eliminates the social responsibility of regional and municipal authorities, from which the satisfaction of
daily needs of the population depends in the first place. Natural objects of study in economics are different income groups, while the most common target of criticism in this area is the so-called flat income tax. «The flat tax scale as a whole characterizes the policy of the ruling elite, while it retains stagnating poverty in the country» [4, p. 37]. It seems that along with the obvious inadequacy of the tax legislation, such estimates are more suited to the political opposition than to objective scientific analysis, because the undeniable fact is that the flat rate over the past decade has provided a substantial increase in tax collection. It must be recognized that it is, not without merit, an argument of supporters of a flat rate, which consists in the fact that, under the current very crude and corrupt law and supervision systems, such a move to a graduated scale will lead to the most sophisticated forms of concealment of income. However, a well-grounded differentiation of the excess profits tax, especially on the property, is absolutely necessary and timely, because it is much more complicated to conceal the property, especially real estate.
«Struggle» against poverty was declared as one of the priorities of state policy. We've taken the word struggle in quotation marks because, in our view, poverty should not «struggled and conquered»; being conscious of social responsibility, the regional and municipal authorities should implement a plan to address this problem. Many authors are pointing to the polarization of the socio-economic development of certain regions of the country and see this as one of the main causes of increased poverty in the regions-outsiders. At the same time, in the interregional assessments, per capita value of GDP, productive investments and other such indicators are usually compared, but those do not directly reflect the level and quality of life, and, even more certainly, poverty of the population. Meanwhile, «the analysis of social expenditures of the budget of the Russian Federation in 2011 revealed the predominance of the preservation of categorical payments to the population over the targeted ones, resulting in low efficiency of struggle against poverty. Social transfers are often delivered not the most needy population groups; at the same time, some low-income families lack access to public support» [24, p. 38]. In other words, there is this kind of unaddressed social spending, regardless of where they live. We emphasize that this lack of federal budget takes place almost without exception in all the regional budgets. The scientific literature is sometimes contrast-
ing the support for individuals (seniors, disabled, unemployed etc.) and support for poor families. In our opinion, these oppositions are illegitimate: absolute targeting both for families and separately really needy persons should become an inviolable principle of overcoming poverty in our country.
Despite the relativity of the inclusion of the citizens to a category of «needy» ones, it should be noted that the estimation of budgetary social costs is involved into consideration in all developed countries. Thus, according to data presented in this paper [10, p. 39], in the European Union the amount of social support from the state to the poor ones was 25% of the total EU population, and taking into account the social transfers — 15%. In such a social state like Sweden, the figures are respectively 29 and 12%, in Finland — 28 and 13%. As we see, in these countries the share of the poor is reduced by more than half through targeted support. Unfortunately, we have no such official statistics. According to the author's expert estimations, the impact of social transfers in Russia is much lower and ranges from 3 to 7%.
The fact that wage is one of the most important components of the state socio-economic policy, is well known. No one disputes the fact that the work of scientists, doctors, teachers and staff hired at the majority of industrial enterprises in Russia is underestimated. Low wages of employees are usually justified by employers and the government generally because of relatively low productivity. Although, the law of ahead-of-productivity-growth was learned well during the Soviet Union times, perhaps even with the mother's milk; domestic scientists and economists convincingly justified the position that during the period of radical economic reforms, when the economy is in a no equilibrium state, this law should not be treated dogmatically: in the short term, the main objective is to avoid the catastrophic consequences of inflation, while the increase in labour productivity cannot be achieved simultaneously. This is the first thesis, and second one regards wages in the public sector, which are actually differentiated: labour of the officials at all levels of government and the deputy (which is, essentially, a privileged category of state employees) is paid quite well.
«The economy may show a high rate of growth of national income and the same high value per capita, but due to the fact that this income is distributed very unevenly we have worst social security, health care, pension system and education system and, con-
sequently, have lower indicators that determine the life expectancy, education and medical care «[19, p. 2]. In the economic literature, most attention is paid to the prevailing criticism of Russia over the past two decades on the education system and health care. Although criticism is largely true, it is impossible not to see the positive steps taken in recent years by the authorities on both federal and regional level. This is both preferential mortgages and social housing for young and large families, and the possibility of increasing pensions for working pensioners, while keeping the same retirement age and «mater-nity capital», computerization of schools and much more. However, the socially responsible approach requires business and government (taking into account the presence at the state and most successful corporations of substantial financial resources) to address a number of urgent social problems. Among the priorities that need to be highlighted is the problem of raising health level, both physical and moral, of the generation of Russians who were born in the New Russia. In this respect, the authorities' failure to solve the problem of pre-school institutions is perplexing (to say the least). It is absolutely clear that we can ensure that all those who need child care centers are not within the nearest five or seven or even ten years, as the government stands to speak, but within only 2-3 years. There is data on the dynamics of child morbidity during the reform years, from five per cent increase in the number of children with diabetes, up to ten percent growth in child morbidity of the cardiovascular system. But if in order to reduce child morbidity, something is being done in frames of the program «Health», in regard to the moral upbringing of the younger generation (which should begin at school and even kindergarten), meaningful public policy simply does not exist. We are not talking about the examinations or the educational standards, the content of which has been widely discussed, but the moral and ethical values that are in the public consciousness are virtually devalued. Many sociologists talk about the need to correct the paradigm shift of education, money, enrichment etc., must give way to other human values (enshrined, for example, in frames of the Christian religion, and in the XX century reflected in the «Moral code of the builder of Communism») [15]. In other words, concepts such as productive work, honesty, conscientiousness and compassion should gain a second wind as the components of social responsibility. In this context, it is appropriate to bring the idea of Max Weber which is frequently used in
the literature, that «the vocation is such a system of thinking, in which labour is the absolute end in itself. This attitude towards labour is not, however, of human nature. Nor can it arise as a direct result of high or low wages, such orientation may arise as a result of a long process of education only» (italic highlighting as by author — E. K.) [23, p. 92]. In our opinion, the opinion cited is true with respect to the upbringing of such a property of human nature as social responsibility.
With regard to medical sphere, the criticism is directed toward the charges for this service. Without going into a discussion about the pros and cons of paid medicine, we would like to note the following. The task of socially responsible policies at all levels of government is primarily to improve the quality of medical care. In our specific conditions, this primarily refers to the mass and regulated in the regions, free public health care segment. The literature provides compelling examples of the high level of medical care regardless of payment. The most striking examples are the U.S.A. and Canada, where medical advances are undeniable, although the U.S. is dominated by paid health care, which in Canada is free. One can disagree with some reservation that «theoretically it is important to determine the scope of the health care system as a share of GDP, the value of expenditures to ensure that the system was successfully operated and developed while solving its tasks of social development, and to determine the proportion of GDP in amount of general medical services, and also between public and private health sectors» [18, p. 11]. The reservation consists of the following: the policy of regional and municipal authorities in the development of public health practice should be linked with the degree of social responsibility regarding the health of workers and their families, i.e., the extent of private sector involvement into public health services in the region. The problem of regional policy, from a practical point of view, is not so much in determining the appropriate proportions (the proportions of the regions are in a fairly wide range), but, on the one hand, the modern equipment of municipal hospitals and clinics, in training and decent payment offered to the medical personnel, and on the other one — to create conditions for participation of private sector in health development in a particular area, in accordance with the regional specificity.
Today, both in the international and in domestic economic science, extremely popular is the theory of human capital, according to which, both one-
time and ongoing costs of education and health are not the so-called «social costs», but investments into people. In this case, it is logical to consider (it is what some economists do) the birth of a man as the commissioning of fixed assets, and one's death
— as a recent retirement from service. For the utilitarian logic, it is normal to evaluate the moral and physical deterioration of human capital, to calculate profits arising as a result of improved health and worker training, cost recovery into man etc. [14]. In our opinion, the theory of human capital should not be an absolute, since the vector of development of this theory is not targeted in the direction of an integrative approach to social science (as described above), and by the isolation of economic theory; human life, changes in mental and physical condition of the individual, in principle, both in theory and in practice in any case should not be limited to purely economic categories such as «cost — benefit».
Unsolved problem is participation of the expert community in shaping the social and economic policy. This raises three questions: first one — what is the composition of the expert community, the second one — on the quality of expertise and social responsibility of the expert community, and the third one — on the relation of state power to the this community.
Modern scientific literature is currently dominated by a reasonable consideration that the examination of decisions made by power structures at all levels is one of the most important practical problems of the economics. At the same time, in our opinion, one should proceed from the fact that the composition of the expert community should not be limited to just representatives of science, the expertise should involve highly skilled practitioners, professionals from the civic and public chambers built in the center and in the regions, labour unions, various professional non-governmental organizations, representatives of religious denominations etc. The expert community should fully have a sense of responsibility for the conclusions and recommendations. In some cases, the expert «is not able to pose the problem, or choose a method of solution, or solve it, either get the results, nor to interpret them properly, or, most importantly, to give practical advice in a language of state regulation of management, in a language which is understandable to a state representative» [6, p. 60].
Our vision of social responsibility of the economic science is formulated in a previous paper published in 2008 [9, p. 60-71]. In our opinion, un-
like the natural sciences, division of economics at the fundamental and applied parts is very arbitrary and counterproductive: socially responsible economic studies that seriously and thoroughly examine and summarize the socio-economic processes and relationships, by definition cannot be abstract, not oriented on a specific consumer; the entire root system, regardless of whether those are «aca-demic», «university», «branch» or «enterprise», should be associated with real life. Limitation of economic research estimates and those comments, no matter how sophisticated and logically impeccable they are, those do not meet modern requirements to the objective socio-economic analysis, we emphasize again that the research should be based on an interdisciplinary basis, taking into account the latest achievements of the social sciences, primarily in law, sociology, psychology and political science. Fashionable nowadays are also theoretical constructs which are based on the popular theses, but those not always consistent with the provisions of our reality as in Western textbooks, without sufficient practical testing are unlikely to agree with the principle of social responsibility.
Everybody, except the laziest ones, has already published something regarding the negative attitude of the authorities to the recommendations of the expert community, in particular to the results of economic research. As the main (and in some cases the only) cause of this attitude is usually the thesis about the passion of the Government to the liberal (or monetarist) ideology, as professed by a group of prominent economists which is close to the state power. We believe that socially responsible power in the relationship with the expert community is obliged to: a) to articulate the problems put in front of the economic science and to account for the use of highly accumulated capacities in the country, to give appropriate financing to the state's official order for the development of forms and methods (tasks) of the solution; b) to systematically subject (and not just during the election campaigns) broad public debate on a package of measures planned to improve the power of social-economic situation in the country; c) to work out an effective mechanism of interaction with all segments of the state power and the expert community with regard to the specificity (of those segments) [21].
The State University — Higher School of Economics did a special study to identify «the role of expert environment as a conductor between civil society and public authorities» [12, p. 123]. The re-
sults of this study strongly support the relevance of the above mechanism: only one third of potential experts believe that the authorities are able to adequately assess the measures proposed by experts and, therefore, to use those in practice. But even more alarming fact is that over 80% (!) of respondents doubt that conditions that allow the expert community to work more productively will soon be set up in Russia. These conditions include: ensuring the financial independence of the expert activity, increasing the interest of representative structures of the civil society in providing considered analytical solutions and more responsible, professional and principled attitude of the experts to their activities.
In connection with the criticism of economic policies, economic literature is dominated by, in our view, stereotypical postulate that the potential of the two possible types for the Russian economy
— innovational and resource-based — The Russian government prefers the resource-based type. As a rule, the authors accuse the authorities that «the most inefficient» economy type was selected during the reform period. In fact, Russia became great raw power in the second half of last century as a result of development of hydrocarbons in Western Siberia. And today, when about 60% of federal revenues come from exports of hydrocarbons, the challenge is to give priority to the transfer of this innovative model of exactly of the mining and raw materials sector of the economy. Socially responsible policies in the coming decade may actually be, in our opinion, set up on that basis, except that the obvious need to develop knowledge-intensive industries such as nano- and biotechnology etc. «The problem of integration and modernization in Russia is much more complicated and interesting than it seems to many politicians and economists. Of course, Russia should continue playing a significant role in the global energy market (italic highlighting as by author
— E. K.). But its interests are much broader and more diverse than the revenue from oil and gas. The problems of worthy options selection for integrating Russia into the international community are extremely topical at the present time; the options are really important to be used for high-tech moderniza-tion» [17, p. 6].
Usually, when it comes to globalization processes and to the options of integrating Russia into the global economy, the attention of researchers is focused mainly on technological aspects. In connection with the global financial crisis in recent years, scientific attention to the global and domes-
tic financial problems has significantly increased. With regard to corporate social responsibility, Russian readers are familiar mostly with the works of American and European scientists in terms of wages, cleaner production etc. At the same time, studying the possibilities of the use of foreign experience in solving social problems in the East has not received an adequate amount of attention. This applies primarily to Japan and China: it seems that the Chinese experience on stimulation of domestic demand and the targeting of social assistance, as well as the Japanese system of lifetime employment, deserves a more thorough and objective study of our scientific community. This applies to the specific manifestation of corporate social responsibility in the Islamic countries too [1, p. 72-75]. In Islamic tradition, the division of human life to the spiritual and material components is unacceptable, profits at the expense of action against a person are strongly condemned. Thus, the following activities are prohibited to Islamic companies: gambling, manufacturing and sale of alcohol, any type activity in the pornographic industry etc. The most common legal form both in business and in the banking sector is a partnership. Participation of the companies in social programs in areas of their dislocation is stimulated; reflection of this information both on special websites and (more importantly) in official statements is encouraged. Finally, there is a special guide which regulates the activities of Islamic financial institutions, which lists the figures required and recommended for disclosure. It is important to emphasize that «in the Islamic economies, value priorities are based on ethical standards that are embedded in the economic life by educating and training people (italic highlighting as by author — E. K.) and the creation and improvement of institutions that limit the selfish pursuit of profit» [1, p. 75]. In other words, it is about educating and training people in the spirit of socially responsible economic behavior of representatives of business, financial and power structures, the motivation to work in conjunction with the peculiarities of the local territorial entities.
For the «behavioral economics» of undoubted interest is a typology of capitalist entrepreneurs as proposed by Yu. Olsevich: 1) predator — accumulates wealth through redistribution (and assignment) of what was not created by himself; 2) innovator — creates new and effective combination of factors of production and circulation; 3) routineer — follows the established rules of production and technology; and 4) opportunist — is seeking to benefit by any
means [13, p. 206]. In the state power (or more precisely — in the bureaucracy), today the opportunists make the difference.
We should note, however, that the above typology, while reflecting the motivation of the business community in the way of personal enrichment, can judge the social responsibility of business only indirectly: it is obvious that predators and opportunists are different in their «social irresponsibility» to a greater extent than the innovators and routineers. To the maximum extent it is, apparently, about the opportunists, both in the business environment and in the bureaucracy. At the same time, there are no sufficient grounds to argue that innovators that predetermine the final analysis and the real prospects for the economy on an innovative model of development are characterized, in their majority, by socially responsible behavior, in our opinion, because in the business community, the dominant value is still the income. Probably, to make social responsibility become a real and common value, we will need a generational change along with the most focused and productive work on the relevant «education and training of people». It is worth remembering that «a distance of about 25 years (a range of alternating cycles of rise and decline of the economy — E.K.), appearing in the calculations of Nikolai Dmitrievich Kondratiev, was interpreted by himself as the period required for the change of generations: the adoption and development of the new discovery requires new young professionals who just came; the prior to generation, as usual, is not in a position to evaluate something new (we may remember a well-known paradigmatic remark by Max Planck that he had no need to convince anyone of the importance of «quantum» concept
— just because everyone who disagreed with all of this had already passed away)» [8, p. 6]. What has been said, in any case does not mean that it is only necessary to do grow up a new generation of socially responsible, although this problem is highly relevant and extremely complex. In fact, it is a «transformation» of value motives of human behavior. For the economists, the primary value is the satisfaction of material needs of the individual; to sociologists, the main thing is the satisfaction with life in a broader sense, i.e. taking into account both material and spiritual needs, the prospects for growth («social elevator») etc. V. L. Makarov promotes the future of society as a society of equal social clusters for which the core value is equal rights. «It looks like that the transition to socio-cluster so-
ciety is gradually possible, step by step. There is no need for revolutionary leap, not need for a general company, under which there are no clear goals. It is important to maintain the principle of systemac-ity. Steps toward building a socio-cluster society should lie strictly in the frames of a preliminary developed strategy» [11, p. 238]. The perception of social responsibility in the public consciousness as a basic value is associated with the appropriate motivation for human activity. In biology, motivations are treated as «active states of brain structures that encourage higher animals and humans to do genetically fixed or experience-acquired actions aimed at meeting the needs of the individual or a group» [18, p. 849]. Not being an expert on the psychological aspects of economic behavior, the author of this paper does not attempt to determine the extent to which social responsibility can be inherited or acquired. We only proceed from the fact that the motivation of social responsibility in scientific and educational spheres, as well as in the media, at all levels of administration and corporate governance, and, ultimately, — in every aspect of human life — must be cultivated in every way.
Let us sum up. Social responsibility as a basic scientific and practical position is interdisciplinary. It should be a key topic in economic theory, referred to as behavioral economics, which received quite
wide acceptance in the second half of the last century. The strategic aspect of social behavior should eventually become a daily norm at all levels of administration and corporate governance, in all areas of human activity. Immediate tactical task of the government is to develop and implement socially responsible policies, including: education of a morally and physically healthy generation, solution of social problems, giving the opportunity to adapt both the experience of the West and East, rejection of stereotypical dogmatic postulates (the ratio of wages and labour productivity, the opposition of innovative economy and raw materials based one, etc.), improvement of the tax system, achieving best world-class health and education level with the involvement of private capital, formation of an effective interaction mechanism of power with the expert community and rational use of mass communication. The level of social responsibility cannot be measured with a single universal (integral) indicator. Formulated in the XIX century, Marx's thesis that «The economics has as much science inside, as much as it has mathematics», as formulated in the XIX century, in the beginning of the XXI century should be rephrased the following way: «The economics has as much science inside, as much as it has humanity». This fully applies to the regional researches.
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Information about the authors
Kozakov Efim Mikhaylovich (Yekaterinburg) — Doctor of Economics, Professor, head research scientist at the Department of development of the regional socio-economic systems, Institute of Economics, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (620014, Yekaterinburg, Moskovskaya st. 29).
УДК 339.137(1)
С. Г. Важенин, И. С. Важенина
идентификация и оценка территориальной конкуренции
В статье на основе анализа экономической действительности, а также на базе проведенного авторами социологического исследования сформулированы основные особенности конкуренции между территориями.
Выделены и обоснованы следующие составляющие горизонтов территориальной конкуренции в современном экономическом пространстве:
— конкуренция между территориями в глобальной экономике заметно прогрессирует, расширяется и совершенствуется;
— в настоящее время на первый план выдвигается проблема формирования конкурентного иммунитета территории, а не только обеспечение сиюминутного конкурентного преимущества;
— формирование конкурентного иммунитета требует активной деятельности территориальных органов власти в партнерстве со всеми заинтересованными группами (население, бизнес, инвесторы и т. д.) и непременно с учетом их интересов;
