A New Wave of Globalization, Public Policy Options and Possible Actions by Russian Companies

The article presents the process of globalization, i.e. “the growing interdependence between nations” as a superposition of particular elements of mutual dependence of nations over the past several thousand years. Four waves of globalization, following one another, namely – trade, financial, industrial and innovation globalization are presented. The main features of innovation globalization are indicated: 1) increasing the degree of research internationalization in the natural and technical sciences, 2) transfer abroad of research and development units by the large international corporations, 3) active purchase of promising technologies and prototypes of new products and processes for their production together with their developers, that is, the purchase of companies that have created prototypes of promising products or technologies (startups); 4) a growing stream of “reverse innovations” – when innovations are created in foreign manufacturing units of multinational corporations, often while implementing joint projects with other firms. It is indicated that all these phenomena are observed in Russia. Recommendations are given in the field of strategies of industrial corporations on the more active involvement of Russia in global innovation processes: 1) the participation of the Russian firms in creation of new industrial enterprises in the developed countries in cooperation with local companies; 2) the purchase of domestic and foreign startups that have developed the most promising technologies in the new areas; 3) expanding the circle of employees familiar with the most advanced production practices; 4) leasing at attractive rates of production and office space to foreign enterprises that own advanced technologies and forms of organization; 5) contract design and contract manufacturing abroad. It is concluded that these and other measures are capable of transferring Russian enterprises from an object to an active subject of the new wave of globalization.

globalization, innovative development, enterprise development strategies

1. Brokhaus F.A., Efron I.A. (1907). Russia. Supplement. The National Economy. The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brokhaus and Efron. The 4th additional volume. St. Petersburg, 1907 (in Russian).

2. Gurkov I. B., Kossov V. V., Morgunov E. B., Saidov Z. B. (2013). Innovation practices of Russian manufacturing subsidiaries of multinational corporations – ​factors of creation, selection and routinization. Economics of Contemporary Russia, no. 2, 4, pp. 76–87; 76–93 (in Russian).

3. Gurkov I. B., Morgunov E. B. (2015). The transfer of a factory. The moment of truth or how employees were offered almost a year to make their decision about the transfer. Personnel management, no. 12 (328), pp. 37–46 (in Russian).

4. Foreign Investments Advisory Council (FIAC, 2019). The 33rd session. October 21, 2019. Issues and recommendations of FIAC Working groups. URL: https://fiac.ru/pdf/FIAC%20Working%20Groups%20Issues%20and%20Recommendations_2019.pdf.

5. Government of Russia (2019). The 33rd session of Foreign Investments Advisory Council. October 21, 2019. Introductory speech of Dmitry Medvedev. URL: http://government.ru/news/38152.

6. Barlett C.A., Ghoshal S. (1989). Managing across boards: The transnational solution. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

7. Buckley P. (2018). The global factory. Networked multinational enterprises in the modern global economy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

8. Chase-Dunn C., Kawano Y., Brewer B.D. (2000). Trade globalization since 1795: Waves of integration in the world system. American Sociological Review, vol. 65, pp. 77–95.

9. Deloitte International. 2016 Global manufacturing competitiveness index. L.: Deloitte.

10. Govindarajan V., Trimble C., Nooyi I. (2012). Reverse Innovation: Create far from home, win everywhere. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.

11. Guillen M.F. (2001). Is globalization civilizing, destructive or feeble? A critique of five key debates in the social science literature. Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 27, pp. 235–260.

12. Gurkov I.B. (2016). Investimenti diretti stranieri in russia e nuove opportunità. Direct Foreign Investments in Russia and New Opportunities. Verona: Conoscere Eurasia Edizioni.

13. Meyer K.E. (2017). International business in an era of antiglobalization. Multinational Business Review, vol. 25, is. 2, pp. 78–90.

14. UNCTAD. (2019). World investment report 2019. Special economic zones. N.Y.: United Nations Publications.

15. Verbeke A., Coeurderoy R., Matt T. (2018). The future of international business research on corporate globalization that never was… Journal of International Business Studies, vol. 49, iss. 9,

16. pp. 1101–1112.