High-Tech Entrepreneurship in the Russian Regions: Conditions for the Emergence of New Companies

The main goal of this study was to identify the environmental factors at the regional level that influence the emergence of high-tech companies and to assess the direction of this impact. The empirical basis of the study was the data on the state of companies in high-tech and knowledge-intensive industries by regions of the Russian Federation contained in the definitive SPARK database, indicators of economic development of the regions published by Rosstat, as well as open information provided by public authorities. The processes of setting up new companies were estimated by the number of firms with nonzero revenue whose age did not exceed 3 years. In addition, the ratio of this number to size of the regional employment was analyzed. The factors of the regional environment were considered in the context of five blocks: i.e., innovation potential, human resources, general characteristics of industrial production, state support for innovation activity, and partnership interactions between innovative companies. Particular attention was paid to the last two blocks. An analysis of the general characteristics of the sample shows that young companies are distributed extremely unevenly throughout Russia; 47.8% operate in five regions. At the same time, 96% of all firms can be rated as microenterprises. The results of econometric calculations reveal that federal financing of innovation activities in general at the regional level is positively significant, as is the involvement of organizations in joint R&D projects. At the same time, the participation of the regional budget and the allocation of federal resources in support of innovative infrastructure for small and medium-sized businesses, as well as the participation of regional firms in clusters and technology parks, have not yet had a significant impact on the emergence of new high-tech enterprises.