Management as a science was rapidly developing in the US and Europe in the first quarter of the twentieth century. The development of any social science, management in particular, is based on conceptions of reality. But what is considered to be the reality in this field of knowledge, or rather, what reflects the collective opinion of those who explore and promote science? Despite their significance, conceptions of reality are rarely subject to research and/or revision. Many would agree with the conclusion that social sciences such as management, deal with human behavior and social institutions, but few of the researchers would pay attention to the fact that practical application of management theory was initiated in social and governmental organizations rather than in commercial ones. Unfortunately, the oeuvre of one of the founders of the Russian/Soviet science of management (later management) O.A. Yermansky, Head of the Department of Economics and Organization of Production at Bauman MSTU (1933-1936), has not yet become the subject of a thorough study. The scientist’s contribution was mainly assessed in respect of the debate on Taylorism or from the ideological standpoint. The article analyzes the activities of O.A. Yermansky as the researcher of management.

There is a type of management tasks which have a high level of initial uncertainty, complexity, uniqueness and presence of multiple stakeholders. Management situations are characterized not only by uncertainty conditions, but the presence of social relations arising between members of the organization that makes the process of resolving extremely complex. The process of dealing with such situations requires a correct understanding of the real-life issues and the organization of collective work, because of their complexity. The relevance of the chosen topic is determined by the importance of initial (prior to the formulation) stage of solving the managerial situation, which is rarely the subject of research. The terms “a problem” and “a problem situation” in management are distinguished on the basis of the concepts of “wicked” problems of H.W. J. Rittel & M.M. Webber, well-structured and ill-structured problems of H. Simon, and other researchers. Two main areas of finding a solution to a problem situation in the initial stages are defined in general terms: the primary data collection about a problem situation and reaching a shared understanding; and coordination of the stakeholders’ positions. These areas derive from the complexity of management situations as mental and social constructions. The process of structuring the problem situation is determined as a process of verbal description translation into the formal problem due to the characteristics of the problem situation. Systems’ approach is proposed for finding solutions as a way of perceiving and understanding the world based on a holistic perception of the situation, and which is designed to simplify the process of thinking and managing complex situations. To deal with problem situations it is suggested to use Problem structuring methods (PSMs) based on modeling that relate to the soft system methodologies. Cognitive maps are considered to be one of the modeling tools. The article attempts to make up for a shortage in the domestic literature and management practices research on the PSM application.

The article is devoted to the role of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the strategic integration of entrepreneurship. Mergers and acquisitions can be considered as business transactions, as they are aimed at generating income due to changing both external and internal environment of the company. The process of merging or acquiring as an entrepreneurial idea lies in obtaining synergy effect through the merger of assets of economic entities. The subject of the research is the settlement of mergers and acquisitions transactions as a tool of integration of Russian entrepreneurship. The article presents the results of the statistical study characterizing mergers and acquisitions in Russia and abroad, their main trends as well as the role of the state in the process. While examining the issues of mergers and acquisitions and their public regulation, attention is paid to the methods of business valuation and their characteristics in Russian and foreign practice. Statistics processing is carried out which allows to give quantitative and qualitative characteristics of mergers and acquisitions, identify their role in the strategic process of entrepreneurship integration, as well as to determine the regulatory role of the government in this process. The article reveals the problems arising in the M&A market. The conclusion is drawn that the activity of Russian companies in the M&A domestic and global markets declined slightly over the past period, as well as the aggregate volume of foreign purchases of Russian assets.

The modern management concepts are oriented to raising the public bodies’ accountability to the society. In the meantime the development of tools for the assessment of state activity is becoming up-to-date. Public administration is the central sector in the public administration system as it particularly provides the implementation of public policy in all the spheres. That’s why the development of objective assessment indices of public administration efficiency measures up the goals of the modern reforming stage. Some approaches to defining the concept of efficiency and assessment methods of state efficiency are analyzed in the article; it’s summed up that there are a lot of approaches to the efficiency assessment of regional administrations and separate federal government agencies activity. They are based on empirical data quantity analysis. The Russian legislation has all the grounds for the assessment of public administration efficiency, but the application tools haven’t been currently implemented. The indicators choice is justified which characterizes the public administration efficiency from its internal development point of view and its final social and economic effect from its functioning. The methodology of defining the common assessment index of public administration efficiency is suggested which is aimed at denoting the milestones for the further public administration reforming taking into account the historical experience and mistakes. The important advantage of the suggested common index is its calculation simplicity for different periods of time.

The aspects of implementing the system of project management into public authorities are considered in the article. The project management topicality is stipulated by new challenges in the system of Russia public administration. Executive bodies’ ability to implement the planned projects and tasks and reach the set goals in time and within the established budget is becoming crucially important under the modern conditions. The project management methods are intended to mobilize and structure the organization’s resources in reaching the projects targets. The project management on the basis of project approach possesses a number of merits which are mentioned in the article as well. The project management object is a project as a specially organized complex of works aimed at solving the definite task or reaching the definite goal which fulfillment is not limited in time but is also connected with consumption of concrete financial, material and labor resources. Consequently it is important to distinguish the project activity from the aggregate organization’s activity. For that purpose the article analyses the theoretical bases of project and process activity, defines their main peculiarities and differences. For the correct building of project management the organization systems principles are formulated and the most spreading spheres for management methods are mentioned. In conclusion the most important advantages of project approach implementation are stated.

The article is based on the hypothesis that formation, keeping and development of organization’s key competences each reflecting the competitive advantage is the most important condition for business’ competitive growth. With scientific and technical acceleration, formation of new highly technological and dynamically developing branches, such as information, nano- and bio-technologies, new ways of creating and implementing innovations are emerging also. The modern ways of managing them including technologies transfer, venture investment, open innovations system and key competences are becoming not less important. The corporate venture investment is the effective synthesis of two approaches. Methodic complexity of emphasizing and weak working out the procedures of competences’ formation, development and management and besides the Russian companies’ managers do not have any working skills with competences lead to the fact that this important asset is not practically used. Many domestic companies possess such competences but they are not described, not systemized, there is no management by them. The present work is aimed at the investigation of such mechanisms of forming the sustainable competitive advantages under modern conditions as the development of enterprise’s unique technological competences and the application of corporate venturing elements as well.

As early as in the second half of the past century the effective strategy could remain such for the decades. A modern manager must be able to foresee the possible environment changes and to “keep a stock” of strategies, or scenarios, optimizing the company reaction on environment changes. A scenario approach is a sufficiently new phenomenon both in Russian and world science of management. Nowadays however this topic sounds more often and more persistent. It is not occasionally because a number of factors act co directionally: economy globalization, informatization and business “internitization” in everyday life, communication and making decisions boosting caused the fact that the words “volatility” and “turbulence” are now known even for children. At present time any manager must be ready for the fact that the conditions of the company activity can be substantially changed at any moment. That is why the strategies which are efficient today can cease be such without any seen prerequisites tomorrow. As far as the topic of scenario management has not been sufficiently worked out both in Russian and world science it is important to be aware of the concept “scenario management” and how this term is used in the modern scientific literature. That is what the article is devoted to.

The purpose of the research is the substantiation of urgency in complex analysis of interdependence and reciprocal conditionality of company’s structural and cultural characteristics in managing strategic organizational changes. The concept of structural-cultural continuum as a set of complementary variables creating the unique character of the organizational system is based on the thesis of synergy of the organizational culture coordination profile. The article offers the approach to examining insufficiently studied problems, i.e. identifying the nature of the influence of the structural-cultural continuum on the company’s performance. The analysis results of the synthetic interdependence of the organization’s configuration as well as its structural and cultural features allow to draw conclusions about the organization’s ability to implement strategic organizational changes with optimal intensity. The main results of the research are: substantiation of the concept of the organization’s structural- cultural continuum (SCC); the procedure of formation and the results of the analysis of the SCC multiplier matrix; the graph presenting the dependence of intensity maximum values of organizational changes on the degree of the personnel’s integration and expertise; expert judgments on the degree of impact of the SCC conjunction on developing employees’ special skills in organizational change; the SCC conjunction field on the zonal map of the organization strategic adaptation as well as the analysis results of their positioning. The results and the conclusions can be used both to substantiate the ways of optimization of the organization’s structural-cultural continuum for its strategic development and to predict the adaptive capacity of the organizational configurations under various environmental conditions.

Improving the quality of the company’s management implies the improvement of procedural and methodical support in the company’s financial performance evaluation as well as in planning its activities. To ensure high organizational effectiveness the company’s management needs to implement a strategy aimed at strengthening its financial sustainability and solvency. Along with this important area of the company’s strategic management there is its current activities analysis and further development plans design. Modern manufacturing organization requires a qualitative assessment of financial performance. First and foremost, the financial condition of an enterprise is evaluated by its financial sustainability and solvency. The analysis of an entity’s financial soundness is a critical step in the evaluation of its activities and financial and economic well-being. It reflects the effect of the current development, as well as investment and financial development. Insufficient financial stability leads to insolvency and even bankruptcy of the organization. Therefore, financial sustainability is the key to survival and the basis of the stability of a particular company in the future. The degree of a companiy’s financial stability primarily interestes investors and creditors, as they make their investment decisions in the company based on the evaluation of its financial sustainability. Therefore, the control over the company’s financial stability is of high importance today. The article analyzes modern approaches and current practices in the evaluation of enterprise’s solvency and financial stability in the real sector of economic activity - i.e. of the Moscow leather factory CJSC “Medvedkovo”.

The article deals with the fundamental problems of changing approaches to the management of global value chains in the process of unfolding a new industrial revolution for example, the additive production or 3D- printing. The ideas of foreign and domestic specialists in an occasion of impact of 3D technologies on production process are summed up. The paper examines the changes which makes the additive manufacturing revolution in composition and length of chains of production. Differences of a traditional chain of suppliers from the chain created on the basis of 3D technologies come to light. On the US data estimated reserves of savings on supplies in general and in the field of inventory in particular through the introduction of additive technologies. The new principles of the management of global value chains are formulated, in particular, the conclusion on cessation of dominance the principle of economies of scale when deploying new production networks based on additive manufacturing.Fundamental positive effect of scale principleis replacedwith the principle of customization as the main driving force of the production processorganization. Specific examples of reorganization of technological chains due to implementation of additive technologies are reviewed. Forecasts of global changes in the sphere of logistics and transport under the influence оf the additive production revolutionin the next years are provided.

The article considers the arrangement of complex events oriented to companies’ scientific and technological ties optimization with public ownership and other organized (innovative) agents united by integrated scientific and technological cycles. On the basis of analytical models usage it is suggested the qualitative raising of Russian companies observability playing a key role in the formation, implementation and utilization of the basic innovations block, new scientific and manufacturing technologies worked out on their basis. For insuring Russian companies’ scientific and technological ties optimization playing a key role in the formation, implementation and utilization of the basic innovations block, new scientific and manufacturing technologies worked out on their basis within the forecast configurations of the future’s technological modes the constructing of the new management system is required. It is particularly important concerning the companies with public ownership and technologically cooperated with them the organizations of all ownership forms within the group of the basic innovations with heterogeneous participants as the aggregate of organizational (innovational) agents (legal entities, creative teams, network communities, etc.). The system result is the access to dynamic analysis of the heterogeneous participants’ activity in the operational area of the Russia National innovative system with the account of structure and address configuration of co operational scientific and technological ties between innovational agents within the Eurasian Economic Union for their optimization.

In modern conditions intensify competition for limited financial resources that can be devoted to innovation, there is the issue of allocation of optimal ratio of sources as one of the most important criteria for the effectiveness of regional clusters in the implementation of real investment projects of innovation orientation. Due to the fact that the implementation of innovative processes related to the uncertainty and the high level of risk, the authors proposed the basic principles of the system of financing innovation in regional clusters. The article describes and gives the characteristics of the basic forms of financing of innovative activity of companies, among which is the cost, equity financing and project financing. Based on the analysis of financing mechanisms of innovation processes territorial clusters operating in foreign countries noted that the largest share of indirect methods of support of innovative activity. Some of these measures are common in the Russian practice, such as the possibility of using accelerated depreciation of fixed assets, receipt of investment tax credit, as well as companies from VAT exemption of activities related to research and development. At the same time stands a large role in the development and financing of innovative processes in regional clusters of institutions. The article emphasizes that one of the leading regions in the creation of innovative regional clusters in Russia is the Kaluga region. In this area, established and dynamically developing biopharmaceutical, automotive, transportation and logistics, aerospace, tourism and recreation clusters, as well as the ICT cluster. However, the development of innovative processes in regional clusters are the high interest rates on loans. The priority direction of attracting financial resources in innovative territorial clusters are foreign investments. Their volume during the period of 2011-2014. It decreased by 58.5% in the Russian economy. According to the authors, it is advisable to redirect cash flows to Russia to support innovative regional pilot clusters, facilitating more rapid progress of the national economy.

A new stage in the life of a society invariably entails drastic changes that have a significant impact on all the spheres of human activity and on the society as a whole. The transition to the information age, which began with the onset of the 21st century, may undoubtedly be considered a qualitative step forward in the society’s development. However, such a transition could not happen without leaving a trace. Computerization and automation of all processes are the main features of the information society. Machines are starting to replace humans wherever technological progress allows for that. In such circumstances, the demand for creative professionals with innovative thinking and multi-tasking ability has significantly increased. Currently, leaders of organizations are facing the challenge of maintaining leadership potential, determined by changing out cultural values of new generations of workers belonging to generations Y and Z. In the article a new model of relations between the manager and the employee as a representative of the new cultural generation is considered one of the tools for managing. The article presents the generation theory of William Strauss and Neil Howe, as well as a brief description of generation Y. The influence of cultural generations change out on management systems in the context of the evolution on the international level and in Russia, in particular, has been analyzed.