Vol 30, No 3 (2022): Global Economy: Actual Problems

The article is devoted to the study of the experience of change management for sustainable business development in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and crisis in Russia and France. It uses a sample of 94 publicly traded French healthcare companies in 2021 to model change management for sustainable business development in France during the COVID-19 pandemic and crisis. Based on OECD and WIPO statistics for 2019-2021 and the trend analysis method monitors the practical experience of change management for sustainable business development in Russia and France in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and crisis. Based on the 2020-2021 survey materials. the case experience of Russian business in managing change in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and crisis is being studied. The contribution of the article to the literature is to identify, using the example of Russia and France, a new (alternative) - socially-oriented approach to managing changes in business, based on corporate social responsibility.

There are various theories about how a leader should behave and what are the characteristics of a leader in the context of the modern economic world and business. The question of how actually an individual becomes a leader is of interest to many people. Very often the word “leader” is used as an equivalent of a person gaining power in a particular structure or organization. Аlso the words „leader“ and „manager“ are often misused as synonyms. Тhere is a big difference between the two concepts. Мanager in the economic world can take a position as a continuation of personal and professional qualities which will elevate him in the structural hierarchy. Also, manager could be chosen for the position by external factors. In both cases, this is not a matter of choice of the group. If the manager has leadership qualities, he could be recognized by the group later, but he could also be rejected. Placing a certain individual, who is not chosen by the group, in a leading role is a subject of analysis. An experiment with students is conducted so to prove the hypothesis. The experiment aims to determine whether there is a connection between empowerment and leadership, fundamentally distinguishing the fact that empowerment does not presumably make the individual leader. For the purposes of the experiment, fictional information about a non-existent country is provided. In this way, a simulation environment is created. Each student has own task and must defend own draft budget in a discussion. The simulation aims to observe not mostly the success of defending own draft budget, but the behavior and unconscious leadership skills of the participants.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a real crisis for global and national economies and health systems around the world. It has already taken many lives, and many people are still complaining about the consequences of being infected with this virus. The pandemic has demonstrated the weaknesses of national health systems - the unpreparedness for emergencies and their rapid prevention. These problems were expressed in the inability to detect the threat early, overloaded medical facilities, acute shortage of personal protective equipment and personnel. Nevertheless, the success of China in the fight against the virus, expressed in effective containment tactics, as well as in the reduction of COVID-19 incidence in the country, cannot be overlooked. The purpose of this article is to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the PRC health care system and its medical reforms. Since 2012, large-scale reforms have been carried out in China to achieve a “basic healthcare system with Chinese features.” Universal health coverage is extremely important because it helps, in addition to equality, to achieve financial well-being for citizens and economic development for the country. The following results were obtained: despite the abundance of negative consequences for the economy and health of citizens, the pandemic contributed to the successful implementation of information technologies in health care; had a positive impact on the relationship between Chinese doctors and patients (which has been in deep crisis for a long time); became the reason for China’s leadership in the world vaccine market for the first time in history. Thus, we can conclude about the dual impact of COVID-19 on the industry. The pandemic has already led to a number of significant changes, and now another wave of infections is hampering reform goals, including the Healthy China 2030 program, which will affect the health and wellbeing of 1.4 billion Chinese, but making long-term predictions in an ever-changing environment is impossible. As practice has shown, initial success in combating the disease is not enough: plans to recover from one health crisis have been replaced by yet another plan to fight the new wave of COVID-19.

The continued COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the global economy, with countries battling to contain the infection’s spread as it continues to affect nearly every country in the globe. We test for possible explosive behavior (excessive disequilibrium) in COVID-19 infection in the top African impacted economies, given the sensitivity and fragility of stock markets to shocks. The study identifies two (2) separate explosive occurrences in Algeria and Egypt using the Generalized Sup Augmented DickeyFuller (GSADF) test. Furthermore, the study examines the influence of the COVID-19 infection’s explosive behavior on the stock markets of the countries, taking into consideration the disequilibrium occurrences. The COVID-19 infection’s explosive behavior had a negative but insignificant effect on stock returns, leading to an increase in riskiness. This outcome could be explained by the fact that the explosive incidents were transitory and could only have had a momentary impact on stock market returns absorbable overtime. More so, it suggests that investors may have adjusted to the shock of the COVID-19 infection prior to the two explosive occurrences, and that the development of the COVID-19 vaccine reassures for a near halt to the pandemic.

The article is related to the role and place of the Central Asian region in a cross-border energy resources trade at present stage. On the one hand, there are two countries in Asia, which are in the list of the world’s largest importers of energy resources - India and China. On the other hand, the Central Asian countries (with the exception of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) and Russia are net energy exporters, herewith this kind of export is all-important for their macroeconomic stability. It is not surprising that the problems of organizing mutually beneficial trade in energy resources throughout the Central Asian region are among the most urgent issues for all interested parties’ agenda. So, the analysis and assessment of the energy component of cooperation between the Russia, Central Asian states, China and India lies in the focus of the article. Of course, India is not directly integrated into the energy architecture of the Central Asian space, but its large domestic market is one of the drivers of energy supplies growth. Therefore, it is advisable to consider India as an external actor that has a significant impact on the ongoing processes. Current practice of multilateral participation shaping the energy dialogue can also have a great importance in the geopolitical context - as a factor of either additional cohesion or increasing contradictions in the given region.

Electronics industry in Russia is an example of how inefficient old approaches to production can be. In XXI century, most companies have abandoned integrated device manufacturing, thus separating design and production. The main goal of this article is to analyze prospects for development of electronics in Russia with Government strategy being a huge supporting factor. Worldwide deficit of semiconductors, worsened by COVID-19, together with export sanctions imposed upon this country put a strain on both national fabless companies and IDMs, depriving them from future growth and undermining their stability. The authors employ induction, deduction, analysis, synthesis, analogy, and description, basing their work on scientific papers of the Russian and world economists as well as tech specialists. Government strategy and increased financial support may generate positive impact and assist existing foundries. However, the cherished goal of reducing dependency on market leaders (which is coveted by many nations) cannot be achieved as most producers stand in a long line before they can purchase equipment for their foundries. Therefore, the best-case scenario implies second-hand lithography systems from manufacturers wishing to upgrade. This is sufficient for sustainable development of microcontrollers but hinders high-tech aspirations of fabless companies in Russia. At the same time this issue is not limited to Russia alone - many countries have realized the need for production localization and changed their focus from either self-reliance or import substitution to partnership with leading foundries.

Metallurgical industry, is the 3rd most important branch of heavy industry in Russia and refers to the basic branch of the economy. In particular, ferrous metallurgy is a strategically important unit in the metallurgical complex and plays a critical role in shaping the sustainable development of the state as a whole, along with such industries as the oil and gas industry. Russian ferrous metallurgy market, is a leader in production efficiency, as well as production with the lowest CO2 emissions, which is one of the main competitive advantages of the industry, especially with the introduction of carbon duties and the global trend to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The steel industry has a great demand from a large number of consumers: machine building, metalworking, construction, railway production, aircraft industry, shipbuilding and many others.

Today, digitalization has become one of the key factors in socio-economic development. It covers reproduction, science, public administration and entrepreneurship itself. Considering the conditions for the formation of the economic space of the Lugansk People’s Republic, scientists face difficult tasks of finding solutions to the digital transformation of the socioeconomic system of the Republic for full integration into the economic space of the countries of strategic partners. The presented article attempts to systematically analyze the development of the phenomenon of entrepreneurship in the context of the digitalization of the economies of the world’s leading countries. The study compares the simplicity of entrepreneurial activity between countries of the world, assesses the ability of countries to ensure a high level of wellbeing of their citizens and determines the level of economic freedom and the state of the country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem in a local and international context. Evaluation of digital development processes is carried out using an aggregated index of the network state, which characterizes technology, people, management and the level of network development of the studied group of countries. Based on the conclusions made, the main characteristics of the directions for the development of entrepreneurship in the context of the digital transformation of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republic are proposed and substantiated.