Liudmila V. Syrnikova's scientific contributions

Modern trends in economic development, which have been formed under the influence of digitalization factors and the global pandemic, objectively lead to the need to implement cooperation strategies to ensure the sustainability of business in various areas of activity based on innovation. Despite lockdowns and quarantine measures, businesses based on digital transformation were able to realize their potential through the development of new types of activities, adjustments to ongoing strategic plans, implementation of joint projects, and reduction of entrepreneurial risks. Modern entrepreneurial cooperation is attractive for business because it’s a cooperation of resources of individuals and legal entities, based on new principles of management and organization of labour, and it also has innovative potential. Small and medium-sized businesses suffered the greatest losses from the pandemic, for which cooperation issues often become vital. Today, in the context of economic recovery, cooperation helps to maximize profits for its participants, and a competitive strategy promises lower dividends or more risk. In addition, cooperation makes it possible to combine efforts in the area of innovative developments that require new ideas and significant investments, which aren’t always within the power of an individual entrepreneur. The choice of a specific innovative cooperation strategy is a key problem and task for future partners. Cooperation can be justified if it creates additional economic benefits for its participants and ensures their sustainability through innovative solutions.KeywordsCooperationStrategiesInnovationWikinomicsPrinciples of sustainabilityJEL ClassificationL 1L 2

The relevance of the topic is due to the need for a comprehensive study of problems and the search for their overcoming that arise in the activities of small businesses, as representatives of the most important sector of the economy of any country with a market orientation. Small business is of particular importance in the country's economy, since, by restraining the monopoly domination of large enterprises, it ensures healthy competition in the market and the rapid elimination of commodity shortages by promptly responding to any conjuncture market changes. In addition, with mass development, small business contributes to the growth of jobs and the creation of a middle social class, which is a support for any state and a guarantee of economic and socio-political stability in the country. Small businesses in developed countries account for about 40-50% of the total volume of products and services produced. As foreign and domestic experience shows, small business is especially promising in the commercial sphere, that is, in the provision of trade services, public catering, jurisprudence, medicine, and repair of household appliances. At the same time, small business also contributes to scientific and technological progress, realizing its achievements in all areas of activity. It accounts for about half of registered patents in a number of European countries. The stability of the functioning of small and medium-sized businesses is largely determined by stable financing, however, as a rule, the limited financial resources for the implementation of investment projects and business expansion are a key problem. During the pandemic, it was small and medium-sized businesses that were subjected to a catastrophically negative impact, and to support and preserve it, the state implemented a whole range of measures, of an economic, organizational and social nature. In these conditions, the obvious advantages of small and medium-sized businesses are realized to be flexible in responding to newly emerging opportunities for building effective strategies for financing sustainable development during a pandemic.

The development of an entrepreneurial environment and entrepreneurial initiative is a priority task for the socio-economic development of the country as a whole and its individual regions. Its implementation is possible, among other things, by supporting and developing entrepreneurial initiatives from the state. At the same time, the sustainability of economic growth in individual regions is largely determined by the effectiveness of the implementation of the economic development strategy adopted at the regional level and the practice of activities of economic entities operating on their territory. The article presents the materials of theoretical studies of areas of activity and empirical studies of the results of the activities of federal institutions created to activate innovative processes and implement investment projects in the regions. The presented results of the analysis of the activities of such institutions, expressed in the types and volumes of state support for economic entities, made it possible to identify and formulate the following conclusions: 1) enterprises of the Volga Federal District actively interact with such organizations and institutions as the autonomous non-profit organization Agency for Strategic Initiatives to Promote New Projects, State Corporation Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank), “AO Russian Export Center”, “AO Russian Venture Company”, Industrial Development Fund, Fund for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises in Science and Technology, RUSNANO Group; 2) due to active participation in the programs and projects of these organizations, the Volga Federal District is in the group of leaders in terms of the main economic indicators. The practical significance of the obtained research results lies in the formation of an idea of the mechanisms and instruments for the implementation of state support for entrepreneurial initiative, based on the interaction of economic entities with federal development institutions.