Entrepreneurship Developmentin the Old Industrial Cities of Russia Based on the Ecosystem Approach

Abstract

Old industrial cities in Russia, as well as throughout the world, are experiencing a whole range of extremely complex and diverse problems. The launch of new trajectories of economic growth implies, first of all, the development of new zones of entrepreneurial activity in the economic space of the city. Especially important for the development of small creative entrepreneurship is an established dialogue between the state, business and society. The article proposes an ecosystem concept for the development of an entrepreneurial environment and entrepreneurship in old industrial cities. The ecosystem approach involves considering the business environment of the city as a complex adaptive system, covering a variety of stakeholders that interact interactively with each other in a continuously changing space. As a result, the existing programs to support entrepreneurship from the point of view of the ecosystem approach are extremely one-sided: they are aimed at “top-down” interactions, are mainly associated with financial support, poorly take into account the social and environmental responsibility of business, pay insufficient attention to the entrepreneurial orientation of the broad social masses and raising the social status of entrepreneurs in the eyes of society. A special role in the implementation of the ecosystem approach to the development of the business environment and entrepreneurship in old industrial cities is played by ecosystem innovations, which we propose to integrate into targeted programs in the field of entrepreneurship: these include digital platforms, digital services and auxiliary digital infrastructure, which together form a digital ecosystem of state interactions, businesses and local communities.