The present study analyzes the specific aspects of development of economic clusters through the example of an advanced scientific and industrial region of the Russian Federation. Aim. The study aims to examine and summarize the existing scientific approaches to the formation of cluster policy in industrial regions. Tasks. The authors identify the specific features encountered in the formation of regional cluster policy, along with the proper functioning of the industrial economic clusters generated. They then analyze the organizational structures of such clusters, determining the role of innovative economic clusters, and provide examples of the most advanced industrial ones. Methods. This study is based on the research of Russian and foreign authors in the field of cluster policy, scientific conclusions and provisions related to the importance and role of clusters in regional socioeconomic development, as well as methods of the systems approach used as tools to analyze and form a cluster management system. Results. General patterns in the formation, functioning, and development of an economic cluster as a factor of regional innovative development are determined. The experience of St. Petersburg, a large scientific, industrial, and educational metropolis, is analyzed, and the feasibility of using its best practices in the formation of cluster policy is substantiated. The structure of an innovative cluster is described, including such elements as business incubators, innovative technology parks, technology transfer centers, special economic zones, priority development areas. Conclusion. The developed organizational and economic mechanism of economic cluster formation is proposed for use within the framework of the St. Petersburg strategy for cluster policy implementation.

Aim. This study aims to substantiate theoretical and methodological principles of the formation of a regulation mechanism of regional development and an algorithm of its implementation, using program- and goal-oriented (project-based) management methods. Methods. The methodology is based on the provisions of the fundamental and applied works of Russian and foreign specialists in the field of regional socioeconomic-development management. Theoretical provisions and methodological recommendations are substantiated, using system analysis, logic synthesis, deduction, and induction. Results. Theoretical foundations and methodological provisions of the formation of a regulation mechanism of regional development are examined from the perspective of systems methodology. Contrasting socioeconomic differences between regions are shown to be a key problem in the development of the Russian Federation, as it contradicts constitutional provisions and federalism principles. The differences and disproportions between territories can be overcome by using a regulation mechanism of regional development. The authors substantiate that the regulation mechanism of regional development can be represented as a step-by-step implementation of strategically oriented measures in the field of modernization and innovative transformation of regional economies. The representation should be based on program- and goal-oriented (project-based) management methods in the form of specific programs (projects) sorted by term, performer, and resourcing. Further, a formation procedure and an implementation algorithm for the regulation mechanism of regional development are created. The obtained results expand our vision in the field of the management and regulation of territorial development in the context of federalism. These results may prove interesting to the corresponding federal and regional authorities in terms of the implementation of a national regional policy aimed at eliminating socioeconomic differences between the constituent territories of a federal state. Conclusion. High levels of territorial differences and the urgent need to eliminate them, limited resources, and increasing influence of the social and political environments on the economy prompt the development of an efficient regulation mechanism of regional development based on program- and goal-oriented (project-based) management methods.

Ensuring sustainable functioning and development of economic systems through the implementation of robust controls as a means of overcoming uncertainty has facilitated expansion and systematization of knowledge about uncertainty. Aim. The present study aims to develop a typology and build up cumulative knowledge about uncertainty based on such constructs as “objective uncertainty” and “subjective uncertainty,” bearers of uncertainty, internal organization of cognition of an object, environment, and situation. Tasks. Interpretation of different directions within the framework of a constructive approach to exploring the potential of reducing the impact of uncertainty on the sustainability functioning of economic systems, namely: theoretical and methodological expansion of the concept of uncertainty, development of decision-making methods in the context of uncertainty, and robustness theory as it is applied to economic systems. Building a typology of subjective uncertainty differentiated according to the internal organization of cognition of the ergodic and non-ergodic “world.” Building a structure of cumulative knowledge about uncertainty while identifying uncertainty bearers and characteristics of subjective uncertainty types. Methods. This study uses generalization, systematization, and supplementation of knowledge about the concept of uncertainty in the cognition of an object, environment, and business conditions within an economic system. Methodological constructs of uncertainty theory include both objective and subjective uncertainty, internal organization of cognition of an object, environment, and its situation. Results. The key concepts of “objective uncertainty” and “subjective uncertainty” are identified. Objective uncertainty bearers are the object, environment, and situation. Subjective uncertainty depends on the result of abstracted perception of information about the object, environment, and situation by the subject. A new typology is proposed, in which the degree of understanding and disclosure of uncertainty is determined depending on the perception of the “outside world” as ergodic or non-ergodic and the internal organization of cognition by the subject: realism, rationalism, cognitivism, and constructivism. Cumulative knowledge about uncertainty is formed. The causality of uncertainty, which leads to changes in the state of an economic system or its business situation, methods and factors are systematized that help a person who makes decisions detect and overcome uncertainty. Conclusion. The manifestation of objective uncertainty is taken as axiomatic, whereas its subjective perception is regarded as the formation of subjective uncertainty. Presenting the accumulated knowledge about uncertainty in the form of a typology or cumulative knowledge and systematizing causality, the means of reducing and damping the level of uncertainty can facilitate the process of overcoming subjective uncertainty represented as an information space for taking action, making choices and decisions, generated by the subject’s knowledge. The main structural elements are uncertainty bearers, namely, the object, environment, and situation, as well as the resulting objective, environmental, and situational uncertainties. Environmental and situational uncertainties are also publicly available for in-depth study. The level of subjective uncertainty is set according to the internal organization of cognition of reality by the subject. Systematized personal and behavioral abilities of the subject who makes decisions are best realized through the implementation of robust control, the mechanism of which is organized as a system of frames-knowledge bearers for the subject within the framework “strategy- tactics-decision-making-interpretation of the situation-impact on the situation.” The present results of the study of uncertainty provide a certain continuity of knowledge, which can serve as a basis for reducing and damping the level of uncertainty.

This study discusses the ontological foundations of the analysis of key factors in the development of fitness and sports services markets in Western European countries. The key factors identified by the authors, apart from macroeconomic dominants, include geoeconomic factors of spatial economics, with specific emphasis on the potential of socioeconomic and information-infrastructure development. Aim. The study aims to provide a panoramicview of the current state of scientific research methodology related to significant achievements in the prevalence of geoeconomic factors of spatial economics. The authors adopted these factors to examine the development of fitness and sports services markets in Western European countries. Tasks. The authors provide ontological, epistemological, and axiological interpretations of the declared aim, familiarizing contemporary economic theorists with the methodological constructs that offer insight into the genesis of problems in the development of fitness and sports markets not only from the perspective of geoeconomic beliefs but also in the problematic area of the modern hermeneutics of the subject. Methods. In methodological terms, problems in fitness and sports economics are distributed between macroeconomic concepts based on post-nonclassical science and geocentric potentials of world economy. Major trajectories of fitness and sports market development can partially influence the centrist geoeconomic and geopolitical balance of power in the world, which may potentially bring back polarization without changing the prevailing power of the potentials of the Western world. Conclusion. The study prioritizes scientific standpoints, concepts, and doctrines by analyzing their viability for assessing boundaries of human potential. By enhancing the latter, it should be possible to not only support individuals as “workers who create added value” but also facilitate internal societal development, ensuring “a margin of safety, reliability, and sustainability” of economic systems in the future. The solution to such problems is an example of significant financial investment in human potential, which always involves investment in the development of new, modern, socially important infrastructure objects, including those that ensure proper functioning of contemporary fitness and sports economics.

Aim. This study aims to analyze and assess the potential of information and communications technology (ICT) for facilitating economic growth and further integrating member states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and the Eurasian region. Tasks. The authors evaluate prospects of ICT for expanding multilateral economic cooperation in the operation of transport corridors. Methods. This study uses dialectical and systematic approaches to examine the processes of ICT implementation in the economies of the EEU and its regional neighbors. Results. An analysis of modern informationtechnology implementation shows low optimization of transit logistics through the EEU member states and no significant effects of ICT on further integration in the context of the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the EEU. ICT implementation in transport vehicles across Eurasia is hindered by the technological inferiority of the EEU member states compared with developed countries and by the uneven digitalization of economy. Conclusion. Russian technological developments in the field of digitalization and successful practices of ICT implementation in transport vehicles in Belarus will play a key role in the development of a strategy for the economic development of Eurasian transit corridors. Solving the problem of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan’s entry in the global digital market will improve the integration of EEU member states and provide other EEU members with a subjective status in the digital world. The transport and logistics initiative of the Silk Road and the integration of the EEU member states should become mutually reinforcing projects, with the digital economy playing a leading role.

This article presents the results of interdisciplinary studies as a model of viral organizational change management. Aim. The study aims to generate ideas and develop a new model of organizational change management characterized by a shorter change period and lower resource cost of change implementation, while maintaining the same organizational scale of transformation. Tasks. The authors (1) create an interdisciplinary thinking space in the form of a series of focused creative laboratories, (2) apply the analogy method to introducing a virus to organizational change management, and (3) present the obtained knowledge as an algorithm and model of a virus in organizational transformation. Methods. This study uses the structural analogy method, methods of deductive cognition, generation of ideas, structural modeling, and synthesis of virology, social psychology, and change management. Results. The structure of organizational change virus with a value profile manifested in relationships and behavior models, including an envelope in the form of information messages, is proposed. An algorithm of change is developed, which includes three stages-implementation, assimilation, and multiplication-each one containing a number of tools such as analysis of the value profile, “defrost-freeze” cycle, imitation. The organization’s opinion leader acts as the object of application of managerial actions in the algorithm. The personality type of the opinion leader, level of employee comfort and strength of organizational culture, reflection as a means of control and analysis can serve to generate an immunity to changes at different stages of transformation. Conclusion. A viral organizational change management model is developed, which includes the transformation of the virus structure, viral change management algorithm, and organizational immunity tools that interrupt the change process. The authors also make a number of hypotheses on viral organizational transformation that require further examination.

Aim. The present study aims to examine the process of reforms and results of the national education policy in the field of modernization of the Russian secondary mathematics education system during the reign of the Romanov dynasty in the Eighteenth Century through the early Twentieth Century. Tasks. Within the framework of the study, the authors consistently solve a number of key problems, namely: •• drawing historical analogies between modernization and the current situation in the development of mathematical education, identifying changes in its structure and components, which can facilitate the renovation of modern Russian secondary mathematical education and the formation of new views of its structural and organizational changes; •• finding solutions to overcome the discrepancies in the established structure of general secondary education, which minimize the share of natural and mathematical disciplines, and predict the results of modernization based on the analysis of Russia’s legacy. Methods. This study uses a systems-based methodological approach, which involves general and special historical scientific research methods, including the descriptive, chronological, retrospective, and comparative-historical methods. The solution of the research tasks is based on the principle of historicism, which leads to the application of the historical-genetic method to the analysis of reforms in Russia’s mathematics education system. Results. The study outlines the major causes and cyclically recurring phases in the modernization of mathematics education in Russia, its problems and discrepancies, drawing from historical analogies with some modern directions in the modernization of the examined field. The authors (1) identify the benefits and drawbacks of the implemented reforms as well as the most progressive practices, (2) draw historical parallels and analogies that can be effectively used by the modern academic and scientific community and government authorities for the prediction of relevant directions in the modernization of mathematics (including multi-level) education with the purpose of its further qualitative development in its conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and organizational aspects. Conclusion. The authors conclude that by the beginning of the Twentieth Century a classic system of secondary mathematics education conforming to global standards has been established under the patronage of the government, science, and society, which have served as progressive mechanisms of modernization. Within the framework of the study, the benefits and drawbacks of mathematics education reforms in Czarist Russia are identified, and the reforms are compared with the ongoing modernization of multi-level education (in general) and mathematics education in particular. The authors determine further directions for improving multi-level education and mathematics education, which need to be implemented to achieve social, scientific, and economic progress.

Formation of new relationship schemes in higher education is one of the causes of enhanced competition between higher education institutions, since now not only the government, but also employers-who have their own requirements to evaluate the competence of graduates-act as stakeholders in the implementation of educational services. Development of education in Russia means full integration of universities into the mechanism of market competition and co-funding of educational services by citizens and businesses alike. That said, market relations mediate not only the interaction between the customers and providers of educational services, but also between universities and their academic staff. Development of higher education as a whole depends on how economically correct the relations between all participants of the educational process are. This makes the pricing of educational services and transparency of this process an obvious and relevant problem. Aim. The study aims to present major approaches to the pricing of higher education using a marginalist approach and modern education pricing methods. Tasks. The authors analyze scientific and methodological approaches to the pricing of education in the implementation of programs involving distance learning. Methods. This study uses general scientific methods of cognition and private economic analysis methods to examine the process of pricing of higher education. Results. Application of adjusted marginal analysis to pricing in a university that implements distance learning programs makes it possible to determine a fair cost of education that would be acceptable for all participants of the educational process. Conclusion. Unreasonable pricing of educational services causes significant material damage to certain population groups and distorts public opinion about the importance and value of education. Considering the social importance of educational activities, application of the proposed approach makes it possible to accurately determine the target price of educational services.

This study assesses the relation between investment processes and human capital as a decisive factor of economic growth in the transition toward digital economy. Aim. The study aims to examine the effect of change in the level of human capital on investment activity in developing countries. Tasks. The authors determine the present state of the level of direct foreign investments in the Eurasian Economic Union, assess the effect of the inflow of direct foreign investments on basic macroeconomic indicators, analyze existing risks, and identify key factors that affect investment activity. Methods. The study uses general scientific methods of cognition as well as comparative and statistical analyses to systematize the results of research on the dependence of investment activity on the level of human capital. Results. The countries are compared in terms of the level of their foreign investments and the effects of those investments on basic macroeconomic indicators. Further, the key factors and risks associated with investment activity are identified, and it is concluded that direct foreign investment does not play a key role in developing countries. Additionally, the role of human capital in the increase in investment activity is determined. Conclusion. Developing countries are paying increased attention to human-capital growth as a key factor of economic development in an information-oriented society. A high level of human capital enhances investment attractiveness, increasing economic growth rate and maintaining the level of socioeconomic development.

The present study solves the problem of automation of greenhouse complexes in the context of resource minimization. Aim. The study aims to improve the efficiency of decision support in the selection of components for an automated protected cultivation system based on the developed-component selection model. Tasks. The general task of selecting components for an automated greenhouse can be divided into three subtasks: selecting structural solutions; selecting a sensing system for the automated greenhouse; selecting hardware components for it. Methods. This study uses systems analysis, mathematical modeling, and decision-making techniques for multi-criteria problems. Results. The market for agroindustry complexes involved in the cultivation of greenhouse vegetables is analyzed, and its major trends are examined. A model for the selection of components for an automated protected cultivation system is developed. The problem of multi-criteria selection and ranking of alternatives is solved. The proposed management system model combines a set of criteria developed by experts in the greenhouse industry and an algorithm for selecting components of three types: structures, sensors, and coverings for greenhouses. Conclusion. Cultivation of greenhouse products in modern markets requires continuous improvement of technological processes. Nowadays, the automated cultivation of useful plants has become a major trend in the agroindustry complex. The process of selecting equipment for different purposes needs to be automated, such as small- to medium-sized agricultural enterprises, private farmers, and large industrial greenhouses. Therefore, developing advisory information systems that would help decision makers come up with ready-made technological solutions is crucial for the future development of this industry.

Aim. The present study aims to structure the basic elements of interaction between production, transport, commercial, storage, and other enterprises involved in the supply, production, and retail chains, including militaryoriented enterprises. Tasks. The authors provide guidelines for the establishment of regional multi-service centers for the maintenance of weapons and military equipment, which should improve the management mechanisms of service organizations, including military-oriented ones. Methods. This study uses general scientific methods of cognition to examine the military maintenance service industry in the Far East, in its various aspects, and provide recommendations for the improvement of management systems of military service organizations based on international practices. Results. On the one hand, the development of the military maintenance service industry in the Far East has been affected by the slowdown in the country’s economic growth, geographic and demographic heterogeneity of the territory, and different levels of socioeconomic development among the territories of the Far East region. On the other hand, in recent years the Russian Far East has been subjected to priority regional economic development, new prospects for international cooperation in the military sphere has emerged, and international experience in the field of refining service organizations’ management has been accumulated. When dealing with the issues of management of military service organizations, it is necessary to balance the interests of the government, customers, and providers of services, including the maintenance of weapons and military equipment. The specific feature of such services is their confidential nature, which requires a corresponding clearance level from contractors. Conclusion. The management systems of service organizations can be improved by establishing regional multi-service centers for allinclusive maintenance of weapons and military equipment in the Far East.