2010. Vol. 11. No. 4

The article is devoted to the problem of demand for skilled labour in Russian industrial production. Author demonstrates that in 2000–2009 the aggregate supply of labour of workers with diverse vocational education signifi cantly increased while the aggregate demand for these categories of workers signifi cantly decreased. At the same time industrial enterprises started complaining about a scarcity of skilled labour. And these complaints were getting more pronounced over time. These complaints were refl ected in a variety of research micro-data sets as well. They began to affect governmental social and educational policy.However, how can we explain the increasing gap between macro- and micro-data? Using large-scale surveys of industrial enterprises conducted in 2003, 2005 and 2009, the author demonstrates that scarcity of the skilled labour is largely imaginary. It is explained by a number of institutional subversions in the Russian economy which stimulate employee turnover, undermine motivation toward vocational training, allow ineffi cient enterprises to be afl oat and support highly differentiated salary levels among homogenous companies

Entrepreneurial groups face a twinned challenge: recognizing and implementing new ideas. We argue that entrepreneurship is less about importing ideas than about generating new knowledge by recombining resources. In contrast to the brokerage plus closure perspective, we address the overlapping of cohesive group structures. In analyzing the network processes of intercohesion, we identify a distinctive network topology: the structural fold. Actors at the structural fold are multiple insiders, facilitating familiar access to diverse resources. Our data set records personnel ties among the largest 1,696 Hungarian enterprises from1987 to 2001. First, we test whether structural folding contributes to group performance. Second, because entrepreneurship is a process of generative disruption, we test the contribution of structural folds to group instability. Third, we move from 
dynamic methods to historical network analysis and demonstrate that coherence is a property of interwoven lineages of cohesion, built up through repeated separation and reunifi cation

The article demonstrates the results of qualitative and quantitative research devoted to the formation of efficient owners of apartment houses under the housing and communal services reform in Russia. Authors found out that today owners of privatized apartments are insufficiently mature for successful implementation of the housing and communal services reform, introduction of new communal technologies. Most homeowners of apartment houses are passive and disorganized, inclined to state and municipal dependency, inexperienced in collective decision making, and suspicious of neighbors and officials. Free rider problem is also there. Research findings confirm the assumption concerning that the housing and communal services reform is blocked by the vertical pattern of social contract in Russia. Therefore, it seems to be necessary to elaborate an alternative program for housing and communal services reform to develop liberal redestributive (razdatochnaya) economy.

Russian pharmaceutical market, which took the place of the Soviet centralized system of health care, has changed dramatically. First of all, these changes are caused by the state trying to improve legal regulation in the field of drug turnover. Apart from changes in pricing methods for drugs, clinical trials procedures and licensing, and state expert system, Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development is planning to make Federal law amendments to constrain relationships between medical companies’ representatives and physicians. A peculiarity of personal selling methods on pharmaceutical market is that medical representatives are not involved into direct sales of drugs but significantly influence the ultimate demand by providing intermediate consumers (medical or pharmaceutical staff) with personal information. Medical representatives’ behaviour is not only economic and they are not just atomized actors in this market; their relationships with physicians can be based on trust, reliable information and joint problem-solving arrangements [Uzzi 1996] conditioning coherence and interdependence.The author studies relationships between medical representatives and physicians from the structural embeddedness perspective. Based on the research she discloses the existing practices of relationships between pharmaceutical companies and physicians, describes possible ways of resolving administrative and legal problems associated with new regulations of drug turnover. The author also gives attention to the dissolution of ties as an important element of network analysis

«Economic Sociology» celebrates its fi rst 10year anniversary. It is a good reason to take all of its 50 volumes and investigate subject areas and methodological preferences of the contributors. The paper reviews journal’s history, refl ects upon challenges which it met and ways it resolved them. Using the data of Russian Science Citation Index the author compares citation indexes of «Economic Sociology» with the other Russian sociological journals. Attracting relevant online statistics, the author also reveals the structure and dynamic of the journal audience over the decade, major interests and preferences of the readers.

The project is aimed at assisting those who give lectures  in quantitative methods for the students from different departments. Often teachers have some diffi culties in clearly cut and useful examples for their lectures and seminars. Moreover, they face obvious problems when searching for the actual data suitable for students from different departments to train their methodological skills in computer classes. The article describes authors’ innovative teaching materials designed to resolve these issues