The differences of the institutional environment of the activities of firms of varying size on the example of ferrous metallurgy

Introduction. The article shows the importance of the factor of institutional differences in the development of the Russian economy, in particular — the steel markets.

Methods. In this article, we proposed some institutional criteria to determine the institutional differences, by which we selected three samples — the largest, large, medium-sized ferrous metallurgy companies with a foundry technological redistribution for a higher degree of comparability. Initially, we determined a sample of companies on the basis of annual revenue. Further, we examined all three samples of companies in terms of economic criteria for the last ten reporting years — from 2008 to 2017. We selected the main directions of the considered criteria for comparing groups of enterprises: ratings, market coverage, level of state support, access to financing.

Results. The study was able to determine that each of the samples has its own characteristics of development and performance indicators. At the same time, a comparison of the dynamics of economic indicators in the three institutionally different groups shows that the first sector significantly exceeds the second and third in terms of both volume indicators and the dynamics of their growth. The differences between the second and third sectors are less pronounced, but also in favour of the second. In general, groups of companies, separated by institutional characteristics, demonstrate marked differences in the dynamics of economic parameters. A comparative analysis of the technological level, despite the lack of detailed studies, showed that the selected groups of companies differ significantly in terms of access to new and high technologies, and the level of interaction with universities.

Discussion. The approach described in the article allows predicting the development of markets and industries, taking into account the selected institutional and economic features. Also, besides the distinction according to the institutional characteristics of a group of companies in terms of economic parameters, further studies of their technological level are required.

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