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In this paper, we draw on three ethnographic studies of surrogacy we carried out separately in different contexts: the western US state of California, the south Indian state of Karnataka, and the western Russian metropolis of St Petersburg. In our interviews with surrogate mothers, intended parents, and surrogacy professionals, we traced the meanings and ideologies through which they understood the clinical labour of surrogacy. We found that in the US, interviewed surrogates, intended parents and professionals understood surrogacy as an exchange of both gifts and commodities, where gift-giving, reciprocity, and relatedness between surrogates and intended parents were the major tropes. In India, differing narratives of surrogacy were offered by its different parties: whilst professionals and intended parents framed it as a win-win exchange with an emphasis on the economic side, the interviewed surrogate mothers talked about surrogacy as creative labour of giving life. In Russia, approaches to surrogacy among the interviewed surrogate mothers, professionals and intended parents overlapped in framing it as work and a businesslike commodity exchange. We suggest these three different ways of ethical reasoning about the clinical labour of surrogacy, including justifications of women's incorporation into this labour, were situated in local moral frameworks. We name them "repro-regional moral frameworks", inspired by earlier work on moral frameworks as well as on reproductive nationalisms and transnational reproduction. Building on these findings, we argue that any international or global regulation of surrogacy, or indeed any moral stance on it, needs to take these local differences into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides a brief introduction to the historical development of accounting in Russia prior to 1917 before providing an exposition of accounting immediately prior to the disintegration of the USSR. Finally, the paper presents, as at that time, an assessment of the prospects for accounting development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predominant theories of the Russian political economy explain the vulnerability of independent business to the state, but they do not adequately explain why businesses survive and some thrive. Recent empirical studies of business conditions have not helped in this regard because most focus on ascertaining entrepreneurs’ attitudes rather than observing their behaviour. During ethnographic fieldwork within a Siberian business, the author found that informants were pessimistic about business conditions, but that they did not expect any improvement and had developed pragmatic approaches to securing their position in the local market and competencies required to generate a profit. Their relations with dominant elites were, moreover, cordial rather than antagonistic. To account for these findings, the author draws on Douglass C. North et al.’s Limited Access Order theory and Aleksei Yurchak’s concept of ‘entrepreneurial governmentality’, and seeks to reconceptualise the relationship between business and the state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Selective support for certain businesses represented an important part of Russia’s anticrisis policy during the 2008–9 period. The officially stated purpose was to maintain the sustainability of certain “strategic” businesses. Using regression analysis, the author assesses the extent to which an enterprise’s inclusion on the “List of Strategic Organizations” was defined by its “social significance,” and to what extent by its affiliation with one of the sixteen largest Russian business groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reports that the Russian businesses experience chronic shortages of working capital, and it is very hard for them to borrow from banks for this purpose. Commercial banks are unwilling to loan to individual independent or small enterprises, or they charge prohibitively high interest rates, since many banks are inclined to overestimate the credit risks and do not have the equity capital needed for long-term lending to enterprises. Systems for microlending and lending to small and medium-size businesses in Russia, where they exist, are found in very isolated areas.

In this comparative survey of seventy-three Russians and ninety-two US managers, we explore differences and similarities in ethical decision-making among respondents from these two countries within a business context. Using Reidenbach and Robin's (1988) multi-criteria ethics instrument, we examined whether business people in Russia and the US differed in their judgement of the ethical content of business decisions. Russia and the US provide an interesting comparison because of the extreme differences in their cultural characteristics as well as in their economies and related business development. Our results indicate that, while Americans, in general, tended to assess certain actions as less ethical when applying utilitarian or justice criteria, the ethical judgements of the two groups differed by situation and by criteria employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is focused on the trends in accessing the financial resources for new business formation in the Russian transitional economy. Two hundred and forty-nine managers and entrepreneurs from 18 industries (response rate 26%) surveyed differentiate available vs desirable financial resources. The authors compare entrepreneurs' assessments to those of company managers. Current low-to-medium attractiveness of main sources of financing reflects extremely high interest rates, underdeveloped banking mechanism for crediting new business formation, heavy taxation and differences in new business strategies (entrepreneurial vs privatization). The findings correlate with the current cultural and managerial characteristics of the Russian transitional economy (low uncertainty avoidance, low future orientation). At the same time, among the positive shifts in the Russian economy in the year 2000 is the commercial banks and government funds increased interest in financing not only large businesses, but new start-ups and SMEs as well. The authors discuss the desirable sources of financing and analyse the differences between the views of managers and of entrepreneurs. The survey results display growing interest to accessing medium and longterm sources of financing (bank and commercial credit, foreign credit and others), tax breaks expectations, and lower interest in personal financial contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurship has been constrained in post-Soviet Russia by unsympathetic legislation and punitive taxation. In consequence the registered small business sector in Russia is very much smaller than its counterparts in cither Eastern or Western Europe though a high proportion of the population is in some way reliant on entrepreneurial income. Although only 6% of registered workers are entrepreneurs, surveys indicate that one-third of households derive income from independent business activity. As it is a sector in which many people are giving up after two to three years' hard work and tribulations', far more will have been involved in running a small business, often with family members and friends. For many in Russia, the impact of marketization on personal relations has been experienced in the everyday travails of running a small business. People have tested the ethic of family duty, the bounds of friendship and the utility of the economy of favours' originating in Soviet society in business activity.