Public-sector ICT environments are typically characterized by dense governance architectures intended to ensure accountability, compliance, and effective oversight. In South Africa, this architecture includes statutory financial management legislation, treasury regulations, audit regimes, and corporate governance codes that collectively prescribe how information systems should be governed. Despite this extensive framework, ICT governance failures continue to recur across public-sector organizations, appearing consistently in audit outcomes and practitioner accounts. Rather than being isolated breakdowns, such failures often persist across reporting cycles and leadership changes. This study examines how ICT governance failure becomes normalized and sustained over time in a highly regulated public-sector context. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 55 government information technology officers across national, provincial, and local government, the analysis shifts attention from why governance fails to how failure is accommodated within everyday organizational practice. The findings show that governance failure is routinely treated as an expected and manageable condition, absorbed through audit rituals, ceremonial governance structures, layered accountability arrangements, and the delegation of governance responsibility to technical units. These practices allow organizations to maintain procedural legitimacy while leaving underlying governance deficiencies largely unaddressed. By conceptualising governance failure as a socially produced and institutionally sustained outcome, the study extends institutional and governance-as-practice perspectives in ICT governance research. A system or process that is far from perfect is still able to function efficiently, provided that the necessary procedures are implemented correctly. This demonstrates that a system can accomplish routine tasks despite its flaws. Prior research highlights the difficulty of implementing and sustaining ICT governance in heavily regulated public sector environments. In these areas ICT reform projects have been repeatedly initiated yet have failed to deliver the expected outcomes. In practice, the results can be used to inform diagnostic and risk-focused evaluations of ICT governance by assisting public-sector organizations in recognizing when governance arrangements are perpetuating, rather than resolving, chronic dysfunction.

The need of differentiating state competition policy in Russia is consistent with the National Competition Development Plan and the Standard for the Development of Competition in the Constituent Entities of the Russian Federation. The purpose of this study is to classify priority product markets and regions to ensure effective monitoring and implementation of competition policy. Based on Rosstat data for the period 2019–2023, four clusters of regions were identified: diversified, industrial, agricultural, and developing. The findings are supported by expert analysis and include quantitative economic characteristics of each cluster. The practical significance of the study lies in the potential use of its results by public authorities for more targeted monitoring of market conditions and support of competitive environments in product markets. The proposed classification enhances the effectiveness of competition policy implementation and contributes to the development of competition in regional product markets. The scientific novelty of the article lies in a comprehensive approach to the classification of product markets and regions based on up-to-date socio-economic data, as well as in development of policy-oriented tools.

The author examines the combined effects of corporate governance quality, stock liquidity, and asset profitability under conditions of financial constraints. Effective company management serves as an important signal for potential investors. Improving the quality of financial information not only enhances investor trust but also enables management to obtain a comprehensive view of the firm’s business activities, thereby supporting informed decision-making. The financial position of a business entity and its investment prospects are largely determined by the quality of management. Organizational capital is used as a proxy variable for corporate governance quality. Management exercises direct control over operational costs, which allows it to effectively manage changes within the firm. Tightening monetary policy not only increases the cost of borrowing but also reduces real incomes and suppresses the investment activity of Russian public companies. A high key interest rate set by the Bank of Russia leads to a sharp decline in industrial investment and extends project investment horizons. As a result, these companies are likely to forgo economically attractive investment projects. Under these conditions, they are likely to behave in line with the precautionary motive by retaining a portion of their funds to finance their business activities and adjust their capital structure amid limited access to debt financing. Stock liquidity serves as an important reference point in investors’ analysis and evaluation of stock returns. The preparation of financial reporting in accordance with international standards provides the necessary information for decision-making not only for management but also for investors, thereby sending them a signal that, under adverse conditions (external sanctions), ultimately affects the share prices.

Digital transformation is recognized as a key driver of industrial development; however, its impact in combination with other factors remains understudied. The objective of the study is to assess the influence of digital transformation, investment, sociodemographic, and structural factors on the development of manufacturing enterprises. This study presents an empirical analysis of the determinants of manufacturing growth in 78 Russian regions from 2013 to 2023. The methodological framework is based on panel regression modeling. The model incorporates an integrated digitalization index, indicators of internet infrastructure (broadband access), as well as variables characterizing fixed capital investment, R&D expenditures, the industry’s share in GRP, urbanization, student population, and employment. Specification tests (Breusch-Pagan and Hausman) confirmed the adequacy of the two-way fixed effects model. The study results identified three groups of determinants. Stable drivers include the digitalization index, internet infrastructure development, and fixed capital investment, all of which have a consistently positive effect. The influence of employment, urbanization, and educational potential is contextual: interregional differences correlate positively with output, whereas intraregional growth over time is associated with lower productivity, indicating structural shifts and time lags. R&D expenditures show a positive effect in interregional comparisons but are insignificant or negative in short-term intraregional dynamics. The findings highlight the priority of government and corporate policies aimed at developing digital infrastructure and stimulating technological investment as the most reliable factors of industrial growth.

This article examines the legal and technical potential of offset agreements as a strategic tool for addressing the gasification of domestic industrial facilities under the restrictions imposed by nineteen rounds of sanctions. The relevance of this study stems from the need to ensure energy independence and sustainable development of Russian enterprises in a drastically altered foreign economic environment. The authors analyze the legal nature of offset agreements and their advantages in aligning the interests of the state (as a guarantor of demand) and private businesses (as investors and contractors), particularly against the backdrop of global gas market dynamics among producing and consuming countries. Particular attention is given to mechanisms enabling localization of gas equipment production and infrastructure construction in exchange for long-term government contracts. It is shown that this model of interaction can support the gas industry, serve as a catalyst for import substitution, stimulate interregional cooperation, and meet projected energy demand. The paper also identifies key risks and administrative barriers hindering the widespread use of offsets and offers practical recommendations for adapting this mechanism to accelerate gasification of the real sector of the economy. This study may be of interest to government officials, industrial managers, entrepreneurs, and experts in energy and public-private partnerships. The article concludes with several findings illustrated by examples.

Timely risk prevention is a key factor in ensuring the sustainable development of an enterprise. Global changes in supply chains, coupled with local financial conditions, are currently among the main factors destabilizing business operations. This article examines the theoretical and methodological foundations of risk management at the enterprise level and proposes a management model based on G.B. Kleiner’s tetrad theory. Drawing on an analysis of various definitions of “risk management,” the author offers a definition that incorporates both process and systems approaches and addresses strategic and tactical management levels. A neosystemic paradigm based on the tetrad model was used to develop the risk management model within the economic security system, identifying three levels of tetrads and four subsystems . The proposed enterprise risk management model enables a systematic approach to addressing economic security issues. The study highlights the importance of an integrated approach to risk management that considers theoretical foundations, practical aspects, and methodological, universal, and local factors. The proposed model can be used to design strategies for enterprise and industry sector development, thereby contributing to the long-term sustainability of the economy.

Since the 1970s, OECD countries have struggled to control health care expenditure, which has grown much faster than GDP. One of the responses was the development of National Health Accounts (NHA). Today, NHA provide an accounting, classification, and monitoring framework for health expenditure. Developed by the OECD and recommended by WHO, they are mandatory in all European Union countries and are used by many WHO member states under the international SHA 2011 standard. However, the introduction of NHA has not curbed health care spending in OECD countries, which continues to outpace GDP growth. The authors argue that a key limitation of NHA is the lack of end-to-end integration with financial and managerial accounting systems, which reduces the accuracy, timeliness, and practical value of NHA data and makes them poorly suited for management purposes. As a result, NHA are currently used primarily for retrospective monitoring and sector-level analysis, macroeconomic research, and cross-country comparisons. The authors propose transforming NHA from a method of statistical observation into a data-driven management tool by combining the SHA 2011 standard with end-to-end financial management of the health sector based on line‑item budgeting—an approach that ensured the high efficiency of the Soviet health system.

This study examines the concept of strategic entrepreneurship through the lens of strategic orientations and introduces a new concept–configurational flexibility of a firm’s strategic orientations (hereinafter referred to as–CFSO). Based on an empirical investigation, the study identifies the constituent elements of configurational flexibility and develops a regression model to assess extent to which the components of the proposed indicator (CFSO), influence firm performance outcomes. These outcomes are associated with the speed of launching a new product or project to the market in response to environmental threats and opportunities.

The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) has affected all areas of activity in modern companies, including knowledge management systems. The aim of this article is to identify the opportunities for implementing and applying AI in the key stages of knowledge management, namely knowledge creation, storage, processing, and utilization in the development of innovations. In addition, the article proposes a mechanism for transforming knowledge management systems through the integration of AI technologies. The process of developing knowledge-based innovations is inherently multifactorial, as such innovations emerge from the functioning of the knowledge management system and the organization՚s innovation process. Moreover, organizations differ in their levels of maturity with respect to both knowledge management systems and the organization’s innovation process. For this reason, the proposed mechanism for generating knowledge-based innovations accounts for the heterogeneity of potential users and is designed to be adaptable for use by different organizations. The article demonstrates the construction of an applied mechanism for fostering knowledge-based innovations.

This paper examines the importance of innovation in the development of new products as a means of increasing organizational competitiveness. It reviews the theoretical foundations of the resource- and capability-based view of the firm, with particular attention to the contemporary concept of dynamic capabilities. The paper identifies four key higher-level competencies – dynamic capabilities – that are used to analyze the impact of specific firm abilities on the effectiveness of product innovation: sensing capability, seizing capability, transformation capability, and entrepreneurial management capability. Based on this review, a general thesis and a theoretical model are proposed that may be applied in empirical research and further tested using real-world cases of product innovation.