Medium-sized industrial enterprises in the regions of the Urals: Development specifics and growth issues

Most publications study medium-sized enterprises as part of SMEs. As a result, the data on the state of Russia’s medium-sized enterprises is in deficit, while these companies are supposed to be a driver of the socioeconomic development. The medium-sized enterprises of the manufacturing sector are of particular research interest, because they are expected to specialise in niche industries economically not appealing to big companies. The paper aims to build an empirical dataset on the development of medium-sized industrial enterprises in seven regions of the Urals (Bashkortostan, Chelyabinsk oblast, Kurgan oblast, Orenburg oblast, Perm Krai, Sverdlovsk oblast and the Udmurt Republic). Methodologically the paper relies on the concepts of industrial policy that assign medium-sized businesses an influential role in facilitating economic process. The core research instrument is the compilation of rankings by the volume of annual sales excluding VAT according to the core definition of medium-sized enterprises in the Russian regulatory documents. The database of the research includes enterprises’ annual and quarterly reports presented in SPARK-Interfax database. The key results of paper are as follows. First, the compiled rankings (2008 and 2016) of medium-sized industrial enterprises in the seven regions prove the existence of the medium-sized industrial enterprises in all regions of the Urals. Second, the key specifics of the medium-sized industrial business in the regions of the Urals is that it exhibits higher than average growth rates, a non-resource-based specialisation, and high geographical concentration (two regions cover almost half of medium-sized industrial business). Third, the research confirms the initial hypothesis of high instability of the medium-sized industrial enterprises status resulting in their shift to the group of small or large enterprises and backwards.