The research is aimed at developing proposals to improve strategic target management in the energy sector. The purposes of the work are to analyse the relevant problem from the point of view of both theory and practice as well as to develop proposals for improving this process at various levels: municipal, regional, federal. The author adheres to a systematic scientific approach, relying in the work on the analysis of a wide range of academic and empirical sources. Having considered the concepts of strategic planning and strategic management in their interrelation, the author notes their increasing role in the transformation period. It is worth noting that the strategic target management with regard to the predicted indicators of fuel and energy balances needs significant improvement. The example of the fuel and energy balances, especially at the regional level, reveals a number of problems in the field of predictability and balance of such management. Thus, the author concludes that there is a need for methodological support and further formation of the system of end-to-end monitoring of the fuel and energy balances. Finally, the study contains a number of possible proposals for improving the strategic target management in the fuel and energy complex at the municipal, regional and federal levels.

The purpose of the work is to analyse the tools used in the process of implementing ESG principles (environmental, social, governance) on the example of an industrial company. The task that has been solved by the authors of the study is to assess the ESG policy, which has recently become a priority for the development of industrial enterprises in modern economic conditions. To solve this problem, the methodology of an integrated approach and system analysis is used, which is the basis of the study. The publications of Russian research[1]ers devoted to the problems of sustainable development in the new Russian conditions in the sectoral spheres of the domestic economy, fruitfully developed by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, are the theoretical basis that has allowed us to identify effective management tools for the implementation and realisation of the ESG principles. Within the framework of the toolkit, the project roadmap, mechanism for setting and completing key tasks and terms of reference аre separately highlighted. As a result, the proposed management algorithm has been evaluated and its main components have been presented, which are becoming a priority at the present stage of the development of the Russian economy. The obtained research results can be used in the elaboration of directions of the industrial sector of Russia as well as in the elaboration of the strategic development of the innovative potential of companies and enterprises of the industrial complex.

Social welfare, including its non-systemic forms, has existed for several centuries and represents an important element of the economic system aimed at overcoming poverty, protecting vulnerable groups, and ensuring social justice. Changes in the role of the state in regulating the economy, particularly in the 20th century, has accelerated the development of the social welfare systems and improved the social protection level in various countries around the world. Demographic changes, population growth, and increase in population and life expectancy have created favourable conditions for improving social protection in the past century. However, today the external environment for the functioning of these systems becomes less favourable: population aging, rapid technological progress, changes in labour market structures, and other global challenges contribute to their further transformation. The article provides a comparative analysis of the benchmark financial and investment models of social welfare (hereinafter referred to as FIMSW) of Bismarck, Beveridge, and the Scandinavian model. It systematises and analyses the factors affecting the establishment and transformation of modern FIMSW in the long term. The state is advised to increase the efficiency of public-type FIMSW and encourage the development of private-type FIMSW in sectors where self-sufficiency is possible. To achieve this, it is advisable to implement stimulating financial policies based on tax incentives, programmes for co-financing and increasing financial literacy of the population.

The relevance of the problem under study is due to the fact that sustainable development of territories determines the possibilities of regional socio-economic development, and assessment of indicators of the sustainable development is a necessary aspect in public administration, allowing to establish the effectiveness of the implemented regional socio-economic policy, identify problems, outline ways to solve them, increase the competitiveness of the territory. A review of scientific literature and other materials related to the sustainable development of the territories and implementation of the sustainable development goals at the national level shows that there is a need to consider aspects of the sustainable development of the territories: social and economic. In this regard, we can see the increased relevance of monitoring and measuring the sustainability of the development of regional socio-economic systems, pace of change, determining the vector of the development of the main components and their interrelationships. The purpose of this article is to systematise the indicators of the sustainable development of the economic ecosystem of the territory. The territory is considered as an ecosystem, its main elements are highlighted which interact with each other and on which the sustainable development of the region, its competitiveness and the quality of life of residents directly depend. The paper presents the indicators, and on their basis the assessment of the level of the sustainable development of the territories is conducted. The interrelation between the elements of the economic ecosystem of the territory and indicators of its sustainable development is considered. The main concepts of sustainability are highlighted. New scientific results consist in the identification of the indicators of the sustainable development and their relationship with the major stakeholders of the ecosystem of the territory and its core. The results obtained develop opportunities in assessing the socio[1]economic development of the territories. The materials of the article are of practical value for assessing the sustainable development of Russian territories and identifying problems in the regional management. Their external environment is characterised by global socio-economic instability. In the current conditions, the assessment of the sustainable development of the territories becomes necessary in order to comprehensively study possible risks, identify problems and form an effective policy of the authorities.

In the conditions of economic stagnation and crisis events, many Russian enterprises found themselves in a long-term recession. When the economic situation improves, some of such firms demonstrate rapid sales growth (restarting growth). This article aims to comprehensively assess the financial results of the restarting growth of the Russian enterprises. The sample includes 2,198 Russian industrial companies that found themselves in the recession, some of them showed the sales growth in 2016–2021. The sample has been divided into 5 groups: four groups of the companies by type of the restarting growth and a group of the companies that did not show it. To compare financial indicators between them, we have used dispersion analysis. We have found that all the groups of the firms with the restarting growth significantly improved their financial performance (size, turnover, profitability) and outperformed the group of the companies that did not show the restarting growth. However, they have problems with financial sustainability. The groups of the firms with the long[1]term restarting growth are riskier. Consequently, most firms finance the restarting growth with borrowed funds. These results should be considered in the current conditions, when the Russian Federation (hereinafter referred to as RF) is undergoing significant tightening of monetary policy. The growth of interest rates will become a strong obstacle for the continuation of the restarting growth and actualise the problem of the financial stability of the growing firms. The paper proposes several recommendations to investors, firm managers and regulatory authorities based on the current economic situation in the RF.

The study is devoted to assessing the impact of organisational culture on behaviour and performance results in higher education institutions. The analysis is conducted on the example of the University of Gondar, the oldest and one of the most prestigious universities in Ethiopia. In order to study the current state of the main elements of the organisational culture, including leadership, communication, collaboration, innovation and recognition, a descriptive and questionnaire methods are used. Also, an assessment is given of the impact of the organisational culture of the university on the behaviour of academic and administrative staff, on the involvement of students in academic and scientific activities, on the overall performance of the university. The data have been collected using structured questionnaires distributed among a representative sample of employees and analysed with the help of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software. The study highlights the importance of the role of transparent communication, presence of collective practices, use of innovative approaches and effective systems for recognising the contribution of employees and students in creating a supportive and productive organisational environment for the university. Based on the results, practical recommendations have been developed to improve the organizational culture in the higher education institutions in Ethiopia, which contributes to the achievement of their long-term strategic goals and national educational objectives.

The relevance of this study is determined by the fact that economic science lacks an integrated approach to develop a methodology for managing business development projects in digital conditions for companies working in the science-intensive field, for example, in e-commerce. The study partially fills this gap, which in turn allows to develop methods, tools, indicators of assessment of the business development project management in the digital conditions for the companies that work in the field of e-commerce, relevant in terms of the great challenges of the global economy, to solve theoretical and practical problems of modernisation of the economy and innovative development of the Russian Federation (hereinafter referred to as RF). It defines the scientific and practical significance of the project. As a subject of the study, the digitalisation of projects of Chinese and Russian enterprises and organisations of the international trade between the RF and China is considered. The objectives are, first, to examine the process of digitalisation of projects of the Chinese and Russian enterprises and organisations of the field of business cooperation between Russia and China and, second, to propose a set of recommendations for increasing the quality and quantity of the successful projects.

Countering disinformation and strengthening the integrity of information require concerted efforts to increase the resilience of society in terms of threats in the information space, confronting them and recovering from them. In relation to young people, a set of measures isrequired not only to combat disinformation and strengthen the integrity ofinformation, but also to form competencies in the information ecosystem. The article shows that the resilience of society to information threats should become part of building a comprehensive or total protection system in which a young person can choose their role as checks and balances in the overall information ecosystem. The work considers the main risks and factors of influence of unreliable information resources on the younger generation. The article points to the urgent need to introduce accountable, transparent and flexible processes and structures of information resource management in public authorities. It is necessary to develop effective measures to respond to the threats posed by false information with their coordination in a specialised institute of public administration. As part of the preparation of the youth public policy, we need to develop and implement strategic approaches to ensuring the institutional architecture of information management for the younger generation.

This article examines the influence of digital mass media on public administration processes in the context of the modern era of digitalisation. The relevance of the topic is due to the rapid development of digital technologies and their integration into everyday human life, which certainly affects the interaction of society and government. The consequences of digitalisation for the media environment are analysed. Special attention is paid to the digital mass media as an object of research, their structure and functions, the interdisciplinary nature of scientific approaches and a variety of interpretations are emphasised. The difficulties of scientific understanding of this phenomenon are revealed. The importance of the digital media for public administration is considered, including improving communication between government agencies and citizens, increasing transparency and accountability of the government as well as opportunities for involving the citizens in decision-making processes. The role of modern digital services, in particular “Gosulugi”, in the development of new format communications is emphasised. In conclusion, the article focuses on the need to adapt government structures to the new conditions in order to maximise the potential of the digital mass media in the interests of sustainable development and democratisation of governance. With the increasing complexity of the digital media landscape, there is a need to create a digital media strategy to achieve specific goals of the public administration.

In this research, the authors consider the main scientific and educational tools of the Russian Federation (hereinafter referred to as RF, Russia) aimed at maintaining leadership in the regional system of the Eurasian Economic Union (hereinafter referred to as EAEU) as well as the main non-regional actors, their acts of humanitarian influence and intra-system factors of the development of relations between Russia and the countries of the Union in the scientific and educational sphere of interaction. The object of the proposed article is the integration space of the EAEU. The subject is the foreign policy aspects of the RF’s state policy in the scientific and educational sphere in the context of its sovereignty and transformation of approaches to the interaction with the EAEU countries since 2022. The methodological basis of the article consists of systematic and historical methods, an institutional approach, content analysis. The authors characterise the scientific and educational policy of Russia in the EAEU countries as a set of measures of the humanitarian influence, and highlight the main institutionalised instruments of soft power. The key non-regional actors are identified: the United States of America, China, Turkey and Poland, whose humanitarian projects are aimed at countering the initiatives of the RF in the region. The foundations of their policies and the main tools are characterised. The authors analyse the regulatory framework for the functioning of the international cooperation in the humanitarian field in the EAEU. By the historical and political consideration, positive and negative internal factors of the development of this sphere of interaction have been identified. The conclusion has been made about the focus of Russia’s scientific and educational policy in the region on overtaking the differentiation of international and constitutional and legal bases of the cooperation to protect the national interests in the context of the international confrontation.

The article aims to consider the most common arguments in support of democracy as a procedure for making general decisions that is fair in itself, and not in terms of the result achieved. The methods of critical, logical, and normative analysis typical for this kind of research are used. Since the intrinsic value of the democratic procedure is usually justified with reference to three basic principles, people’s self-government, political equality and majority rule, the three tasks of the article are to consider each of them. It is shown that the ideal of self-government is not absolute even at the individual level; if we talk about the self-government of an entire people, then we have to state that the concepts of the will of the people, collective will or common will are fiction that has no real meaning without reference to a specific voting procedure. It is demonstrated that the political equality is also not an absolute value, and often seemingly habitual and justified political institutions directly proceed from a violation of the principle of the political equality. As a result, it is concluded that the intrinsic value of the democracy is evident only when we accept two ideals at once – individual self-government and political equality – and at the same time deny the existence and knowability of the substantive ideal of justice. Finally, the principle of decision-making by an absolute majority of votes is investigated as the principle underlying many normative justifications of the democracy. An analysis of the arguments given in support of the majority rule reveals not only the dependence of these arguments on specific circumstances, but also that almost all of them refer to substantive rather than procedural criteria. In other words, the majority principle – as well as other collective decision-making procedures – is valued more by the results it leads to than by itself.