ISSN 0798 1015

logo

Vol. 39 (# 10) Year 2018. Page 26

Strategies for cooperation between business and higher education for attracting graduates to a large enterprise of an international corporation in the conditions of a Russian monotown

Estrategias de cooperación entre Corporaciones y Educación Superior para atraer a graduados a una gran empresa internacional según condiciones de una ciudad monproductora rusa

Olga NIKIFOROVA 1; Elena TARANDO 2; Yury MISHALCHENKO 3; Alexander BORISOV 4; Nikolay PRUEL 5;Tatiana MALININA 6

Received: 26/12/2017 • Approved: 15/01/2018


Contents

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Methods

4. General description of the subject matter of the research

5. The strategy the enterprise adopts to attract young people to work in the monotown

6. The strategy of the enterprise to attract highly qualified specialists of the middle level and top managers

7. Discussion

8. Conclusion

References


ABSTRACT:

The article analyzes strategies for attracting young highly qualified professionals to a large industrial enterprise that is part of an international corporation and forms a monotown, their strengths and weaknesses and also proposes new ways of cooperation between higher education and business in training and recruitment of young professionals in Russian education and Russian youth labor market. The authors conclude on how effectively the problems are solved, as well as those of the labor market of a Russian monotown.
Keywords: youth labor market, recruitment strategies, monotown enterprise, cooperation between higher education and business

RESUMEN:

El artículo analiza las estrategias para atraer a jóvenes profesionales altamente cualificados a una gran empresa industrial que forma parte de una corporación internacional y constituye una ciudad monproductora, sus fortalezas y debilidades y propone también nuevas formas de cooperación entre la educación superior y Corporaciones en la formación y reclutamiento de jóvenes profesionales en la educación rusa y el mercado de trabajo juvenil ruso. Los autores concluyen con qué eficacia se resuelven los problemas, así como los del mercado laboral de una monociudad rusa.
Palabras clave: mercado laboral juvenil, estrategias de reclutamiento, ciudad monproductora, cooperación entre educación superior y Corporación

PDF version

1. Introduction

Providing the economy of the country with the staff with appropriate qualifications is one of the most acute problems in the Russian Federation at present moment. While large cities with their developed social, economic and educational infrastructure manage to solve this problem using a range of well-developed strategies that imply cooperation of the state, business and educational institutions, monotowns have to develop such strategies in accord with the specific characteristics of both the monotown and the enterprises that form this town. Monotowns exist in different countries, but a larger remoteness of such cities from regional centers in comparison to other countries is a specific feature of Russia, and this makes circular labor migration extremely difficult.

For town-forming enterprises the problem of recruitment personnel turns out to be even more complicated due to the fact that monotowns are small towns where it is impossible to ensure the reproduction of staff at the enterprise due to the natural processes of demographic and professional reproduction of the local population, while the main streams of labor migration as an external source of staff inflow fall for the regional centers and the capital.

In addition to that, companies that form a monotown have a fairly narrow specialization and, thus, need a limited range of professions, which means that such enterprises turn out to be demand actors in rather narrow segments of the labor market. This gives rise to the problem of finding a narrow specialization that corresponds to the requirements, which encourages such enterprises to cooperate with educational institutions with the appropriate area of expertise, including those of higher education.

The goal of this article is to analyze the strategy of cooperation between an enterprise that is part of an international corporation and forms a monotown in the Russian region and higher education to solve the problem of providing such enterprises with young qualified professionals in the conditions of underdeveloped social infrastructure of monotowns (in comparison to large cities). In course of this analysis, the authors identified the possibilities of implementing the above-mentioned strategies by other similar enterprises. In line with the goal of this article, the following hypothesis was stated: the specific conditions of the Russian monotown necessitate adopting specific strategies for attracting labor, including young people, to work for the enterprise that forms this monotown.

The practical significance of this research is associated with identification of the crucial management aspects within strategies for attracting young specialists with appropriate educational level to a monotown, which allows determining the applicability of these strategies for other similar enterprises, including those in other countries.

2. Literature Review

The measures taken by monotown enterprises for employing professionals of different levels have not been sufficiently researched in academic papers. The study of the operation and development of monotowns in international scientific works is most often limited to the problems of the survival of such cities, whereas the life of the town’s population, closely connected with the success of the town-forming enterprise, presents only two ways for developing this city: either the city successfully develops together with the town-forming enterprise or degenerates to the state of a ghost town [Crowley, 2016; Mukhanbetov, 2014; Polling et al., 2017; Bartholomae et al., 2017]. Therefore, international researchers propose two ways for recovering monotowns: modernization of the town-forming enterprise and their diversification [Boyarko et al., 2017; Nurzhan, 2016; Klinger, 2017; Thorleifsson, 2016; Krzystofik et al., 2016].

In other countries, the problem of attracting labor to a town-forming enterprise of a monotown is less acute than in Russia due to the greater population density and shorter distances. The specifics of Russian monotowns determine the specifics of the recruitment strategies adopted by their town-forming enterprises. On the other hand, circular labor migration to monotowns is easier in other countries, which, along with a greater flexibility of solving the housing issues, reduces the role of specific recruitment strategies, although each town-forming enterprise develops its own policy on attracting labor.

As a rule, strategies for attracting young people to enterprises are analyzed in line with the problems of the youth labor market. The most studied issue here is the impact of macroeconomic processes on the dynamics of the youth labor market (Signorelli, Cloudhry, 2015, Junakar, 2015, Rasskazov et al., 2016; Voronov et al., 2014). Gender issues have also been studied fairly well and included the analysis of youth employment and the success of job search by young specialists (Hardi, 2015, Lalthapersad-Pillay, 2014, Kapustkina, 2008). Other issues considered are the impact of the relationships in the parent family, and parenting in particular, on the youth behavior in the labor market (Bezrukova, 2014, Bezrukova, 2013), evaluating the cognitive potential of sociological approaches to the study of the youth labor market and the specific employment behavior of young people (Ivanov, 2013; Ivanov, 2012; Dudina, 2015; Dudina, 2013). Researchers have considered the influence of religious beliefs on the employment behavior of young people (Pavenkov et al., 2016). Another area of research on the youth labor market involved determining the correlation between the formation of eating practices by transnational corporations and the features of the youth employment. Such studies mostly deal with the analysis of the specifics of the social space formed by eating practices regarding their link to choosing the place of work (Veselov, 2015).

We considered the practices adopted by monotown enterprises for attracting professionals with the required qualifications when analyzing the interaction of the participants in the youth labor market. The issues related to the interaction between business structures and education, especially higher education, is the most studied area (Premand et al., 2015, Alegre et al., 2015; Herault, Zakirova, 2015; Gashkov et al., 2016). Here, researchers identified a number of problems, such as obsolete educational standards used to train modern professions, the problem of the aging of the skilled workforce and the lack of effective mechanisms for its renewal, the lack of effective social lifts which hinders the fair promotion of young people in the chosen field (Lopatkin 6, 2015; Skvortsov, 1999; Radaev, 2005). The participants of the youth labor market are trying to solve these and other problems through active cooperation and the development of certain strategies that are analyzed considering typical problem situations. At the same time, researchers have not thoroughly studied the recruiting strategies of Russian enterprises forming a monotown. The specifics of such enterprises necessitate the development of specific strategies in the labor market, including the youth labor market.

3. Methods

The problem stated in the article is analyzed using a political and cultural approach in economic sociology, proposed by N. Fligstein (Fligstein, 2001). According to this approach, the interaction of market participants aims at the survival of each such participant in the market environment. This goal involves the implementation of a set of strategies, including strategies for cooperation with resource providers. These strategies reflect not only the price of resources, but imply a wide range of non-price aspects of cooperation, that is, take into account the social context of the interaction of the enterprise and the supplier. Enterprises are not interested in random interactions, but in building stable relationships with suppliers (forming cooperation strategies) which will become their permanent partners. At the same time, this stability is a social guarantee for the company for the constant and uninterrupted supply of the resources it needs.

As for the problem stated in the article, the application of the political and cultural approach means that a large enterprise forming a monotown is constantly seeking to attract qualified specialists, while individual and scattered search for them is costly for the enterprise. In addition, job applicants found through such a search may possess general knowledge and skills, but do not have the specific knowledge required for efficient work at this particular position. This raises the question of their additional training, and hence the costs of this training. The cost of individual search for the demanded staff, the uncertainty of the results of this search, the cost and uncertainty of the effectiveness of additional training of personnel found in the labor market resulted in the initiative of the business to organize cooperation with the “supplier” of qualified specialists – higher education.

This cooperation can be implemented through different models of behavior (strategies), each of them focused on solving specific problems that the business is facing according to the specific conditions for its operation.

This article analyzes the cooperation strategies of a large metallurgical company that built one of its enterprises in a small city in the Nizhny Novgorod region, and which, due to the expansion of its production facilities and its large size, is in constant need of attracting qualified specialists with a certain set of qualifications.

A case-study method was used as the empirical basis of the research where the abovementioned enterprise acted as a participant of the youth labor market and implemented certain strategies for attracting young professionals. The specific feature of this enterprise is that it operates in the conditions of a monotown which is less attractive in terms of the living conditions than the regional centers and the capital.

The case-study method implied using the methods of interviewing and document analysis. The interview was conducted both with the competent employee of the considered enterprise and with the competent employees of the partner universities of the company (5 interviews were conducted in total). The method of document analysis included working with the documents of the partner universities related to the cooperation with the enterprise, as well as by analyzing information posted on the websites of the enterprise and partner universities.

The application of the case-study method in this research involved solving the following tasks (stages of research)

  1. Identification of cooperation strategies between the enterprise and partner universities related to the demand of the enterprise for certain categories of employees and the working conditions at the company and the enterprise (primarily, the conditions of a monotown).
  2. Identification of the key characteristics of the considered strategies, such as: the social group the strategy is targeted at, the mechanism for recruiting potential employees – representatives of the target social group; organizational specifics of the educational process which is maximally efficient in terms of potential workers acquiring specific knowledge and involving both students and the teaching staff.
  3. Identification of the key features of these strategies regarding the perspective of their full or partial application in other similar enterprises, i.e. what problems can be solved by implementing this strategy (advantages) and what the challenges for the implementation of this strategy are (disadvantages).

4. General description of the subject matter of the research

The considered large industrial enterprise is a town-forming for a monotown in the Nizhny Novgorod region of the Russian Federation. In total, there are 319 monotowns in Russia, 12 of which are located in the Nizhny Novgorod region, whereas this region is not among the top ten subjects of the Russian Federation with the largest percentage of the population living in monotowns (see Table 1).

Table 1
Data on the subjects of the Russian Federation in which over 20% of the population lives in mono towns

Region

Share of population in mono-towns,%

Population of monotowns,

thousand people

Number of monotowns

Of which

Red zone

Yellow zone

Green zone

Kemerovo region

60.2

1636

24

8

12

4

Chelyabinsk region

32.3

1130

16

7

5

4

Vologda region

30.7

365

4

3

1

0

The Republic of Khakassia

29.2

157

6

1

5

0

Sverdlovsk region

28.9

1253

17

5

6

6

Republic of Tatarstan

26.7

134

7

2

4

1

Arkhangelsk region

25.3

298

7

2

3

2

Samara region

24.5

786

2

0

1

1

The Republic of Karelia

22.7

143

11

6

5

0

Amur Region

21.4

173

4

2

2

0

The enterprise under study belongs to the metallurgical industry, the most common specialization for town-forming enterprises of the Russian Federation (see Table 2).

Table 2
Distribution of monotowns and their population according to the specialization of the town-forming enterprises

Industry

Number of monotowns

% of the total

Population of monotowns,

thousand people

% of the total

Metallurgy

84

26.3

3948

30.3

Ferrous metallurgy

36

11.3

2649

20.3

Non-ferrous metallurgy

24

7.5

903

6.9

Extraction of metal ores

13

4.1

266

2.0

Industry of rare metals

11

3.4

130

1.0

Mechanical engineering

59

18.5

3812

29.3

Woodworking

38

11.9

644

4.9

Manufacture of non-metallic products

37

11.6

683

5.2

Coal industry

30

9.4

1344

10.3

Chemical industry

23

7.2

1162

8.9

Food industry

17

5.3

214

1.6

Textile industry

12

3.8

193

1.5

Defense industry

8

2.5

473

3.6

Atomic industry

7

2.2

415

3.2

Transport

4

1.3

136

1.0

TOTAL

319

100

13025

100

The large metallurgical enterprise under study is part of an international corporation whose enterprises are located not only in Russia, but also in the USA. This international corporation is successful and is constantly expanding its production facilities, increasing output and introducing the newest technologies of metallurgical production. Since most of the corporation’s enterprises are located in Russia, its performance was affected by the crisis of 2014 that followed the introduction of sanctions by Western countries (Table 3).

Table 3
The main indicators of the economic performance of the international corporation

 

2013

2014

2015

2016

Investments, bln. rub.

16.1

11.5

5.3

6.0

R&D Costs, mln. rub.

128.8

119.0

131.3

131.0

Revenues, bln. rub.

105

128

161

140

Social expenditures, mln rub.

426

599

553

598

Staff listing

 

27021

25286

24274

The considered enterprise is one of the leading ones in this corporation. The monotown formed by this enterprise is of an average size by Russian standards, with the population of about 50,000 people. This monotown is located at a considerable distance from the regional center (186 km) and is a district center. Transportation between these centers is done both by rail and road. This monotown loses to the regional center in terms of its social infrastructure. All this makes it difficult to attract mobile workers with required qualifications to this monotown.

 

5. The strategy the enterprise adopts to attract young people to work in the monotown

The considered enterprise is expanding its production capacities, and therefore it needs to employ not only blue-collars, but also engineers capable of solving system problems related to metallurgical production. Problems that Russian employers frequently encounter, in this case, are exacerbated by the conditions of a monotown. For instance, when recruiting personnel for engineering positions, the considered company faced the following problems which required timely solution:

  1. Selection of specialists with the qualifications required by the company;
  2. The need to teach the selected employees the specific knowledge required for effective work at the particular position in this particular enterprise;
  3. Creation of socially acceptable living conditions for the employees, so that they are not only start working for the enterprise, but also stay there.

The first two problems deal with the goal of this article, although the third problem is closely interrelated with them since its solution also contributes to creating an attractive working environment in the enterprise. The company solves the first two problems by implementing two basic strategies.

The first strategy includes organization of regular university training for specialists working in the field of metallurgy and their subsequent employment at the enterprise of a monotown. This strategy is successful only if the participants of the relevant educational programs agree to work at the specified enterprise after graduating from the university on the conditions of their legal freedom to choose their place of work. Therefore, the considered company came up with an initiative to organize, open and maintain a branch of Moscow specialized university in this city. This branch, established in 2002, prepares specialists both with secondary vocational training (after 9 school grades with a course duration varying from 3 to 3.5 years), and higher professional education (4 to 4.5 years training) for metallurgical majors that are demanded at the metallurgical town-forming enterprise.

The rationale for this strategy stems from the fact that most students of this educational institution are residents of the monotown and its surrounding territories for whom living in a monotown is quite convenient and whose daily life is settled; this facilitates their adaptation to the rhythm of life that includes working at the enterprise.

The enterprise took part not only in the organization and opening of such an educational institution, but also in its work, aiming to improve the quality of teaching so that it can obtain an employee with the required qualifications. This participation manifests itself through the organization of regular training for teachers at the enterprise which uses advanced production technologies, which enables the teachers to master these technologies and relevant modern knowledge in various fields of metallurgy. The decision to create such internships was made after the company initially faced the low level of graduates’ training which was due to obsolete technologies used when teaching metallurgical production.

However, the teacher training highlighted the problem of low wages in higher education, when qualified, knowledgeable modern teachers could leave the university and work at an enterprise where wages are higher not only than the teacher’s salary at university, but also than the average wages in the industry of the region. To solve this problem, the enterprise began to pay extra money to qualified teachers to keep them in education. Having estimated the costs of implementing such a strategy, it was proven that they are lower than the costs of retraining and further teaching graduates with outdated knowledge.

Another form of cooperation of the business and universities common in Russia includes various types of internships for students at the enterprise.

Fig.1
Strategy of cooperation with the branch of Moscow specialized university established in a monotown

This strategy provides the following opportunities for the company that implements it:

  1. The constant supply of workers with qualifications required by the enterprise of a monotown;
  2. The qualifications that graduates employed by the enterprise possess correspond to the requirements of their workplace;
  3. Employment of almost all graduates according to their major at the town-forming enterprise;
  4. Development of students’ positive motivation to master their educational program well;
  5. Development of students’ positive motivation for employment at the enterprise;
  6. Development of students’ positive motivation to work at the enterprise;
  7. In a monotown with the population of 53,000 people (in 2016), of which 14,500 people work at the considered enterprise, the program aims at to enroll children and grandchildren of the staff already working at the enterprise for training in the abovementioned higher educational institution, that is professional dynasties are formed at the enterprise which preserve the work culture, ensuring the continuity of the cultural traditions, increasing the loyalty of the employees towards the enterprise.

The strategy may be implemented with some limitations:

  1. It is available only for large businesses since it requires significant investments for its implementation. Medium-sized businesses may adopt such a strategy provided that several companies demand workers of the same specialties, which is hardly possible in a monotown.
  2. Graduates trained within the framework of such a strategy should be in demand at the enterprise, that is, they should not only satisfy the enterprise’s need for expanding its production capacities, but ideally, fully cover the natural turnover of the personnel at the enterprise. This suggests that the enterprise should be large (about 14,500 people employed in the company under study in 2016).
  3. A monotown where the corresponding educational institution is opened should have a sufficient number of inhabitants (in the case under study, the population of the monotown was over 53,000 residents in 2016). At the same time, the company is counting not only on the young people of this monotown, but also on the youth of the entire Nizhny Novgorod region, which requires additional programs to attract and keep these young people at the enterprise.
  4. The company must have the appropriate relationship and communication with the public authorities so that this institution is established in the right place and with majors required by the company. For instance, the considered higher educational institution was founded by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation.
  5. To ensure the proper preparation of the demanded specialists, the company should participate in the educational process; this implies not only regular allocation of funds, but also creation of certain organizational structures at the enterprise that cooperate with the institution, which makes the structure of the enterprise more complex, increases the number of staff, and also leads to additional costs.
  6. The educational institution (a branch of Moscow specialized university) does not prepare specialists with highest qualification (masters) who are able to solve system problems and are in demand at the enterprise.
  7. In the conditions of a monotown city, when the children and grandchildren of the employees already working at the enterprise become students of the above-mentioned institution of higher education and then are employed at this enterprise, there is a problem of nepotism, i.e. using of family relationships for gaining an advantage during graduates’ employment and their further career.

6. The strategy of the enterprise to attract highly qualified specialists of the middle level and top managers

Another strategy for attracting graduates to the enterprise is designed to complement the strategy considered above, namely, to make up for the fact that the branch of that Moscow university lacks educational programs for preparing professional engineers with thorough education in the field of steelmaking and rolling production who are able to carry out a complex analysis of the technological processes. Training of such engineers is carried out in master’s programs which are not available at the branch of the Moscow university established in the monotown. As the expert of the enterprise competent on the issues of cooperation with the partner university said, such specialists are not demanded in large numbers. These specialists should also meet special requirements related not only to their professional competencies, but also to the ability to get along with colleagues, work in a team, and come up with innovations. Therefore, the strategy for receiving such a specialist at the enterprise is different from the strategy for attracting staff capable of the expansion of production capacities and covering the natural turnover of the company’s personnel.

When attracting this kind of specialists, the enterprise is primarily focused on the graduates of the master’s program of the Moscow specialized university which enrolls students with technical education from all over the country at a competitive basis. In the framework of this master’s program, the company together with the specialized partner university opened the master courses “rolling production”, “welding production”, and “steelmaking production” adjusted and improved every year to meet the production needs.

The company directly participated in the opening of these master’s programs, and this participation included not only preparing the content of the relevant courses, but also developing and approving the relevant educational standards by the government bodies. Such comprehensive participation of the company enabled to overcome the backwardness of university education in this field and create conditions for students obtaining education that meets the company’s requirements and which would equip them with both necessary competencies and practical skills in the conditions of the real production at the enterprise under study.

To ensure that student meet the requirements of the employer (enterprise) set forth within these master’s programs, a special schedule for mastering the educational program was developed which included not only doing a internship at production, but the alternation of training in Moscow for obtaining theoretical knowledge and work at the monotown enterprise in the Nizhny Novgorod region for mastering practical skills related to the implementation this knowledge in real situations at the production. For instance, three months of study are followed by three months of work. At the same time, regardless of whether students are studying or working, they are paid wages. Such a schedule not only helps students to develop their time management skills, but also reveals their potential endurance, that is, the ability to endure various kinds of workloads (the load of combining work and study with writing a master thesis) and the ability to solve various production tasks, including non-standard ones. Graduates who successfully complete their master course are obliged to work at the considered enterprise for five years. Such a system of training combined with guaranteed employment allows the company to attract and select the best graduates, without cumbersome testing or the need to search for graduates and entice them to work at the enterprise. This also solves the problem of a probationary period for newly employed specialists. By present moment, the company has employed about 60 workers in this manner since the launch of the master’s program in 2009.

At the same time, the interviewed expert indicated that such an organization of graduates’ recruitment is associated with a difficulty of keeping them at the enterprise after this five-year period since the quality of living conditions in a monotown is worse than that in regional centers and the capital. The enterprise solves this problem by providing such workers with an apartment, thus forming a positive motivation not only for productive work during the said five years, but also demonstrates the wish of the enterprise to keep such an employee for a longer period.

Fig.2
The strategy of cooperation with the Moscow specialized university concerning the master’s programs

Implementation of this strategy for attracting university graduates to a monotown enterprise provides the company with the following basic opportunities:

  1. The graduates employed have the knowledge and skills that are necessary for working at a particular enterprise and at a particular workplace.
  2. Enrolling students from all over the country ensures the selection of people with significant working potential.
  3. Guaranteed employment motivates students for conscientious study in their master’s program.
  4. Periods of work at the enterprise introduce future workers to the production. Such internships are periods of adaptation to the place of work and work duties which eases the adaptation of an employed graduate and does not require additional investments from the enterprise.
  5. During their studying in Moscow specialized university students master advanced technologies not only used at the considered enterprise, their future place of work, but also those developed and implemented in other countries where teachers and students of this university do internships.
  6. The company saves money on retraining, training and adaptation of an employed specialist, which according to the company experts exceeds the costs for the implementation of such master’s programs.
  7. The company saves money on staff turnover as students who fail to master the educational program are filtered out at the stage of training.

At the same time, this strategy has some basic limitations regarding its implementation:

  1. The high cost of the program (although the costs are compensated by reducing the costs associated with the search for and training of workers). Such programs can be implemented either by large business or medium-sized business entities cooperating in this field (which is problematic due to their competition with each other).
  2. The company should be able to employ graduates every year without firing already working employees, that is, either to cover the natural turnover of the personnel in these jobs, or to ensure long-term expansion of production capacities with a growing number of jobs.
  3. It is necessary to carry out a comprehensive personnel policy aimed at keeping the employed graduates which means not only the creation of ergonomic working conditions, but also good living conditions, that is, implementing the social responsibility of business, which also requires costs.
  4. The need for cooperation with the government bodies, not only related to economic activities, but also participation in the educational process, including the approval of educational standards.

As we can see, the company seeks to control the segment of the labor market where it operates, and doing this, the company seeks to regulate interactions in this market and to establish cooperation with the higher school as the “supplier” of the resources the enterprise needs by implementing the two above-mentioned strategies.

7. Discussion

The issues related to the cooperation between business and the Russian higher education aimed at providing the business with personnel with the appropriate level of training have been actively investigated by sociologists and economists. Having studied the available papers, we can conclude that this cooperation is insufficient (Ionova et al., 2015, Lopatkin, 2015; Grigorieva, 2015; Gafurova, 2013; Anoshin, Kurilchenko, 2013). For example, only 1% of graduates is employed within the contract between the business and university on young specialists training (Anoshin, Kurilchenko, 2015, 65). Our research has shown that contacts between business entities and universities are fairly close and mutually beneficial. At the same time, the surveyed company is very large, with economic and social possibilities of maintaining such a close cooperation with the partner university. This is confirmed by the results of earlier studies, according to which the constant and close cooperation with universities in Russia is usually carried out by large and very large companies (Mishalchenko et al., 2016).

The results of earlier studies on the cooperation of business entities and universities in Russia allowed us to distinguish two levels of such cooperation: 1) organization of introductory, production and pre-graduation practical training for students at partner companies; 2) companies sending applications to the institutions of higher education to attract graduates (Ionova et al., 2015; Matrosova, Gukasova, 2014; Borisova, Timofeeva, 2014; Anoshin, Kurilchenko, 2013). The results of our study showed that these levels are supplemented by two more options: 3) the influence of the business entity on the educational process through determining the content of the curriculum and the approval of the relevant educational standards in the state bodies and through developing the content of the training courses; 4) maintaining the educational process and employment of all graduates of the relevant educational programs at the company.

The research papers point out the need for assessing and monitoring of students’ to work in the chosen profession, whereas these measures are not implemented in Russia (Borisova, Timofeeva, 2014). Our research shows that monitoring is not actually carried out; however, the conditions for training young professionals that are part of the first strategy of the company and the organization of such training (the second strategy) allow the company to obtain graduates motivated for working well in their field.

Academic papers name the requirement of having work experience as one of the key problems for the employment of young professionals when the company seeks to hire an employee who already possesses certain skills. Our study showed that the problem of acquiring skills in the production is solved by the appropriate organization of training with active participation of the company which allocates certain resources to ensure the acquisition of skills by future professionals that takes place at the company’s production facilities.

Our study confirms the main propositions of the political and cultural approach in the economic sociology formulated by N. Fligstein. In fact, the considered company seeks to stabilize its position in the labor market by regulating its cooperation with the suppliers of these resources, among which universities play a significant role. Such regulation leads to the establishment of stable cooperation between the company and universities, allowing to control not only the supply of labor in the positions required by the company, but also to ensure the required quality (level of training) of the workforce.

8. Conclusion

Having analyzed the strategies of a large industrial company with a town-forming enterprise, the following conclusions can be drawn:

  1. Despite relatively high costs, the enterprise studied successfully implements the abovementioned strategies; the enterprise has a constant and uninterrupted supply of qualified specialists with specific knowledge, despite the conditions of a monotown in which the enterprise is located.
  2. These strategies, given their highlighted drawbacks (requirements difficult to meet), can be fully or partially applied by other enterprises of monotowns, not only in Russia, but also abroad, according to specific operating conditions and characteristics of such enterprises.
  3. The analysis of the company’s strategy for attracting young professionals with the required level of training showed that, in addition to the three levels of cooperation between business entities and universities considered in research papers (informing universities about vacancies available in the company, signing contracts between business entities and the university to train the required specialists, conducting various types of internships in companies), there are two deeper levels of cooperation between the business and universities which are associated with the specifics of the monotown that is formed by a large enterprise. Firstly, it is the creation and supervision of the university by the considered enterprise, which includes both the material support of the educational process and the guarantee of the employment for all graduates. Secondly, the opening and implementation of master’s programs in the Moscow specialized university with targeted enrollment of students and the provision of appropriate material, managerial, scientific and educational support for the educational process.

The analysis of the strategies for attracting young specialists to the company of a monotown conducted by us showed that these strategies do not include the assessment of professional suitability and monitoring of readiness to pursue the chosen career path; this, in the opinion of Russian economists and sociologists, is necessary when training professionals, but is not done in the Russian system of education. At the same time, the principles of enrolling students and the specifics of the educational process organization with the active participation of the considered company prove that such procedures may be omitted.

References

Alegre, M.A., Casado, D., Sanz, J., Todeschini, F.A. (2015). The impact of training-intensive labour market policies on labour and educational prospects of NEETs: Evidence from Catalonia (Spain). Educational Research, 57(2), 151-167.

Anoshin, A.V., Kurilchenko, E.I. (2013). Directions for integration of labor market and market of educational services in the sphere of higher education of the Udmurt Republic. The Standard of Living of the Population of Russian Regions, 6 (184), 63-69.

Bartholomae F., Woon Nam C., Schoenberg A. (2017). Urban shrinkage and resurgence in Germany, Urban Studies, 54(12), 2701-2718.

Bezrukova, O.N. (2014). Parenthood models and parents potential: Intergenerational analysis, Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, (9), 85-97.

Bezrukova, O.N. (2013). Fatherhood in transforming society, Mother’s expectations and father’s practices, Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, (11), 118-130.

Borisova, A.A., Timofeeva, A.Yu. (2014). University graduates in the labor market: monitoring indicators and the profile employment restraints, University Management: Practice and Analysis, 1(89), pp.71-80.

Boyarko, G.Yu., Matyugina E.G., Pogharnitskaya, O.V., Grinkevich L.S. (2017). Mining monotowns in Russia, Gornyi Zhurnal, 1, 4-10.

Crowley, S. (2016). Monotowns and the political economy of industrial restructuring in Russia, Post-Siviet Affairs, 32(5), 397-422.

Dudina, V.I. (2015). Sociological knowledge in the context of Information technologies development, Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, January (6), 13-22.

Dudina, V.I. (2013). Fictitious crisis of sociology and a new shape of epistemology, Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, (10), 13-21.

Fligstein, N. (2001). Architecture of Markets: An Economic Sociology of Twenty-First-Century Capitalist Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Gafurova, A.A. (2013). The education system as a fundamental factor of human capital development and increase in the level of the economic potential of the region (as exemplified by Ulyanovsk Region), National Interests: Priorities and Security, 13, 29-38.

Gashkov, S., Rubtcova, M., Khmyrova-Pruel, I.B., Malinina, T.B., Sanzhimitupova, T. (2016). Social engineering through the optics of passivity/activity opposition: a literature review, International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, 11(5), 3134-3140.

Hardi, J.H. (2015). Women’s Work? Predictors of Young Men’s Aspirations for Entering Traditionally Female-dominated Occupations, Sex roles, 72(7-8), 349-362.

Herault, N., Zakirova, R. (2015). Returns to education: accounting for enrolment and completion effects, Educational Economics, 23(1), 84-100.

Ionova, M.L., Fadeenko, N.V., Kuroedov, L.N. (2015). Complex problems of education, implementation of the labor potential reproduction process at the enterprises and youth labor market at the present stage, Interexpo Geo-Siberia, 3(2), 68-72.

Ivanov, D.V. (2013). Stages of sociology evolution and dominant theorizing types, Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, (9), 3-13.

Ivanov, D.V. (2012). Toward a theory of flow structures, Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, (4), 8-16.

Junakar, P.N. (2015). The impact of the Global Crisis on youth unemployment, Economic and Labour Relations Review, 26(2), 191-217.

Kapustkina, E.V. (2008). The system of business financing in Russia: The gender aspect, International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 5(3-4), 297-317.

Klinger, T. (2017). Moving from monomodality to multimodality? Changers in mode chois of new residents, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 104, 221-237.

Krzystofik, R., Tkocz, M., Sporna, T., Kantor-Pietraga, I. (2016). Some dilemmas of post-industrialism in a region of traditional industry: The case of the Katowice conurbation, Poland, Moravian Geographical Reports, 24(1), 42-54.

Lalthapersad-Pillay, P. (2014). Gender influence in the labour market. The case of BRICS, Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(10 SPEC.ISSUE), 146-155.

Lopatkin, I.V. (2015). The youth segment of the labor market in Saratov Region: adaptation to modern realities and stability, News of the University of Saratov. New Series: Sociology. Politology, 15(3), 56-58.

Matrosova, E.G., Gukasova, N.R. (2014). Innovative design as the imperative of implementing competence-based approach in higher education, Economy and Entrepreneurship, 12(2), 395-399.

Mishalchenko, Y.V., Tarando, E.E., Borisov, A.F., Pruel, N.A., Malinina, T.B. (2016). Interaction between Universities and Businesses in the Youth Labor Market in Russia, American Journal of Applied Sciences, 13(3), 344-356.

Mukhambetov, T. (2014). The problem of Single-Industry cities: Kazakhstan’s Path Solutions, Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Management, Leadership and Governance (ICMLG 2014), 182-188.

Nurzhan, A. (2016). Specific of Labour market of monotowns in the Republic of Kazakhstan, Asian Social Science, 11(19), 257-263.

Pavenkov, O., Shmelev, I., Rubtcova, M. (2016). Coping behavior of orthodox religious students in Russia, Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, 15(44), 205-224.

Pollin, B., Sroka, W., Mergenthaler, M. (2017). Success of urban farming’s city – adjustments and Business models – Findings from a survey among farmers in Ruhr Metropolis, Germany, Land Use Policy, 69, 372-385.

Premand, P., Brodman, S., Almeida, R., Grun, R., Barouni, M. (2016). Entrepreneurship Education and Entry into Self-Employment Among University Graduates, World Development, 77, 3544, 311-327.

Radaev, V.V. (2005). Sociology of consumption: basic approaches, Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, (1), 5-15.

Rasskazov, S., Rubtcova, M., Derugin, P., Prujel, N., Malyshev, V. (2016). Social network analysis as an organizational diagnostic tool: The case of small business in Russia, International Review of Management and Marketing, 6(1), 170-176.

Signorelli, M., Choudhry, M.T. (2015). Simposium: Youth labour market and the “Great Recession”, Economic Systems, 39(1), 1-2.

Skvortsov, N.G. (1999). Ethnicity: a sociological perspective, Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, (1), 21-31.

Thorleifsson, C. (2016). From Coal to Ukip: the struggle over identity in post-industrial Poncaster, History and Anthropology, 27(5), 555-568.

Veselov, Yu.V. (2015). Routine practices of nutrition, Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, (1), 95-104.

Voronov, V.V., Lavrinenko, O.Ya., Stashane, Ya.V. (2014). Assessing dynamic of interregional differences (European lessons), Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, (1), 29-39.


1. Saint-Petersburg State University, 199034 Russia, St. Petersburg, Universitetskaya nab., 7-9

2. Saint-Petersburg State University, 199034 Russia, St. Petersburg, Universitetskaya nab., 7-9

3. Saint-Petersburg State University, 199034 Russia, St. Petersburg, Universitetskaya nab., 7-9

4. Saint-Petersburg State University, 199034 Russia, St. Petersburg, Universitetskaya nab., 7-9

5. Saint-Petersburg State University, 199034 Russia, St. Petersburg, Universitetskaya nab., 7-9

6. Saint-Petersburg State University, 199034 Russia, St. Petersburg, Universitetskaya nab., 7-9

7. The red zone includes monotowns with the most difficult social and economic situation;

The yellow zone includes monotowns with risks of deterioration of the socio-economic situation;

The green zone includes monotowns with a stable socio-economic situation.


Revista ESPACIOS. ISSN 0798 1015
Vol. 39 (Nº 10) Year 2018

[Index]

[In case you find any errors on this site, please send e-mail to webmaster]

revistaESPACIOS.com