⎯The article deals with a relatively new phenomenon for Russia, i.e., social entrepreneurship. Based on an analysis of international experience in the development of social enterprises, their characteristics have been studied, the advantages and risks in support of social enterprise in meeting the social needs have been revealed, and the problems and prospects of development of social entrepreneurship in Russia have been discussed.

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Professional associations in Russia are to some extent novices in contemporary professional regulation. Only small part of them can play significant role in enforcement of professional control (representing professional community in front of other stakeholders, adopting professional standards, ensuring market closure, protecting of prevalence of professional ethics etc.). Partially that comes from the lack of experience of self-regulation that professions have in the Russian history and sharp invasion of the global market in the 1990-es, partially that follows tradition of state predominance in economy and society. During the last two decades a mass of organizations arose in Russia calling themselves professional associations, guilds, societies and unions. The task to understand who they are, whether they can and they ought to represent professional community and what are their ways of professional self-regulation became now a pressing practical problem and an interesting research task. The object of this research is mapping the field of variety of non-government organizations that claim institutional control as professional associations in order to clarify the following issues: -What are the main forms of professional associations by their qualitative characteristics -What are their actual means and feasible opportunities to achieve professional control in their field of expertise or at least influence it -What are the main limits of professional self-regulation they dispose and whether there are any alternative forms of professional regulation in certain professional areas.

T he end of the 20th century was marked by several studies that revealed the collective mechanisms of the knowledge development as a joint activity in working teams. Thus, the idea that acquiring knowledge was an unproblematic transfer of what is already available and can be unilaterally transferred and assimilated was rejected [Lave, Wenger, 1991]. The aim of this paper is to study the opportunities persented by electronic network platforms for using the collective nature of knowledge in the interests of further developing knowledge and innovation through online communication of professionals. Based on a literature review on the development of knowledge, the paper compares the basic principles of knowledge application in formulating new decisions during real joint activity and during online communication within specialized platforms for 'knowledge exchange'. The author argues that electronic networking platforms contribute to the fragmentation of knowledge representation of participants, eluding a common sense and purpose. Thus, such platforms blur the boundary between knowledge and information. The article indicates that the desire to increase the effectiveness of collective creativity via online communication risks not developing competencies, discretion, and exploration of others' experiences. Instead, this desire leads to strengthening external control and separation of functions into primary routine operations when an individual participant is valued not for his/ her knowledge and previous experience, but for his/ her communicative capabilities. The produced effect is akin to the industrial revolution of the machine era; when this effect is widespread, there are risks that knowledge workers will be turned into easily replaceable, piecemeal workers. To avoid this, electronic platforms should either learn to recreate the conditions of offline micro-environments of innovation, or not claim to fulfil the role of knowledge production.