Following the Old Road: Organizational Imprinting and the Regional Development of Russia

Abstract

In this article, I draw from organizational imprinting theory to illuminate the impact of the Soviet legacy on contemporary Russian economic geography and regional policy. I argue that central coordination in the creation and regulation of Russian urban agglomerations is connected to a socialist imprinted paradigm associated with the Soviet economic regionalization model and territorial-production complexes (TPCs). I conduct a qualitative historical study to analyze the role of the foundational environment and the dynamics in the development of this imprint. I propose that this imprint effect is prone to reproduction in contemporary regional development strategies and community-based paradigms due to exaptation and cultural-cognitive persistence. The article extends the literature of socialist imprinting by demonstrating how imprints may emerge, transform, and affect localized organizational communities in transition economies and highlights the role of imprinted paradigms in policymaking and regional development.

Sadder but Wiser: The Role of SARS Imprinting and Firms’ Recovery During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…can be referred to as sensitive periods (Kish-Gephart and Campbell, 2015;Mathias et al, 2015). For organizations, sensitive periods are likewise not only considered to be the early years of a firm's existence, but clearly other sensitive periods can occur during the lifetime of an organization, these include discontinuities in product and factor markets (Horn et al, 2021;Nykänen, 2021), new market entry (Benner and Tripsas, 2012), periods of underperformance or crisis (Beltratti and Stulz, 2012;Schaub and Schmid, 2013), etc.…”