Volume 6, Issue 1, 2026

The post-normality period has increased the importance of solving the state task of ensuring Russia's long-term socio-economic development. Special emphasis is placed on resistance to endogenous and exogenous shocks and openness to the realization and use of fundamentally new opportunities and components of growth. In turn, this is inextricably linked to the implementation of large-scale strategic transformations, which requires the involvement of large amounts of resources, primarily financial resources, and creates a high investment demand. At the same time, empirical data indicate that an imbalance in investment activity persists, which is manifested in a significant gap between investments in financial and non-financial assets. In conditions of an urgent need for financial resources to ensure creative processes for modernization and restoration of the material and technical base at a fundamentally new technological level, this can lead to the development of weakening or destructive processes in the economy. The key factor contributing to this situation is a high degree of uncertainty. In such conditions, enterprises tend to realize opportunities with the greatest investment attractiveness in order to make a profit, which leads to the redistribution of excess financial resources into speculative instruments to the detriment of investments in the real sector. Overcoming this imbalance is possible through a targeted reorientation of investment flows from the financial sector to the real sector of the economy. One of the effective solutions may be the formation of a system of industrial strategies for systematic and long-term development while creating favorable conditions for all actors within these systems. The availability of proven and effective industrial strategies, on the one hand, will reduce risks for potential investors, on the other hand, it will open up new production and technological opportunities with high multiplier potential. The reorientation of enterprises' funds from financial assets to core and innovative activities will ensure the implementation of qualitative transformations at the industry level and will build a solid industrial core and ensure Russia's technological sovereignty.

Financial autonomy is a key factor that determines the resource base for regional socio-economic development strategies. Russian regions differ in terms of socio-economic development: most constituent entities depend on non-repayable transfers from the federal center. In these settings, the analysis and assessment of the institutional factors that affect the system of intergovernmental fiscal redistribution become particularly relevant for regional strategizing. This article describes some patterns in the relationship between regional financial autonomy, the structure of intergovernmental transfers, and socio-economic development indicators. The constituent entities of the Russian Federation were grouped by the level of budgetary dependence on nonrepayable transfers. The analysis of the structure and dynamics of budgetary and socio-economic indicators covered the period from 2018 to 2024. The author also compared the tax potential and income inequality across regions. The final classification featured four groups of regions with different levels of dependence on non-repayable transfers. The study revealed the reproduction of structural polarization: in 2024, the gap in the share of non-repayable transfers between the extreme groups reached 49.4 percentage points. Regions with high financial autonomy demonstrated a reliable tax potential and a higher growth rate of gross regional product and household incomes. However, the same regions showed greater income inequality. Highly subsidized regions tended to depend on equalization transfers, which generated negative incentives for economic development in these territories. In general, the dependence on non-repayable transfers acts as a structural factor that determines the level of regional financial autonomy and limits the resources for long-term development strategies. The results may be used to improve regional development strategies of intergovernmental fiscal regulation mechanisms.

The national Tourism and Hospitality project aims to reach 140 million domestic and inbound tourists by 2035. In this respect, providing high-quality services to such numbers of customers requires a talent pool of service providers with relevant skills and interdisciplinary knowledge. The industry experiences a shortage of personnel at all levels, and the gap between demand and supply is exacerbated by the lack of specialized academic institutions, the outdated training programs, the gap between academic education and market needs, and the poor salary prospects. This article identifies the systemic challenges that can only be solved by implementing a strategic approach to developing human resources for local tourism. The research featured the labor potential and capital in the tourism industry, as well as the system of socio-economic relations between industry workers, tourism enterprises, government officials, and education institutions that form the industry’s talent pool. The author identified the key threats to the sustainable development, specified the optimal approaches to the strategic development of personnel training in higher and vocational education, and highlighted the relevant qualification requirements in the context of digital transformation. The strategic recommendations for the development of tourism qualifications may help the education system to satisfy the current industry challenges in line with global and national trends.

Strategic potential assessment integrates both quantitative and qualitative methods. Innovative clusters require innovative analytical tools. The article introduces a new qualitative methodology for assessing the strategic innovative potential of cluster structures that rely on the strategic innovative potential of their parts for the sustainable development and competitiveness of the entire structure. A review of available studies on strategic potential and clustering made it possible to integrate quantitative and qualitative methods into a single assessment tool and test its performance on a specific cluster. Using the method of taxonomic analysis, the author ranked the innovation potential indicators, while the methods of structural analysis and comparison revealed the internal relationships between cluster elements. The experiment yielded a set of practical recommendations for increasing the innovative potential of clusters. The taxonomy method proved especially effective. First, it provided an integrated assessment of the innovative potential for each company within a cluster. Second, it revealed the possibility of tracking the progress of individual indicators and determining their contribution. Third, it established the cause-and-effect relationships between parameters that had a positive or negative impact on the strategic innovative sustainability of each cluster. The new methodology is a universal strategic analysis tool that stimulates innovations, compares cluster parts, and optimizes the task allocation while increasing the transparency and manageability of the entire cluster. Its application may strengthen the role of cluster structures in innovative regional and industrial strategic planning.

The industrial sector is one of the most supported target areas for implementing economic and political measures in China. This fact highlights the urgent need to explore new methods for optimizing spatial resources and working with available sources to improve cluster strategizing. A set of standard methods made it possible to determine the potential for a cross-border heavy industry cluster in China based on the permissible distances between industrial zones and the centroid. This research tested a simple method for calculating the geographical feasibility of a cross-border heavy industry cluster by mapping its elements in two-dimensional space and locating the centroid based on previously identified data. The author justified the solutions by demonstrating a number of patterns reported by other publications on the matter of spatial planning of industrial zones in China.

Leaders need strategic thinking to cope with the current technological advances, uncertainty, and complex global environment. Strategic thinking means that leaders are able to anticipate the long-term consequences of their decisions and shape sustainable development vectors. The author explored the effect of strategic thinking on strategizing, relying on the theory and practice of strategizing developed by Professor V.L. Kvint. Starting with a comparative analysis of the historical personalia of great strategists Amir Timur and Antoine-Henri Jomini, the paper demonstrates the integration of philosophical categories, historical experience, and modern management practices in the history of strategic thought. It proceeds with an analysis of the fifteen rules of strategic thinking, innovative long-term solutions, and the effective management of resources and risks. The diachronic analysis demonstrated the continuity of the value-oriented, systemic, and humanistic approaches in the methodological core of strategizing. The author designed The Code of Strategic Leader that unites the mission, values, and practices of strategic leadership, providing leaders with an ethical foundation for their actions. A modern leader that possesses emotional intelligence considers social, environmental, and technological factors, as well as utilizes digital tools. According to V.L. Kvint, strategic thinking forms a holistic system of leadership that provides a long-term focus and sustainable development, generating social value and utility. As for its practical significance, strategical thinking optimizes resource allocation, catalyzes innovations, and creates competitive advantages. During strategy implementation, strategical thinking manifests itself in the ability of the leader to foresee, adapt, and formulate long-term solutions in the face of uncertainty

Competition on the market of goods and services has always stimulated various approaches to corporate development strategies. Amidst the shifting global landscapes and the relentless proliferation of data, strategic decision-making necessitates increasingly sophisticated and adaptive frameworks. Artificial intelligence provides a synergy of corporate development strategies. The article describes the potential of AI within the schools of strategy that focus on learning, culture, and formalization. Identifying the current strategy for each approach, the authors improved it, using a combination of traditional schools of strategy, Professor V.L. Kvint’s theory of strategizing, and fundamental AI studies. In socio-economic management, AI models process big data and perform a wide range of strategizing tasks, adjusting conventional strategizing algorithms to the new frameworks. A synergetic approach that combines various schools of strategizing with AI achievements makes it possible to exercise an effective set of corporate development strategies. The more unpredictable the external environment becomes, the higher the total corporate intelligence that combines the benefits of organizational learning with those of advanced AI scenarios. An AI-integrated company culture maintains the corporate identity while providing an adaptive foundation for a new strategy. The symbiosis of human strategic thinking and the analytical power of AI solutions enables organizational learning and adaptation for more efficient strategizing and strategy execution.

In an era of heightened competition and market volatility, a strategic and integrated marketing framework has become indispensable for sustainable business development. Strategic marketing involves an integrated approach to market promotion with a focus on long-term business goals and interaction with consumers at all stages of the marketing funnel. Such a systematic promotion requires accumulating knowledge about the brand as the primary point of contact with a potential customer. Parallel stimulation and processing of current demand make it possible to achieve and scale commercial results. The constant need to stimulate the current sales is always combined with the need for long-term strategic development. Together, they have yielded a new strategic approach of brand performance marketing. The brand performance model of marketing promotion is reliably efficient and popular but scientifically understudied. The article explains the essence of the brand performance approach and offers some practical recommendations for its effective implementation. Such standard methods as analysis, synthesis, generalization, and benchmarking were combined with Professor V.L. Kvint’s theory and methodology of strategizing. The new brand performance approach to strategic marketing promotion from the perspectives of strategizing resulted in a feasible model for the step-by-step development and implementation of brand performance marketing