Military operations in the Syrian Arab Republic affect foreign investment in the country. Despite this, Russia continues to cooperate with Syria in the investment field. Judging by Syria’s internal potential, peculiarities of its geopolitical situation in the region, as well as international trends and strategies of Russia’s foreign policy, the Syrian Arab Republic maintains its relations with the Russian Federation within the framework of the forces center policy and against the background of the prestige policy. At the same time, towards Russia Syria pursues completely different foreign policy than in relation to other countries. Exploring investment activities in Syria and Russia’s participation in the Syrian economy through investments, the author draws up a conclusion that Russian enterprises’ entry into the Syrian market after the conflict stabilization should be based on the principles of leasing. The most interesting form of cooperation from the Russian point of view will be interaction in the mining industry (oil, phosphates) and agriculture.

The paper defines the essence of economic modernization, pinpoints its main types, reveals the causes of objective necessity for modernization of the Russian economy, analyses the key modernization problems and gives he author’s view on the considered issues.

The creation of fertile innovative ecological environment in the country is constrained by barriers of a conceptual nature. The article identifies four groups of such barriers. The authors propose a strategy for overcoming them based on a comparison of functions necessary for the innovative development of social practices and the natural mechanisms of a new life birth. This allows us to formulate a number of pragmatic recommendations for creating an innovative eco-environment for a wide range of industries. By analogy with natural dynamics of obstetrics, the approach is called placental.

The article dwells on the basic principles and problems of technological development that arise from the specifics of certain technologies. The choice of technological capabilities at the individual and firm level cannot comply solely with the investment logic of decision-making, as the technologies life cycle includes unpredictable effects that can significantly improve the return, which cannot be anticipated at the initial point of transition from one technological opportunity to another. Technologies are characterized by special properties, which have a decisive influence on the course of technological development. And these properties are not characteristic for other types of goods, this fact fundamentally distinguishes formation of demand for new technologies and affects the options for their use. Any technology consists of a kind of nucleus and variable periphery, is characterized by various kinds of animation effects and can also be an integral element of the combinatorial effect in the sphere of technologies. Owing to this “frame” that defines the structure of technology, it acts as a kind of a rule that determines the behavior of agents and conditions for developing the service infrastructure. Existing models of economic growth do not fully take into account the microeconomic institutional properties of technology, creating a pseudo-correct image of technologies’ impact on the system’s growth. In this regard, formation of the theory framework for the economic system processability will provide the necessary guidance in describing and investigating technological and institutional changes and economic growth, which are highly dependent on them. The aggregate productivity of factors also becomes to a significant degree a system parameter, dependent on overall technological applicability and institutional changes. The article describes the main characteristics of functioning of the fundamental research sector, which acts as the generator of all subsequent technological changes in a long range of economic development.

Recently, with development of globalization processes, both the object of accounting and its subject have become more complicated, which has caused the need to change methods of providing and reflecting information on economic entities’ activities. In addition, the concepts of financial management, complex fundamental analysis, corporate responsibility, business ethics and sustainable development have transformed. The purpose of this article is to consider integrated reporting as the basis of ethical management thinking and a new paradigm of management activity.

The article discusses two approaches to assessing the relationship between Science (grasping principles of nature) →Engineering (application of science) →Technology and Innovation (making engineering useful for public good and/or commercial gain) and their role in formation of economy. It is considered in relation to the Soviet history and economic development as well as in conjunction with planning, social policy and education. The philosophy of the process is at attempt to be analysed the achievement of the status of the superpower.

Today the problems of efficient innovation development are in the spotlight of government bodies. Obviously, only in this way it is possible to succeed in improving the national economy competitiveness in the medium and especially in the long term. This understanding was formed as a result of evaluating the existing resource constraints, consequences and prospects of wide spread of information and computer technologies, biotechnology, alternative energy sources, automation of production processes and so on. It has become even more prominent on the background of the global financial crisis, hardly predictable high volatility in commodity markets and environmental problems aggravation caused by the use of technologies hostile to environment.

What is the meaning of management and is it possible to manage meanings? The scientific community has begun to discuss these issues quite recently, but to business persons they may seem strange and abstract. Meanwhile, if we don’t deal with them, we’ll be hardly able to truly appraise what is happening around and to create a strategy for the society and individual organizations development. The article briefly highlights some of these issues.

The article considers the state of the domestic mechanical engineering and highlights the key problem of its revival and development — restoration of human resources potential. The paper discusses negative features of the current state of human resources and proposes ways out of the existing situation.

The results of opinion poll conducted among participants of the Second closed business dinner for personnel directors of different enterprises and business owners, held in Moscow on October 11, 2013 in the “Davos” hall of “Swissotel Red Hills” Hotel, eloquently demonstrate that personnel problems in enterprises and companies from completely different branches of the Russian economy are very similar and require systematic approach and solution on a national or industry scale, and not within a single enterprise.