Setting up Communities of Practice for innovative Russian SMEs

Innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (iSMEs) play an increasingly important role for the economic development of Eastern European countries during the transition of a planned economy towards a market economy. As innovative firms tend to be exposed to higher levels of risk and uncertainty than the average firm, they need to permanently keep up with new market developments and dispose of the necessary management competencies to sustain their business. Within this paper, the authors present a project dedicated to the development of a Community of Practice (CoP) between iSME clusters in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Ekaterinburg. Its main intention is to enable iSMEs to share knowledge and experiences on subjects of common interest and thereby to enhance individual performance. Based on comparative research on management practices in Western Europe and Russia, a preliminary set of solutions has been identified for putting the CoP in place.