Transition to market economy marked the emergence of entrepreneurship in Russia as a class. In the next thirty years, its formation could not but be associated with many problems of different nature. First of all, we are talking about instability of socio-economic development, the lack of common strategy for economic development with clear definition of the place of small and medium-sized businesses in forming structure. At the same time, the key problem, on the one hand, was society adaptation to a fundamentally new type of activity and property; on the other hand, it was mostly doing business in the absence of its conduct culture. Another serious problem is imperfection of the legislative and regulatory framework which is still constantly changing. These issues, as well as many others, are devoted to the work of scientists of the Vologda Research Center of RAS, conducted in the context of the formation of academic science cell in the region. The purpose of the article is to prepare an overview and systematize the research, carried out by the staff of the VolRC RAS on the problems of small and medium-sized businesses. The paper describes the research development on the afore-mentioned topic in the research center, names the main directions and their results, and defines the current state and prospects for the topic development. Practical significance of the work is that the presented information provides a comprehensive description of the state of small and medium businesses in Russia’s regions. The case study can be useful for researchers, students, and anyone interested in this topic
Keywords
region, entrepreneurship, factors, potential, abilities, small and medium-sized businesses, issues