RUSSIAN SMALL BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN CONDITIONS OF YOUTH PROFESSIONALIZATION CRISIS

Abstract

Young people represent the main source for development and realization of innovative features of small business and entrepreneurship. In the full knowledge of youth role in Russian innovative entrepreneurship development, it has two strikes against from the point of view of trade strategies and skills implementation in professional field. This is one of the factors of reproduction crisis and inefficient trajectory of Russian small business and entrepreneurship development. This factor determines the importance of sociological understanding of the problem through the prism of youth professionalization process in conditions of the modern labor market and socio-economic crisis. Methodological apparatus of Russian small business and entrepreneurship research in the context of youth professionalization crisis is based on the theory of professionalization, explaining the risks of youth deprofessionalization from the standpoint of professional identity and professional socialization destruction. Methodological background to this work was also based on neoinstitutional approach, reflecting the trajectory of business and entrepreneurship on the basis of prevailing socio-economic practices and activity approach, which presents a professional as a subject of social action. The study concludes that the youth interest to small business and entrepreneurship as an independent professional activity, promising a stable income and financial independence, cannot be realized on grounds of the following key reasons: 1) extremely unfavorable social and economic conditions for business and entrepreneurship development; 2) the youth professionalization crisis defines inappropriate (in conditions of contemporary labor market reality) level of youth professional training. The obtained results allow to raise the acute question about development of youth business and entrepreneurship in the light of mainstreaming the issue of youth professionalization as the source of a larger scale problem - the low degree of youth innovative potential realization. This potential is inherent in the very nature of the young people who socialize in the digital era. They are able and will to quickly master all the new things and be resilient in professional field. The solution to youth professionalization problem will overcome the risks of deprofessionalization which are so clear in Russian society, including the sphere of small business and entrepreneurship, which has low social responsibility and is oriented towards quality standards in its activities.