Companies with Russian ownership more often than not have an authoritarian style of management, and their employees participate less frequently in making business decisions than their colleagues from foreign companies. This conclusion was drawn by HSE Professor Azer Efendiev in his paper ‘The Political Regime in Russian Business Entities: Results of Empirical Research’, which was presented at the HSE conference ‘Modern Management: Problems, Hypotheses, and Research’

Burnout is a major problem affecting many people today; it is often associated with the accelerating pace of life, society's obsession with consumption, and the pursuit of success. Burnout can equally affect an office employee stuck in a monotonous job and a successful yet disillusioned entrepreneur, according to Alfried A. Laengle, Professor of the HSE's Department of Psychology of Personality and author of the report 'Burnout: Ashes after the Fireworks. Existential and Analytical Understanding and Prevention'

Followers of older, more established religions are less likely to commit suicide than adepts of newer faiths. Factors influencing the risk of suicide include a feeling of isolation from the majority and a belief in life after death, according to a study by Eduard Ponarin, Director of the HSE's Laboratory for Comparative Social Research (LCSR) in St. Petersburg, and Vassily Usenko, M.D., Ph.D., from Dnipropetrovsk

Most research into social change limits itself to social factors causing change. However, other factors, such as natural disasters, climate and geographical peculiarities of the particular place, or infectious diseases also have a significant impact on societal evolution

Universities decline not only due to a lack of money, enrollment of weak students, lack of ties with professional communities, and brain drain. Conservatism of their administration, lecturers and scholars is also an obstacle to the life-saving ‘reset’ of universities, Isak Froumin, Academic Supervisor of the HSE Institute of Education, and Mikhail Lisyutkin, Junior Research Fellow at this Institute, say in their paper ‘The Phenomenon of Degrading Universities in Russia. Stating the Problem’

In the past year, 57% of adult Russians have donated money to charity or to strangers in need. Health, religion, disaster relief, and orphanages were the most popular causes, according to Irina Mersiyanova, Director of the Centre for Studies of Civil Society and Non-Profit Sector, and Irina Korneyeva, researcher with the same Centre

Poverty in Russia is particularly difficult to overcome since it is very heterogeneous. The Russian poor include groups as diverse as villagers who do not seem to fit into the post-industrial environment, low-skilled workers, university professors, and parents of young children. Each category of the poor requires a separate approach and a different type of state support, according to HSE Professor Nataliya Tikhonova and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics, Vasiliy Anikin

Generally, Russian businesses are fairly resistant to external shocks. Many enterprises have not only survived the 2008 crisis, but have increased their market share since then. Major companies with foreign owners and those investing in restructuring and modernisation have a better chance of success, according to Boris Kuznetsov, Professor at the Department of Economic Analysis of Organizations and Markets and co-author of the study 'The impact of industrial strategies on resilience to external shocks and on the post-crisis development trends'

Most Russian company owners invest in the continuing education of their employees, but not all of them. The lucky ones are 10-20% of all staff. Such spending looks risky even though the return on it is high. Continuing education increases salary by 8% on average, which is an indirect sign of the same improvement in the labour productivity of the educated staff, Pavel Travkin, Junior Research Fellow at the HSE Laboratory for Labour Market Studies, found

Competition among science laboratories often goes hand in hand with mutual assistance, allowing them to maximise their limited resources, such as expertise, grants, equipment, and supplies. Anna Artyushina, postgratuate student at the HSE, studied the trends in laboratory cooperation trends in the biotechnology field – one of the most competitive areas of science

Middle-aged Russians whose younger years fell in the era of change fear for their future and tend to save more money than they spend. In contrast, Russia's elderly and young adults are avid consumers: the former have survived hardship and scarcity – potential loss does not scare them, while the latter share the inherent optimism of youth, according to the paper 'Consumer Expectations of the Russian Public (1996-2009): Interconnections across Cohorts, Generations, and Ages' by Dilyara Ibragimova, Senior Researcher at the HSE's Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology

The proportion of children born outside of marriage is declining in Russia – not because fewer children are being born out of wedlock, but because more children are being born to married couples. In fact, out-of-wedlock children are not necessarily born to single women as used to happen in Soviet times, but instead, most are born to couples living in unregistered unions, according to Sergey Zakharov, Deputy Director of the HSE's Institute of Demography, and Elena Churilova, Postgraduate Student at the Institute's Department of Demography