Academy of National Economy

Russia is undergoing a rapid and historic shift from a centrally-planned economy with an authoritarian political structure to a market economy with a more open political structure. Most observers agree that the management education sector in Russia will be pivotal to the success of this transition. Consequently, this paper attempts to describe the past and present state of the Russian Management Education sector, as well as identify key drivers of its future using an institutional economics perspective. Using archival data and personal interviews, we find that private entrepreneurial “experiments ” are co-existing and sometimes clashing with established state-supported universities. Furthermore, we assert that institutional forces (e.g., the local economy, foreign and domestic businesses, accreditation agencies, and government) serve both as constraints as well as drivers for these experiments