Vadim Kapustkin

The study investigates the innovation, investment and international trade performance of the russian firms, based on the questionnaire survey data. The data were collected from 150 enterprises of the st. Petersburg area (northwest russia). Half of the firms represented in the survey are de novo and another half consists of stateowned and privatized firms. The study’s hypothesis is that the firms with different ownership should have different economic performance. According to hypothesis testing, innovation, investment and international trade performance indicators of one group of firms were compared with ones of other groups. As a result of that comparative analysis some interesting facts were found. De novo companies have shown better performance in the introduction of new products. The same group of enterprises plan to introduce new products in the future more often than other groups. De novo firms also have the highest share of firms’ stuff members involved in research and development. Newly established private firms also performed better in development of investment activity. De novo companies have the highest ratio of investment volume increase in used terms among the groups. Together with the privatized firms, de novo enterprises have shown the highest rate of increase of reinvested sales volume share. The rate of companies with more than 50% reinvested sales volume is higher also among de novo companies. This group of firms has shown a higher rate of involvement into international trade. De novo firms have the highest rate of import dependency and a wider range of supplying countries than any