Performance in Russia Firm size

Average firm sizes are: 4 employees at a micro-enterprise (legal entity), 32 employees at a small company (legal entity), 101 employees at a medium-sized company. Average sales revenue of a micro-enterprise was 5.6 mln. RUR (1.49 mln. euro), small company - about 60 million RUR (1.5 mln. euro), medium-sized company - 283 mln.RUR (7.04 mln. euro). The largest average sales revenue, about 500 mln.RUR (12.43 mln. euro) per company, was reported for individual entrepreneurs which have over 250 employees and can be regarded as medium-sized companies. The lowest sales revenues - 1.4 mln.RUR (35 thousand euro) - was reported for individual entrepreneurs which may be regarded as micro-enterprises with only two employees, on the average.

The overwhelming majority of the operating small companies, 85.9%, are micro-enterprises with up to 15 employees. This category of SMEs accounts for each 3rd job and 43% of total sales revenues within the entire SME sector.

Almost all individual entrepreneurs - 99.9% - are, indeed, SMEs. However, about 100 IEs, in fact, are large enterprises with the number of employees ranging from 251 to 800. The reason is that Russian legislation allows IEs to hire as many employees as they need, with no threshold in employment. In 2010, about 40% IEs were employed by other IEs or companies¹⁴.

	Sole Proprietors	Micro	Small	Medium	SMEs, total
Officially registered SMEs	2.9 mln.	1.4 mln.	229 th.	25.7 th.	4.6 mln.
Operating SMEs	1.9 mln.	1 mln.	227 th.	25.7 th.	3.2 mln.
Employees	5.3 mln.	3.9 mln.	7.2 mln.	2.6 mln.	19 mln.*
Sales revenue, trillion RUR.	4.5 (111.9 bln. euro)	5.7 (141.7 bln. euro)	13.3 (330.7 bln. euro)	7.3 (181.5 bln. euro)	30.8 (765.9 bln. euro)
*For reference: 19 mln. people is 13.3% of total population in Russia. www.gks.ru

Structure of sme sector by industry

Traditionally, the largest share of SMEs, legal entities, was reported for trade, car and other repair services (38%), operations in real estate and other services (21%), construction (11%)(Fig. 1). Quite large is the SME share in mining, production and distribution of electricity, gas and water (11%). Almost all companies (92.7%) are registered as LLCs. 4.6% are joint stock companies, 3.8% companies among them are registered as closed joint stock companies.

Bibliography Literature

• David Ingram, Demand Media, “Explanation of Characteristics of a Small Scale Business”

• EU Law, “EU Recommendation concerning definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises”, C 1422, 2003

• Longenecker, Justin G.; Carlos W. Moore, J. William Petty, Leslie E. Palich (2008) (Casebound). Small business management

• "Small Business and Self-Employed One-Stop Resource"

• Lepoutre, Jan, and Aimé Heene. “Investigating the Impact of Firm Size on Small Business Social Responsibility: A Critical Review”

• Edmiston, Kelley. “The Role of Small and Large Businesses in Economic Development.”

• United States. Small Business Administration. “Frequently Asked Questions.”

• Robert C Appleby „Modern Business Administration“ Sixth Edition