Introduction
If we unite theoretical approaches to crisis cause grouping, we can formulate a consolidated classification of various types of them.
Methods
When grouped by the first classification criterion– the source of crisis – the whole variety of factors can be divided into external and intraregional.
Separating global crises from the rest is due to growing globalization, which has become one of the key processes in world economydevelopment in the XXI century, defining a new stage in the internationalization of economic life.
Summarizing domestic research has made it possible to identify the following main national crises: inflation rate, state policy (the operation of economic preferential treatment zones, the legal framework), taxation, monetary policy, customs policy, the use of administrative opportunities for gaining benefits, stability of the foreign exchange market, financial resourcescosts, etc.
The main causes of intraregional crises include: the region'seconomic and geographical position; the availability and quality of natural resources; the level of economicdevelopment of the region as a whole and of business entities located on its territory; the availability and quality of labor force; the level of infrastructure development (specifically transport, fuel and energy, telecommunications, and market infrastructure); regional policy; potential markets for products; level of political stability in the region; policies and authority of the region's Legislative Assembly; crime situation and more.
It should be noted that many external and internal crises are closely interconnected and generate interpenetrating driving forces.
Differentiating crisis causes based on dependence fromhuman activity is necessary for a correct assessment of the state and trends of crisis management. This divides crises causes into objective ones, which do not depend on the will and desire of people (real economic and geographical situation, climate and environmental conditions, availability of raw materials, access to the sea, etc.), and subjective ones, which are related to human activity and the actual activity and policies of regional and municipal authorities first of all.
Based on the vector of impact crisiscauses can be divided into favorable, which are conducive to improvement, and unfavorable, which worsen the situation. This separation is important for analysis and prognosis, as it allows you to better navigate the crisis when adopting crisis management.
Grouping the factors by duration of their effects is important for crisis prognosis when taking into account the time horizons of management. Based on this, crisis causes can be divided into three groups: long-term, determining long-term trends (more than two years); medium-term (1-2 years), and short-term (up to one year).
To objectively assess, predict and manage the crisis, it is necessary to take note ofits causesand distinguish the institutional ones from economic, political, financial, social and sociocultural, organizational and legal, innovational, environmental and other groups of crises that are of interest to a crisis manager,based on their sphere of formation.
Institutional causes determine whether programs can be coordinated. They are implemented by government bodies responsible for politics, business associations, and regional systems.
Among economic causes, a crisis is primarily affected by: the overall state of the economy (upsurge, recession, stagnation); economic positioning among the constituent entities of the Russian Federation; position in the currency, financial and credit systems of the country and region; customs regime and labor use regime; resource provision of the region, which is the most important limiting factor;infrastructure development; scientific and technical development, etc.
Financial crisis causes reflect the situation in the monetary, financial and credit systems of the country and region: availability of federal and regional budget funds, creditavailability, proportion of lossmaking business entities in the country, state of the budget, and more.
Social and sociocultural crisiscauses characterize the standard of living of the population, including cash income; food consumption; housing conditions; compulsory social security system; healthcare; culture; demographics; law violations; prevailing attitude towards private property; degree of ideological cohesion in society and the presence of consensus on the main issues of the economic and social development in the country; organization of the working class; strength of the trade union movement, etc.
Political crisis causes involve the relationship between the Federal Center and regional authorities; public confidence in regional authorities; level of social stability; interethnic and interconfessionalrelations.
Organizational and legal crisis causes are incredibly significant, since compliance with legislation, reducing the level of bureaucracy, access to information, improving the freedom of movement of capital, goods and labor, creating a new level of business ethics for entrepreneurs, and the number of federal and regional target programs are of fundamental importance.
Environmental crisis causes determine how environmentally safe the livelihood is and how severe the country's environmental legislation is, as well as the level of sanctions for environmental pollution when doing business.
Investment crisis causes are largely determined by the innovation component, which presumesan active implementation of innovations, since involving innovative technologies in the research object creates long-term reasons for economic development.
Dividing the causes into predictable and unpredictable is fairly important in the theory and practice of crisis management, since predictable crises can be foreseen and taken into account (regulatory methods, directions of scientific and technological progress, many intraregional crises), whereas unpredictable crises cannot be foreseen and specified in advance (natural disasters, political conflicts, individual activities of federal and regional authorities).
Whether the cause can be affected and controlled or not has a great impact on crisis management, thereby crises are divided into manageable and unmanageable. A necessary condition for management is the predictability of crisis changes in certain circumstances. However, this condition is not enough, since not all predictable crises can be affected.
Manageable crisis causes include: legal support of activity, level of market, engineering, information infrastructure development, real estate availability, qualified personnel availability, administrative factors, and more.
Based onthe crisis expression by which crisis management is evaluated, they can be quantitative and qualitative.
The crises causes are broken down to the point where indicators have significance for the set goal of the assessment. As a result of such decomposition a simple elementary result can be obtained – a list of indicator values, which, however, does not eliminate the complexity of the object under research – causes need to be classified by degree of detail for that. The first group of causes that directly affect the formation of the crisis are called first-order causes. They accumulate the influence of the more numerous factors of second, third and all subsequent orders. The result is a complex hierarchical system of crises causes, in which the underlying causes top the multi-tiered “pyramid”, and as the distance from the top grows, the influence of mediating factors grows weaker, and the connection between the individual causes of subsequent orders becomes more and more complex and diverse.
In addition, the grouping of crises causes based on their significance is singled out as a separate classification attribute, since crisis management is in some cases a subjective assessment (the rate of industrial output, the availability of hard-surfaced roads, the standard of living of the population, the crime rate, the level of conflict in labor relations, people's attitude to how the market economy is formed (measured based on the results of parliamentary and presidential elections), the level of environmental pollution and climate discomfort, the availability of natural reserves of mineral resources, etc.)
Moreover, during the process of crisis causeselection the scientists have developed an important methodological provision, namely that the composition of indicators for determining the integral characteristics of the crisis does not remain unchanged, but partially changes depending on the nature of each stage of economic development.
In this regard, grouping the causes according to the degree of intensity of change into rapidly changing, moderately changing, slowly changing and practically unchanging is of interest.
The rapidly changingcrisis causes include local legislation, the policies of regional and municipal authorities, and the competitive environment.
The moderately changing crisis causes include legal support of operations.
Slowly changing crisis causes are the transport and technical infrastructure (the availability of roads, ports, airports, gas and oil pipelines, power lines, communications, sewage treatment plants); social (population structure, welfare and quality of life, religious, cultural and moral beliefs), political and environmental situation; intellectual potential (workforceskill, innovation centers) and more.
Results
From the perspective of constructing theoretical approaches to grouping the crisis causes, a generalized classification of their various types can be given (Table 1.1).
Discussion
Inordertobeabletouseanorganization’scrisis managementmeasuresin a timelymanner, itisnecessarytodistinguishbetweenthestagesofthecrisisthatcanberepresentedbythechain: causes — symptoms — factors. Therefore, acrisisshouldbeevaluatednotonlybyitssymptoms, butalsobyits causesandrealfactors.