DEVELOPING INTEGRATED BUSINESS GROUPS IN UKRAINE AS A NEW TYPE OF INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURES

Abstract

The article seeks to address contemporary challenges in developing integrated business structures associated with the need to upgrade and innovate most important industries, provide industrial restructuring, and reduce technological backwardness and attain high-tech manufacturing growth. An emphasis is put on the critical significance of modernization in gaining a competitive edge of the national economy that will enhance Ukraine’s positions in a modern globalized world. This study employs a wide range of various research tools, in particular, methods of analysis, synthesis, generalization and comparison – to determine the nature, economic content, structural elements and drivers affecting the process of integrated business structure development in Ukraine; structural and functional analysis – to identify relevant institutional structures; as well as integrated assessment techniques – to explore international best practice in building integrated business units. Given the current trends and the specifics, it is argued that company development within a business group model spurs continuous improvement and innovation to meet market digitalization demands. The findings reveal the key aspects in developing integrated business groups as a new type of institutional structures in Ukraine. The study also focuses on the goals of their further development to implement transformational changes along with considering a number of factors affecting the nature of enterprise reorganizations and restructuring in the frameworks of their integration into business groups. Within the scope of this research, integrated business groups are viewed as a driving force in boosting Ukraine's economic development. The study suggests that the government industrial and antitrust policies should actively promote integrated business group models, including the international ones, as long as corporate and national interests are reconciled. It is reported that integrated business groups account for 15% of the total industrial output, respectively, integrated business groups are mesoeconomic entities representing a new type of a social institution that attempts to forecast supply and demand in a particular world market segment and implements its predictive outcomes through big innovations.