Vol 15, No 2 (2021)

Information about companies published in a news feed is invariably tinted by emotional tonality. As such, resulting perceptions may influence the opinion of market players, and consequently affect the dynamics of a company’s share price. This study aims to evaluate various hypotheses about the impact of the tone of news items regarding dividends, capital expenditures, and development on the stock prices of Russian companies. Information disclosure is extensively studied, and there have been limited studies on the effect of disclosures on Russian companies. However, until now, there have been no research studies which verify hypotheses on the influence of news sentiment on corporate share prices in the Russian market. This analysis was conducted using data from 49 Russian public companies included in the Moscow exchange index over the period from the end of 2017 to the beginning of 2019. To account for the proximate impact of news items on consequential market phenomena, an event study methodology was applied in order to estimate and construct the models of dependency of cumulative abnormal return (CAR) on news tone level, and control for financial and nonfinancial factors. Our results provide evidence for the positive impact of the tone of news texts on the share prices of Russian companies. The increase in news tone by one standard deviation leads to a cumulative abnormal stock return increase of 0.26 percentage points. This result is consistent with previous research conducted on data from developed stock markets. Moreover, the relationship between the tone or sentiment level of a news item and the stock price reaction is linear, without the diminishing marginal effect. Our conclusions should prompt companies to invest effort in delivering information in a tonally positive way, highlighting the most positive news. Investors, in turn, should rationally approach the interpretation of published information.

This paper describes the differences between biomedical start-ups with state support and start-ups with support provided by private market participants in Russia as a country with limited private investments. Based on the sample of Skolkovo biomedical start-ups, we analyse ownership and management characteristics of start-ups as well as the performance of companies supported by these two types of institutions.

To compare start-ups supported from different sources, the sample of biomedical companies is divided into four clusters based on the presence of state and/or private support. The results of cluster characterization indicate that start-ups with different types of support vary significantly in ownership concentration, share of managerial ownership, gender diversity and CEO experience.
Although tests for differences among the groups’ mean values showed the insignificance of performance variation among clusters, start-ups with private funding in the sample were mostly smaller-sized companies with fewer patentsand employees. At the same time, start-ups that were supported from both private and state sources performed better on average in the number of employees and patents and the presence of revenue. Although the causal relationship between the type of support and start-up performance is not investigated in this paper, our results suggest the importance of the synergy of state and private support for biomedical start-up performance in Russia.

Besides contributing to the literature on start-up support in emerging markets, this paper is, as far as we know, one of the first academic studies to provide insights into the market of Russian biotech start-ups.

Most post-socialist countries harmonize national accounting standards with IFRS. Many countries are also characterized by a simultaneous use of both national and international standards. The same goes for Russia. Deep reform of national standards has entered an active phase: annually, starting from 2018, several new standards harmonized with the international ones have been introduced. At the same time, former standards remain in force. In such conditions, the process of teaching students majoring in accounting must consider these peculiar features. In the article, we analyze the existing teaching methods and conclude that they are generally focused only on the study of the existing national accounting standards. However, working at enterprises requires knowledge and ability to apply both the existing standards and the standards which will be introduced in the coming years. It is also necessary to know international standards as a methodological basis applied when a matter is not regulated by the national standards. The article highlights the experience of South Ural State University. Since 2016, it has been creating a methodology of intensive teaching bachelors of economics majoring in “Accounting, Analysis and Audit”. The methodology is based on the development of a set of professional competencies intoa set of learning outcomes as more appropriate for the tasks of such teaching. It is characterized byan emphasis on the students’ research and analytical work. Its implementation results in the appearance of a specialist who is quickly adapted to work in large companies. The methodology is applicable in all university departments teaching accounting to bachelors.