Scholars studying reforms in Russian higher education unanimously deplore the poor financial situation of Russian universities (Podkolzin, 1999; OECD, 1999; Suvorinov, 1998). However, despite the chronic lack of funding, some programs and fields of study seem to continue developing and even prosper. Economics and its academic sibling, business administration, are some of such fields of study that were not only successfully transplanted from the Western context but also began to bloom on the soil of Russian higher education. How do these new fields of study establish roots in Russian universities and what ensures their successful development? Important for educators and policy makers alike, these questions lie in the center of this paper. The paper consists of four parts: an overview of the context within which economics and business administration have been developing in Russia, a description of the conceptual framework used for analyzing this development, the analysis itself, and finally, implications for education reformers and policy makers who support the development of business administration and economics in Russia.

Context: Russian Science And Higher Education

As the result of the ten years of economic and political reforms, Russian science and higher education have undergone changes that affected the universities both at the structural and cultural levels. The following four trends describe the current state of Russian scholarship, its regional characteristics, and structural changes inside the universities and within the whole system.

Increasing scholarly activity. Although from 1990 to 1998 the number of Russian scholars and scientists engaged in research decreased by half (OECD, 1999) and the annual rate of immigration of Russian scientists abroad has been fluctuating within the range of one to two thousand people (Matveyev, 2000), the level of scholarly productivity did not go down. On the contrary, the level of productivity measured by publications increased (Table 1), although it negatively affects the number of research projects resulting in patents.

	Number in 1996	Comparision with 1990
Monographs	1,863	Increased by 44%
Textbooks	6,749	Increased by 50%
Articles	81,426	Increased by 39%
Patents	1,796	Decreased by 71,2%

Source: Suvorinov, A. (1998).

Uneven geographical distribution of academic activity. The geographical distribution of scientific activity has not changed significantly over the years: about half of all researchers (48,5%) live and work in the Central (European) part of Russia, Moscow remains the main research center accounting for 31% of all scientists followed by St. Petersburg with 12% of all research cadres (Matveyev, 2000). Two thirds of all Russian researchers work in the field of hard and technical sciences, while natural sciences and humanities attract only 25% and 1,8% of researchers respectively (Matveyev, 2000).

Growth of the private sector in higher education.The growing private sector is the leading investor in research in Russia today, accounting for 68,9% of all expenditure on science in the fiscal year of 1998 (Table 2). As the interest of the private sector in research grows, Russian scientists seem to become more appreciative of the opportunities opened by the diversification of funding resources. However, the tradition of dependence on the federal government for funding remains virtually unchanged and the demands to increase federal funding of science still feature prominently at scientific conferences, meetings, and roundtables (Podkolzin, 1999).
Table 2. Gross Domestic Expenditure on Research by Sector of Performance, 1998.

	Roubles, In Millions	Percent
Total	25082,1	100,0
overnment (state) sector	6465,9	25,8
Private sector	17296,6	68,9
Sector of higher education	1297,1	5,2
Private nonprofit sector	22,5	0,1

Source: Statistical Book "Russian Science in Numbers" (Matveyev, 2000).

Integration of science and education. In the times of scarce financial resources, Russian institutes, academies, and universities are looking for ways to integrate science and education for improving overall survivability of institutions. Today there exist two models of such integration. The first one consists of creating large research centers at the sites of existing academies and institutes, whereas the second model is based on the idea of a large research university that combines equally strong technical sciences and humanities (Verbitskaya, 1999). The second model, which is somewhat similar to research I university in the U.S., is best exemplified by the Federal Research University in St. Petersburg that was organized on the site of St. Petersburg State University with active participation of 38 research institutes and centers.

In short, the landscape of Russian science may be described in terms of meager financial resources, growing prominence of the private sector as investor in research and science, increased number of publications in various fields, general orientation towards integration of fundamental science and education, and continuing dependence on federal funding. Taking into consideration these circumstances, the questions about establishing roots and ensuring successful development posited at the beginning of this paper can be re-phrased in the following way: How do economics and business administration achieve development in the environment characterized by the lack of funding on the one hand and the increased entrepreneurial spirit in higher education on the other? Or, in other words, how do these fields of study maneuver through poor economic conditions and capitalize on favorable social trends?

Although the idea of utilizing social, cultural, and political trends and pressures to increase one's economic well-being has been developed to various degrees by many organization studies scholars, the two prominent schools that address this issue directly are the French school of sociology represented in the works of Bourdieu (1980, 1992) and Wacquant (1992) and the American new institutionalism developed in the work of DiMaggio and Powell (1991). What follows is an overview of the two approaches that inform the conceptual framework of this paper.

Conceptual Framework

According to Pierre Bourdieu (1980), science is a cultural production and a practice, which is tightly interconnected with a web of political, economic, and social frames. He believes that the scientific discipline is formed simultaneously by a variety of influences outside of the immediate community of scientists and that therefore, the boundaries between the scientific field and the outside world were blurred (Bourdieu, 1980).

This focus on science as a cultural practice opens up some interesting possibilities for the analysis of discipline formation ("discipline" and "field of study" are used interchangeably in this paper). First of all, the number of possible sites of formation increases to include loci of dissemination of scientific knowledge, legitimization of scholarship, training of future cadres, and so on. Timothy Lenoir (1997) sketches a vast panorama of disciplinary forces where positions are aligned with various forms of economic, political, and social power. He maintains that in order for a scientific discipline to sustain its growth, it needs venues for publication such as publishing houses and periodicals; professional scientific societies and associations that would guard the criteria of disciplinary excellence and bestow honors and recognition on its members; and educational institutions that would reproduce discipline cadres. Second, besides university faculty, the group of key factors participating in the formation of disciplines and fields of study includes a complex network of faculty, entrepreneurs, publishers, students, politicians, etc.

Participating in teaching, studying or developing disciplines and fields of study, people seek or engage in the exchange of symbolic and economic capitals (Bourdieu & Boltanski, 1978). While economic capital consists of material resources, symbolic capital comprises "education, gift-giving, aesthetic or cultural interest, competence, honor or respectability-in short, anything that can be characterized as opposed to and therefore autonomous from strictly material, economic interest" (Lenoir, 1997, p. 9). Although symbolic and economic capitals are configured as opposite, the pursuit of symbolic goods may be motivated by desire to gain economic and political power and as such it is not a disinterested affair (Bourdieu, 1992).

Interconvertibility of capitals is their essential quality. Since the structure of fields is characterized by the dynamic relationship between symbolic and economic assets, at any given moment some fields move closer to the economic end of the pole than others; i.e., the knowledge they produce is simply more convertible into material or political power than the products of other fields. For instance, during the Cold War physics attracted more resources and occupied a distinctly more privileged position than other sciences due to its contribution to defense and military industrial complexes both in the West and in the communist bloc (Lenoir, 1997; Graham, 1998). Similarly, in today's Russia the enormous popularity of economics and business education combined with the growing demand for economists and managers increase the symbolic and material assets of these two fields of study.

Another framework for looking at the universities' capitalizing on social and cultural trends, norms, and pressures for the sake of success is presented in the works of Paul DiMaggio and William Powell (1991). Their approach, known as new institutionalism, focuses on homogenization of organizational structures, which is achieved through isomorphic adaptation of organizations to their institutionalized environments. DiMaggio and Powell (1991) identify three sources of pressure for organizational structures to converge and imitate: external pressure from other organizations and from the cultural expectations of the society at large, desire to reduce the uncertainty of the environment by imitating well-tested structures, and the norms of the profession. Out of the three sources, the last one-the pressure of professional norms and values-is most pertinent to the discussion of Russian higher education with its strong tradition of centralized control and federal educational standards.

Thus, the theoretical map of the scientific field is characterized by transparent borders between the inside and outside, multiple players participating in its formation and maintenance, and dynamic relationship between symbolic and economic capitals. Furthermore, the formula of success consists of an equation where high symbolic assets are convertible into high economic assets and vice versa. Drawing on this conceptual framework, the next part of the paper will analyze how economics and business administration build their symbolic and economic assets, and how they maintain their interconvertibility.

Development of Economics and Business Administration: Variables in the Formula of Success

Since success of an educational program or a field of study depends on high symbolic and economic assets and their interconvertibility, educators, reformers, policy makers and other professionals involved in the development of economics and business administration in Russia need to be aware of the forces that increase these capitals and to know how to maintain their interconvertibility.

Factors Contributing to the Increase in Symbolic and Economic Assets

Market of market idiology. If during the Cold War, the ideology of military competition created demand for the products of physics (Graham, 1998), the contemporary socio-political discourse is characterized by the ideology of the market. The market ideology also permeates individual thinking, informing attitudes and behaviors of individuals towards social and political reforms and the growing market. According to the study of younger generation of Russians from 16 to 30 years of age, almost half of the respondents (47.6%) favored the combination of best features of capitalism and socialism as the optimal model of societal development, 17.7% stated that they would build democratic and humane society, 12% were prepared to build capitalism, and only 13.9% still favored socialism of the former model (Saliev, 1998). Similarly, the majority of respondents expressed their overall positive attitude toward the market economy (Saliev, 1998).

Growing demand for market-oriented educational programs.The favorable attitude towards the market economy is reflected in the students' hierarchy of professional prestige. The top professions are economist and accountant (21% of respondents), lawyer and judge (20%), banker (18%), entrepreneur and businessman (14%), journalist and diplomat (5% and 4% respectively), teacher, scientist, faculty member (1%) (Sillaste, 1999). The growing demand of specialists in the fields of economics and business administration is translated in the increasing number of institutions offering degree programs in these disciplines: out of 30 institutions of higher education that were accredited by the state commission in 1999, 26 were institutes and universities with the programs in economics and business administration (Gde uchitsya, 1999).

Economic stability of new programs. . Unlike well-established disciplines that have a long history of federal support, economics and business administration align themselves with economic structures and organizations outside federal agencies and the Ministry of Education (Tikhomirov et al, 1999). The orientation of economics and business administration towards non-governmental sources of funding ensures a relatively good financial position of these disciplines

This economic stability, if not prosperity, combined with the prestige and good income associated with these professions makes the symbolic assets of economics and business administration highly convertible into economic capital. The fact that young people from affluent families aspire for the profession of economist, while students from lower income families tend to prefer the profession of entrepreneur (Sillaste, 1999) suggests that the symbolic and economic capitals of economics and business education are perfectly interconvertible. Presumably higher economic assets of business administration can compensate for students' lower cultural and social capital, whereas students with the greater social and cultural capital accrued due to their family status can compensate for the potentially lower material assets of economics.

Factors Maintaining teh Symbolic Value of Knowledge Production and Interconvertibilty of Capitals

Who ensures the legitimacy and hence, symbolic value, of knowledge production in economics and business administration? And who maintains the interconvertibility of symbolic and economic capitals? The answer to this question involves a description of a network of various agents participating in the discipline formation and an examination of their efforts at maintaining legitimacy of the new disciplines through isomorphing professional norms and standards.

Academia. The traditional agent of any discipline formation is academia. The legitimacy of the academic claims for excellence in research and teaching is typically based on the present and past records of the discipline. However, the Russian university cannot demonstrate the continuity of scholarly tradition in economics and business administration. Although economics had a Soviet analog in the old curricula, the old discipline was different in its content, subject, and methodology (Tikhomirov, 1999). Most importantly, it focused on the analysis of the socialist market-the notion and phenomenon quite obsolete in today's academic discourse and economic life. Old economics of the Soviet type was replaced by Western economics of the market. Although some academics teaching courses of economics today may argue that Western discipline is completely different from the Soviet one, the introduction of new economics in the university curricula did not appear as conspicuously foreign as business administration. Business administration, precisely because of its orientation towards capitalist market, did not exist in the old curricula and as a subject and a field of study, it still stands out as Western. Therefore, imitation of Western programs and curricula in economics and business administration may be one of the means to enhance the legitimacy of Russian scholars' claims about the value of their scholarship.

Connections with Western scholars. In the situation of discontinuity or absence of previous academic tradition, the scholars and teachers of economics and business administration bridge the gap between generations of scholars by adopting Western economists and theorists as their of symbolic teachers and intellectual forefathers. The proliferation of translations of English and American classics of economics and business administration as well as publication of edited volumes representing an intellectual dialogue between Western and Russian economists attest to this tendency to build Russian scholarship on existing Western heritage. Standard dization. Normative isomorphism of the fields of economies and business administration serves as an instrument of maintaining the criteria of good scholarship on the one hand and as a mechanism of purging academic cadres of the old Soviet type of the professorate on the other. Therefore, the question of who is eligible to teach and develop new disciplines is closely tied with the content of the new courses and the faculty's readiness to embrace the market ideology. For instance, one of the most readily voiced concerns of the scholarly community of economics and business administration is that some universities continue teaching old Soviet economics under the new fashionable names such as marketing, management, etc. (Tikhomirov, 1999). In the absence of federal standards of programs in economics and business administration, some Moscow universities (e.g. Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics, and Informatics) take initiative in designing recommendations that would standardize the content of new programs across the country.

Dissemintion of professional norms. The question of the faculty's responsiveness to the market ideology is in fact, the question of professional norms and values. Supposedly, the scholars working in the fields of economics and business administration have a different set of values and views on the goals and modes of scientific inquiry than humanitarians and pure scientists. This intangible difference is often explained as belonging to the entrepreneurial culture that informs the academic and personal values of economists and faculty of business administration programs. The interpenetrating of entrepreneurial and academic cultures is, perhaps, best expressed in the discussion about who teaches business administration. Some Russian social scientists argue that in Russia, business courses are taught by those who failed to succeed in business themselves, while in the West, business administration is taught by those who have had a successful entrepreneurial career and are willing to share their experience with younger generations (Kaganov et al., 1999). Although this argument may seem as a na~ve generalization to American scholars, it demonstrates how one's value as a teacher of the new market-oriented disciplines is measured by one's success in the market or, in other words, the cultural capital that such person has is measured in the currency of the economic capital. The selection criteria for students applying for the market-oriented programs are similarly coded in the discourse of entrepreneurial culture and market literacy (Kaganov et al., 1999).

Academic networks. Besides faculty teaching and doing research in economics and business administration, the boundaries of these disciplinary fields are shaped by scholars of other disciplines who share common methodologies or research agendas such as statisticians, mathematicians, and political scientists (or politologists, in the Russian terminology) (Kabachenko, 1999). Publishing houses and periodicals that print and sale textbooks and scholarly articles on economics and business administration stand at the periphery of the disciplinary fields. Ensuring dissemination of the disciplinary products, the publishing houses and professional journals are engaged in increasing both the economic and symbolic capital of the disciplines: good sales bring more material resources, while growing respect for and interest in the disciplines raise their cultural assets.

Networks outside of academia. As sponsors of research projects and educational programs, international foundations, private businesses, and industrial corporations are all potential agents of the disciplinary formation of economics and business administration. St. Petersburg's Institute "School of Economics" (Institut "Ekonomicheskaya shkola ") is a good example of how various actors contribute to the development of new disciplines. School of Economics was established in 1991 as a private nonprofit organization with the goal of reforming education and research in economics in Russia. From its very inception, it was integrated with a publishing house under the same name "Ekonomicheskaya shkola". The School has undertaken a number of projects with such well-known universities as MIT, the University of Texas, Glasgow University, University of Amsterdam, conducted a cadretraining program for a Russian investment company "Energokapital", and run a series of programs for faculty with support from the Soros Foundation, Eurasia Foundation, and TACIS (Institut "Ekonomicheskaya shkola," 2000). In addition, the School's faculty translated and written a number of textbooks on economics, marketing, and management and hosted professional conferences. Thus, academia is not the only actor participating in the development of economics in Russia. The peripheral areas of the field are inhabited by the diverse group of agents who extent the disciplinary borders through dissemination of professional texts to the professional and lay readership and though connection with industrial and private business enterprises.

Summary

Thus, the new fields of economics and business administration in Russia have some significant advantages over their older and more established counterparts. Appearing on the wave of political and economic transformations, they meet the growing demand in economists and entrepreneurs and appeal to the sensibilities of the part of population who believes in market economy. Considered fashionable by friends and foes, programs in economics and business administration offer education and social connections that are highly convertible into the currency of economic capital.

The large and diverse network of actors participating in the formation of these two disciplines ensures their steady development and competitiveness on Russia' market of education services. Although heavy reliance on Western academia and philanthropic foundations for the sources of scholarship and funding makes economics and business administration ostensibly pro-Western, it grants them the necessary disciplinary foundation and independence, hence legitimacy. At the same time, Russian economics and business administration do not simply translate Western scholarship into another language. More textbooks and articles are being written by Russian scholars, and more schools look for Russian private business sector to sponsor projects and programs.

This picture of the developing fields of economics and business administration in Russia has some far-reaching implications for policy makers at different levels of higher education. For one thing, it opens up spaces for federal intervention (or abuse of power) as well as for the structural re-organization at the institutional level. The following part offers some observations on the peculiarities of the developing fields of economics and business administration in Russia that may be of consideration for educational reformers.

Implications for Policy Makers in Russian Higher Education

• As economics and business administration grow more prestigious in the society and as the universities turn to the market principles of financial management, the tuition rate for programs in economics and business administration may grow faster than that for programs in other disciplines.
• Access to the high symbolic capital of the two disciplines will require increasingly higher initial economic investment from students and their parents. Without institutional and/or federal intervention directed at minimazing the impact of economic inequality among students, the programs in economics and business administration will soon become loci of the social reproduction of the wealthy.
• The convertability of the disciplines' symbolic assets into material gains may decrease when the labor market is satiated with the holders of degrees in economics and business administration. This may or may not affect the symbolic value of the two disciplines: it is likely to remain high as long as economics and business administration are regarded as vehicles for social mobility in the market economy.
• If the employment opportunities for the graduates of these programs become limited, the narrow market will benefit old universities with traditionally prestigious diplomas and a handful of new universities that already rank among the top public schools in the field. Decreasing employment opportunities for the graduates may contribute to the foundation and development of student career services on Russian campuses.
• The close ties of the two disciplines with the circles of political and economic power will compel the universities to realize their opportunities of reaching out into various constituencies for sponsorship and donations, which may result in the establishment of alumni development offices in Russian universities.
• Since economics and business administration have been transplanted into Russian universities primarily from the Anglophone West, the 'cultivation' of the new saplings in the Russian academic discourse should involve translation of foreign works and production of new texts in the Russian language. Grants and fellowships for writing textbooks in economics and business administration will be an effective way to support the development of the two fields.
• The normative isomorphic pressures from the Russian academic community in general and the association of rectors of public universities in particular should not stifle the development of private educational institutions with programs in economics and business administration. Similarly, the national educational standard adopted by the Ministry of Education should not become the weapon for annihilation of small private schools.

In Lieu of Conclustions

The development of economics and business administration in Russia is closely connected with the development of market economy and market ideology--the set of values propagating competition and free enterprise. If the current trend continues to persist in the future, these two disciplines will likely to prosper and grow into the wealthiest and best-financed fields in Russian higher education and science. This growth and prosperity may lead to new types of cooperation among various social, economic, and political agents on the one hand and universities on the other. Educational reformers and policy makers in education will have to face a new set of problems that is unfamiliar to more traditional social sciences. As it appears now, the programs in economics and business administration not only bring a promise of social mobility but also become tools for channeling wealthy youth into higher economic strata while selecting out economically disadvantaged students. The latter is especially painful in Russia with its long history of free higher education. The structural and organizational changes that the two new disciplines may facilitate relate primarily to the functions and services that are common for Western universities but are not yet known to Russian institutions of higher education such as alumni development, student career counseling and development, etc.

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