Development of Entrepreneurial Competencies in the Economy (Evidence From Digital Entrepreneurship)

The digital transformation strategy of the business environment requires improving customer service and transiting to a customer-oriented service system, developing partnerships and integrating flexibly with partner companies (digital partnership becomes one of the factors of business scale), using databases, implementing new HR strategies and a culture of innovation.

Competencies in digital entrepreneurship include confident, critical, and responsible use and interaction with digital technologies for the study, operation, and involvement in society. This includes information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, creation of digital content (including programming), security (including digital well-being and cybersecurity-related competencies), and problem-solving.

Discussion

The acquisition of digital competencies is considered as a need for the whole society. This problem has been also identified at the level of public administration. As a response, mechanisms for the digital competencies formation in society have been developed and implemented. The following types of mechanisms for digital competencies formation can be identified (Table 1). The sphere of digital skills and competences in the Russian Federation develops unevenly, chaotically, and often in isolation from academic (so-called formal) education.

Table 1

Mechanisms of digital competencies formation Source: developed by the authors

In the early 2000s, outdated teaching methods, the lack of educational standards, trained teachers, as well as the inaccessibility of digital technologies for the educational process led to an extremely low level of digital literacy in all existing segments of the public education system (preschool, primary, secondary, and higher education). Digital skills in secondary schools, for example, were limited to computer science lessons, where schoolchildren were taught the general principles of computer structure and the basics of algorithmization. This approach does not meet modern requirements, is not end-to-end (cross-platform), and has therefore very questionable results.

Thus, the largest and most extensive formal education system does not meet the needs of the labor market, is unable to generate quality manpower, does not contribute to the welfare of citizens, essentially reduces their employment prospects, and capitalization. This leads to the fact that both the digital industries of entrepreneurship and the economy of the country, in general, lose out.

In the commercial segment (the so-called nonformal education), the situation is better, since modern methods are used there, while the technical support and motivational component of teachers are much higher.

It is absolutely clear that approaches, solutions, and initiatives on the development of digital literacy through academic formal education and nonformal education will differ based on their specificity. Thus, in the first segment, the state is the provider of educational services, while in the second case — commercial (or charitable) companies.

The key solution to this issue is a combined strategy, which is characterized by long-term activities and scale inherent in the public education system, and short-term rapid measures, more relevant for implementation exactly in the segment of commercial education.

State programs are the most common mechanism for digital competencies formation in society. They aim at adapting society to the digital economy conditions. Among existing programs, one can distinguish those, whose priorities are overcoming digital inequality, the intensification of innovative activity of the population, increasing competitiveness, etc. Since the problem of should be the main initiator to overcome it. Personnel and education are included in the program "Digital Economy of the Russian Federation" as one of the key institutions within which the conditions for the digital economy development are created. The Program outlines the main objectives of each direction[19] concerning training and education, namely, "creating the key conditions for training the personnel for digital economy; improving the education system, which should provide the digital economy with competent personnel; creating the labor market, which should be based on the demands of the digital economy; creating a system of motivation for the development of the necessary competencies and involvement of personnel in the development of the digital economy of Russia".

Secondary education is best suited to prepare a new generation for the digital economy. On the one hand, currently, digital technologies are easily accessible, and their application does not require large investments. Every person, who is involved in economic life, has the opportunity to acquire such competencies through training and self-development. On the other hand, it is the basic educational skills acquired in secondary school that shape a person's future worldview.