The article discusses the theoretical issues of the formation of the administrative regulation mechanisms for business entities. The necessity of the further development of theoretical and methodological base and the application toolkit for the design of business environment is proved. This can stimulate the growth of business and investment activity in the Russian regions and municipalities. The authors identify two types of government structures influence on the business entities, differentiated by the nature of the targeting impact on the economic activity of business structures — the administrative pressure and administrative assistance. It is suggested that in practice, high cost implications for compliance with all regulation requirements as well as sanctions for the violation of these requirements create preconditions for the development of informal interaction between entrepreneurs and the representatives of regulatory bodies. Therefore, businessmen try to minimize the costs associated with the implementation of formal administrative requirements, rules and regulations by personal arrangements. A mathematical model for the assessment of the informal interaction between business entities and certain officials of control supervisory authorities is proposed. It allows to determine the range of benefits for economic entities from avoiding the implementation of administrative norms, requirements and rules. It is concluded that unreasonably high level of costs for the implementation of formal administrative requirements rules and regulations by business entities composes the economic basis for the reproduction of informal relations. This determines mutual benefits for a number of entrepreneurs and a part of bureaucracy from various schemes of informal interaction.

The article deals with the development of entrepreneurship in the Russian regions. Firstly, the state of both Russian entrepreneurship, in general, and small and medium-sized business in particular is not satisfactory. Secondly, the measures implemented by the state in the field of entrepreneurship development are not sufficiently effective. To the authors’ opinion, these two facts are due, among other things, to a lack of a holistic understanding of what constitutes an institution of entrepreneurship in a spatial context. The authors propose to consider the development of regional entrepreneurship using the system approach with the scope to the regional business system. Within the proposed authors’ approach, resources, economic agents and institutions are considered as the main elements of this system. The authors substantiate that there are institutional configurations, and not simple institutions, which determine the parameters of interaction between the elements of the regional enterprise system. These elements can contribute to the enterprise processes in the territory or block them. We assume that even a region with an essential resource of business potential is not able to realize it completely until it develops an effective institutional configuration of the regional business system. In order to investigate certain parameters of the institutional configuration of the regional business system, we propose a methodology for assessing the institutional loyalty of business entities and testing this technique on the example of eighty-four constituent entities of the Russian Federation. We have concluded that, in a large part of the Russian regions, a successful implementation of strategy for the development of small and medium-sized businesses will require the transformation of the regional enterprise system on the basis of reengineering. It involves a radical redesigning the entire system, ensuring the entrepreneurial processes in a territory. The authors prove that the basis for reengineering should be the institutional reconfiguration of the regional business system. The results of the research can be used to identify systemic problems that impede the development of entrepreneurship in the Russian regions and to develop more effective measures to address these problems.

At present, the development of entrepreneurship is a priority task of social and economic development of Russia. The observed rates of socio-economic and innovative development of regions indicate that the private business initiative is not sufficiently developed. At the same time, the private business initiative is the leading driver of economic renewal of the territories. As practice shows, current measures, aimed at stimulating entrepreneurship, do not provide the growth of business activity and seem insufficient. These measures do not consider specific spatial context in which the business develops. Therefore, these reasons significantly reduce the effectiveness of these stimulating measures. In this regard, we estimate that the environment in which the elements of the system interact is gaining a great importance in the framework of a system approach to the study of the entrepreneurship development at the regional level. In practice, to manage the development of business structures in a spatial context, the ecosystem approach seems to be very promising. This approach takes into account the nature of the interactions of economic agents and their relationship with the environment. We highlight that the ecosystem approach to entrepreneurship is a transition from a traditional economic view of entrepreneurship, which is market-oriented to a new economic view that emphasizes people, networks and institutions. We substantiate that it is necessary to develop a methodological toolkit for monitoring the attractiveness of a regional entrepreneurial ecosystem for the generation and development of entrepreneurial processes. It is being an important element of the mechanism for designing and managing the development of business ecosystems. To determine the current state of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in a region, we have proposed a methodology for monitoring the state of the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem. This method is based on a statistical analysis of the demographic quantitative and qualitative indicators characterizing the intensity of the development and extinction of entrepreneurial processes. As a result, we have expanded the concept of the ecosystem approach. Furthermore, we have justified its application for the investigation of entrepreneurial processes at the regional level. To study the current state of regional entrepreneurial ecosystems, we suggest to use a special statistical apparatus. This apparatus is based on demographic indicators characterizing the viability and growth potential of entrepreneurial structures in a specific spatial context. To further develop the ecosystem approach for the study of entrepreneurship at the regional level, there is an urgent need for further research that will allow to identify and understand the patterns of the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems. It will increase the effectiveness of practical measures for designing a mechanism for managing the development of regional entrepreneurship.