25-250 employees in five federal districts: Central (excluding Moscow oblast and Moscow city), Northwestern (excluding Leningrad oblast and Saint Petersburg city), Southern, Volga and Ural.<sup>8</sup> The sample frame for our work is sourced from Ruslana database of Bureau van Dijk. Survey data on managerial practices is aggregated into a single management score following Bloom et al. (2019a) and merged with data on firm performance, profitability, employment growth and other relevant metrics from Ruslana.

Analyzing this newly collected data for Russia, we draw the following four key conclusions. _First_ , an average Russian manufacturing firm in our sample scores 0.43 in adoption of structured management practices, a value very similar to that in Mexico and Pakistan but behind the one observed in Croatia (0.54) the U.S (0.62). Management score is measured on a scale from 0 to 1.0, where 1 reflects adoption of all structured management practice, and 0 adoption of none. Thus, a score of 0.43 may be interpreted as if firms adopt 43 percent of structured management practices.

_Second_ , the weaknesses in management practices particularly relating to data driven performance monitoring pulls down the overall score in Russia. Structured management relating to monitoring practices include, for example, a larger number of key performance indicators that are tracked and reviewed systematically and more frequently by managers as well as non-managers. It appears that Russian manufacturing firms are weaker on these aspects of structured management.

_Third,_ there is much heterogeneity in adoption of structured management practices among Russian manufacturing firms in the surveyed federal districts. As in Mexico, Pakistan and Croatia, the distribution of management score has a fat left tail, implying that a large share of firms are poorly managed. Nearly 3 percent of the surveyed firms adopt no structured management practices, 60 percent of them score below 0.5 but only 3.5 percent of these firms score over 0.75. By comparison, establishments in the US not only have a much larger average score (0.6), but 18 percent of them have a score over 0.75.

_Fourth_ , variations in management practices among Russian manufacturing firms are not driven by the differences in sectors, or in the federal districts covered by this survey but can be found in mostly idiosyncratic, firm-specific factors. Nonetheless, among the characteristics that partly explain the heterogeneity in adoption of structured management, it appears that firm size, foreign linkages and the education level of non-managers are the most relevant ones. Surprisingly firm age is not associated with better management practices, implying that unlike in the US and even in Mexico, firms do not learn to be better managed as they age. This indicates the possibility of misallocation in Russian manufacturing where learning and market selection are not operating perhaps due to the lack of pro-competitive forces.

_Finally,_ consistent with the findings in other countries and data sets, structured management, that is, more intensive monitoring and more aggressive performance incentives (e.g., hiring, firing, pay and promotions) is associated with superior firm performance. Firms with more structured management practices have higher productivity, and employment growth. This result is highly robust to numerous checks and controls. As is true in related studies, we cannot claim that this is a causal relationship, however, our results strongly suggest that management practices have a tight association with firm-level outcomes. Among the types of management practices, those related to data driven performance

> 8 During consultations it became clear that the authorities were more interested in learning about firms that are less exposed to structured management practices. Hence it was agreed to have the survey on management practices for SMEs located in the specified federal districts, and not including Moscow city and Oblast as well as Saint Petersburg.

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