In times of rapid technological change and increasing global competition, the brand constitutes one of the few resources to ensure sustainable competitive advantage (Lindemann, 2003). An important brand attribute companies need to build and communicate to consumers is brand authenticity. The technological and economic dynamics of our modern times can have destabilizing social consequences, particularly during the uncertainty caused by economic or political crises – which robs individuals of their need for stability and continuity. In these times, the human desire for authenticity may be especially strong (Turner & Manning, 1988). But what drives the authenticity of a brand? Recent research has identified brand heritage, that is, a company’s active use of its past and legacy, as beneficial for achieving competitive advantage (Urde, Greyser, & Balmer, 2007; Balmer, 2009). Previous conceptualizations of brand heritage highlight longevity, core values, use of symbols and an emphasis on history (Urde et al., 2007). Balmer (2013) builds on these conceptualizations, identifying six traits an institution should possess to be regarded as having a corporate heritage, including institution trait constancy (e.g. in terms of organizational culture; product, process and quality focus; location; group and class associations; design, style and sensory utilization; and corporate communications). To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no research so far has examined brand heritage as part of a corporate brand’s identity and authenticity for the specific case of post-Soviet brands whose embeddedness in a turbulent political and social environment over the last 200 years makes brand heritage management challenging. Using Balmer’s (2013) institutional trait constancy framework (Figure 1), the purpose of this study is to understand the identity of post-socialist corporate brands as corporate heritage brands and the challenges faced by managers in ensuring trait constancy of their corporate brands in the context of building and leveraging an authentic corporate heritage. A specific focus will be on analyzing how the heritage of corporate brands in post-socialist countries is connected to, and affected by, long-term societal developments including fundamental political and social regime shifts (i.e. presocialism, socialism and post-socialism). Our empirical application is the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, and here in particular the confectionary industry because confectionary brands form an integral part of the traditions and culture of a society (Tellström, Gustafsson, &Mossberg, 2006). The paper draws on case studies of three Russian iconic corporate brands in the confectionary category (Babaevsky, Krasny Octyabr and Rot Front), and one Latvian iconic confectionary brand Laima. Through these case studies, the following research questions are answered: RQ1: How does institutional trait constancy manifest itself in corporate heritage brands in post-socialist countries? RQ2: How do long-term societal developments in these countries challenge institutional trait constancy in a brand heritage management context? Our findings suggest that successful brand heritage management in a post-Soviet context requires consistency regarding organizational culture, and here in particular adaptability and resilience, along with a focus on history and traditions. It also needs consistency in terms of product, process and quality foci, as well as regarding design, style and sensory utilization. Consistency as to location, group associations and corporate communications also matters. We argue that it is critical for academics and practitioners to better understand how brands become embedded in long-term social developments and consumer life-style and how the society feeds back into maintaining their brand heritage. On that basis, our findings can be used for development of effective branding heritage strategies to assist companies in their brand heritage management, and in sustaining their long-term competitive advantage in uncertain times.

Introduction Environmental problems, especially waste problem are the responsibility of the state, first of all. But in the developed countries the flexibility of the utilization system is attached to small recycling firms – ecological entrepreneurs (ecopreneurs). At the present time, a typical situation in the sphere of waste management in Russia can be characterized by total absence or minimum organization of waste selective collection (less than 5%) and almost total absence of recycling companies (Korshenko et al., 2015). Recycling companies themselves have to create a raw material market and a sales market using innovative business models. Although the literature on the entrepreneurship states that there are good openings for the entrepreneurs due to the transformation to the “green” business, ecopreneurial practices are considered to be under-investigated. The most part of the literature is focused on the identification of well-established entrepreneurs but the topic of business models received little attention. This paper investigates the characteristics of ecological entrepreneurship business models in the recycling industry in Russia. Theoretical Development The relationship between entrepreneurship and sustainable development has been addressed by various streams of thought and literature such as social entrepreneurship, sustainable entrepreneurship, ecological entrepreneurship and institutional entrepreneurship (Schaltegger & Wagner, 2011). Schaper (2010) has argued that adopting a sustainable business framework may create new opportunities for entrepreneurs, including the reconfiguration of existing business models. So far, the literature on business models for sustainable entrepreneurship has received little attention (Jolink & Niesten, 2015). It need to be answered the following basic questions that shape the business model (Morris et al., 2005). (a) How and for whom will the firm create value? (b) What is the firm’s internal source of advantage and how will this provide the basis for its external positioning? (c) How will the firm make money, and how does this relate to the firm’s scope and size and time ambitions? Jolink and Niesten (2015) have opted for those ecopreneurs that operate in the processing and retail of organic food and beverages (eco-products) in the Netherlands. They define the ecopreneurial business model and specify four varieties of this business model, which consist of different combinations of environmental scope and a focus on the mass market and profitability. Jolink and Niesten (2015) assumed that the distinguishing factor of the ecopreneurial business model is that it transforms disvalue into value, thereby creating greater customer value for environmentally concerned consumers. But in the literature, ecological entrepreneurship is understood as a wide kind of goods and services: from the development and sale of resource and energy-saving technologies, recycling, to ecotourism, the production of organic food and other products and eco-restaurants. It can be assumed that the business models, and the mechanism of transformation of negative consumer value may differ depending on the sector in which ecopreneurship is carried out. Recycling is a very specific industry, since waste itself is the source of the consumer disvalue. Given all of the above, our research question sounds like: What are the features of business models of recycling firms? Research Design Considering the research question, stage of the development of the theory of ecopreneurship, and importance of the context, we assume that case methodology are more suitable for this research. The unit of analysis – business model. Population was specific. That is Companies engaged in wastes recycling in the Primorye Territory, Russia. The sample is theoretical (nonrandom), includes the cases of two companies. Data sources include interview, documents, open sources. The interviews were subsequently coded in order to facilitate comparisons and to find a pattern or structure in the data. The data were triangulated by a variety of means according methodology of case study. Result and Conclusion The resulting business model descriptions show how business is done by the ecopreneur, and how, and for whom, the firms create value (Zott & Amit, 2007). The companies cases show that in the ecological entrepreneurship value creation can be related to what the consumer value as well as to what they don’t value. The wastes themselves are the source of the consumers disvalue. But in the case of wastes recycling the customers experiencing the disvalue and receiving the value transformed from it are quite different consumers. Abilities for solving the clients’ ecological issues due to the entrepreneurial thinking and social ideology developed as a result of the ecopreneurial practice (Jolink & Niesten, 2015) are the internal source of a firm advantages and the basis for the external positioning (Morris et al., 2005) of the recycling companies. According to Jolink and Niesten (2015) classification of business models of ecopreneurship, business models of companies combine the features of an income model and a subsistence model. So, we have drawn the following conclusions. The academic field of ecological entrepreneurship is only just developing. By combining the literature on ecological entrepreneurship with the empirical research on business models, we explore the mechanisms of value creation by green businesses, and make several contributions to the literature. First, we studied entrepreneurial practices in a specific and little explored form of ecopreneurship – in the recycling. Second, building on Jolink and Niestens’ (2015) schematic representation of replacing consumer disvalue by consumer value, we developed scheme of process of transformation of consumer value by the recycling companies. Thus, this study contributes to the conceptualization of the theory of ecological entrepreneurship.

Traditionally marketing policies are considered to be the matter of choice by market participants. It is normally so, except the operators of essential facilities (such as pipelines or electric grid) or companies where prices are subject of direct price regulation (heating, gas and electricity supply etc.) However, in some exceptional circumstances responsible government agencies impose regulatory constraints on important marketing decisions of the companies outside regulated industries. One important example are remedies imposed by competition agencies, especially in BRICS countries, which sometimes take form of public regulated commercial policies as a set of rules for largest (dominant) sellers in B2B sectors how to select counterparties, how to set contract terms and how to enforce contracts. Wider use of commercial policies in a regular basis is recently under consideration in Russia. The goal of the paper is to discuss the expected impact of remedies application on the marketing policies, managerial incentives and performance of the companies, which are subject of remedies, by the example of several Russian cases. Our main conclusion is that impact of marketing policies and managerial incentives is the key to predict the impact of remedies on competition itself.

Annotation. The Book of Changes (Y1 J1ng, Chzou I) is the oldest text which is largely defining constructions of thoughts, system of values and algorithm of human behavior in the culture of Far East and South-Eastern Asia. The aim of the article is to determine the understanding of Mind as a human cognition in this authoritative text taking into account Russian interpretation which was made by Y. K. Shutsky. This issue, which has not always stressed by scientists, accelerates philosophical-worldview significance of Y1 J1ng and helps to recognize some aspects of how world famous representatives of cultural cluster of Far East and South-Eastern Asia understand the Mind. The object of this article is interpretation of mind in the Book of Changes, which is an authoritative philosophical monument of Ancient China. The author proves that this text has a philosophical origin, not only according to its content, but also in its type of interaction with the reader. There are defined some textual elements of the Book of Changes, which allow to reconstruct the interpretation of mind, in many aspects relevant to the modern cultural situation.

The biodeterioration with blue-green algae has been studied since 1997 up to 2000 in the tomb of King Mooryong in Kongiu, Korea. Biodeterioration in the tomb initially started from the formation of micro-organismic biofilm that had been suggested to make