The Survey of Entrepreneurs in the Comprehensive Assessment of Competitive Environment

This article aims to test the working hypothesis on the greater reliability of an integrated assessment of competitive environment combining statistical and polling methods of obtaining information.The objective was formed during the implementation of the research project introducing the competition development standard in Sverdlovsk region. Design/methodology/approach: The assessment of objective indicators was carried out through thesystem of market analysis and with the assistance of "SPARK-Interfax"companies. The Herfindahl-Hirschman index was used to calculate revenues. The ratio of price growth to cost growth was calculated on the basis of the company’s financial reports.The quantitative studywas based on a broad survey which had beenconducted from December 2015 to February 2017. A total of 1187 questionnaires were sentto respondents, filled out and returned. The obtained results were further analyzed with the Chi-square test. Findings:Throughout the research, rankings werecarried out in conformity withthe level of competition development ofsocially significant markets in Sverdlovsk region.We haverevealedthe ambiguity of the competitive situation assessment with the use of statistical and survey methods of obtaining information. 2015 and 2016 were marked by theconsistency lack of the estimates of statistical and questionnaire methods for the social services market and certain segments of the educational services market. Weexplain this situation by a significant share of the grey sector that is not fullyaccountedin the statistics. Research/practical implications:According to the revealed discrepancies, we recommend the compulsory use of survey methods for competition analysis as they allow taking into account insider information and development tendencies of illegal segments of educational and social services markets. Originality/value:The presented study uses a unique set of regional-level data and facilitates a comprehensive method for assessing the competitive environment of regional markets. The above-mentioned method was tested on the materials obtained for the Ministry of Investments and Development of Sverdlovsk region from 2015 to 2017.