Economic behavior of the region’s population: The role of socio-cultural factors in the conditions of the Arctic

The transformations taking place in the socio-cultural space of Russia in the last three decades determine various aspects of human behavior, including economic behavior. The aim of the study is to assess the influence of the basic components of the socio-cultural space of the Arctic region on how the population develops economic behavior strategies, among which are values, norms, attitudes, social well-being, social capital, human capital, identity, and cultural consumption. The article provides a brief description of modern approaches to the study of economic behavior based on interdisciplinary links between economics, sociology and other sciences. Further, with the help of sociological research, we identify and describe trends in the economic behavior of the population of an Arctic region – the Arkhangelsk Region. With the help of G.S. Pospelov’s decision matrices we assess the influence of the components of the socio-cultural space on the choice of an economic behavior strategy and determine the structural hierarchy of the components according to the degree of this influence. In particular, we show that the impact of the basic components on economic behavior demonstrates high stability, while the most significant structural contribution is made by social well-being and the values of “materialism” / “post-materialism”. Scientific novelty of the research lies both in the application of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the economic behavior of the population of the Arctic region, and in assessing the impact of various structural elements of the socio-cultural space on the manifestation of a particular type of economic behavior of individuals and households (consumer, savings, and investment). Practical significance of the approach we propose is related to the possibility of its further use in order to design models and development programs for various Arctic territories and regions that differ in socio-economic, ethno-cultural and value characteristics and strategies of economic behavior of the population.