Specificity of cooperation ties in the Kuzbass mechani-cal engineering economy

Cooperation is an accessible and effective tool for the economic and social development of economic entities based on mutually beneficial interaction. The hypothesis of this study is that an insufficient level of development of applied issues and the lack of methods for generalizing the practical experience of cooperation can lead to an underestimation of the potential for cooperation in individual sectors of the regional economy, which will not allow the potential of the synergistic effect of interaction to be fully fulfilled. The article aims to identify and systematize the specific features of cooperation in Kuzbass, the regional economic sector and the mechanical engineering sector of the Kemerovo region. For this purpose, the authors used various general scientific empirical methods – analysis, synthesis, observation, as well as regulatory and project documentation analysis, reporting of cooperators, comparative analysis, methods of group dynamics, methods of sociological surveys and others. An analysis of the specifics of cooperation in the economic sector under study allows concluding that new types of cooperation – logistics, interregional, polysphere, etc. – are being formed in it. The article identifies the advantages of cooperation, which include the possibility of using consolidated resources for innovative development and management improvement. It also presents the trends of cooperation growth in the mechanical engineering sector of the regional economy. The authors' conclusions on the evolution of cooperation can complement the theory of the issue, and also become a useful guide in solving practical problems of business management and a tool for the development of economic entities – associations (clusters, holdings) of the real regional economy.