Steps on the Road to Privatization: A Preliminary Report on the Saratov Aviation Plant

This report outlines the problems faced by Saratov Aviation Plant (SAP) in its efforts to create an employee-owned joint-stock company in present-day Russia. Many of these problems are technical in nature and are consequences of the underdeveloped legal regime. Perhaps more troubling in the long run are the difficulties of the SAP managers and workers in understanding this new ownership form and their tendency to view it as somehow threatening to them. Complicating the situation further is the persistence of the problems of the old command-administrative system, such as the absence of a stable supply network, an aging capital stock, and a high level of labor turnover.