Social isolation during the pandemic contributed to the transition of educational processes to e-learning. A short-term e-marketing education program for a variety of students was introduced in May 2020 and is taught entirely online. A survey was conducted regularly in the last week of training using Google Forms, and three cohorts were surveyed in July, September, and December 2020. A high level of satisfaction indicates an interest in the content and a positive assessment of the level of comfort of an organization adapted to the needs of students; this positive result contrasted with the negative opinion of the remote learning in Russia since March 2020, and this surprising satisfaction of students has motivated the study to try to explain its reasons. This result was compared with the short-term course taught through the educational pedagogical platform of a university. The students of traditional short- and long-term university programs were asked to assess their satisfaction with different digital communication tools used for e-learning. They showed low satisfaction with the pedagogical platform and a positive reaction to the e-communication tools (messengers, social media, short surveys, video conferences, etc.). The qualitative responses helped to better understand the real problems of the cognitive process and the triple structure of intellectual production during e-learning, including interest in the intellectual outcome, the need for emotional and motivational elements of cooperation and competition between students, and smooth behavioral enrichment, which requires special efforts from students and their leading from teachers. The main conclusion concerns a practical decision to continue the implementation of the educational program in the form of an online course with the use of the mixed digital communication tools of social media, messengers, and video conferences, which most likely meets the expectations and capabilities of students.

Higher education has complex roles in society, the economy, and politics; it helps to transmit culture, transfer knowledge, and develop the personality of citizens. This diversity of roles is confronted with the limited resources that are related to the sources of financing, that is, students and their families, the national government, and local authorities, among others. The discussions related to the role of universities concern the economy of knowledge and the digital tools influencing education. The specific case of St. Petersburg universities simultaneously represents the impact of the deep socio-political transition from Soviet society to the liberal principles of a market economy, including the perception of higher education institutions as service sector companies. The services allowed by universities include research and training; however, from the consumer point of view, universities should create specific value: the increase of the intellectual components of human capital. These complex functions are interconnected. During 2017–2018, a survey in St. Petersburg was organised to ascertain the opinion of students, professors, and employers on the quality of education. The results of the survey demonstrate the impact of the exaggerated implementation of the liberal principles on education, both positive and negative. The positive effect is the renewing of content and innovative training techniques due to competition among universities. The negative impacts include the preference for popular disciplines and the opportunistic behavior of students that lose their passion for acquiring knowledge and choose instead the passive attitude of consumers of a competitive service. They are less interested in the sphere of their studies, in searching for a job, in the interaction with other social and economic actors, and even in the research and education options presented by the universities.

This conceptual research reflects the understanding of the wider and more coherent use of crypto-currencies and Blockchain' algorithms for the security and equity of operations. This is especially important for the transactions between the collective actors on different hierarchical positions, e.g., the State and private companies or associations, or individuals. The fog computing' hardware and software are helpful for the aims of improving taxation and ensuring reliability of any transactions. The neuron technologies provide creating and developing a multi-criteria assessment of assets or actions, which represent more correct system of affective and socially acceptable evaluations, than it can be calculated on the basis of the cognitive judgments. The ability to provide a high level of information security through systems like Etherium allows of building a reliable and transparent system of taxation and of regulation of all interactions between social, economic and political agents, including the financial and non-financial measurements.

The digital economy era raises new challenges for the professional competencies of collaborating persons for effective communication within organizational processes and across organizational borders. Effective communications in the context of total digitalization represent a significant factor for the competitiveness of individuals and businesses. These competences are to be formed within the higher education system. Today, the demand for professionalizing of education reflects the rapidly changing context of the real economic environment, the transformation uses the diverse tools such as involvement of professional partners in the learning process, flexible adaptation of educational technologies and content to the requirements of potential employers, to the conditions of the new economy. The article presents the multi-faceted experience of the Department of Advertising and Public Relations of the Polytechnic University in involving the professional community into education of future communication' specialists within the framework of training and practice, both in content and in performing applied tasks.

Digital regulation implies the quantified measuring and the network infrastructure allowing managers to control the processes of value creation. Digital regulation needs to take into account tacit elements of the value creation process, including unconscious competency, creativity, and intuitive anticipation, to assure the resulting network’s innovation growth. Digital society in developing countries is built on the ground of fact change of the economy and social relations, of transition towards an emerging market within the global offline network of interactions and online activities through Internet; the innovative growth imposes the evolution of managerial behavior and attitudes. The main objective of the paper is to obtain indications on the perception of intellectual capital by corporate managers. The exploratory study was carried out in Russian companies operating in different sectors, with the use of the open-ended approach, including focused interviews and group discussion among experts, middle and senior managers from marketing or corporate governance background. The data were complemented by documentary analysis of descriptions of internal processes of the implementation of digital tools of accounting, which includes the human resources control applied for the remote work during the pandemic. Networking helps to coordinate functions between team members at remote work and between teams and administrators. The interviews demonstrated the administrative tendency to under-estimate the non-formalized factors of innovation activity, such as awareness of corporate strategy, creativity, motivation, and affective and behavioral components of communication of the persons involved in the enrichment of intellectual capital. The results show fuzzy boundaries between the intellectual capital components that are difficult to control. This difficulty provokes the preference for the use of “traditional” quantitative indicators that had been implemented at the stage of the financial digitalization, instead of developing new parameters or measuring approaches. The networking emerges synergetic effect if the administrators refuse their monopoly on the uncertainty zones and are oriented to construct the trustful atmosphere of personal responsibility within the network.

Social capital is transformed due to the digitalized environment built with the ICT expansion. The evolution of the social capital' forming and development reflects the new forms and models of communication, the extended possibilities of choice and of presence into the Web as a unique space of exchange. This article presents the theoretical approach to the analysis of behavior' regulation within the framework of social technologies implemented to the digital space. Social engineering represents an important factor of the violation of information security' rules, the IT-specialists attribute the majority of the crime in the sector to the insiders of private business companies and to the imprudence of individuals. The social capital can play the both positive and negative roles to assure information security issues, the social engineering can be in the contradiction with the tendencies of the social capital development, but the social technologies used are based on the social capital development.