bonus fund is to be used for lump sum payments to in- 

 dividuals or collectives as a reward for particularly 

 noteworthy achievements. Innovation is prominent on 

 the list of such achievements. We do not know the 

 extent to which such payments are actually made to 

 reward innovation activity, but they do offer the po- 

 tential of a flexible and effective stimulus, at least 

 from the perspective of the recipient. However, the 

 caveat applicable to the Fund for the Creation and 

 Introduction of New Technology is also pertinent here. 

 A lump sum payment may make the participant better 

 off, but if the innovation should cause the entire 

 bonus fund to shrink, the labor force as a whole will 

 suffer. Indeed, the motivating effect of all these 

 special incentives for innovation is limited. The 

 statutory ceilings on individual bonus earnings are 

 such that no person may receive an excess of 90 to 

 110 percent of his base salary in bonuses of all 

 kinds. The relative balance of risk and reward as- 

 sociated with innovation, Berliner concludes, still 

 tends to motivate Soviet decision makers and managers 

 to discriminate against innovation in favor of alter- 

 natives that involve no change in products or proces- 

 ses. 



In sum, throughout this section we have described 

 briefly (and incompletely) elements of Soviet plan- 

 ning, managerial, and financial policy which influ- 

 ence the degree and rate of new technology utiliza- 

 tion. While noting that the system must in fact be 

 formulated and set in operation as an integral unit, 

 we have been forced to analyze each unit separately. 

 Yet, for traditional practice, this approach does not 

 severely distort reality, since the stages of R&D, 

 the participants, and the various policy makers all 

 tend to be disjointed. However, we note in passing 

 that experiments are underway in certain ministries 

 to "unify" not only the stages of R&D but also the 

 entire policy-making process. The system, depicted 

 schematically in Figure 11-4, originated in the elec- 

 trical engineering industry. Planning is to be "con- 

 tinuous," accounting for all stages of the innovation 

 process. Similarly, financing originates in a Uni- 

 fied Fund for the Development of Science and Technol- 



232 





