Economic Sociology and Management in the spectrum of modern managerial and economic ideas

The article is devoted to the radical transformation of the structure of knowledge in modern economic sociology and managerial theory, to the transition from slender hierarchies of ideas (the top of which consists of a small number of axioms, and the base of which consists of multiple specific recommendations) to the postmodern market of concepts. The authors made a comparative analysis of such transformation in economic sociology and managerial theory, revealed general regularities and specific factors that determined the difference between the scientific fields of these science. The latter include: 1) subjects conducting scientific research (in managerial theory, along with scientists, managers, consultants, people somehow connected with business were engaged in such practice), 2) a terminology of sciences (in managerial theory, a specific language for communication between managers and employees was actively created), 3) the use of marketing and PR-technologies to promote ideas. The totality of these factors determined a special “landscape” of the subject areas of economic sociology and managerial theory.

The article concludes that despite the existing problems caused by multiparadigmality, the emerging “flexible” format of socio-humanitarian knowledge opens new opportunities for creativity in rapid changes of social reality, obsolescence of classical approaches to its cognition, as well as the realization of the variety of phenomena and processes in the field of economics and management.

In such situation, each scientific team should choose its own special place in the exhibition of ideas, create its own “exhibits” attractive to the scientific community and the general public. Among the variety of topical and demanded research directions, the article identifies three key thematic blocks reflecting the scientific priorities of the Department of Economic Sociology and Management of Moscow University: 1) institutional changes and institutional context of socio-economic and managerial processes, 2) aging population and digitalization as key factors of economic and management transformation, 3) socio-economic processes and phenomena in the mirror of digital communication.

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