The a rticle briefly describes the history of the Department of Sociology of organizations and management at the Moscow University. It highlights the important stages of the department’s development: its formation as a Russian-American unit, the period of mass paid education in the field of management and a modern stage, which is characterized by the search of innovative educational synthesis of sociology and management. The article highlights the role of heads of the Department – S. Rayn-smith, S.R. Filonovich, G.N. Butyrin – in shaping educational and scientific strategies. Department history is correlated with the most important changes in the economy and society, as well as in the education system. In particular, we consider the or-ganizational and socio-political difficulties of cooperation with Western scholars in the field of education. From the very beginning of its development the Department focused on the comparative analysis and the complementarity of domestic and foreign approaches to management. Today, managers of successful Russian companies are not inferior to their foreign colleagues as regards knowledge of modern management concepts, appropriate training and the relevant slang. At the same time over the years there has been a radical change in the assessment of the Western role in the development of the national economy as a whole and individual organizations. Management education in modern conditions increasingly resembles learning the art rather than classical science. Artist learns some kind of craft practices, it is impossible to make a great master using even the most perfect system of education. A manager during educational programs visits an exhibition of ideas with which he/she can agree or not, which may be perceived as adequate to the situation of his/her company or not. For this reason the Department started studies of specific relationships between management and literature, sociology and art. In the article the problems and prospects of management education’s development are distinguished. Management education, along with the economic and legal, has become “mass production” in recent years. At the moment two segments clearly manifest themselves – ordinary education for office plankton and elitist program. The first is increasingly given to private “commercial” universities, while the leading universities and their divisions focus on the programs of the latter kind. Analyzing of the contradictory development of management education the author repeatedly emphasizes that at in this field even failures, groundless demands and false premises, if take place in the conditions of the competent guidance and free discussion, can always bring a positive result.

 

Mergers and acquisitions have become one of the main business strategies in the past decades. However, as the international experience indicates, the impact of mergers and acquisitions is rather ambiguous. On the one hand, mergers accelerate the evolution of organizations, strengthen their market positions and competitive advantages, create opportunities for the future development. On the other hand, mergers and acquisitions often lead to severe system crises, caused by various confrontations and risks. From the social and administrative point of view, mergers and acquisitions are commonly perceived as troublesome transformation processes instilling distrust and fear in the workers. Fear of the upcoming mergers is typical not only for ordinary employees, but also for senior management, who remains the most vulnerable unit in the M&A process. Mergers are considered as a stress and challenge for all the categories of employees. The employees realize the instability and the vulnerability of their current statuses, the limited ability to influence the situation and job insecurity. The uncertainty and fear lead to the employees’ resistance of different kinds, which eventually destroys the corporate unity, exacerbates the contradictions between various groups of employees and destabilizes the operation of companies. The authors assume that in the post-industrial age the employees’ perceptions of the merger processes can change and study the trends and factors which determine employees’ attitude towards mergers and acquisitions. Nowadays management strategies and the logic of administrative processes change radically, the structure of companies and the relationships in organizations networks undergo crucial transformations. The tendency to the democratization of organizations has received widespread recognition; companies become more flexible and are more frequently perceived and operate as open systems. The companies start to use the project management structures and the adhocratic corporate culture is formed. All these chances allow to avoid various typical problems during the course of mergers and acquisitions and creating favorable starting conditions for the association. The authors stress the following features of modern organizations: contractual relations between employers and employees, minimization of the bureaucratic procedures and formal reports, the democratic governance, the authority and responsibility delegation and the profit sharing. The company staff, being organized into self-managing teams and possessing high level of competence, is not only better protected in the course of associations, but also has greater development opportunities. Due to these factors mergers and acquisitions are no longer associated with solely negative consequences and cause fear and active resistance of the staff; they start to be perceived as a change of the activity context which can lead to positive results.

Whatever people do in large or small social groups, the question always arises: what factors determine the effectiveness of these groups and what are specific features of group management? While studying in largely the same, researchers from different scientific schools and various sciences put attention to different objects and use different terminology: some say the leadership styles, some speak about the managerial style, other – about the particularities of leadership, and the third about self-managed teams. The main leadership factors, distinguished by researchers, form the model subject of study or complement and clarify the “basic” model of relevant scientific schools. In the first case the model is often expressed schematically, while the second it is more often described verbally. The difficulty of comparing models of different schools, usually lead to either the conceptual rejection of their bases, or disregard to many significant models because of their anticipated heterogeneity. So the task of this article is to overcome the apparent incompatibility of the different authors’ approaches, it allows “not multiply entities” and seek deep similarity of ideas developed over many decades by different researchers. Using the schematic pairwise comparison of numerous models of management and leadership, the author reveals the conceptual validity of some components and possible redundancy (from a historical perspective) of others. When this is considered in detail the transition from 1D to 2D, and then to 3D models of leadership-management and related models: Lajkert’s continuum, managerial grid of Blake-Mouton, model of Aristotle, styles by Lewin, Tannenbaum-Schmidt and Hersey-Blanchard, two theories of McGregor, model of managerial competencies and levels of Covey leadership development, strategies in conflict of Thomas-Kilmann and cubic cultural-values model of leadership from Zankovsky. Particular attention is paid to the impact of leadership style on the group motivation, which not so much stimulates a particular activity, but also enables people to comprehend the meaning of what they are doing under the leadership of a particular leader. The author also examines significant issue – reflection of higher levels of leadership in these models. 

Is there a specific incentive system in the public service? On this question Russian and foreign experts do not give a clear answer. Author systematizes the results of numerous comparative studies of employees’ motivation in public and private organizations. Innovative approaches to motivation most often arise in the commercial sector, and not all of them are usable in the public service. Motivation of civil servants in Russia and abroad has remained relatively stable. Meantime, several non-financial incentives and, above all, the career play a special role here. Comparative analyze of the motivation in state and private organizations enables to identify common and special needs, which are relevant to employees in the both sectors. Studies of this kind were conducted repeatedly and often pushed the researchers to the new discussions and consequently to the new discoveries in the human resource management. The results of these studies can be used in the further developing of concepts such as New Public Management. The relevance of such studies increases with the de-bureaucratization of social relations, the desire to create “service” state. Since these processes inevitably involve commercial entities or products of their activity, first of all, management innovations, there is an urgent need to create conditions for productive cooperation between the public and private sectors. The author stresses the importance of a responsible approach to the creation of a favorable environment for the exchange of experiences and social technologies between public and private organizations, including the transformation of the motivation system in the public sector. The changes must make state and more flexible and dynamic and, at the same time, not violate their essence and socially important purposes. A convenient, but controversial source for borrowing effective motivation tools and technologies is the experience of developed countries, which, despite the existing differences in the organization of activities of state services, successfully develop the exchange of innovations between public and private sectors of economy.

T his article deals with transformation of consumer practices, which become (and maybe have already turned into) the dominated form of social behavior and cannot be described within the model of purposeful-rational action. Utilizing the analytical distinction between “doing shopping” as routine practice, related to satisfaction of basic needs, and “going shopping” as pleasure and leasuretime social activity, this article demonstrates series of changes, resulting in generation of new consumer culture. These changes are compared with a range of transfigurations of the consumers’ spaces (trade spaces), which are at once places (scenes), where consumer practices deploy, and the structural condition of their possibility. According to the logic of the modern man, his focus on fast and diverse consumption and his desire of consuming everything in one place, “in one bottle” on the run, the shopping spaces are becoming the center of new industries-cultural, educational, recreational. The modern retail spaces become not only a place of shopping, but also closely incorporate into the social life of the community and turn into the centers of social life. Effectively combining and managing the various scenarios of consumption, the modern retail helps to feel and join the happiness of live communication in the overbounded with the online social contacts, but atomized world, to get rid of the feeling of emotional emptiness. Special design of retail space and the integration of various social technologies, which are created for manipulating the emotional sphere of the customers (non-standard architectural solutions, catchy window dressing, interior design, background music, aromamarketing, psychologically adjusted range of color, taste and tactile solutions) create a special entertainment and attraction of space, control the consumer and are ready not only to stimulate the purchase, but to form an unforgettable impressions. P roducers and retailers have effectively used knowledge about the transformation of consumer’s practices. They help consumers to feel liberty of choice and shopping, freedom of availability of goods and services (democratic character of process of consumption). Thus, today trade spaces are becoming multipurpose, not only structuring wide scripts of consumer behavior and forms of consumer experience, but also making the contribution to social order.

A study of employees’ loyalty to organization is usually associated with the analysis of the organizational culture, its norms, values, rules, which create a peculiar relationships the staff and the organization. In modern Russia there is an interesting symbiosis of the different epochs cultures, determining the personnel loyalty to organizations. The article represents the results of the researches received in the last decade by well-known Western and Russian sociological centers, as well as by some separate Russian sociologists. A significant feature of these studies is that they were conducted solely with the use of quantitative methods and in the format of Western corporate values and Western evaluation tools. The author research demonstrates that the corporate culture of Russian organizations, as well as the personnel loyalty, does not meet many inherent in international practice, evaluation criteria. Russian business culture is usually regarded as being in the process of becoming, to some extent, “underdeveloped” in comparison with the culture that exists in countries with strong capitalist traditions. This is not true. Over 25 years in Russia of market economy development have formed a certain system of values, incorporating values of pre-revolutionary business, ideological orientations of the Soviet era and the values that have been formed in recent years. Low degree of personnel’s loyalty towards the organizations, in this respect, is not a symptom of the cultural underdevelopment, it is a specific cultural trait of the domestic business, which has a quite rational basis and is not a subject to exclusively negative interpretation. This conclusion is based on the results of qualitative and quantitative research, conducted using methods of biographical analysis and content analysis of contemporary business periodicals. These qualitative and quantitative research methods in the analysis of the Russian corporate values determine a deeper look at the staff of the modern Russian organizations. Deeper analysis shows, that people seek to embody in their lives, at work and at home, high principles and ideals. The study of documents and analysis of periodicals testifies the fact that modern “captains of business” and the personnel, overall, are repro- 118 duced skills and values inherent in the previous generations. The most significant values of this kind are the values of the Russian diligence and the predominance of the moral forms of motivation over the material. These data are meaningful for characteristics of modern Russian business culture in general, as well as characteristics of the personnel loyalty to the organization.

Modern style of management requires different mechanisms of evaluation. They are very important, the quality measurements of both the social processes and the social management. The measurement process requires the creation of different approaches and techniques. In the modern social management integrated indicators become of the great importance. They are calculated and sounded like ratings and indexes. They are applied to a wide variety of objects – countries, governors, companies, schools, neighborhoods, etс. Often, they determined the prestige and position of an object in a competitive environment. The article examines in detail the positive and negative aspects of building ratings and indexes. The author argues that in modern society emerges the belief in their universal applicability and objectivity. In the majority of ratings are included not only the objective (statistical or similar) figures, but also subjective expert assessments. Many other elements in the methodology of ratings and indexes do not allow to say that they always reflect the real situation. Their main advantage is that they enable to select the best and the worst, and it is fundamentally important for a manager at any level. The process of total “menegerization” determines the popularity of indexes, as they form the basis of efficiency criteria. And it’s the focus on managerial efficiency, that, in fact, dictates the need for continuous assessment of the situation. The author reveals the problems that lie behind the construction of the ratings, and their subsequent use: assessing the quality of the primary data, the equivalence of experts work, etc. Any rating causes a certain reaction: argumentation for and against, discussions about the optimality of the selected parameters and methodology. In the article various approaches and methods of index construction are examined. There are examples of the most interesting ratings and indexes creating by different organizations. The article analyzes the practice of international ratings and indexes, as well as ratings and indexes used to measure areas within the country. As examples, the article discusses the mechanisms for assessment of regional and local authorities, the criteria for evaluation of the region’s image. Based on the comparison of the applicability of different indicators the author’s model is presented. It measures the quality of the work of state and municipal officers. The proposed model includes a variety of criteria and methods for collection of information and is oriented on the ongoing development of the country’s territories.

This article analyzes a book “Breaking democracy’s spell”, the last work by John Dunn, world famous political scientist from Cambridge. Current discourse on democracy and tendencies of its development is seen through the lens of this book and John Dunn’s political thought. It is hard to question the fact that democracy is still one of the mightiest political symbols, although its core meaning still poses a lot of questions. Democracy is an unstable variable, which changes through time being influenced by multiple factors. This is why, before trying to understand where democracy’s mimicries are leading us, Dunn proposes to look closer at how it became a category which is so essential for legitimizing contemporary regimes. Is our understanding of democracy the same as it was 100, 50 or even 20 years ago? What determines the dynamics of democracy as a symbol of public power? Does democracy help nations in their quest for well being and effective government? Dunn’s work is not just an original analyses of democracy in political, sociological and historical perspectives, it is also a challenge to provoke a discussion on democracies failures both in developed and developing world. Dunn’s work divided scientific community on those who saw warning signs to democracy and those who considered author to be unjustified pessimist. In reality, Dunn’s work doesn’t give simple explanations because in relatively small text he managed to put complex set of questions, which can’t answered unequivocally. Author himself recognizes that he had to use absolutely new style to convey his thoughts. This article is an attempt to interpret Dunn’s ideas and react to his call to start a discussion on contents and perceptions of democracy which he sent to a political science community. This discourse is particularly important today for Russia where democracy not only encounters institutional difficulties and misunderstood by majority of the citizens, but where there are very few attempts to understand reasons of its failures not through the lens of political process but looking at its symbolic meanings. Democracy remains not only key political symbol of our age, which once started spreading from the United States and France where its antique experience had been revised, it is also a cognitive labyrinth in which one finds it difficult to orientate. That is why every attempt to understand the structure of the labyrinth is should not be neglected. This article will be of interest to students and scholars in political science, political sociology, political linguistics, history of political thought.

The article is devoted to theoretical questions of sociological analysis of problems connected with dismantling political regimes and change of ruling elites in contemporary states (both authoritative, and democratic type) by means of social and humanitarian technologies under the name “color revolutions”. Though the phenomenon of “color revolutions” has been in the center of attention of both domestic and foreign sociologists and political scientists for more than ten years, the uniform synthetic theory in this area has not been developed yet. “Velvet revolutions” in the socialist camp, “color revolutions” in the post Soviet Union area, events of “the Arab spring” and many other phenomena of the last three decades had more than once forced the academic community to reinterpret the subject of revolutions. The analysis shows that “color revolutions” represent social and humanitarian technologies which provide formation and regulation from the outside of protest the potential of the population in combination with political, economic and other non-military measures to influence interstate stability. Similar technologies are widely applied by the USA and their allies to those states in which they have strategic interests. Thus ultimate goals of “color revolutions” are to establish control over resource base of development of a certain society and to resolve own geopolitical tasks of weakening rival states. The author’s approach of the sociological analysis of the considered phenomenon is developed taking into account the features of modern technologies of delegitimization of power their accurate orientation against well before known weak points of a specific state. Therefore the article formulates a sociological concept of assessment of modern revolutionary potential in five spheres of functioning of society: economic, political, social, spiritual and military safety. In each of the listed spheres it is necessary to investigate the variables characterizing stability of functioning of basic social institutes of society. Proceeding from it, the level of vulnerability of society can be defined by the development of national economy, socio-political stability of society, features of valuable and standard system of national culture which determine the level and way of life of the population, the degree of legitimacy of political system in the view of wide social groups of population. In this context the modern sociological science has theoretical and sciencebased practical tools to gain objective knowledge of social reasons, dynamics, consequences and technologies of implementation of “color revolutions” in modern society to estimate their social risks for Russia.

Presented article is the second of two articles, the aim of which is to introduce the reader has no special mathematical training, with the possibilities of application of mathematical methods developed in the scientific direction of “Conceptual analysis and design of systems of organizational management (CAD SOM)”, designed to solve a variety of tasks, such as technical and humanitarian spheres on the basis of the proposed methodological approach to the mathematization of the theoretical knowledge. At the heart of this methodological approach is a process of conceptualization, which is understood as a theoretical study of qualitative aspects of a selected domain using mathematical forms (axiomatic) theory, the locking connection between the concepts of logical derivability characterizing this subject area. Designed axiomatic theory – conceptual scheme – is the basis for building database structures, decision-making processes, a variety of phenomena subject area, structure and genesis of domain analysis and other tasks. One of the main advantages of the sending of methodological approach is the ability to work with complex regions based on the controlled synthesis tool terminal theory of conceptual schemes, explicated simple fragments of the subject area. Given the non-mathematical preparation of the reader, the contents of the methods illustrated by conceptualizing a conceptually simple subject areas – areas related relations, as well as the choice of one of the most simple goals conceptualization – structuring the domain and build a variety of its phenomena. The first article was given a brief description of mathematical methods, describes the main stages of the conceptualization of the subject areas, ranging from the definition of the boundaries of the domain and ending with the theory of the synthesis of the terminal and determine its compliance with the tasks of conceptualizing. In the chosen example – areas related relations – have been considered in detail first, most important, the steps taken and the impact of technology on these stages of conceptualizing solutions. They discussed the definition of family relationship and the concept of “relative”, identifies the major errors and their consequences are discussed various options for positing the core of the conceptual scheme, carried out a precise definition of the content to rely in this case the basic concepts and their properties. In the second article concludes with a discussion of issues related to the behest of basic sets – namely, issues of formation of so-called “Declaration on the base set” terminological problems and questions refer to basic sets. Described final core of the conceptual scheme, carried out an axiomatic study of selected domain. The basic attention in second article is given to expansion of the theory and difficulties with which thus the conceptualist – researcher collides. By the example of the entered terms – “blood family”, “the connected family”, “family balls”, “generations of ancestors”, “genealogical trees and rhizomes”, “binding generations”, “related clans” – are shown opportunities of directions of expansion of the axiomatic theory. Influence of definition of concept “relative” on carrying out of border between relatives and nonrelatives is shown. For demonstration of variants of erosion of kinship, concepts of species “sorodstvennikov” are entered. At the end of the article briefly reviews the steps required for the synthesis of conceptual schemes. In the presentation of possible mathematical omitted entries, and the deployment of the theory described in the attributive form – in terms of empirically determined characteristics.

The purpose of article – to prove the approach expanding opportunities of use of expert knowledge as a source of formation of individual concepts of development of the organizations as social and economic objects. As is known, today there is no standard general theory of development. But there are individual theories or concepts of development which quantity has the expressed tendency of increase as in natural, and humanitarian areas. In these individual concepts development is understood differently, i.e. their authors suggest different forms of development. Development as an object of research is one of the most difficult and least investigated areas as in natural-science, and humanitarian sphere. In this connection it is necessary to ascertain, that, despite of the urgency, research of development in an insignificant degree provides practice by control facilities by development. Among experts there can be carriers of individual concepts of development, both expert-practice, and experts-theorists. Author’s concepts of experts are the most complete kind of knowledge containing advantages of a science, experience and practice. They contain features of rational analytical knowledge, intuitive-creative its irrational condition, and also feature of empirical sensually perceived knowledge – experience. Alongside with the quantitative approach in ideology of methods of the expert estimation basing on expert knowledge, there is also a qualitative approach. Thus, existing technology integration of individual experts concepts, as a representative of a qualitative approach, developed for the integration of individual experts and practitioners in the general concepts integrated concept. On a new level of the social and scientific importance the technology of integration of individual concepts in the complete general if the opportunity of integration of individual concepts of experts-theorists will be created can be lifted. But in this case other way, other requirements should be applied to integration of such individual concepts to formation of individual concepts of experts, their selection, to the form of a statement of the contents of concepts, their formal synthesis as a result of which the integrated complete concept is formed. Meeting the challenge of developing technology concepts integration of private experts-theorists in general theoretical concept, it is possible if you use an abstract theory of development, built on the basis of the corresponding construct. In a new approach to integrate the concepts of individual experts, theorists assumed the use of the methodology and conceptual analysis of the appropriate structural mathematics. As there is a theoretical groundwork article is proposed to use for the development of the theory of development as a multidimensional poliaspektnoy disjunctive network with increasing difficulty. For reasonable application of conceptual methods in solving the problem of the integration of the concepts of private experts, theorists need to consider the following features characterizing the state of the test domain. Firstly – it ourselves existing subject specific concepts of different authors to express their points of view on what’s inside the analyzed object, how it manifests itself, how the point of view of the author tested practice. All concepts should have the status of waste, of proven concepts with which he achieved a real effect. Typically, each of the concepts claim to universality, that it is able to explain the whole thing presented science (sociology, psychology, etc.), all of its phenomena. This effect is absolute expert of their private point of view. As among concepts can be such which with each other are not correlated, consequence of it is the aspiration of their authors to belittle other concepts, to declare them not to the full proved. Second – this is a feature that consists in the fact that science (or a separate domain), represented in partial concepts, general estimates of representatives of the science and their communities, just does not yet have a specific (“developed”) object, which allowed to conceptualize this area. The latter is represented by a mosaic weakly correlated with each other ideas. In theory and practice, the use of expert knowledge this statement of the problem is innovative. The problem is not developed. But it can be assumed that the concerted effort of sociologists and experts in the field of theoretical research tool – conceptual equipped with appropriate methods – will help to solve this difficult and urgent task.

The article discusses the features of a modern type of philosophical and sociological mentality, the basis of which is still dominant in the social sciences by the spirit of positivism and criticism. Through the revision of theories from the past, modern scholars continue to analyze them within the framework of a naturalscientific ideological approach, which results in an attempt to audit the positivist paradigm in order to justify its applicability in today’s reality. Thus, any sociophilosophical problems that studies or regards sociology are still considered superficially, as if from the outside. Secularism imposed by the West and the spread of non-religious humanism led to the emergence of an entirely new type of thinking, based on the human belief in itself and clearly expressed skepticism in relation to the existence of higher meaning. The purpose of this article is to describe the key intentions of our age, which is developing in light of the above transformation of sociological and philosophical knowledge, as well as to analyze how a person of the postmodern era designs contemporary reality under the influence of such changes. The main problem of sociological knowledge has always been the impossibility of studying the object of knowledge without complete alienation from it, or, on the contrary, the impossibility of going beyond the researcher’s subjectivity. As a result sociology was given the status of the science that can only offer a description of the essence of human existence which is fragmentary, unfinished, and often based solely on an individual philosophical view of reality. “The theories of progress” advanced by sociology today continue to describe the social development in isolation from the axiological assessment of the nature of social change, denying the ability of the individual of self-reflection and the experience of transforming the foundations of existence.