{"title":"Operationalizing the Social Capital of Organizations: Is it Possible to Measure the “Immeasurable”","authors":"O. Igumnov","doi":"10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.4","url":null,"abstract":"Social capital in the modern sense can be described as the capacity for socially oriented management of organizations. As social capital serves this purpose, it needs to be measured using relevant sociological tools based on the principles of operationalizing it as a complex social concept and a resource of immaterial nature. The purpose of the article is to present the results of social capital operationalization problem study that were obtained during the empirical portion implemented within the framework of the socio-resource approach towards managing organizations. The data obtained as a result of a panel study in 2022 give grounds for concluding that the basic process of operationalizing social capital proposed by the author provides an opportunity to substantiate variables and correlations between them for subsequently measuring the development of certain components of social capital. The suggested approach also allows asserting that social capital operationalization largely allows for solving the problem of “measuring the immeasurable” which involves, based on evaluating the current state of an organization’s social capital, developing management decisions aimed at the effective formation and development of said human capital. The author offers practical recommendations for correcting managerial actions while taking into account the problematic aspects of social capital formation.","PeriodicalId":504830,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140370332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The nation’s Attitude towards the Main Social Contradictions in Russian Society: Current State, Dynamics, Factors","authors":"I. Dudin","doi":"10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.5","url":null,"abstract":"The special military operation on the territory of Ukraine has become the main catalyst for certain significant changes now occurring in the public mind. Tensions between Russia and Western powers have reached their highest point in the country’s modern history. Given the circumstances, what contradictions do the Russian people consider to be the most pressing and fundamental? Have their overall views changed compared to previous years? What factors primarily influence how the contradictions within Russian society are perceived? In order to answer these questions, the article presents an analysis of changes in the attitude of Russian people towards contradictions of various nature, based on data from nationwide surveys conducted by IS FCTAS RAS in 2005, 2015 and 2023. Groups of contradictions were analyzed that differ in terms of the dynamics of popular attitudes towards them for the time period in question. It is shown that in 2005–2015 Russian people were most upset on account of economic contradictions. However by 2023 ideological contradictions came to the forefront, which in no small part contributed to the emergence of a new contradiction that can be considered the most crucial one of that particular year, referring to the divide between supporters and opponents of Russia’s policy towards Ukraine. Residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg more often than not would take a very particular stance in regards to contradictions within Russian society from 2005 to 2015, as well as young people under the age of 25 and citizens who considered their financial situation to be subpar. In the summer of 2023, financial status of citizens in their subjective understanding still had a serious impact on how the severity of the key contradictions in Russian society was perceived. However, we can now add worldview factors to the list of important determinants influencing attitudes towards them, such as: specific political views, attitudes towards the main power structures, primarily towards the President and the State Duma.","PeriodicalId":504830,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140370647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Towards a Sociological Understanding of Human Capital in a Fluid Society in a State of Crisis","authors":"Dmitry Popov, Daria Shestakova","doi":"10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.3","url":null,"abstract":"The importance of human capital and human development for understanding economics and social relations has repeatedly been proven since the time of Adam Smith. Theories on human capital and human development were conceptualized in their modern form in the USA in the 1960’s to 1980’s. However, in recent decades they have been seriously criticized in scientific literature, primarily due to issues pertaining to how they approach measurement. In this article a critical revision of the main approaches towards evaluating human capital in modern social sciences is conducted. New strategies for measuring human capital and human development include not only a “quantitative” indicator (number of years spent receiving formal education), but also an indicator showing the quality of acquired knowledge and skills. Such approaches provide a possibility to observe the improvement or degradation of human capital outside of conventional formal education, which allows perceiving human capital as embedded in the processes of local social, economic and historical development. This historical rootedness of human capital and human development seems to be of utmost importance for fluid societies in a state of crisis. The prospects for sociologization of the concepts of human capital and human development as well as the potential of life-course sociology for their analysis are discussed. It is suggested to view human capital through a cohort approach lens. The discussion outlines research strategies for studying human capital and human development within the proposed logic.","PeriodicalId":504830,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140369233","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Effects of Participating in International Mobility for Russian Scientists","authors":"Alena Nefedova, Ekaterina Dyachenko","doi":"10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.6","url":null,"abstract":"Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of borders, numerous measures have been taken to internationalize Russian science. In particular, publications in journals that are listed in international scientific citation databases have become a point of closer focus. Universities and scientific organizations began inviting foreign professors and sending their own staff and students abroad on international internships. After the start of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine in 2022, Russian science faced numerous sanctions that entailed a reduction in international cooperation. However Russian scientists have accumulated 30 years of experience in active participation in international cooperation and academic mobility. Nevertheless, there is still a significant lack of understanding of how this experience will impact the scientific careers of Russian scientists going forward. In this article, the authors present the results of a study dedicated to exploring this issue.\u0000The theoretical framework for the analysis is based on such a concept as “the Three Careers of an Academic” (organizational, cognitive, and community careers) proposed by German experts in sociology of science Johan Gläser and Grit Laudel. The empirical data used in the study include materials from in-depth interviews with young scientists under the age of 39, collected in 2020–2021 as part of a project known as “International Mobility of Russian Young Researchers”, as well as the results of a sociological survey of 7,255 highly productive scientists conducted under the “Monitoring of education markets and organizations” in 2022. All respondents had spent more than three months abroad. The study revealed that international mobility has a comprehensive impact, noticeable in all three components of a scientific career. Acquired knowledge and skills, as well as involvement in international projects contribute to the development of a researcher’s cognitive career, while new professional connections promote advancement in the international scientific community. As for the “organizational dimension” of a career, mobility does not have a direct influence on career advancement. However, mobility often leads to personal changes, particularly influencing one’s determination to switch jobs and seek better conditions. These assessments are presented for the first time and can be useful in developing recommendations for science and technology policies regarding the revision of mobility support programs in light of the new geopolitical reality.","PeriodicalId":504830,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140372374","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Searching for the Foundations of the Sociology of Suffering: Between Existential and Social Experience","authors":"Evgeniy Popov","doi":"10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.1","url":null,"abstract":"Sociology of suffering is a branch of sociological knowledge that has been activelydeveloping as of recently. There are certain difculties when it comes to conceptualizingthe problematic and object-subject feld of sociology of suffering. The aim of this articleis to analyze the specifcs pertaining to the search for the foundations of specializedsociology, to identify its theoretical and methodological orientation, to identify the key focal points of scientific discourse, and to touch on the history of its development. The search for the foundations of sociology of suffering is conducted not in the format of “fear- pain-suffering”. The article shows that it is through differentiating between two types of human experience that a more systematic understanding of the phenomenon of suffering is possible. At the same time, social experience is highlighted as a common cause, and the phenomenon of collective suffering is correlated with the alienation of individuals or their communities and groups from the common cause. The main conclusion of the article is that the search for the foundations of sociology of suffering should be conducted at the level of simultaneous assessment of the role of existential and social experience in the emergence and consolidation of suffering in human individual and collective existence. Solely putting emphasis on existence can steer sociology towards metaphysics or psychology. On the other hand, the systematization of only social experience within the framework of sociology of suffering can reduce social experience to that which is formally accumulated, and suffering itself to such that is “attributed” to communities and groups.","PeriodicalId":504830,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140371916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"In memory of B.M. Firsov (1929—2024). A Little Known Side of B.M. Firsov","authors":"B. Doktorov","doi":"10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.8","url":null,"abstract":"On the 18th of January we lost Boris Maksimovich Firsov (1929–2024), a scientist of exceptional magnitude and a person of extraordinary civic courage. He most certainly can be regarded as a man of different eras with rich and diverse life experience. Early on in his career he held high-ranking management positions, and he would later go on to conduct complex scientific and organizational operations in the field of sociology. His research covered various strata, states of mass consciousness, the history of sociology, and in more recent years — social history. Boris Firsov is responsible for establishing the Sociology institute of the RAS, he was the founder and first rector of the European University at St. Petersburg. He was frequently mentioned by his colleagues in their writing, and in the year 2021 a book by V. Vyzhutovich titled “Boris Firsov” came out as part of the “Life of remarkable people. Biography continues” book series. The author of this article had been a friend and colleague of Firsov for half a century, and as such is in a position to detail certain aspects about the life of Mr. Firsov and his scientific research that are not well known to the public. The article goes into B. Firsov’s involvement in the world of theater: his significant contribution to putting together a play called “Springtime at the LETI” [Leningrad Electro-Technical Institute] (1953) which was an early symbol of the political thaw; the script he wrote for a play called “The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar” (1969) that never got to be shown on television and was based on a novel by Yuri Tynyanov; him participating in a one-of-a-kind project known as “Sociology and theater” (1973–1989).","PeriodicalId":504830,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140371920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The New Sociology of Morality: Cognitive and Analytical Perspectives","authors":"Andrey Bykov","doi":"10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.2","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents analysis of the prospects for the development of the new sociology of morality in the context of ongoing efforts to institutionalize this area of research. In order to assess and generally classify the theoretical and empirical research that has been conducted as part of this project so far, as well as to determine the possible and potentially promising directions for its further evolution, the author identifies two complementary perspectives — cognitive and analytical sociology of morality. This distinction is proposed based on opposing views held by the authors of this research tradition concerning the extent to which the sociology of morality should incorporate the models of explanation and methods of studying morality from the (much more popular and influential) field of cognitive psychology. The article contains a brief general overview of several conceptual and empirical works that serve as examples of each of the two identified perspectives, and also explicates the differences between them based on three dimensions — theoretical, methodological, and axiological. In addition, the article discusses the key features and potential problems for the future development of cognitive and analytical perspectives in sociology of morality, while also identifying a few potential ways to overcome them. Thus, this work contributes to the ongoing development of the program to research the new sociology of morality by demonstrating crucial features and pointing out the key problems of the two identified perspectives, as well as revealing their potential in terms of deepening both sociological and interdisciplinary knowledge about the nature of human moral capacity.","PeriodicalId":504830,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140373017","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social Partnerships in Modern Russian Schools as a Tools for Creating a Rich Educational Environment and Overcoming Inequality","authors":"Maria Kozlova, Olga Simonova, Olga Madfes","doi":"10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19181/socjour.2024.30.1.7","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this article is to analyze the potential of social partnerships at schools when it comes to solving such problems as saturation of the educational environment and overcoming educational inequality. Schools are considered as a special environment that accumulates financial, cultural, and social resources. Post-Soviet schools adopting a course towards neo-managerialism would involve relative autonomy of schools and the stimulation of competition between them. As a result, the functions and forms of social partnerships at schools are undergoing transformation in comparison with the Soviet period. It is in the logic of neo-managerialism that social partnerships are presented as the primary means of overcoming educational inequality. The empirical foundation consisted of 88 interviews with employees of secondary educational institutions of the Perm Region. Analyzing the interviews allowed for explicating interpretations of the meanings and the evaluation of the effects of social partnerships at schools by the participants of the educational process. On this basis the possible risks of social partnerships are highlighted, such as: the risk of escalating educational inequality between schools and the intrusion of schools through partnerships into the sphere of state-unregulated experimentation. The disproportion is revealed in the breadth, diversity and sustainability of partnerships between “prestigious” schools and schools that do not rank particularly high. This is consistent with the general post-Soviet trend of differentiation of schools and, accordingly, varying degrees of success in developing a diverse educational environment, which leads to the risk of increasing educational inequality. The specific features of local, organizational and structural barriers that prevent schools from establishing social partnerships are analyzed.","PeriodicalId":504830,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140373104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Impact of Network Status Resources on Health: Moderation by Cultural","authors":"N. Rusinova, V. Safronov","doi":"10.19181/socjour.2023.29.4.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19181/socjour.2023.29.4.5","url":null,"abstract":"The article is devoted to such a problem as the impact of social relations on people’s health. One of the directions in researching this issue is linked to analyzing social capital — network resources available to an individual to solve everyday problems. The conceptual basis of the research is the theory of positional network capital by N. Lin, according to which being acquainted to persons with high professional status provides an individual with access to resources that are vital for one’s health and improves its condition. Previous studies conducted in certain countries in different parts of the world generally confirm this theoretical assumption, but it remains unclear why the impact of social capital varies across countries and whether this is due to contextual factors of their socio-economic development and cultural characteristics. To clarify these issues, survey data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) 2017 for 30 countries and information (statistical and aggregated) about the differences between them were used. The results of verifying the theoretical ideas about the dependence of state of health on the network resources available to an individual demonstrated that status resources really play an important role in contributing to preserving one’s health. It was also shown that the impact of status and social capital on health depends on the cultural context and is more clearly manifested when trust in other people is widespread in society.","PeriodicalId":504830,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139166839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Academic Job Satisfaction Research: Conceptual Framework for Russia","authors":"Olga Solodovnikova, Evgeniya Malkova","doi":"10.19181/socjour.2023.29.4.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19181/socjour.2023.29.4.3","url":null,"abstract":"Digital transformation, revising the principles of the Bologna system, new directions of academic contacts – this is not even the full list of challenges faced by Russian universities. University teachers have to respond to them, which might lead to increased stress levels and calls for more careful monitoring of the dynamics of overall job satisfaction in academia. Despite research on academic job satisfaction being available, its mutual verification is difficult, since there is no general theoretical and methodological framework for this kind of research, and the set of common indicators is not adapted to Russian realities. In addition, a serious problem when it comes to academic job satisfaction surveys is the administrative divide between whoever initiated the research and teaching staffers, who becomes an object of research with reduced agency. The authors of the article propose an approach based on experience in monitoring the teaching staff’s attitude towards current challenges, which would combine quantitative and qualitative survey methods and focus on universal job satisfaction domains at the university. Choosing relevant academic job satisfaction domains that comprehensively characterize the working conditions of a university teacher should be justified during a series of testing studies, and most importantly — an internal sociological discussion.","PeriodicalId":504830,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139166226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}