Article
Sociocultural Continuity in the Russian Family (an Experiment in Empirical Research)
In an analysis of research data on three generations of Russians, it was found that the impetus prompted by the social and economic transformation in the early 1990s that opened up opportunities for social and professional growth had been practically exhausted by late 2006, and the tendency toward downward social mobility has become more pronounced. This provides evidence that the social structure of today's Russia is "stagnant" and there are no positive shifts in its dynamics.
The principal result of this research is that the valuable skills have a negative and significant effect on alcohol abuse. We found that a higher professional level is consistent with a stronger negative relationship between earnings and alcohol-related behaviors and problems. The explanation of the result is proposed in that the pecuniary losses imposed on an individual by alcohol-related physical inability are positively conditioned by the valuable skills.
The modern concept of modernizing Russia somehow reproduce the history of the theory of innovation. The theory of innovation in its development has gone through a least 3 stages. In the first phase (1910 - first half of the 40s) to the forefront issues of understanding the nature of innovation and their role in the development of society over time (long, medium and short periods), the relationship of innovation and long cycles conditions. This period is associated with the names of J.A.Schumpeter, M.I.Tugan-Baranovsky and N.D. Kondratieff. The second stage in the development of innovation theory (second half 1940 - first half of the 1970s) is characterized by the increased role of macroeconomic analysis, in turn, he has at least two substages: the first of which was dominated by the ideas of neo-Keynesians, on the second-neoclassical. The third stage of development of the theory of innovation began in the mid-1970s and proldolzhaetsya to the present. It is characterized by an offensive alternative approach to macroeconomic theory. With a certain degree of conditionality is also possible to distinguish two substages. The first (second half of the 1970s - early 1990s) is characterized by the emergence of new ideas drawn from evolutionary theory, institutionalism (the theory of the firm) and management (innovation management). In the second substage (mid 90s) innovations studied by the methods of systems analysis. The authors are increasingly focused on issues of comparative studies: a comparative analysis of innovation policy in different countries, study the ways and means of forming an effective innovation systems. In the report it is critically considered not only the official point of view, but also M. Porter, K. Ketels work “Competitiveness at the Crossroads: Choosing the Future Direction of the Russian Economy”. Also «The forecast of innovative, technological and structural dynamics of Russian economy till 2030» and RAND Corporation report “The Global Technology Revolution 2020: Trends, Drivers, Barriers, and Social Implications” are analyzed. In this paper institutional preconditions and possibilities of application of the concept of social market economy in the 21st century Russia were analyzed. Basic elements of social market economy are personal liberty, social justice, and economic efficiency.
The article is focused upon business education students perceptions of career success and its determinants. Empirical base of research is formed by a survey of 222 business school students in the three Universities of Moscow, attending MBA, EMBA and DBA programs. The students are classified into five groups on the basis of their perceptions of success. These groups also differ by perceptions of success determinants, ethical principles and by motivation behind joining an MBA program.
Apart from the public sphere and the norms set by society, the private sphere plays an important role in the lives of the disabled, including the personal experience of disability at a micro level: in their families, everyday routines and romantic relationships. In this chapter, issues of family structure are considered using a narrative analysis of interviews with women who use wheelchairs. Various cultural, social, economic and political determinants effect the formation of certain types of family structure and attitudes towards family life. At the same time, they interrelate with biographical factors that reinforce or weaken the limits of freedom and private life. Using narrative analysis, I demonstrate what role family plays in constructing the identity of a person with a disability, and how family members act as coauthors of individual biographies. This can be seen in those dilemmas of family life associated with the feelings, sexuality and emotional stability at the micro-level of the life experience and identification of women with disabilities.
People are the focus of the third edition of the OECD Yearbook, which looks at some of the key challenges that have resulted from over five years of global economic turmoil. OECD experts are joined by leaders from government, business, labour, academia and civil society to examine pressing questions.
In this chapter we aim to examine the discourses created and reproduced through the interaction between single mothers and representatives of social services. The analysis is based on twenty-six interviews with single mothers and six interviews with social workers conducted in 2001–2003, and six interviews with single mothers and three with social workers conducted in 2006 in the Saratov region in Russia, as well as official documents and the publications of other researchers. In our interviews with mothers, we focused on the issues of familial well-being and interactions with social services, while social workers were asked to discuss their experiences with clients. A short overview of statistics and social policy terminology prefaces a discussion of how mother-headed families and state social policy interrelate and affect each other. The subsequent sections contain analysis of the interviews with single mothers who, as the heads of low-income households, interact with the social service system. The analysis demonstrates that single mothers are frustrated by inadequate assistance and the impossibility of improving their life situations. The discussion goes on to show that social workers, who are used to interpreting complex issues in the life situations of single mothers as individual psychological peculiarities, tend to blame the victim, thus ignoring important social conditions and imposing on women a responsibility for problems that are societal in origin.
Economic crisis started in 2008 forced companies in Russia to move from growth and expansion to reduction and restructuring. The article presents the main changes at top managers’ labor market from the beginning of crisis in Russia. The original data on top managers’ mobility in Russia from late 1999 till 2009 was used. The main result of the research is that there were no big changes in Russian top managers’ labor market during the crisis years (2008–2009). The most significant change was the increase of firm’s demand for specific human capital of top managers and the decrease of demand for general human capital.
Several approaches to the concept of fatherhood present in Western sociological tradition are analyzed and compared: biological determinism, social constructivism and biosocial theory. The problematics of fatherhood and men’s parental practices is marginalized in modern Russian social research devoted to family and this fact makes the traditional inequality in family relations, when the father’s role is considered secondary compared to that of mother, even stronger. However, in Western critical men’s studies several stages can be outlined: the development of “sex roles” paradigm (biological determinism), the emergence of the hegemonic masculinity concept, inter-disciplinary stage (biosocial theory). According to the approach of biological determinism, the role of a father is that of the patriarch, he continues the family line and serves as a model for his ascendants. Social constructivism looks into man’s functions in the family from the point of view of masculine pressure and establishing hegemony over a woman and children. Biosocial theory aims to unite the biological determinacy of fatherhood with social, cultural and personal context. It is shown that these approaches are directly connected with the level of the society development, marriage and family perceptions, the level of egality of gender order.