Foreword

This paper presents proceedings of the conference “Socio-economic and psychological problems of management” conducted by the Department of State and Municipal Management of State budgetary educational establishment of higher professional education “Moscow State University of Psychology and Education” on April 23-25, in Povedniki center (Moscow region).

This paper presents proceedings of the conference “Socio-economic and psychological problems of management” conducted by the Department of State and Municipal Management of State budgetary educational establishment of higher professional education “Moscow State University of Psychology and Education” on April 23-25, in Povedniki center (Moscow region).

The conference addressed the analysis role of current managerial technologies and solving psychological problems in implementation of successful socio-economical development of Russia in new conditions defined by enhancement of globalization. Today’s world is a complex self-organizing system with a memory, self-teaching, self-regulation, states of which do not correspond to set up “boundary conditions”. Innovations here become the tool for development and achieving competency that in today’s world become complex, that technical innovations call for development of consumption and investment technologies, development of education and human personality, i.e. humanitarian technologies, including psychological aspects of their application.

Presented proceedings review several essential aspects of promising managerial technologies formation for new economy, including institutions of its development and buildup of efficient infrastructure of innovations. Role of political institutions of modern Russia is studied in depth in terms of solving political problems of state policy formation in the field of science and innovations. Meaning of internal control for enhancement of efficiency of state and municipal management as well as mastering and development of state-of-the-art techniques of running dialogue between the state and the society was considered. Analysis of young specialists labor market dynamics is an important indicator of innovation development processes, reflecting the issues of psychological interaction between the employer and employee in current Russian conditions.  

New managerial technologies should be competitive in conditions of global management formation and dynamics of societal coordination mechanisms. Rapid growth of complexity leads to growth of risks, growth of events connectivity and capabilities of efficient socio-economic development. Competition between territories for investment, expertise and better projects is currently taking shape. After several world crises the trend of growing meaning of global corporations is changed by a trend of growing role of territories (states, regions and cities) at the stage of competition aggravation.

Brand oriented towards the wealthiest part of the world population becomes a tool for attracting investment in conditions of global hyper-competition. Attracting investment assumes drawing up a megaproject or megaevent, multiplication of their number and scope this is a specific feature of XXI century. Toda’s economy – economy of cities – is based on circulation of images.

Self government with multiple centers of exercising power becomes an important link of new polyarchy-based management in these conditions. Ideology of municipal self-government development is simple, it means bringing centers of decision-making closer to population. This allows establishing efficient feedback accounting for cultural and psychological specifics of population, also it allows identification and utilization of its potential for the sake of rapid development of socio-economic system as well as correction of government model with respect to local problems and improvement of the quality of population life.

Development of municipal self-government is a necessary solution for reforming public authorities in Russia. Russia is doomed to step in the future, there is no traditional solutions from the past ensuring its sovereignty and decent place in the world. Alliance with other nations, also demanding enhancement of efficiency to the level of global leaders, for which Russia is a relevant and meaningful partner seems to be reasonable

The proceedings also highlight and substantiate essential role of development institutions (DI) in state impact on socio-economic processes aimed at ensuring their high performance. DI are established to support strategic investment projects (IP) having high social value, public efficiency but not attracting high interest of private sector. Development banks, development agencies, financial corporations, investment, venture capital and sovereign wealth funds, etc.  are referred to financial DI, while special economic zones, technopolises, technology clusters, business incubators, R&D innovation centers and so forth are referred to non-financial DI. Development institutions (development banks and corporations are the most popular forms of these) allow redistribution of public funds to ‘key segments’.  The study presents the most important of currently working in Russia and in the world 750 DI. Projects, funded by these institutions, are as a rule rather sizable, long-term and not very profitable. These projects are performed with less load on federal, regional and local budgets and often use mechanism of public-private partnership (PPP).

The study considers innovation infrastructure (II) from the viewpoint of integrated set of objects, conditions and factors including social, economic and psychological ones that contribute to nucleation, formation and effect of innovation processes, necessary for knowledge transfer to economic and social spheres, that allows enhancement of socio-economic development. Four stages of II formation are identified, that is definition of objectives, development of favorable investment climate, transfer to innovation economy and globalization of innovation territory, its integration into global innovation system. Role of efficient interaction of II bodies is underlined that calls for accounting for psychological attitudes of their managers, also emphasis is given to the role of interaction of innovation businesses and infrastructure supporting innovative entrepreneurship of the region.

Besides that conference proceedings dwell on substantiation of role and analysis of problem of formation of state policy in science and technology (SPST) in Russia. It is noted that several problems in efficient development of national research potential, making up SPST and building national innovation system, including psychological problems are defined not by socio-economic factors or technology weakness, but by drawbacks of Russian political system.

The nature, major approaches and priorities of SPST are associated with the way of its formation and approach (political, subjective of objective) to defining its priorities, that is analyzed in conference proceedings.

Within the political approach choice of priorities takes place in the course of political struggle between different parties and groups and depends on alignment of political forces, nature of relationships between it and the society, depth of interests conflict, specific features of political culture, etc., and the parliament becomes the main ‘site’ for matching interests of various political forces, influencing on party-to-party relations and the features of lobbying activities.

Role and approach to SPST development in Russia are analyzed as well as the role of civic organizations and movements in SPST development. Role of civic academies and ‘centers of public policy’ including ‘think tanks’ is emphasized.

Highlight is given to organizing of internal control procedures as a basis for making adaptive management system and enhancement of its efficiency. The study gives list of documents, regulating internal control at the level of constituent entities of the Federation and municipal entities both in terms of financial controls and non-financial, as well as requirements to it in practical accounting and administrative procedures (according to Federal Law 210 compliance to these procedures should be monitored).  It is noted that establishing these controls contributes to enhancement of management efficiency due to adequacy and reliability of information for making managerial decisions.

Proceedings of the conference review opportunities for overcoming the crisis of confidence to the system of state management on the part of public, and modern dialogue is proposed as a mechanism for this overcoming, where ontologic equality of subjects, mutual understanding as a common aim presuming correspondence of contexts, increment of meanings, generation of new knowledge and achieving the consent are characteristic for this type of dialogue.

Studies of enriched public opinion and crowd-sourcing are considered as the tools for arranging different kinds of dialogue. These tools allow bodies of public authorities to make more efficient managerial decisions taking into account opinions, requirements and proposals of population (of cities, regions and the country). Bases of crowd-sourcing are analyzed (assumption is that the group (crowd) has more knowledge than individual but the art is to make preconditions for implementation of this knowledge) taking as an example well-known international and Russian crowd-sourcing projects including Wikipedia. Crowd-sourcing enhances openness of work, transparency and accountability of state agency activities, makes preconditions for public initiative and major tools of feedback with active citizens who would like to contribute to development of the nation, region or the city.

Psychological aspects of management recently became rather urgent as the human being is the focus of today’s manager attention. This poses certain requirements to manager who largely uses parameters of fundamental interests of personnel as criteria of his activity efficiency. This approach is implemented in value-based model of organizational leadership allowing differentiation of internal motivation and value based parameters of leader behavior.

Discussion of identity factor impact on career building in managerial field also seems quite pertinent. Identity here includes such types as personal, ethnical, civic, gender, professional identity. Thus gender aspect of identity is most important in connection with democratization of modern entities and appearance of new management models.

Discussion of psychologist participation in organization development starting from definition of efficiency parameters having such marked psychological content as labor satisfaction and parameters of ‘superior-subordinate’ relation is also of interest.

Socio-psychological analysis of five models of knowledge management used in Russian organizations (knowledge management within the projects, virtual expert groups, competence centers, knowledge management via organization development and open innovations) is interesting in the context of organization development.

Discussion of psychological aspect of innovations is presented on one hand by analysis of psychological and economic mechanisms of innovation activities and on another hand by description of empirical study of personality features associated with performance of innovation activity.

Organizational approach was also manifested in the study of interrelation of the features of socio-psychological climate and corporate culture. Most impressing is that the most favorable climate is found in organizations with predominance of clan-type culture specific for our domestic organizations.

Studies of organizational conflicts and deviant behavior of personnel are well represented: a) role of emotional intelligence in conflicts resolution is demonstrated; b) concept of conflict-related structure of personality implemented both in diagnostic technique and in the model of conflict resolution culture formation is discussed; c) training program aimed at resolution organizational conflicts is proposed; d) proposals aimed at prevention of addictive types of behavior of employees are discussed.

Results of psychological studies of entrepreneurship and small business occupy an essential place in the proceedings. This covers such topics as individual psychological features necessary for decision making at various stages of small business life cycle, socio-psychological factors of responsible attitude of entrepreneurs to participants of business interaction, notions of Russian entrepreneurs about business partners and attitude to them accounting for regional and gender features, creation of electronic database ‘Social psychology of Russian entrepreneurship’.

Studies of individual psychology features determining professional activities of managers and employees: subject-related features of professional success, competences ensuring marketing of interrelations, social activity, personal identity and feel of social confidence are also included in proceedings. Technique for implicit diagnostics of personality values is of interest here, it is an urgent issue due to development of value-oriented approach in management.

Rapid changes in the life of our country determined by socio-economic and political factors concern all aspects of public life including the system of education and professional training. Urgency of research into processes transpiring in the field of managing education and professional training goes higher, as the society realizes that transfer to information society where knowledge is major social value leads to growth of highly intellectual personality, capable not only to perceive scientific knowledge developed before, but to systematize, analyze and create new as advanced information-processing technologies, services and products.

Authors of papers in the proceedings pay fair attention to comprehensive study of research tasks that bring the most interesting results in the field of management and the system of professional training.

Our authors address an urgent problem that is the problem of completeness of resolving problems of higher education arising in the process of its reform by Federal Law “About Education in Russian Federation”. Authors demonstrate that new contradictions and problems may arise in the course of the Law implementation. Our scientists note that current status of higher education and its problems is evidence to necessity to pursue consideration of the ways of Russian higher education development like in other public spheres being reformed. Authors proceed first of all from constitutional rights for higher education and its general value for society, expressed and implemented as consensus-based integral social control taking into account both individual and mass demand for higher education at the level of individual groups and strata of society, that is social control that equally includes both education components related to culture and to professional training. 

Authors also pay great attention to such psychological phenomenon as meaning of life values of students of management and professional managers. With regard to this authors present results of empirical studies of interrelation between professionalization and this phenomenon. The hypothesis is made that in the course of becoming professional manager the student changes his perception of environment and its values. Also major reasons of changing values when becoming professional manager are identified, such as family life, professional conditions, and personal qualities.

Role and place of business game in formation of communication competence of future managers and presented results of empiric studies in application of business game as a tool for growing up communication competence during the education process at studying psychology classes in economic departments and institutes are also of interest. The paper also demonstrates efficiency of this technique for making up communication competence of future managers.

The problem of demand for graduates of intermediate vocational and higher education establishments is rather pressing both in Moscow and in general labor market. Researchers in the field analyze data about the leaders of intermediate vocational education establishment  including such parameters as minimum score at Unified State Examination and education cost, investigate and compare parameters and number of vacancies, proposed by Moscow employers to graduates of intermediate vocational and higher education establishments who got the same profession.

Dynamics of labor market for young professionals is an important feature of innovation-oriented development.  Noteworthy that several authors present results of applied and theoretical studies of market analysis tools application to improvement of interaction between market of educational services and labor market. Researchers in the field present results of polling employers and students to find out the attitude of labor market representatives to higher educational establishments as centers of training highly skilled personnel for economy of Russia, describe approaches of market analysis tools application to drawing up proposal about providing educational service, that would maximum match the demand of university applicants both in qualitative parameters, the demand of future employer from the viewpoint of training graduate for his needs and the state demand.

Enactment of new Federal Law #273-FZ ‘About education in RF’ on December 29, 2012, that entered into force on September 1, 2013, makes urgent one more study dedicated to the problems of academic mobility. Clause 15 of this law describes network-based form of educational programs implementation that allows the students to train in educational program using resources of several entities that carry out educational activities, including foreign educational establishments, and (if necessary) using resources of other entities. Academic mobility in its turn is a kind of implementation of network-based training. Authors of this study analyze the notion of academic mobility, describe the status of academic mobility of higher education in Russian Federation and identify major barriers for development of academic mobility and network interaction of higher educational establishments with international educational organizations.

As a result of studies performed, authors find that currently in the field of education management and professional training we can discern the following major problems: formation of psychological culture and communication competence of manager, analysis of life meaning value of manager students and professional managers, demand for graduates of intermediate vocational and higher education establishments in the market labor, application of market analysis tools for improvement of education services and labor market, providing innovative development of regional economy with adequate personnel, status of academic mobility in Russian Federation.

Human capital becomes one of the most important factors in development of any modern state. Our authors underline that investment into human capital contribute to economic prosperity, decrease of unemployment and strengthening social bonds of society. Authors propose investment paradigm based on predominant investment into humans, aimed at development of innovative economy and present major provisions of study of social and cultural conditions of human capital accumulation in Russia. Such notions as social justice, social responsibility of business, and realization of themselves as ‘capital vehicle’ by employees are described. Development of employees labor quality evaluation system, personal contributions to efficiency of employer activity, enactment of respective regulations and further improvement of personnel certification system allow organization administration to strengthen responsibility, enhance state and labor discipline, enhance prestige of public service.

Talking about security management and management in emergency conditions authors do not only emphasize specific features of decision-making in conditions of emergency response,  they also make psychological assessment of personnel potential of various law enforcement agencies of Russia as well as special contingencies and settlements that influenced on demographic structure and industrialization of several regions of Russia.

So in proceedings of I (IV) International conference ‘Socio-economic and psychological problems of management’ you can find very interesting and diverse range of studies. It covers various research fields and specializations and presents papers by various universities and nations.

Broad theoretical approaches, creative approaches vividly demonstrate novel and exploratory nature of performed studies, plurality of approaches and aptitude to cooperation of complementing schools. This productive dialogue of scientists allows not only to find common points in analysis of management problems, and sometimes to develop common approaches in understanding these problems.

Naturally there is more socio-economic and psychological problems of management than this book considers, and we are going to perform continue investigation in the field as importance of management quality is undeniable for efficient socio-economic development of the country. This conference is just the beginning of this work, vital for Russia and opening new prospects of development based on research of profound layers of formation of social strata of current Russian society, including psychological ones. 

We hope that the reader will enjoy the papers presented below.

 

Vadim G. Belov

Svetlana V. Badmaeva

Alexander A. Grachev

Marina G. Kovtunovich