Abstract: Social planning in industry was an important part of Kosygin economic reform in the second half of 1960s. Based on the case study of Moscow factories - Lenin Electric Machine Plant and Kuybyshev Electric Plant, as well as Moldavian Soroca “Electropribor” Plant, this article discusses the problems of research approaches to the study of complex social development plans in Soviet academic literature. During literature research on methods for motivating workers at Moscow “Serp i Molot” plant and AutoVAZ, the author analyzed the scholarly trends in the Post Soviet period. This research was conducted following the basic scientific principles of history – concrete historical approach and comparative historical analysis. Scientific novelty of the article can be explained as the following: in terms of comparative analysis of social planning literature within different time periods, we can define a transition from narrow research on models of industrial objects social development to restating this problem in a wider context of critical reexamination of traditional administrative decisions and actions taken by plants’ administrations to develop the social sphere.