Social management: impact or interaction?

Kremnyov Evgeny Vladimirovich ORCID: 0000-0001-5255-3772 PhD in Sociology Head of the Department of Sinology, Research Center for Transdisciplinary Regionology of Asia Pacific, Irkutsk State University; Associate Researcher of the Russian-Chinese Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Sociological Institute of RAS, a Branch of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences 664025, Russia, Irkutsk region, Irkutsk, Lenin str., 8, office 316 kremnyov2005@mail.ru

Introduction

Social management as a social phenomenon has become an object of study of socio-humanitarian sciences relatively recently. According to Yu.E. Volkov, this began to happen "as social systems began to take on an increasingly democratic and socially oriented character" ^[1]. The object of social management as a type of activity L. A. Krivonosova considers the quality of life of the population of the territorial community ^[2], which indicates the socially-oriented nature of this type of management.

Modern sociologists call E. Mayo one of the founders of the concept of social orientation of management ^[3], who presented the results of his research in the works "Democracy and Freedom: Essays on Social Logic" ^[4], "Irrational factor in society" ^[5], "Human problems of industrial civilization" ^[6] and "Social problems of Industrial civilizations" ^[7]. Gradually, within the framework of socio–humanitarian sciences, a new scientific direction is emerging – the science of social management, in other interpretations - the theory of social management.

Being a new concept, social management, especially in Western scientific literature, is often opposed to strategic management, since it acts as an alternative to technoburocratic and monological management; social management tends to participatory and dialogical forms in which the decision-making process is carried out by various social actors ^[8]. The question is often raised about what role the state can play in the system of social management while increasing the role of society itself in managing social processes ^[9]. It is often pointed out that there are significant difficulties in institutionalizing this research field due to its multidisciplinarity and multi-paradigm ^[10], as well as the fact that the entire field of management research is undergoing an ontological and epistemological crisis ^[11]. In this article, an attempt is made to systematically consider one of the components of this crisis: the transformation of the subject-object understanding of the social understanding of management to the “subject-subject”, which implies an increase in the role of society in management.

Theoretical and methodological approaches

The work is based on the concept of E. Mayo and his followers about the social orientation of management. In line with the system modeling approach, the basic elements of the social management system (subject/object), types of connections (vertical/horizontal), types of relationships (impact/interaction) are described through dichotomous relationships. On this theoretical and methodological basis, an attempt is made to identify strategies for combining various types of connections and relationships in the context of a growing demand of citizens to participate in social management.

Results and discussion

In the countries of the socialist camp, social management developed for some time in a Marxist way ^{[12, 13, 14]}. Post-Soviet theoretical approaches are beginning to develop an updated research paradigm based on the combination of Western and their own approaches. Dobryuk K. I., Dobryuk Ya. K. within the framework of the principle of continuity of scientific knowledge, several stages of the development of the science of social management are distinguished: pre-sociological (from ancient times until the emergence of sociology as a science in the 30-40s of the XIX century.); the development of the science of social management in the subject field of classical sociology (30-40s of the XIX-early XX centuries.); development of the theory and practice of production and production management (late XX-early XX centuries); the emergence and constitution of the sociology of management (20-50s of the XX century); the modern stage of development of the science of social management (2nd half of the XX century-present) ^[15].

In the modern Russian-language scientific discourse, social management is considered by approaches and methods of various sciences, but the object of research itself assumes a pronounced interdisciplinarity of approaches. Thus, the institutionality of social management is considered, in particular, from an economic and legal point of view ^[16], the issues of regional social management - on the basis of socio–political, socio-economic and regionological approaches ^{[17, 18]}, the problem of a complex paradigm of social management - at the intersection of philosophy, economics, political science and other sciences ^[19] etc .

In post–Soviet sociology, including under the influence of global trends, social management is considered within the framework of at least two multidirectional concepts, which can be divided according to the basic principle - from the point of view of subject-object relations:

1) the concept of vertical impact;

2) the concept of horizontal interaction;

In the first case, the concept of "vertical impact" can be distinguished as a traditional one, inheriting previous approaches to management: it presupposes the existence of such relations of the controlling and controlled subsystems, in which there is a directed impact "from top to bottom" ^{[20, 21]}.

It can be contrasted with a new concept of "horizontal interaction", in which the position is put forward that "in social management, the object simultaneously acts as its subject, since in both cases we are talking about people and the social organizations they make up" ^[22]. The latter of these concepts, in turn, substantiates "horizontality" through various phenomena of modern society. Such are, for example, self-organization and self-government inherent in society, the first as a result of self-reflection of social objects generates the second, as a result of which social management can be considered as "the process of creating conditions for self-organization and self-government of social subjects" ^[23].  Another phenomenon is ubiquitous informatization, which makes it possible to build a "global social management", carried out jointly and on the basis of a dialogue between everyone and everyone ^[24]. The influence of a new type of mass character on social management is also indicated, which is characterized as an increasing "community of humanity and cardinal changes taking place under the influence of mass social mobility, mass culture and mass communication" ^[25].

How resolvable is the contradiction between these two concepts? It should be noted that the most relevant trend is attempts to combine these concepts based on the external conditions in which the social management system operates. As a basic condition, the idea is accepted that the number of socially active citizens who want to take part in making important management decisions on a permanent basis increases within the society. These, first of all, include city residents who form their requests to the system on the basis of a high level of education, improving the quality of life, transparency of management processes due to their informatization. In this regard, management systems are looking for opportunities to increase the participation of citizens in social management, for which strategies are being developed for their inclusion, including with the involvement of scientists in the fields of sociology of management, management, political science and other industries. It is assumed that such strategies reduce social tension and contribute to the prevention of citizens' participation in illegal forms of social activity. However, the external conditions for the functioning of such new social management systems can be very different, which affects the form and content of these strategies. If we take as a basis two basic features (horizontal/vertical orientation and the influencing/interacting type of relations), we can choose at least three strategies that should be considered in conjunction with the basic external condition (the type of socio-political system of the state in which the social management system is being built):

1) horizontal-interacting strategies (liberal-democratic);

2) vertically interacting strategies (autocratic);

3) horizontally-acting (hybrid).

The fourth type - vertically influencing - we do not take into account, since it refers to traditional, administrative and coercive strategies and is not considered today as progressive or having real prospects, since it does not take into account the increasing demand of citizens to participate in management - this is exactly the request that the social management makes.

As for the strategies of the first type, horizontally interacting, its exhaustive definition can be found in D. H. S. Oliveira, who understands social management as a new area of managerial knowledge and practices, the key aspects of which are social participation and collective decision-making based on the principles of ethics and solidarity, oriented towards the social as a result and as a process ^[26]. It is obvious that such a strategy can be openly discussed only within the framework of a relatively structured system of liberal democratic norms.

The second type, vertically interacting, is the result of building a social management system in autocratic systems, where state bodies are the only decision-making actor, but at the same time they are aware of the citizens' request to participate in social management. An example of the implementation of such strategies is mainland China ^[27], where such a system is actively implemented through the distribution of powers between the “top” and “bottom” ^[28]: the higher the level of management, the more general powers the corresponding actor has ^[29]. In other words, party-state bodies develop the foundations of a political and economic course, regional leaders are responsible for the development of their territories, public organizations are engaged in the relevant spheres of social life, residents of urban communities determine the material, social and cultural conditions in which their community will exist, etc. ^[30] At the same time, higher authorities retain the right to final solutions ^[31], which makes this system vertically interacting.

The third type of horizontal-acting strategies assumes that a rough idea of the hierarchy of management does not give an idea of the real picture of social management, which is a vertical system only formally, but in fact management actors at all levels actively influence each other to achieve their own goals. In such approaches, the hierarchy is not displayed in the first place, but is only one of the elements.

In particular, N. L. Zakharov believes that "congruence of forms of management at the "lower" and "higher" levels ensures more successful (effective) development of social systems, their further complication and increase of their potential... the spread of priority management methods, as a rule, comes from the “bottom”, from the primary communities, evolutionarily transforming the “tops". An attempt to introduce priority management “from above” causes conservative resistance from the “grassroots”. In this case, the management coming from "above" turns out to be unable to integrate society as a whole" ^[32].

One of the methodological solutions to the problem of combining “horizontal” and “influencing” management characteristics can be seen in the work of I. V. Kalashnikova and K. V. Filippova, who propose to divide social management into a type of activity and a mechanism of influence. In this case, as a type of activity, it is a kind of "professional management activity aimed at harmonizing social processes in society, large and small social groups and aimed at achieving goals involving the coordination of joint actions", and as a mechanism of influence, it is "a set of technologies, management tools with which conscious, systematic, systematic and purposeful impact" ^[33].

Another approach to this problem is fixed in the work of E. Yu . Rusyaeva, who suggests considering the management of social systems not through the prism of “top/bottom” or “subject/object", but through taking into account factors of a “general/private" nature. She refers to such factors:

system-forming (basic, formed and fixed in the program);

goal-functional (indicating management goals and functions);

functional and structural (including functions and composition, organization structure, distribution of power in the management system);

behavioral (taking into account the psychological characteristics of individuals) ^[34].

These are the three types of basic strategies we have fixed for combining vertical and horizontal in social management.

Conclusion

Based on the system modeling approach, three types of key strategies for combining various types of connections and relationships in the social management system are identified: horizontally interacting strategies, vertically interacting and horizontally influencing. These strategies are largely tied to the socio-political systems that determine the formation of these strategies: the first arise and are implemented in the conditions of liberal democratic regimes, the second - autocratic, the third - hybrid. The effectiveness of each of the strategies can and should be evaluated within these specified conditions.

It seems that social management as a concept has a high viability in the foreseeable future, since it is aimed at satisfying the social demand for participation in managerial decision-making. Further research in this area can be aimed at identifying other factors in the formation of social management models, due not only to the socio-political system, but also, in particular, region-specific management practices.