2007. Vol. 8. No. 2

In order to understand systematically the meaning of the sociological text of Vilfredo Pareto it is necessary to have an idea of the peculiarities of economic stage of his scientific work and his research field. The paper deals with the impact of economic stage on the sociological papers of this scientist, particularly on the development of the theory of social equilibrium. The reasons for his transferring to political economy are also under paper analysis.   

The paper represents the author’s position on theoretical and practical research potential of the category “life style” in order to investigate consumers’ behavior. The starting point is the assumption about relative equivalence of culture understood as behavior technology and consumption considered under the context of behavioral practices. The application of actionist paradigm let us formulate the concept of life style which reflects real behavioral actions, fixes their diversity, takes into account institutional restrictions, describes the processes of intention development and finally puts an individual into actor responsible for his/her actions but not into lifeless robot that follows the external conditions without thinking. 

In this paper I analyze two main phenomena in American economy which are usually considered to be crucial for free market development: “shareholder value” conception of firm, and development of Silicon Valley as innovation source of computer industry. The goal is to show that these phenomena appeared not only due to the entrepreneurs’ activity but also due to the fact that they are embedded in social relations. In both cases the state played the key role in organizing special conditions to the entrepreneurs’ activity.

The goal of the paper is to disclose the peculiarities of female employment in contemporary female enterprises. How the expectations and ambitions of working class women contribute to the additional stability of the companies in the crisis female industries? The paper is based on the results of the project ISITO “Management and labour relations: management practices in contemporary Russian companies” (2002-2006)

Within the framework of the study on the assessment of industrial firms’ competitiveness in Russia we found out that the level of competitiveness is determined by different factors from those that were described by the managers. It was shown that sometimes the managers implement the strategies expecting the growth of competitiveness but this implementation does not lead to the real competitiveness growth what leads to the difference in objective and subjective assessment of firms’ competitiveness. The paper provides the discussion of the reasons for this difference on the basis of the analysis of factors and economic peculiarity of some industries.