Situational approach to the training of competent management personnel on the basis of the training situation center

The paper presents a project for organizing training in a training situation center, developed on the basis of a situational approach. A dynamic model of such training is defined, consisting of two stages: the definition of the situation and the resolution of the situation. The strategies and tactics of training management personnel that best correspond to these stages are proposed. It is proved that the implementation of the first strategy, which is connected with the analysis of the developing situation of the interaction "managed system-environment" by students, requires sufficiency, ergonom-ics, variability of the conditions of the information and technological environment of the educational situation center, the use of problem – based learning methods and organiza-tional and activity games. The implementation of the second strategy, which consists in making a management decision, requires dialogic conditions for organizing students ' communication and presenting group decisions in the environment of the training situa-tion center, using the case method, discussion methods, brainstorming, and the project method.

Analytical Sociology and Symbolic Interactionism: Bridging the Intra-disciplinary Divide

The aim of the present article is to contribute to the development of the Desire-Belief-Opportunity-model from a symbolic interactionist perspective. The main argument is that this model needs to incorporate the classical notion of definition of the situation to be able to account for the formative impact of interaction on the formation of actor’s beliefs, as well as the complex interdependency between two of its key components, namely the beliefs and the action opportunities of the actor. It is argued that the theoretical advancement of the DBO-model in this particular direction is not only feasible but also brings it considerably closer to the analytical refinement and the empirical validation it currently lacks.

La etnometodología de Harold Garfinkel en el aula

Este ensayo parte de una experiencia disruptiva en un aula de bachillerato de un instituto español. En el transcurso de una clase ordinaria de filosofía, un incidente inesperado rompe la definición de la situación, haciendo añicos el consenso de trabajo entre los alumnos y el profesor. Para reconstruir su trasfondo de expectativas, los alumnos se ven forzados a emplear estrategias de acomodación y normalización. En el análisis de esta experiencia disruptiva convergen la fenomenología del mundo social de Alfred Schütz, la etnometodología de Harold Garfinkel y el interaccionismo simbólico de Erving Goffman.This essay starts from a disruptive experience in a Spanish high school classroom. In the course of an ordinary philosophy lesson, an unexpected incident breaks the definition of the situation, smashing the working consensus among students and teacher to smithereens. In order to rebuild their background expectancies, the pupils are forced to resort to accommodation and normalization strategies. The analysis of this disruptive experience is based upon the convergence of Alfred Schütz’s phenomenology of the social world, Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology, and Erving Goffman’s symbolic interactionism.

Meeting, Talk and Text: Policy and Politics in Practice

Our prevailing accounts of the policy process are challenged by studies of practice as well as by practitioners themselves. This paper sets out an alternative, grounded in politics and sociology and informed by recent work in related disciplines. Drawing on the foundational work of Arendt and Goffman, it begins in the essential dynamics of the gathering, the encounter and the meeting. It considers the extent to which each is realised in talk, and in the production and reproduction of texts. Policy and politics seek to establish and maintain a 'definition of the situation' and what might follow from it: the purpose of the paper is to match theoretical and empirical accounts of this process with the activity and experience of its practitioners.

Selling Intimacy

In this chapter, the authors examine how practices of secrecy inform emotion management and support-seeking behaviors. The findings suggest that concealment practices serve protective functions, contributing to the construction of distinct occupational and social identity roles, avoidance of dirty work stigma, and protection of clients’ definition of the situation. However, the authors also find that dirty workers tend to occupy a tensional space between revelation and concealment, especially when managing difficult emotions related to hidden identity roles. The analysis suggests that resources available for managing emotions are inextricably linked to interactional role performances, and dirty workers may violate secrecy norms to attain levels of intimacy and social support contingent upon shared knowledge of salient social roles.

How do collectives of amateurs handle complexity on financial markets while deciding?

This paper questions how investment clubs – as small groups of retail investors that pool their money – cope with issues of hyper-complexity and truth while deciding together where to invest their money. This may be challenging because investment-decisions are characterised by informational complexity, an unknown future and double contingency. By employing ethnographic data, this paper traces how investment clubs reach a collective decision despite hyper-complexity. It will be shown how the members of the group struggle to make sense of and to find a shared definition of a situation. During this process they try to reduce complexity by evaluating and deciding collectively. The ways the different groups achieve this is influenced by the group composition, their organisational structure and the interaction order. In some groups negotiations are an essential part of their meetings whereby complexity is initially cultivated. Negotiations are used to develop a shared definition of the situation. These groups question if the truth can be uncovered in financial markets. Other groups reduce complexity by using certain techniques to uncover the true value of a stock. These ways of coping with complexity are bound to certain ways of organising and types of members. Accordingly, successful evaluating and deciding, which means that decisions are made, is bound to several exclusions that are made legitimate by the inclusion in the financial market. In summary, the paper adds new insights to processes of decision making in situations that are characterised by complexity.

The Identity Labeling Problem and a Corresponding Solution

The present work introduces and mathematically formalizes the identity labeling problem - given an individual in a social situatio, can we predict what identity(ies) he or she will be labeled with by someone else (the “labeler”)? We argue that existing predictive models of identity labeling are theoretically incomplete and provide results from a survey-based stimuli that confirm this intuition. We then introduce a novel approach to the identity labeling problem, which we call Latent Cognitive Social Spaces (LCSS). We demonstrate that LCSS is a better predictor of identity labeling in survey data than previous models and discuss its theoretical implications for linking the definition of the situation to identity theories.