The article poses the problem of inadequate attention to objective determinants of people’s behavior in empirical sociological research. The material for generalizations and conclusions is only subjective information, objective determinants are considered in a limited scope. As a result, the situation that caused this or that behavior is ignored. To take into account in the empirical sociological research not only the phenomena of consciousness, but also the social context in which these phenomena manifest themselves, we need a methodology of situational analysis. We consider a number of concepts that allow us to describe the elements of the situation, the mechanism of interaction of the agents that compose it. Among them are I. Gofman’s theory of frames, the basic provisions of the activist paradigm in sociology (the theory of social formation of P. Sztompka), and the theory of the establishment of the rules if T. Barnes and E. Flem, that combines structural and activist approaches, the subject-object approach and some others. The analysis of these concepts allowed to create a model of situational analysis at an enterprise. One of its main elements is the context in which this or that problem arises that is a combination of natural (geographical), economic, political and cultural conditions. A situation in this model is regarded as a chain of events that include interaction and interrelation between actors; between these people and the environment, and the general meaning that the participants assign to the situation. The situation has event frames, episodes, temporal and social parameters. In addition, everyone who is comprised in it, interprets the situation based on their interests, the sphere of competence, the value attitude to the key event. These interpretations are an element of analysis and are referred to as the “definition of the situation”. This approach to the analysis of the social situation at the enterprise will make it possible to identify a set of significant objective and subjective parameters of the problem under study; to form a system of attributes and indicators that allow to compare the social processes evolution dynamics at the enterprise; to determine the conditions for the influence of many different factors on the situation development.

situation, context, definition of situation, subject, behavior, analysis of concepts

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