Social competency of the professional groups of water transport experts: constitualization of a sociological research

Annotation

water transport professional sociological

The article deals with theoretical and practical aspects of sociological research of the problems of the development of branch experts' social competency in modern societies, oriented to professionalization and optimization of using labour resources. Within general sociological and subdisciplinary sociological approaches, some tendencies of distinguishing the empirical and sociological methods of investigating social competence in the contexts of problem planes of the expert activity are analysed. Some directions and perspectives of the sociological analysis of a wide range of social, professional, social and psychological, pedagogical and educational factors of the personal social competence development are grounded.

Keywords: social competence, sociology of competence, quality of social interactions, professionalization social resources, water transport professional groups, methods of measuring social competency.

Putting the problem. The social development in the second half of the 20th century actualized the problem of competence, especially its social aspects for many scientific directions. The basis of approaches to the problems of professional formation of specialists, grounding on an extremely wide range of social contexts of the human development, is being created by theoretical investigations and practice. Today, the management of the systems of human resources of various branches traditionally bases itself upon “the frames of competences”, where competence is determined as “a combination of skills, knowledge and behaviour, caused to effective actions in working, in achieving individual employees' strategic aims and success”. Nevertheless, the investigations of socially significant aspects of professionalization in modern conditions ascertain a considerable lag of studying the groups of “sociotechnical professions” from the experts concerning the interaction in a collective body and social environment in general. At the same time, the problems, connected both with the revision of branch normative values and with serious incoordinations between norms and aims of certain culture, including professional one, and socially formed abilities of the members of a group to act according to them, are inherent in these categories. The overwhelming majority of works, dedicated to the category of social competence, mentions its meaningful importance as a resource of socialization and social development, however now the psychological and pedagogical discourse dominates. Since the sociological analysis of competences exceeds the limits of considering capacities and ability of separate individuals and always belongs to social aspects, a great drawback of modern social sciences should be considered lack of sociological theory, covering specific sociological areas, and elaborations of methods of empiric researching.

The aim of our work is a consideration of sociological approaches to studying the problem of the development of branch experts social competence in modern societies, oriented to professionalization and optimization of using labour resources and an argumentation of methods of measuring social competence of water transport experts.

1. Theoretical principles of the sociological investigation of social competence.

Modern concepts of social competence base themselves on the principles of H. Spencer's theory of “evolutionism”, according to which society is considered an integral system, consisting of interconnected and interdependent components, a common origin, and which through inheritance of the features, acquired in the process of adaptation of individuals to the environment, differentiate themselves. In sociology the notion of “the social” characterizes a totality of any qualities and peculiarities of social relations, integrated by an individual or communities in the process of joint activity (interaction) in concrete conditions, that is a result of integration of groups of individuals, social strata, communities with certain social communications and manifests itself in their attitude to one another, to their place in society, to phenomena and processes of public life. According to M. Weber, the social is orientation to another person, to a proper reaction. In accord with the definition of the sociological dictionary, the notion of “competence” characterizes fundamental abilities (knowledge, etc.), qualities, inherent in social actors, who are “qualified” participants (“members”) of social contexts (Collins, 1999, p. 317). In the vocabulary of institutions and scientific societies of the European Union the term “competence” (in the plural “competences”) is mainly used now (see: Social competence refers to personal), in US scientific texts there are both “competencies” and “competences”. With necessity of distinguishing within the category of “competence” subcategories, key, basic, general, cross-cultural, etc. “competences” are shown, sometimes the term of “competences” (i.e. the plural of “competency”) is used.

The mentioned above allows to state that the terms “competence” and “competency” are today in mass use of all spheres of man's activity (both in the social activity and in the technical one). Since the terms themselves have not a fixed amount of notions, the most customary should be considered the following definitions:

Competency is in fact on assessment/self-appraisal of actual/potential correspondences of various individual psychological qualities/virtues of personality to the demands/expectations of a certain specific sphere of human activity.

Competences/competencies are components of competency which considerably differ in many branches by the forms of manifestation and methods of appraisal.

In their investigation “Future Work Skills 2020” the experts of the Institute for the Future unconditionally give the first four positions of the 10 most important skills for success in the professional activity for the nearest time to the qualities which immediately touch socialization of an individual and the level of his individual social consciousness (properly, social competences), namely:

- understanding the senses of activity as a skill of the critically necessary for taking decisions;

- the development of social intellect as a factor of competitive advantage and building up successful cooperation and professional mutual relation of personality with others;

- the power of apprehension without limits and rules; adaptive mode of thinking as means of “situational adaptivity”;

- the ability of responding to unique and unexpected circumstances;

- the development of intercultural competency as an adaptive factor in the conditions of globalization as a motive power of innovations, realizing through the combination of individuals of different cultures, age, with different skills, style of working and thinking in professional teams (Future Work Skills, 2020).

W. Hutmacher gives the contents of five key competences, approved by the Council of Europe, where side by side with intercultural, multimedia, communicative competences and competence of selfdevelopment, the social competence takes one of the first positions (Hutmacher, 1997, p. 124-123). Mentioning that the theory of social competency is till now developing chiefly within individual scientific directions of the humanities in the conceptual channel, worked out by K. Rampus from the social and psychological point of view (Rampus, 1947), it is supposed that just competences/competencies determine or are the reason of the quality of doing duties; today most researchers are inclined to think that the problems of the competency approach is most tightly connected with the problems of sociology (Ksenofontova, Pekhova, 2014, p. 194-206). In spite of the fact that a subdiscipline, dedicated to the problems of competence, has not yet been distinguished up to date, with the development of sociological thought researchers fully worked up the components, constituting the structure of the notion of competency in the synthesis of sociological traditions of M. Weber and E. Durkheim, the theory of structural and functional analysis of T. Parsons and R. Merton, proving the institutional mechanism of subject's vital activity in the process of mastering the social system content on the whole and components of its structural elements. We also refer A. Schutz's phenomenological sociology and G.H. Mid's and H. Blumer's symbolic interactionism, P. Sorokin's fundamentals of the theory of social stratification and social mobility to the inquired concepts about grounding the sociological tradition in the consideration of social competency. The development of the mentioned approaches was accomplished within the theory of social systems as reproduced social practices in the works, written by E. Giddens, M. Archer, P. Burdier, D. Lockwood. N. Mowzelis, P. Shtompka and many others. The important place among theoretical conceptions, concentrated on solving the problem of social competency as potencies of an individual (a subject of an action) and social structure, belongs to E. Giddens's theory of structuration, that enables to describe an interaction of structures and social action, basing itself on the adequate explanation of mutual constituting influences of people/agents and society/social structure, as long as the actions of an individual are social. A. Garfinkel's ethnomethodology, E. Hofman's sociology of everyday life, the theory of communicative competency in interactions in U. Gabermas's concept are also very important for us.

Social and economic components and social and cultural constituents of meaningful filling the category of “social competency” are explained in N. Elias's socializational concept (Elias, 2004, p. 150156) concerning “mutual socially generated needs” of an individual and public formations being realized through education and socialization, and afterwards “they require a consideration of various connections of individuals and cause the formation of those special social configurations which generate common rules of behaviour which are, in their turn, actualized in exclusively specific kinds of social acts”.

Considerable changes in social standards of interaction both of exclusively anthropological, psychological and sociocultural and political origin (ethnocultural, mental, confessional, ideological, etc. character, as well as in moral and ethical aspects to a great extent activated scientific researches of social and psychological aspects of social competency within the theories of “social perception” (G. Bruner), “social thinking” (D. Mayer's, J. Godfrois), “social talent” (H. Alport), “social intellect” (M. Argyle, G. Gilford, E. Thorndike). The maim principles of the theory of social intellect, determining social intellect and social competency as a factor of forecasting interpersonal relations, achieving success and influence in the mutual relation (Thorndike, 1920, pp. 227-235) and as a system of knowledge of social reality and an individual, as a system of complicated social skills and practices of interaction, scenarios of behavior in typical social situations (Argyle, 1981) develop in modern interdisciplinary approaches to the problem of social competency.

Thus, the category of competency can meaningfully be characterized as a representative structure of “the processes of motivating to competency and combining the competence with the efficiency of its realization”. So, since the activity of individuals belongs both to subjective factors of influence and to standardized forms of implementing appropriate knowledge and skills, the study of social competency in branch institutional contexts, in which productiveness of activity is a certain side of competence, now consists in focusing social shades in sociological interpretation of economic competence as well as its instrumentalization in different social and theoretical contexts with taking into account points of view and interests of subjects of social interaction, so far as the latter ones “... in modern educational contexts and institutes ... are not usually reflected in a different way” (Knoblauch, 2010, pp. 237-255).

At the same time, the principle sociological directions of studying functional parameters of competency acquire a more precise scientific definition, displaying insufficiency of the consideration of the parameters of conformity/non-conformity to external social criteria and social and economic limitations, orienting the study of social competency within sociology of labour and professional groups towards the indices of successfulness and effectiveness of a subject in the contexts of competition factors (Pfadenhauer, 2010, pp. 149-172), which enables to include such components as “ability”, “readiness”, “responsibility” to its markers and to refer properly the quality of social interactions to the object of sociology of competence.

2. Sociological aspects of investigating social competency of professional groups

In the context of considering above-professional social connections, N. Luman's idea of situationality of forming results of social interaction, depending on the success of carrying out a communication, is important. Foreseeing in the “Theory of professions”, the fact that jurisdiction of some professions for certain fields of responsibility is legalized by corresponding professional knowledge and skills of solving concrete problems, N. Luman combines two meaning of the concept of competency concerning organizations, in which the notion of competency “performs two very different functions both in technical and in hierarchical senses” (Luman, 2006). On the one hand, the question is about abilities, first of all, cognitive and motivational, which are to a certain extent perceived both by their carrier (executor) and by a person who orders a certain task. On the other hand, it is mentioned that though just technical competencies of individuals, gained by them in the system of education, constitute a basis of the professional environment and organizational system, hierarchical competencies proper within the framework of professional branch structures certifies a social mission of this activity by inwardly erected and fixed positions from the very beginning. This aspect points out at the function of competency, connected with addressing demands in the social sphere of communication (see: “Society without confidence”, 2014, edited by E. Holovakha, N. Kostenko, S. Makeiev).

The factor of social competency is actualized in P. Bourdier's and F. Fukuyama's concepts of social confidence as a peculiar social world and field of the interactions of social agents, and in sociological interpretations of social aspects of T. Schultz's and H. Becker's theory of human capital. It is evident that the idea of the theory of human capital by T. Schultz, consisting in the fact that “acquiring knowledge and skills in the process of education cannot be considered as consumption, but it should be considered as investing ... in you yourself” (Schultz, 1961, pp. 1-11) proves not only economic component of sociological understanding the category of social competency in the structure of studying the interdependence of individuals. For our work P. Bourdier's statement concerning social functions of personality social competency as a variation factor of individual's rational behavior and implementing his own life strategies concerning “compensational” forms of recognition on the part of official institutes and its role of symbolic resource, with which the possibility of innovations and constructing new positions are connected, is important.

The consideration of the evolution of sociological approaches of various scientific schools and theoretical directions makes it possible for V. Pohribna to conclude that modern professionalization is “a social mechanism of differentiation and specialization that functions as a means of the development of labour content, where professional competency, ethical code, a mechanism of intraprofessional control, specific professional culture, etc. acquire great significance” (Pohribna, 2008, p. 192).

Today, competency aspects of social interaction as a factor of the formation and development of professional groups are in different ways an object of the analysis of sociology of a profession, sociology of labour as well as economic sociology (in the context of the analysis of labour market) (Social dynamics ..., edited by V.F. Mansurov, 2007). Substantiating the definitions of competences from the sociological point of view as socially demanded qualities, manifesting themselves through various communications and interaction or testifying about a social object of direction, Thomas Kurtz (Kurtz, 2010, pp. 7-25) distinguishes, in working out a concept of competency in sociology, three fundamental approaches: as forms of organizing some social knowledge, as forms of organizing communicative skills and as forms of counteracting ignorance, that is a feature of the integrative approach to social competency through the combination of considering social coordination interaction, identity and presentation. Th. Kurtz's systemic and theoretical approach to the problem of social competency expects a wide research of the process of professionalization of all labour activity spheres, since the professional group becomes a universal social institution, and the appliance to it becomes the main means of social identification. The social behavior of professionals in modern conditions comes out as an important factor of forming new models of professionalism, professional institutions and other elements of market order, and social competencies become an object of social constructing on the part of professional groups themselves, which demands understanding these processes and working out models of the analysis of the structure of social behavior strategies in professional groups and its approbation. That is why, both patterns of vertical mobility of professionals in the period of social transformations (Semenova, 2017, pp. 157-178) and the correlation of social and economic behavior of professional groups at the labour market are actively investigated, which enables to draw a conclusion about the attractiveness of working out a model of social and professional competency (Zimniia, 2008). In our opinion, just the sociological discourse of subject-subject interactions of individuals has to determine a complex of factors, requiring a sociological description as a practical effect of such interaction on the individual level, as well as an effect of appearing “social and competence relations” as a new subjective reality in the process of group interactions of individuals, that under certain conditions comes out as a form of finding a balance of social confidence by an individual, supplementing an institutional regulation of socializational aspects (Abramov, 2007, pp. 32-53).

The results of the analysis of scientific and methodical sources concerning the researched category of social competency, its meaningful filling, peculiarities of manifestation and use, value aspects give all reasons to assert that the key notions for its definition are “capacity”, “ability”, “readiness”, and also such features as successful coordination, solving problem situations in the process of interpersonality interaction, playing social roles, society, environment, direction to the development of social competency characteristic of a specialist provides for the efficiency of personality's reacting and his achieving real aims in a certain social context with using corresponding methods for this (Raven, 2002, p. 21). In the context of our task we will indicate that social competency, as a complex personality system characteristic, is a priori of social character and forms under the influence of society. Many experts reasonably think that the notion of “social competency” is inseparable from the notion of “professional competency”, since the formation of social competency of a grown-up personality is impossible without his formation as a professional specialist (Zimniia, 2008).

The investigation of social competency of last years, connecting in many factors the consideration of causes of socialization of an individual with the structure, content and specific character of the professional activity, enable us to confirm the significance of constitualization of the category of social competency as an object of a sociological subdiscripline for improving the system of knowledge about man as a subject of individual and group coordination with other groups and individuals for securing professional efficiency of this interrelation. The data of the fact that:

- not only the professional development proper, but also the professional branch appliance of an individual stipulate the structure, functions and peculiarities of a certain social competency,

- in the process of the specialist's professional development of the professional system “man-man” the process of gaining knowledge gives place to the processes of understanding, assessment and comprehension, behavior and communication, are important for such a research.

The category of “social competency” can be a marker of characteristics and ability of an individual to build up and support interpersonality relations both in stable collective bodies (a job, partners, a family, friends) and in wider situational and fragmentary dealings. The analysis of history of sociological theorization gives every reason to assert about the development of the tradition of conceptualizing the problem of social competency in U. Kanning's concept of “socially competent behavior”` where the “behavior of a person, who does his bit in a concrete situation for achieving his own purposes and at the same time social acceptability of personality's behavior remains”, is examined (Kanning, 2003). In accord with the above-analysed concepts, U. Kanning's model, connected with his structural model of social skills, where in addition to the perceptive and cognitive sphere of social competence the motivational and emotional sphere as well as the behavioural sphere are added, in studying the motivational and emotional sphere takes into consideration the influences of the indices of emotional stability, prosociality and value pluralism of personality and importance of these components for studying the behavioural sphere of personality through such personality's qualities as frankness, reliability, pliability of actions, communicative skills, self-control and behavior in a conflicted situation (Kanning, 2002, pp. 154-163). To our mind, it is important that, according to the revealed interdependences, every separate element of the model is functionally correlated by the individual's moral consciousness level on condition of taking into account other important phenomenological characteristics of a researched occurrence. As we can conclude, U. Kanning's model combines in itself the main complex parameters of our examined sociological approaches to the consideration of social competency of experts in the following positions of:

- the availability of personality self-appraisal and perception of another personality;

- perspective individual intentions;

- perceiving the need in controlling one's own actions and actions of other subjects of coordination, based on knowledge and responsibility for actions.

At the same time, the proposed distribution makes it possible to find out a certain autonomity of the distinguished positions of the perceptive and cognitive sphere, the motivational and emotional sphere for investigating.

3. Peculiarities of sociological research of social competency of the water transport professional groups

As we can conclude from the above-mentioned material, one of the most important characteristics of training a specialist in the field of water transport, like every social system, is its structure as a totality of stable connections between the components of an object of training which guarantee its integrity and identity of the process of professional self-realization. Since the personality within a professional stratum, who undergoes some social changes, is simultaneously both an object and a subject of social transformations, the position of man, forming as a professional in a complicated entanglement of social ties, can be analysed on the grounds of well-known sociological referents, which lay stress on man's perceiving the peculiarity of his social status and social consciousness during self-realization in professional surroundings.

Sociological delimitation of the subject field of researched problems assures heterogeneity of approaches and variety of spheres of water transport experts, especially the professions, directly connected with sea transport, certain problems of defining an object of sea sociology (Fields of Studies, 1973) and different foreshortenings of enlightening immediately the problems of “seafarers”, seafaring communities, peculiarities of surroundings, social problems of seafarers' employment, relations of production in the conditions of prolonged navigations, etc. In world literature the term of “marine sociology”, or “maritime sociology”, has recently acquired greater use and popularity, gaining an utter recognition and approval in sociological published works and apprehending by researchers side by side with such terms as “marine medicine” or “marine psychology”. Keeping to the approach integrity by means of distinguishing “sea themes” into subdisciplinary sociological science, despite all difficulties and methodological risks, connected with heterogeneity of investigated aspects of “seafarers”, certifies gradual distinguishing from a wide range of interdisciplinary investigations just a professional sea component of sociocultural character (Janiszewski, 1983, pp. 35-59). In any case the question is in separating the water transport specialists (seamen) from other social and professional categories of marine economy both by objective criteria of professional activity and by subjective (mental) characteristics (Janiszewski, 1971, pp. 123-147), that points out at the need of extending sociological researches of social communities, whose members work in these conditions (Matejko, 1964, pp. 61-124). In researchers' opinion, the reason of such a separation is a deep specific character of stability in social characteristics of professional strata and communities, orienting towards professional activity at sea, both of the mental factor of their social consciousness and of the formation of an integral pivot of this peculiar type of personality's sociality and sociological culture, that is historically produced by the specificity of upbringing and professionalization of the mentioned occupational group (Matejko, 1964, p. 36). To our mind, the knowledge, that develops, is given over and remains in social situations, also forms the specific character of such a selection; as a result, it becomes a basic reality for competencies of man, since in our case concerning a water transport expert, we deal with the analysis of social constructing the reality of “seafarers”, whose world is perceived as such that consists of a lot of realities, among which “sea” as a reality of everyday life and, in some sense - a basic factor of the professional “intersubjective world” that is shared with other people (Hliebova, 2016, pp. 9-19).

Grounding on the material, set forth in the first parts of our article, we have every reason to assume that strictly the development of social competencies, agreed upon the demands of the times, has also always been one of the motives of the fact that in sociology new subdisciplines were gradually separated, whose cognitive horizon was essentially restricted by investigating a cert5ain sector of social reality exclusively because of scientific requirements, making it possible to discover sociological qualitative characteristics and quantitative parameters of a watched object more and more exactly. At the same time, the specific social thing, that can in our case become an object of researching the water transport professional stratum and a sociological subdiscipline, appears in the process of people's coordination, which is usually determined by the differences of their place and role in concrete social relations that manifests itself in different treatment of individuals and groups of individuals to the phenomena and processes of social life. Therefore, in this case the task of sociological science in the procedure of finding out social competencies of a certain professional category (Cheetham and Chivers, 1998), from our point of view, lies, first and foremost, in their typologization, studying the connections of functions in the structure of typologized object's activity on the level of regularities, gaining a concrete piece of knowledge about the mechanisms of its functioning and a form of manifestation in professional coordination for purposeful managing them. Then, for understanding the investigated problems of social competency both from the structural and dynamical points of view we need some criteria for its distinguishing for a certain social and professional category in the light of the data in different divisions of sociology - sociology of upbringing, sociology of family, sociology of education, water transport sociology, sociology of social communities (territorial, social and professional categories), sociology of various social processes (e.g., integration or disintegration, labour migration, etc.).

In our previous works, concerned wide sociological contexts of researching peculiarities of professional subcultures (Hliebova, 2016, pp. 54-67) and conditions of the development of social competency (Hliebova, 2016, pp. 71-75), we mentioned that a definition of the subject compels us to consider the social object in the light of such quite unusual for home sociology categories as social “marine subculture”, properly purposing typology and generalization of wide social characteristics of a branch expert by means of “marine sociology”. The appointed factors enable to speak about a more detailed investigation of the formation and development of this “social subculture”, connected with navigation professions taking into consideration their long-rangeness and requirement at the world labour market for a long time. That is why, the research of “life world” of this stratum on the basis of “intentionality”, where the “intersubjective world” paradigm plays an important part and is described by means of the construct about “mutual prospects”, is methodologically important. The sociological theory, based on studying the structure of social action motives, forms and methods of everyday consciousness, the structure of human communication, social perception, rationality, etc., as it has done in the synthesis of sociological traditions, is methodologically close to this case. It pays particular attention to researching interconnections and principles of integration of many professional and social competence as elements of social consciousness. In this context we will remark that the majority of the authors of the educational processes investigations, studied by us, substantiates the necessity of meaningful filling the disciplines “Management of marine resources” and “Security of vital activity” with the social component of mastering professional competencies and competences in their integrity in order to use socially competency factors of forming future officers' leader qualities, professional and socially competency approach to the communication with the members of a crew in the conditions of keeping to the branch standards and procedures in coming to decisions (Istomina and Orlova, 2005; Shafran, 2008; Sherman, 2014, pp. 190-193), as well as forming personality significant individual professional characteristics in navigation conditions. A number of empirical investigations directly and indirectly testifies the need of researching social competency of commercial fleet specialists as a condition of successful professional, interpersonality, role interaction in a professional environment, the expansion of understanding a coordination specific character in professional groups in the conditions of isolated studying the factors which assist their development (Kahveci, 2002). Generalizing the above-mentioned material, we will indicate, that though the interest of experts in the problems of professional competency o water transport specialists has a long and rich traditions (Chigrin, 2011), still in many research aspects methodological non-structuralness and obscurity in the approaches to studying the factor of social competency itself against the background of general world-view and value directions of humanities educational programmes of modern technical educational institutions worry to death.

According to the materials of many investigations, commercial fleet specialists, taking into consideration the duration of cruises, the need in professional retraining, the communication with coastal departments, the administration of client companies, etc., besides the professional sphere of communication, anyhow are constantly included in the scientific and educational, social and everyday, administrative and labour, leisure, religious, public, scientific and sociocultural, mass amusing, family and other spheres of communication (Kilic, 2013, pp. 169-174).

Since social competency functionally acquires the features of the factor of forming a certain level and direction of relations - prevalence of solidarity or estrangement in some social groups, the resulting universal and invariant forms of manifestation can be considered:

- the level of consideration (an assessment of agreement, concordance and foresight of behaviour of individuals in the group interaction);

- the level of cooperation (an assessment of successfulness of individuals' teamwork for attaining a common object and creating useful values for functioning a group and the development of its each representatives);

- the level of subordination (an assessment of the efficiency of subjugation and subordination relations, taking place as a result of irregular access of people to knowledge, authority, information and other vital means).

That is why the problem of scientific accompaniment of the educational process demands both grounding the principles of using a certain totality of conceptual positions which form professional and normative, psychological and pedagogical, sociological bases of the development of social competency of water transport experts and taking into account the factors, stated in the previous investigations:

- social and psychological regularities of sailor's communicative activity in an international ship's company (contracts of short duration, intercultural coordination, aiming mentality at preventing risks (Istomina and Orlova, 2005);

- individual mental peculiarities (emotional intellect) of regulating behaviour and activity of subjects of professional practice;

- external factors of the efficiency of implementing an achieved level of social competency (a cross-cultural aspect, an international ship's company).

The data of deep interviews (Hliebova, 2016), taken by the author from representatives of marine professions (acting marine navigators-officers having international sailor's passports and working for a long time by profession in the commanding staff in foreign companies), make it possible to assure a number of motivational peculiarities of the inner world of this professional stratum respondents: inclination to active cognition of the surrounding world, inward mental participation in a certain culture of “seafarers”, they point out at psychological importance of following many home marine traditions, indicating generally a complete uncertainty concerning professional self-realization in this country now.

4. The author technique of measuring social competency of water transport experts

On the grounds of the results of the analysis of the above-mentioned interdisciplinary principles of forming social competency and considering social and psychological peculiarities of international ship's companies in a number of the author deep interviews (Hliebova, 2016), we have distinguished the following directions of researching social competency of future sailors in accordance with its structural components, singled out by us, namely:

- of the content and processual component together with its intercultural, strategic and cognitive aspects (cultural coordination, constructing a communication strategy, peculiarities of seaman's thinking);

- of the motivational and purpose-oriented component - striving for communication;

- of the moral and social component - following moral standards of behaviour.

In our investigation social competency is measured by means of the author questionnaire, consisting of items (questions) that reflect the structure elements of social competency and concerning them (in Laikert's scale, see Table 1) respondents estimate the extent of finding out the structural elements of social competency and extent of their (elements') professional importance. On the whole, in the measured structure of social competency there are 4 large units of elements: of communicative and interactive competency, of moral competency, of tolerance and of directiveness - subordinativeness.

The unit of elements of communicative and interactive competency (see Table 2) includes, in its turn, 4 groups of elements: social trend (1), offensiveness (assertiveness) (2), self-governing (3), reflexiveness (4). We are producing short definitions of groups of elements and elements themselves of communicative and interactive competency.

1. Social trend is a degree of personality's frankness for other people and positive orientations concerning them.

1.1. Prosociality is the ability of personality actively to stand up for other people, to help them, to be united and impartial with them.

1.2. Flexibility of perspective is the ability to be another man's place and to look at the surrounding world from his point of view.

1.3. Pluralism of values (general tolerance) is the ability to frankness and tolerance concerning orientations and thoughts of other people.

1.4. Readiness for compromises is the ability to strive for a balance of interests (search of a compromise) in a conflict situation.

1.5. Empathy is the ability to sympathize with other people, to understand their feelings.

1.6. The skill in listening is the ability to listen to an interlocutor attentively and to perceive information.

1.7. The skill in speaking is the ability to the effective verbal passing information.

2. Offensiveness (assertiveness) is the ability to manifest and actively implement one's own interests.

2.1. Offensiveness, impetuosity (the ability to realize one's own intentions) is the ability to assert one's interest successfully in social situations.

2.2. Readiness for conflicts is the ability to come into conflict (not to avoid it) and actively look for its solution.

2.3. Extroversion is the ability to make friends with other people and enter into social contacts.

2.4. Resolutiveness is the ability to venture quickly one of many variants of behaviour.

3. Self-governing is the ability of man to act pliantly and rationally, to take various roles deliberately.

3.1. Self-control is the ability to govern one's behaviour (oneself) rationally, including stress situations.

3.2. Emotional stability is the ability to be emotionally steady, to overcome aggression or social anxiety.

3.3. Pliability in actions (deeds) is the ability to act quickly and according to a situation if it is necessary.

3.4. Internality is the man's conviction that he is himself responsible for the events in his life and for the results of his behaviour.

4. Reflexiveness is the ability to analyse oneself and one's communication partner critically

4.1. Self-presentation is the ability to make a positive and desirable impression on the people around.

4.2. Self-perceiving is direct (immediate) attentiveness to oneself, the disposition to reflexiveness, perceiving oneself.

4.3. Perceiving one's own influence is indirect (accessory) attentiveness to oneself, the inclination to conscious accepting and perceiving one's own influence on the behaviour of other people.

4.4. Analytical perception of other people is the disposition to valuating other people by means of watching them.

The “differential tolerance” group of elements consists of racial, national, sexual and religious tolerances (see Table 3).

The “moral competency” group of elements includes the following components (see Table 4): integrity, authenticity, honesty, courage, loyalty to one's word, responsibility, humility-self-criticism containingness, justice, compassion, detachment to oneself, forgiveness for others. The “directiveness-subordinativeness” group of elements has only 2 elements: directiveness is the ability to carry out professional commanding power; subordinativeness is the ability to play subordinative (dependent) social and professional parts.

Table 1 How are the mentioned actions, deeds and qualities characteristic of you and how are they important for successful work in your profession?