Social competency of water transport specialists: a phenomenological aspect

The article deals with some productive approaches to studying the development of social competency of water transport workers on the personality level in the process of continuous professional education and professional activity. It has been ascertained that social competency of water transport specialists is an important factor of forming some successful models of realizing professionalism, professional institutions and other elements of the market procedure, and social aspects in the structures of productive coordination become a social constructing object on the side of professional groups themselves, which requires understanding these processes and working out a model of analysis and construction of strategies of the development of professional groups social competency and its approval. On the basis of the sociological concept of social collective coordination, a connection of fixing the role personality self-identification in social practices in the contexts of influences of their realization technologies is established. Some principal factors of making influence on the development of social competency in the course of effective professional activity and the availability of society’s purposeful influence on personality by means of socio-cultural surroundings, in which personality continues and develops professionally and socially, determined. The results of research interviewing of acting sea transport experts are presented. Some sociological characteristics of social competency of water transport specialists are made more exact by means of the qualitative investigation of the factors of this expert group social coordination. According to the expert interview with sea transport specialists, four groups of basic competencies of a water transport specialist, connected with the efficiency of labour activities, are determined: professional training; disciplined state; command work skills; loyalty to an employer’s company. On the basis of the analysis of the received data, some structural components of the water transport specialist’s competency are distinguished; they are connected with attitude to administrative authorities, management or subordination; with tolerance; with moral aspects of the crew coordination actualizing the aspects of moral competency and mutual confidence; with communicative and interactive aspects of the crew cooperation. According to the data of the author’s research interviews, a connection of activation of the processes of the expert personality’s socio-professional self-identification with the social and professional surroundings and increasing the level of his social and value adaptation in the environment with the social competency level is established. The availability of steady features, reflecting the demands of water transport specialists to the sea profession, regardless of a speciality (moral maturity, sociability and comradeship, firmness to stresses, behaviour normativeness, courage, self-control, adequate self-apprisal) is discovered. The necessity of working up adaptive and communicative components of social competence in small professional groups in the conditions of the closed surroundings and development is proved.