SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE SYSTEM OF INNOVATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AGRACULTURAL BUSINESS

Abstract

The purpose of study is to identify of socially responsible and ethically appropriate relations between economic entities in the agricultural business. Despite having high risks, modern agricultural industry is a profitable sphere of business. The author deepens theoretical and methodological basis and tools for research of the notion of social responsibility, based on the statistical method. Subjects of socially responsible relations in the system of agricultural business have been classified: these are agricultural enterprises, their partners, employees, municipalities, local and central authorities. The ethics of the enterprises with their employees takes the most crucial place in the mechanisms of social responsibility. The main types of the relations are social responsibility of the business entities towards employees and that of employees towards an agricultural enterprise. The article makes a proposition that an important requirement for agricultural business to qualify as socially responsible is a just wage for its employees. The quantity and quality of the work done, level of education and the contribution of employees to an enterprise’s revenue are indicators of a wage amount. The research has provided a possibility to identify the contradictions in the formation of a just payment in the agricultural sector of economy, especially in the top management of the enterprises. Another object of the research were problems linked to organisation of secure work conditions of the employees in the agricultural sector of economy and the specifics of the corresponding business environment, which enabled the author to identify the role of employers in the mentioned process. The author provides an analysis of the relationships between the actors in the agricultural business which identifies their two main types (i.e. cooperation and competition) and researches the positive and negative aspects. The analysed factors of influence were split up into two different groups: the stimulating and demotivating ones. The role of a price in the mechanisms of socially responsible relations in the agricultural business is also closely examined. The influence of large agricultural companies on the development of socially responsible and ethical relations between entities of the agricultural business has also been identified. The author prove essentiality of holding companies in the agricultural branch to the securing of its efficiency and diverse potential opportunities to implement innovative developments, equipment and enter international markets with less costs. The system analysis uncovered some issues inside the actions of agricultural holding companies: unfair competition and yielding of superprofits by the means of exhausting overexploitation of infrastructure and natural resources available. The results studies have shown a connection between the specific weight of big holding companies in a region and the state of social infrastructure in there. The conclusion made on the basis of an analysis of two regions of Ukraine — the regions of L’viv and Kirovohrad . It is concluded that the catastrophic state of the existing social infrastructure in the Kirovohrad region is a consequence of the dominance of large and medium-sized agricultural companies there. Farming enterprises were qualified as the mostly socially responsible entities in the modern agricultural business. Keywords : social responsibility, salary, agroholdings, cooperation, competition, farms, agribusiness.