Socially responsible marketing in the context of industry 4.0: bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Socially responsible marketing is an important tool for promoting environmentally sustainable production through the implementation of "green" production processes, "green" supply chain management and "green" products, and requires companies to engage in appropriate decisions, actions and practices that simultaneously meet ethical, economic, legal and environmental challenges. The development of Industry 4.0 is a key priority, as it determines the exponential growth of productivity, efficient use of time and cost reduction. The study aims to analyse the relationships between social responsibility and Industry 4.0 using bibliometric analysis tools. A thorough study of the relationships between the concepts of social responsibility and Industry 4.0, the study of thematic orientation and authorship of publications, systematisation and structuring of scientific works according to the main directions of research was carried out using the VOSviewer 1.6.19.0 software, a tool with functions of intellectual text analysis that can be used for construction and visualisation of bibliometric networks. The analysis results showed a rapid increase in the interest of scientists and confirmed the importance of socially responsible marketing in the world's advanced countries. The study of the topic and content of scientific studies shows that today socially responsible marketing should be a component of the management system of a modern enterprise, which recognises the importance of environmental problems and builds a transparent relationship with its consumers. The analysis of the affiliation of scientists proved that they belong to China, the USA, and European countries to a large extent. A retrospective analysis of scientific research revealed three stages of the development of publishing activity: the development of corporate relations, analysis of the impact of enterprise activities on the environment, and digitalisation processes. The authors single out promising socially responsible marketing; research areas: green economy, corporate social responsibility, and carbon-free economy.