THE PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF BUSINESSES AND THEIR ADVERTISING ACTIVITY

Social responsibility of business entities has especially clearly manifested itself in the ongoing seven-year period of the global financial and economic crisis. Most governments have rejected the concept of neoliberalism, which makes it possible to identify socially irresponsible businesses in many areas. Particularly notorious activity has been characteristic of major US and EU banks. In pursuit of profit, they participated in the manipulation of interbank lending rates LIBOR and pan-European rates EURIBOR. Before the crisis, they had profited from social irresponsibility and paid huge bonuses to their supervisors, while their rescue from bankruptcy during the crisis was carried out at the expense of taxpayers in most countries. The purpose of this paper is theoretical generalization and development of scientific and methodical approaches to strengthening social responsibility of business entities and their promotional activities. The concept of social responsibility of business entities was justified to distinguish responsibility to their staff, customers and society as a whole. According to the author, social responsibility of enterprises reveals in providing staff with comfortable, safe working conditions and decent payment for labour in the development of social infrastructure, prevention of tax evasion and evasion of social charges, in ensuring adequate protection of the environment, and using socially responsible marketing (SRM). Active fight against tax evasion has been conducted within the EU. The crisis has forced European countries to fight the evil that was previously created by some of them. It is known that the largest offshore zones were created by European countries for their profit. The influence of the quality of the national economic system on the social responsibility of business entities was substantiated. Among the developed capitalist countries, overcoming the crisis has been most successful with countries practicing mixed economy models with a fairly high level of government regulation and social orientation, such as Australia, Sweden, Norway, England, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, Finland. China has made greatest progress in overcoming crisis. Of great importance is such a subsystem of the economic system as involvement of public authorities in the coordination and management of economic activity and social responsibility of business entities operating in the country (control mechanism). Socially responsible advertising and marketing as a whole play a major role in the system of social responsibility of business entities owned by. Examples of blatant social irresponsibility of marketing and advertising in the industrialized countries and in Ukraine are supplied. Especially great damage has been caused to society by some major US and EU banks, producers of beer and other alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, medicines, foodstuffs. A conclusion was drawn that the concept of socially responsible marketing, based only on the growing awareness of business owners and social initiatives can not be implemented on a large scale without effective state regulation. A definition of the SRM and its main criteria are given. In countries whose economies do not provide an adequate level of state regulation of social responsibility of business entities, the population is doomed to explanation by socially irresponsible businesses, moral and physical degradation and even extinction