“Patterns of corporate social responsibility of Ukrainian companies: clustering and improvement strategies for responsible activities”

The variability of companies stakeholders’ engagement forms, communication chan- nels, approaches to disclosure of companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) and strategies for CSR achievement cause the formation of benchmarks – patterns of responsible behavior of these companies. Determination of companies’ CSR patterns plays is a ground of (plays a role or is a ground of) improving their strategies for re- sponsible activities. These patterns were highlighted on the basis of comprehensive three-component indicator that illustrates the combination of parameters: models of companies’ communication with stakeholders, approaches to the disclosure of information on CSR and strategies for incorporating CSR and Sustainable Development Goals. Positioning of 22 Ukrainian companies for the period 2005–2017 was made. Results of positioning allowed to determine such clusters of the companies in accor- dance with the pattern of responsible behavior as А – innovators, B – leaders, C – pursuer, D – followers, E – starters, F – outsiders; to develop the measures on the improve- ment of their CSR activity.

But relevance of these studies and dimensions incorporation in Ukrainian companies' CSR activity is rather low because of low perception of sustainability ideology, CSR disclosure and SDGs wide spreading. This low level is the main obstacle for integrating CSR into business practice in Ukraine.
In this context, the aim of our study is to determine CSR patterns of companies and develop the of ways to improve them based on the abovementioned three dimensions -the choice of the most effective models of stakeholders' engagement and communicating with them, strategies for disclosing information on CSR, approaches to incorporating SDGs.
These patterns of companies' responsible behavior can be used as benchmark to understand the status and place of the company in competitive environment under sustainability conditions and improve their CSR strategies.
The study of these directions, based on the case of Ukrainian companies, requires special relevance due to the formation of corporate culture and CSR mechanisms of companies of different sectors of the economy (Bilan et al., 2019;Chortok et al., 2018), the lack of exemplary practices of interaction with stakeholders, building effective communications with them, low transparency of CSR of activity and insufficient progress in achieving the SDGs.
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Section 1 provides literature review and empirical evidence on companies' classification according to the degree of incorporation sustainability criteria into its activity. Section 2 provides characteristics of data used and research methodology design. Section 3 describes results obtained and final section contains some concluding remarks.

LITERATURE REVIEW
There is a clear understanding of CSR as a strategic direction of the company's activities and the instrument of stakeholder engagement in academia. Hancock (2001), Galbreath (2006), Lubin and Esty (2010) note that a company that ignores CSR negatively affects the well-being of its stakeholders, since CSR is a matter of strategy and a part of sustainability megatrend. Frooman (1997) emphasizes that the company has to take into account both the challenges of the CSR strategy implementation and search of practical means for implementation. Morsing and Schulz (2006) distinguish three fundamental models of communication with stakeholders on CSR (in ascending order of the degree of stakeholder engagement): model of stakeholder awareness, model of response to stakeholders and stakeholder engagement model. A similar approach by the levels of process of the stakehold-er engagement is also contained in AA 1000 SES standard. Along with this, the standard provides an indicative list of methods and channels of interaction with stakeholders in accordance with the engagement level (Accountability, 2015). Therefore, the number of companies' channels and methods of communication with stakeholders is so significant that it needs to be systematized to justify the most effective models of stakeholder engagement. Generalization of the company's channels of communication with stakeholders as one of the CSR activity dimensions is presented in Table 1.
The external presentation of the strategic orientations of companies on CSR in their reporting, prepared taking into account the information inquiries of the stakeholders on the achievement of the most meaningful SDGs by the company, are the second and third dimensions of companies' CSR activity. So, effective integration of SDGs and CSR into companies' activity and disclosure is a crucial point for companies' good positioning in competitive business environment. This statement is an object of discussion in studies by GRI (2013)  Many channels for communicating with stakeholders, methods and strategies for interacting with them against the background of a significant number of strategies to incorporate the SDGs to a company's activities under sustainability conditions and highlighting the progress in their achievement in CSR reporting create the necessity to form benchmarks -patterns of responsible behavior of companies -in order to understand the Multi-stakeholder forums, advisory panels, participatory decision-making process, consensus building processes, focus groups, online methods of interaction Collaboration strategy: two-way or multilateral communication -joint learning, joint activities and decision-making process Joint projects, joint events, partnerships, multi-stakeholder initiatives, online collaboration platforms 3rd level Integration of strategic engagement for company's sustainability Broadening capabilities -a new strategy for communication and accountability: decision-making is delegated to stakeholders; stakeholders determine the strategy and agenda of the company Integration of stakeholders into the management structure of the company, its business strategy and operational tactics status and place of the company in competitive environment under sustainability conditions and improve their CSR strategies.
A number of studies indicate different approaches to the companies' positioning according to the degree of incorporation of sustainability criteria into activity strategies and tools for the CSR strategy implementation. But these criteria and tools are puzzled in academia, as well as in professional accounting companies' researches.
Hancock (2001), Lubin and Esty (2010) defined such companies' CSR patterns as losers, defenders, dreamers, winners, only based on their respond to the challenges and megatrends of sustainability and SDGs.
Ernst and Young (2012) defined such companies' CSR patterns as non-reporting companies, middle pack companies, companies-differentiators by the degree of integration of the sustainability reporting strategy into the management structure. In further research, Ernst and Young (2016) describe companies -starters, companies in the middleof-the-pack, front-runners companies -by the degree of disclosure of information on CSR and sustainability challenges to stakeholders. Deloitte (2011) uses the sustainability maturity stage as a criterion for defining companies' followers, mature companies and companies' leaders.
In our study, we try to avoid sustainability criterion puzzling and integrate a number of relevant abovementioned parameters for Ukrainian companies' CSR patterns desceiption. Despite the low degree of dissemination of CSR in Ukraine compared to developed countries (see for details Sukhonos et al., 2018, p. 133; Sukhonos & Makarenko, 2017, p. 169), the Ukrainian companies have gained some experience in implementing responsible behavior strategies and disclosing information about it. But this experience is rather poor and clear CSR benchmark can be the trigger for better CSR perception and competitive business environment development. So, we try to take into account the models of companies' communication with stakeholders, approaches to the disclosure of information on CSR and strategies for incorporating CSR and SDGs to CSR patterns, determining and improving companies' responsible behavior.

DATA AND METHODOLOGY
To determine CSR patterns of companies as benchmarks to understand their status and place in competitive environment under sustainability and improve their CSR strategies, we use the following three dimensions for companies' positioning and clustering: 1) exploring a variety of communication models for stakeholders' engagement; 2) disclosing information by companies; 3) incorporating the SDGs in their work.
It was suggested to use these directions as the basis for the methods by the responsible behavior patterns. Period of the study covers 2005-2017, as it is available time interval during which the publication of CSR reports by 22 Ukrainian companies of various sectors of the economy (metal products, food and beverage products, financial and banking service, etc.) in various formats was carried out.
The study covers these 22 companies, 64 reports of which are published in the Sustainability Disclosure Database GRI and 18 reports on corporate sites for the entire study period (including 2017). An analysis of the publication activity of companies showed that 36% of companies of the total volume ceased to submit CSR reports during earlier periods -until 2014 (for example, PJSC Kyivstar -in 2012, PJSC Mondelez Ukraine -in 2013) and do not submit reports regularly. Taking into account this fact, the object of the study of the strategies of companies' responsible behavior are the latest reports published by each company.
As a methodology of conducting the study we propose to choose the laws of combinatories to determining each company' s position in a three-dimensional matrix with coordinates G ∈ {х; у; z}, which represents the level of incorporation of the specified parameters of the company's CSER activities and define the responsible behavior pattern.
These parameters were selected from year by CSER report of each company on the basis of content analysis tools. Searching the information in the published reports of each company was carried out according to the bilingual principle (Ukrainian and English) by the following key categories: • generic category: stakeholders (species categories -models, interaction channels, strategies, stakeholder engagement, interaction panels, reporting verification by stakeholders, participation in decision-making); • generic category: SDGs (species categoriesstrategies for incorporation of the SDGs, strategy of value formation by company, relevant SDGs progress in achievement of SDGs. Based on the results of the content analysis, we define such pattern parameters as models of their communication and stakeholders' engagement (parameter x), disclosure of CSR reporting (parameter y) and incorporation of the SDGs to the company's strategy (parameter z). Depending on the values of these three parameters, it was suggested to determine the company's position in a three-dimensional matrix with coordinates G ∈{х; у; z}, which take values from 1 to 3 in ascending order of the level of incorporation of the specified parameters of the company's activities (Appendix A). Each parameter of the indicator is determined by the following gradations in units: • parameter х (integrated engagement model -3; planned and systematic model -2; passive one-way model -1); • parameter у (strategies of inclusive disclosure -3; disclosure of the most significant inquiries -2; strategy of minimum information disclosure -1); • parameter z (integration into the strategy of value formation -3; implementation of relevant SDGs -2; incorporating the overall context of sustainability -1).
The According to the values of the indicator G in a three-dimensional matrix, it is possible to cluster companies according to the decreasing principle: from A to F, which represent patterns of companies' responsible behavior.

RESULTS
The positioning of companies according to the values of the indicator G in a three-dimensional matrix allows to cluster them according to the decreasing principle, where A -companies that are characterized by the maximum value of the indicator; F -companies that are characterized by the minimum value of the indicator. As can be seen from Appendix A, there is a context of sustainability and information is disclosed on all dimensions and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria (81.8% of the analyzed companies) in the reports of most companies. In addition, 59.1% of companies' reports are formed taking into account the information inquiries of their stakeholders with different levels of significance. At the same time, only 18% of the reports of the studied companies are characterized by the availability of verification (by internal or external auditors, stakeholders).
Regarding the obtained values of the parameter x, it should be noted that 72% of studied companies use the two-way dialogue strategy (both asymmetric and proactive types) during the process of cooperation with stakeholders. According to the parameter у, half (50%) of the companies disclose the most significant inquiries of stakeholders in their reports, without taking into account the integrated format of information presentation.
Only companies of A and B clusters are characterized by integrated information disclosure taking into account value formation strategies at different horizons, specifications of the most relevant SDGs in their activities and the results of interaction with stakeholders.
By parameter z, most of the companies declare the compliance of their activities with 10 principles of the United Nations Global Compact and are its signatories. However, the incorporation of the SDGs into the strategy of value formation by companies (parameter z) is least estimated among other parameters, and the implementation strategies of the SDGs themselves have not become a part of their current activities.
The exceptions are "company -leaders" and "innovators". The qualitative characteristic of the clusters in accordance with the studied parameters are disclosed in Appendix B.
A qualitative assessment of the parameters of the three-component indicator allowed to develop a map of measures for comprehensive improvement of the strategies of responsible behavior of companies based on incorporation of the SDGs, stakeholders' engagement and communication with them for each of the patterns ( Table 2).
Such approach allows the following: at company level -to understand their capabilities, risks, status at the benchmark level, necessary efforts to move  The analysis of these patterns allowed developing a map of measures for the comprehensive improvement of the strategies of companies' responsible behavior based on incorporation of the SDGs, stakeholders' engagement and communication with them for each of the patterns.
The practical significance of the obtained results can be differentiated at the company's level -it allows to determine the risks and opportunities in the field of CSR activities; at the stakeholders' level -to get a tool for analyzing CSR of companies and the effectiveness of communication with them.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Comments from the Editor and anonymous referees have been gratefully acknowledged. Inna Makarenko gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine "Corporate social and environmental responsibility for sustainable development: stakeholders partnership in the real, financial and public sectors of the economy" (0117U003933).