Ukrainian Society

9-21

Authors: Grytsenko A. A.

The article shows that in the course of modern economic growth, the inequality between different groups of population is naturally increasing, which exacerbates social contradictions, creates the basis for occurrence of political and economic crises and creates threats for destabilization of the situation. This trend is aggravated by factors such as globalization, financialization and synergistic effects of their interaction. Essential importance is also the law of the labor value, which determines the dynamics of real wages. The growth of inequality generates the requirements of social justice in socio-economic development. This problem can be solved based on the application of architectonic laws that allow maintaining equilibrium, and therefore, sustainable and safe socio-economic development. There are three main groups of people distinguished by the link between their contribution to social production and income received, – author proposed to take into consideration these differences in taxation.

35-44

Authors: Kalynyak (Ben) O. T., Bryndzak O. I.

The growth of interest in gerontological issues in modern sociological studies is quite a natural process, due to actual trends in the world in general and in Ukraine, in particular. One of the important issues in this area is the peculiarities of social adaptation of the elderly in geriatric institutions, which became the subject of this scientific work. The paper is based on sociological phenomenology, in particular, on the concept of the human world of life, which was the theoretical and methodological basis of the study. This gave rise to the use of a quality methodology, according to which the source base consists of 16 interviews with the elderly in the three geriatric institutions – the Pidbuzsky boarding house, the Lviv boarding house, the Eskomectic House of the elderly (Ekumeniczny Dom Pomocy Społecznej Zgromadzenia Sióstr Służebnic NPM), which is located in Poland. The main ground for the social adaptation of the elderly are the preconditions that led people to these institutions. Authors outline the psychological, personal, socio-economic and physical preconditions for the entry of elderly people into geriatric homes that are related to the life of every respondent. In addition, these preconditions made it possible to determine the voluntary, forced or coercive methods of choosing a geriatric institution as a place of spending their lives in. The social adaptation of the nursing home inhabitants is determined by external and internal factors. The key external factors that can be considered are: living conditions, leisure, communication with other residents, nutrition. Among the internal factors, one should distinguish religiousness (spirituality) and significant interpersonal relationships (the presence of a close friend in the house). A comparison of Ukrainian and Polish experience suggests that an active form of social adaptation of elderly people is geriatric homes predominates in Poland, whereas in Ukraine it is rather an exception and almost completely displaced by the passive form of social adaptation.

59-69

Authors: Varha N. I.

The processes of institutionalization of informal practices are considered in this article. The spread of informal social practices is a natural response to the significant lag behind the development of legal institutions of state power. A number of hypotheses concerning the functioning of informal employment are considered. So, the functioning of informal practices are related to the backwardness of the country, with the economic periphery or with the shelter for those who can not legally work. Article deals with main scientific approaches to the study of the problems of transitive economy, it shows the current state of economic activity, its dynamics and characteristics of informal sector of economic activity from the viewpoint of the methodology of institutional analysis. Construction of the social space of Ukrainian society predetermines the institutionalization of new economic, political and cultural coordinates. Functional weakness of formal institutions creates favorable conditions for the intensification of informal institutionalization, which can sometimes undermine or limit the order of functioning of formal institutions. The article describes the process of institutionalization of informal practices that penetrates every single form of economic reality – this is a compromise of formal rules and social norms. That is to say, informal practices are rooted in the gap of the laws and unwritten norms of behavior. It is shown that the deeper the gap, the weaker is the mechanism of enforcement for obeying the law, since there are more abundant informal practices. Similarly, informal practices are not just rooted in the laws and social norms, but are being massive, inevitably lead to the “destruction of the supports”, namely inducing the conscious correction of laws and unintentional modification of social norms of society. Formal rules themselves are solely applied under the impact of informal practices. We have come to the conclusion that the Formal and Informal exist separately, while using the term “sector”. But as soon as we enter into a discussion about the bureaucratic and non-bureaucratic management, we notice the continuity of formal and informal orders. In the given article the vector of studies of the informal economy is shifting from the structural to the institutional direction.

84-98

Authors: Nagorniak K. M.

The article presents results of search for self-expression values behavioral indicators. The results were obtained during two pilot studies among experts and the first year students (Sociology major) of three universities (Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (KNU), National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” (NaUKMA), National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute” (KPI)). In order to measure “self-expression values” author has chosen six values that are grouped together on the motivational continuum of Schwartz’s values as the “Openness to Change” (self-direction – thought and action, stimulation) and “Self-Enhancement” (achievement, power-resources, power-dominance). The values of “openness to change” and “self-enhancement” are important for understanding youth’s mood, readiness for action, desire for change, success, decision-making, independence of thought, and expression of will. “Openness to change” and “self- enhancement”, not the passivity of youth and the lack of indifference, in the long run, have impact on the overall development of the country. Within the framework of two exploratory studies, the possible options of actions, which are the most striking expressions of the person’s described characteristics of having one of the six values, are collected to verify the connection between the value of self-expression and behavioral aspects. During the first pilot study, around 30 examples of behavioral indicators were collected, which served as empirical material for the development of questions. As a result, the developed questions were tested in the framework of the second study and revealed a significant link between the frequency of action and values: the manifestation of behavior expressed through the value of “Self-direction – Action” – to make decisions that would be contrary to the interests of others, forbidden or from which they would be discouraged by the surrounding persons and “Power – Dominance” – forcing someone to accept their position or agree with their opinion, even if others did not share it. The other four indicators do not have meaningful relationship with the frequency of reproducible behavior, but the study also allowed to collect the fan of answers that are examples of behavioral manifestations of a person: expression of their own opinion (position), which would be fundamentally different from the thoughts of others (the proposed manifestation of behavior, expressed through the value of “Self-direction – Thought”), having leisure (rest) (“Stimulation”), in order to be successful in professional lif, necessity to study something to develop own professional skills (“Achievements”), offering themselves as a leader/organizer of any activities/initiatives, associated with fundraising, income, etc (“Power resources”).

114-122

Authors: Shapoval Yu. I.

The main trends of modern banking are identified, such as simplification of payment transactions, the emergence of self-service tools (the provision of information services with the assistance of automated consultants based on the Big Data analytics and artificial intelligence), the growing popularity of P2P-crediting services, and the demand for banking in the spread of the Blockchain distributed ledger technology. The advantages and risks of smart contracts are noted. The essence, value and functions of cryptocurrencies as money are considered. The decentralization of the operation as a key feature of virtual currencies is defined. The attention is focused on the characteristics of the cryptocurrency, inherent to the financial pyramid and the speculative bubble. The criticism of the crypto-currency is analyzed. Uncertainty in the regulation of the cryptocurrency market has been established. It is noted that in many countries the legal status is still not defined or is changing. The history and principle of Bitcoin’s work as dominant among the majority of cryptocurrencies is reflected. The advantages and disadvantages of using cryptocurrencies are revealed. The state of development of Ukrainian FinTech and Bitcoin markets is generalized, in particular, the legal status of the cryptocurrencies.

133-144

Authors: Pushkar O. I., Kurbatova Yu. L.

The methodical approach to advancement of services based on the experience economy is proposed. It is proved that the competitive advantages in the services promotion has the university, the advertising of which causes emotions and creates experience. The methodical approach involves the implementation of four stages: the first stage – the study of the target audience characteristics; the second stage is the selection of tools for the information environment where the services promotion is carried out; the third stage – the choice of set of tools for services promotion in the information environment with the impression of experiences and budget formation; the fourth stage is the feedback analysis. The conducted empirical research made it possible to reveal features of the target audience, in particular aesthetics, spirituality; the average level of preparation in computer sciences; average IQ level. This was taken into account while developing recommendations for a university promotion plan. To substantiate the choice of social networks, research was conducted on the presence and communication of the first year students in social networks and through mobile applications. A content plan for the promotion of educational services in social networks was developed on the example of the university under study. The choice of set of tools for services promotion is justified by taking into account the four spheres of experience: education, entertainment, social significance, virtual reality based on the experience generalization of advanced domestic and foreign universities and authors’ own proposals. The aggregate of the promotion tools on the example of the university under study is divided into groups of online and offline environments. Special attention should be paid to the online environment, as it is the most popular and promising among the target audience. Making experiences when promoting services involves the use of as many areas of experience as possible, since this allows to achieve the best effect. Feedback analysis is carried out based on the processing of statistical data of analytical programs in social networks, conducting surveys, etc. The proposed methodological approach allows to promote educational services taking into account the emotional component of the content perception process by entrants. Based on the formation of experience and emotional response, advertising of high schools is perceived with great interest and the content is more likely to spread among the target audience.

168-177

Authors: Bondar T. V., Dmytruk D. A.

According to the results of a nationwide survey of Ukrainian’s population, the trends of public opinion regarding the financial status, the situation in the country as a whole, plans and sentiments on the New Year reception are presented.