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The concept of social responsibility in the context of business means that a firm/company operates to achieve its financial goals and, in addition, helps society. The idea is that businesses should combine profitable activities with activities that benefit society.

That is, a socially responsible company should not work exclusively for profit maximization, but should make decisions and perform actions that are acceptable from the point of view of society’s goals and values.

One of the most successful Ukrainian publishing houses is the “Old Lion Publishing House,” the social responsibility of which was discussed in this essay.

“Stary Lev Publishing House” is a name that combines a fairy tale and reality. The publishing house was founded by two people – Yuriy Chopyk and Maryana Savka in 2001. There was a question about the name of the publishing house. The words “Lion” were swirling around, because both the city of the Lion King and the king of beasts are the Lion. Yuriy Chopyk proposed a combination of the words “Old Lion”. Received mystical confirmation almost immediately. Maryana Savka worked in the periodicals department at the Scientific Library, named after V. Stefanyka. One day she was working on some old Lviv publication, and suddenly saw “The Tale of the Old Lion”. That’s how the name came about, and after it the legend about the Old Lion was immediately written, and then the fairy tale – the publisher, collector of fairy tales, who lives in the attic, on Rynok Square. The children, after reading the fairy tale in the collection “Tales of the Old Lion”, began to lead their parents around the Market, looking for the home of the Old Lion.

Stary Lev Publishing House is a Ukrainian publishing house founded on December 13, 2001 by Maryana Savka and Yury Chopyk in Lviv. The publishing house creates books for the whole family: cartoons, fairy tales, poems for children, stories for schoolchildren, teenage series, non-fiction for different ages, exquisite poetry, interesting novels, incredibly beautiful atlases and albums, and even anti-stress coloring pages.

If we consider a broad approach to the categories that characterize the social responsibility of the publishing house, they can be conventionally divided into several main ones:

1. Environment.

This field includes environmental aspects of production, covering pollution control during business operations, prevention or elimination of environmental damage resulting from processing and conservation of natural resources.

In 2017, “Old Lion Publishing House” published the “green” book “Save the Animals” by Patrick George. It has a “vegetarian-friendly” mark, which means that the publication is made without materials of animal origin. In my opinion, this is a project aimed at improving the current state of the environment. “Old Lion Publishing House” proves with its publication that it is possible to create high-quality and interesting goods using modern technologies.

The book was created in order to tell children about the right attitude towards animals. Flipping through the pages, children will learn about the life of various animals: in the wild or in captivity, for example, in a circus or zoo. But as soon as readers turn the transparent page, animals are released from captivity, and those that have been turned into clothes or accessories come to life. The book carries not only an entertaining and educational mission, but also instills in children a love for animals and an understanding of the importance of their protection in the modern, sometimes cruel world.

In addition, “Old Lion Publishing House” published an article about making paperback books with your own hands. To create such books, fabric, buttons, laces, and threads are used.

“Advantages of a soft book:

• it is much stronger than paper and cardboard;

• wash yourself;

• safe: the book can be chewed, pulled and crumpled;

• best suited for the development of tactile perception and fine motor skills;

• ecologically clean.”

Such books are safe for children, as they are less traumatic, and they are also made in compliance with environmental protection standards.

“Depending on the design and content, such books contribute to the development of imagination, speech, fine motor skills and sensory perception, enriching the baby’s vocabulary. A soft book will teach a child to distinguish colors, shapes, textures, objects, numbers, properties of materials.”

2. Honest business practice

This area concerns the company’s relations with special interest groups. In particular, it concerns the employment and improvement of the situation of minorities, women, representatives of groups with limited opportunities, as well as cooperation with human rights organizations.

In my opinion, the Ukrainian audience should be taught to treat people with disabilities with respect. This applies not only to the physical capabilities of the heroes, but also to their emotional and mental states. The range of “Old Lion Publishing House” includes inclusive literature: “Butterflies in ice shells” by Oksana Radushynska, “Lars. LOL” by Ibena Akerley, “Smart” by Kim Slater.

Also, “Old Lion Publishing House” published several editions in braille: “Grandpa Guram’s Tales” by Guram Petriashvili (2013), “Little Trolls and the Great Flood” and “The Wizard’s Hat” (2014) for the 100th anniversary of the birth of the writer Tove Jansson. “The Comet is Coming” (2016) by Tove Jansson on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the story’s publication.

On April 2, 2014, the publishing house joined the campaign “Lviv in Blue”, which was held in Lviv for the first time. The goal of the campaign is to change society’s attitude towards people with autism. At the same time, the publishing house organized its first “garage sale” to help public activists raise funds for a sports field for the Dovira boarding school, where children with special needs study. Book sales of the publishing house take place several times a year and are charitable events.

Ukraine has already begun to distribute and accept LGBT content. Old Lion Publishing House, as a publishing house that follows trends and adheres to socially important topics in its books, also publishes stories about queer representatives. Among them: “Her Body and Other Sides” by Carmen Maria Machado, “Middle of the World” by Andreas Steingofel, “Half-Wicked” by Sally Green.

In addition, the publishing house also did not ignore the history of national minorities. “Stary Lev Publishing House” reveals the authentic culture of the Crimean Tatars in its trilogy “Crimean Figs”.

“The anthology contains the best works submitted to the competition – in Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages, prose and poetry, originals and translations. The original works will allow you to touch the authentic Crimean Tatar culture, feel the Crimean nature, delve into the dark pages of the peninsula’s history, and understand the worldview of Crimeans and Crimeans today. In works in the Crimean Tatar language, a knowledgeable reader will notice the peculiarities of various dialects and styles.”

Therefore, “Old Lion Publishing House” produces publications with a wide range of topics that affect special interest groups. In this way, the publishing house creates new directions in book publishing and helps to understand how important it is to accept those who have differences.

3. Human resource.

This area deals with the impact of organizational activities on the people who make up the organization’s human resources. These measures cover hiring practices, training programs, salary levels, fringe benefits and bonus plans, promotion policies, job security, workforce stability, and termination procedures.

The publishing house, which started with two people, now has a team of more than 100 full-time employees and a whole network of outsourced translators, illustrators, editors, proofreaders and designers. These are the people who make every effort every day to create the best books for each and every one of you, for the whole family.

“One of my first steps in the publishing house was to create a promotion and marketing department. Now I am aware that working without marketing tools is groping blindly. You’ll never see your audience if you don’t work with them every day.” – Mykola Sheyko

The promotion department, the website and social networks, live meetings, working with people who influence public opinion, writer’s tours — it all works. But among the usual tools, the most important was and remains the selection of people. Thanks to the fact that the publishing house never tried to deceive its readers, it received in its team those people who are high-quality professionals. The publishing team decides a lot.

“No matter how brilliant you are, you will need a circle of people who will understand you, support you and believe in your cause as their own. Our employees see the publishing house as their business and cheer for it. We are building a structure in which each of them becomes the head of an independent division and makes most of the decisions independently.” – Maryana Savka

The main basis for the success of any team, not only the publishing team, is people, they are the capital. People who know how to work, who know how to communicate, who have a high level of professionalism and creativity and the ability to share this with others. A person works effectively when he shares the interests of the entire team, but at the same time works for his own perspective and personal satisfaction.

“My task is to communicate with the responsible editors, with the art director, to approve the editorial plan, to resolve difficult situations (which is one of the most important tasks). I try to properly regulate work and relationships within our large publishing family.” — Maryana Savka.

“The work of a responsible editor is very multifaceted, so every day is different and full of many processes. This is a deep immersion in the text: editing, collating edits, technical preparation of the book, and participation in general publishing meetings, processing manuscripts for the publishing plan, writing reports, monitoring novelties and trends in the literature market. This is daily work with a large number of people, coordination of cooperation with authors, translators, editors, proofreaders, designers, typesetters, artists. In one word, it is constant activity, involvement in the literary process and reading.” — Olga Gorba

These quotes show that it doesn’t matter what position you hold as long as you do your job at the highest level.

4. Community participation.

This area includes public activities related to health, education and the arts, as well as other activities that help unlock the potential of employees.

The publishing house takes an active part in the social life of the Lviv region and Ukraine as a whole, cooperates with libraries and public organizations. The social component has always been an integral part of the publishing house. Since 2014, Stary Lev annually organizes a “Garage Sale”, the profit from which is donated to charity. Also among the social projects of the publishing house are the support of rural libraries, cooperation with the “Tabletochki” fund, repair of the children’s room of education and recreation in the Lviv Regional Children’s Clinical Hospital Okhmatdyt.

5. Product.

This area deals with the quality aspects of products, such as their utility, durability, safety and ease of maintenance, as well as their impact on pollution. In addition, this includes customer satisfaction, truthfulness in advertising, completeness and clarity of labeling, and compliance with intellectual property rights.

Stary Lev Publishing House has always followed all these criteria.

The publishing house’s values are love and respect for its readers.

“We have been publishing books for the Ukrainian reader for 20 years. At first, these were mainly children’s editions, beautiful and meaningful. But then we realized that this was not enough, because adults also want aesthetic books. So, creating books for the whole family, we saw how important our shared journey with the reader is.”

This joint route is the mission of the publishing house. Together with readers and a community of professionals – authors, illustrators, translators, editors – the publishing house is constantly in motion, creating a new future in which people read and discuss iconic books. In a certain sense, publishing books means sharing one’s values with society. During this time, many people of new thinking, who created the future of the country and humanity, grew up on the books of the publishing house. The authors and artists of the publishing house have become famous throughout the world, and the publishing house sells rights to Ukrainian books in more than 30 countries. The publishing house wants readers to be at the center of the world’s literary life. The main task of the publishing house is to nurture a Ukrainian cultural product of the highest quality.

Therefore, the Lviv publishing house “Old Lev Publishing House” is an example of an enterprise with high social responsibility. It always cares about the environmental friendliness of its product. The publishing team creates publications with the best quality in terms of text, artistic design and production technology. The responsibility with which the workers of “Stary Lev Publishing House” work is confirmed not only by the words of the team itself, but also by the book products it produces.