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The impacts of climate change are unevenly distributed across territories. Less is known about the potential effects of climate policies aimed at mitigating the negative consequences of climate change while transitioning economies towards low-carbon standards. This paper presents an analytical framework for identifying and assessing the regional impacts of the green transition. We develop a Regional Green Transition Vulnerability Index, a composite measure of the regional vulnerability of European regions to the socio-economic reconfigurations prompted by the green transition. The index brings to light strong regional variations in vulnerability, with less developed, peri-urban and rural regions in Southern and Eastern Europe more exposed to the foreseeable changes brought about by the green transition. We also draw attention to the potential rise of pockets of growing 'green' discontent, especially if the green transition contributes, as is likely to be the case, to leaving already left-behind regions further behind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the issue of income inequality has ascended to the forefront of national and international agendas, underscored by the urgency to navigate the complexities of market-driven economies without exacerbating social disparities. These challenges are particularly pronounced in the post-communist nations of Central and Eastern Europe, where the transition legacy and the marketization forces present unique dynamics in the evolution of income disparities. This research investigates the intricate mechanisms through which marketization impacts income inequality within the Central and Eastern European countries context, aiming to uncover how economic transformations influenced by global sustainability goals can contribute to narrowing the income gap. By employing panel data estimation techniques and Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) analysis, this study highlights the enduring nature of income disparities and the critical roles played by economic growth, education investment, labor market reforms, globalization, and governance quality in shaping equitable income distributions. Findings reveal that, despite the competitive nature of market economies potentially creating disparities, strategic policy interventions in education, economic policy, and labor market regulations can mitigate the adverse effects of marketization on income inequality. Additionally, this research emphasizes the importance of strong institutional frameworks and the nuanced role of the informal economy in influencing income distribution dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The objective of the article is to assess the firms' digital maturity and examine how the adoption of Industry 4.0 solutions affects global value chain (GVC) relationships. Research Design & Methods: The study combined a critical literature review with quantitative empirical research. We collected the primary data during computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) among 400 industrial manufacturing firms in Poland. Findings: The study demonstrates that I4.0 technologies adoption modifies the awareness of partners' progress in digital transformation, affects integration among partners, and leads to changes in GVCs' diversification, geographic scope, and governance. Thanks to the study on the digital maturity of firms from a posttransition country, we demonstrated that I4.0 still requires conceptual development and that the emerging theory of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is interdependent with the theory of GVCs. Implications & Recommendations: We focused on the disruption caused by the advancement of digital transformation in companies that operate in a constellation of relationships and are interdependent in the same GVC. The study recognizes the relationships within the GVC as channels of transmission of challenges, risks, and opportunities that emerge from the disruption. We referred to the case of a post-transition, post-communist country in Central and Eastern Europe under digital transformation, which is highly specific yet offers valuable findings transferable to other economies on the eve of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Contribution & Value Added: The novelty of the study lies in the integration of research on digital technology adoption as diagnosed among manufacturing companies in a post-transition country with the inquiry regarding their participation and role in GVCs. Thanks to this approach, we identified how firms' digital maturity reshapes their buyer-supplier relations and, thus, their position in value chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1990s, the industrial relations systems in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe have been undergoing complex transformation processes. As the business environment has radically altered from a centrally planned system to an open competitive one, trade unions in the region have struggled to carve out a role in the new order. We draw upon organizational survey level evidence gathered from 1604 HR managers to examine trade union recognition, trade union coverage, as well as the perceived ongoing influence of the trade union movement in Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Our analysis points to the legitimacy challenges faced by the labour union movement in the dramatically altered political and economic situation that emerged in the region as a result of the attenuation of socialism and the advent of a new market order. It also lends further support to the growing body of evidence on the lack of preparedness of the union movement for the new dispensation that emerged following the collapse of communism in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Polish Journal of Management Studies is the property of Czestochowa University of Technology, Faculty of Management and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The former communist states experienced a period of turbulence in the transition to the market economy and then the accession to the EU, turbulences that also influenced the education sector. This article aims to analyze the impact of public spending on education on economic growth in 11 former communist Eastern European states, current EU members. The methodology used is ARDL with structural break. The results are consistent with those previously obtained The public education expenditure-economic growth relationship is mixed on long term; for five countries, there is no such thing; for six countries, there is one on a long term. On a short term, also, mixed results manifest for four countries are positive, and for two negative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years the question of labour productivity has gained new relevance as a result of digitalization and economic crises, and their effects on the transformation of distributive trade business. The purpose of this study is to make a comparative analysis of labour productivity in the wholesale and retail trade in Bulgaria and ten countries of Central and Eastern Europe that have made the transition to a market economy and to bring out the trends and reasons for the labour productivity gap. The analysis is descriptive and mainly uses the outpace ratio to measure the productivity gap between Bulgaria and each of the countries through a comparison of two main indicators: turnover and gross margin per person employed. The data from Eurostat are used with a focus on the period between the two economic crises in 2008 and 2020-2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how research on women's entrepreneurship conducted in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) constructs and positions women entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship was illegal under the socialist regimes that governed this area and only began to develop after independence was obtained in the early 1990s. Consequently, research on entrepreneurship, including women's entrepreneurship, is somewhat new to the region. Our discourse analysis of existing research in this area reveals that, despite different historical pathways towards entrepreneurship, normative premises that exist in Western studies on women's entrepreneurship also prevail in scholarship produced in CEE. These normative premises impose dominant constructs and methodologies on entrepreneurship policy and the scholarly community. The discourse analysis identified five positioning constructs of women entrepreneurs, all of which stem from the assumption that women are (essentially) inadequately equipped for entrepreneurship. We discuss the discursive practices that produce these results and suggest ways forward for research on women's entrepreneurship in CEE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a sample of nonfinancial domestic firms in transition economies from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, we examine whether and how inter‐industry spillover from foreign direct investment in the banking sector occurs. Our findings show that the innovation pursued by domestic firms benefits from foreign bank penetration. However, these positive inter‐industry spillovers surprisingly do not seem to work through enhanced credit access. We further find these positive spillovers to occur mainly for foreign banks that use relationship lending, domestic firms that do not export, and host countries that are less open to the global market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past three decades, economic transformations in Eastern Europe and Russia have substantially affected the use of management technologies. More and more businesses prioritize sustaining growth and development in the long run instead of maximizing profits in the short term. The shift in the business paradigm requires the implementation of new management tools along with the improvement of management accounting. Through the example of seven Russian boiler manufacturers, this study examines the main reasons for the transition to process-based management. The study identifies patterns of using management accounting tools in process-based management by employing the literature analysis, conducting an expert survey, and studying the accounting documents of selected companies. The authors analyze features of management accounting tools at different stages of implementation of the process-based management system, in enterprises with different life cycles and different sizes. A total of 53 employees were surveyed, which included senior managers, accountants, and middle-level managers. It is found that the main reason for the transition to process-based management is a shift in the focus of managers' attention from cutting costs to creating value. By adding new features of business process classification, developing new classification groups, and proposing the optimal structure of the core, auxiliary, and controlling business processes, this study contributes to the optimization of management accounting when organizational change requires implementing process-based management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the economic development in transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Statistical analysis is applied to investigate the relationship between FDI indicators and some explanatory variables. Findings show that FDI stock and especially labour productivity significantly stimulate exports. Moreover, the ratio of FDI stock to GDP is found to be the most powerful driver of employment. Outcomes depend however on FDI policies. Therefore, policy-makers need to carefully consider the side effects of the measures they design, to avoid negative effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: Although female clients are the main target of most Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), male–female workforce ratio in microfinance operations is not proportionate. There is a consensus that a greater female presence in the workforce at all hierarchical levels could enhance the financial performance of MFIs thanks to women's tougher commitments and better managing capacity. Purpose: There is scarce research investigating which hierarchical levels of female workforce contribute to MFIs' financial performance. This study aims at filling this gap by jointly analysing the effect of female participation at all hierarchical levels of MFIs, which is relatively rare in the existing literature, especially in microfinance. Methods and approach: We use data from 172 MFIs in Eastern Europe and Central Asian countries (EECA) for the period 1996–2014. The data were then analysed by ordinary least squares, fixed, and random effects models, along with several diagnostic tests. Findings We find that female board members and female clients contribute positively to the financial performance of MFIs. The literature presents these outcomes as being due to women's' better organizational and monitoring techniques, and more responsible use of loans, respectively. However, our analysis shows that female managers and loan officers may impair financial performance to some extent, possibly because they face cultural limitations and safety obstacles, resulting in their being less persuasive and effective than men, especially in the process of collecting arrears payments. Policy implications: Our study suggests that MFIs in the EECA context may improve their financial sustainability by reconsidering their organizational choices, such as operational recruitment, placing women at the top of the decision‐making process. At the lower levels of the hierarchy, particularly loan officers, it would be advisable to support them in the interaction with male customers, so that they can adopt more effective techniques in the loan collection phases. MFIs can also scale up their loan activities to more women since their representation in the client base is relatively low in the EECA region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial institutions have embraced the idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR) over the past decade, particularly in the banking sector, even as they have faced challenges in their core business model and an uncertain economic environment. Has the addition of CSR helped banks in their effort to become more stable via diversification, or has it squandered resources which could be utilised elsewhere? Using a sample of 319 commercial banks from 21 transition countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union from 2002 to 2014, we find that there is a heterogeneous effect of CSR on bank stability, with total commitment to CSR contributing to the stability the most. Environmental capabilities, on the other hand, appear to influence stability only for those firms which are already the highest performing. We conjecture that, for financial sector firms in a transition environment, CSR is a further commitment for firms which have attained a certain level of stability but can be destabilising for weaker banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the culture-regulations-gender triad in relation to small and medium enterprises' (SMEs') performance. Using a firm-level panel dataset drawn from 27 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia between 2005 and 2014, we show that women and men experience and respond differently to regulations. Women take regulations very seriously and as a result, their SMEs see improved performance, whereas men discount the influence of regulations which then depresses the performance of their SMEs. However, when women respond to regulatory enforcers, it erodes the performance of their SMEs, whereas when men engage enforcers, the performance of their SMEs improves. The fact that women and men experience and respond to the same regulations differently—regardless of country effect and whether their SMEs are high- or low-performing businesses—suggests that regulations perpetuate gender biases, thus impacting not only individuals but even the organizations they lead. Our study expands gendered institutions theory by clarifying how regulations diffuse cultural values and influence women and men, as well as their SMEs, differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following research on transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and having been motivated by arguments pertaining to the business systems approach, the authors propose that the existence of a communist heritage decreases the likelihood that employees will be consulted during organizational change processes. Results based on 23,876 firms across 27 of the European Union (EU-27) countries support this proposition. Moreover, the likelihood of direct consultation decreases with the existence of formal employee representation and an increasing share of foreign ownership in firms located in CEE countries. The authors discuss these findings in the context of organizational democracy research and the recent literature on transition economies and contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of participative decision-making processes in organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the differences in earnings between self-employed and employees in the EU using the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions data and quantile regression methods. It finds that in both Eastern and Western Europe, self-employment pays more than regular employment only for workers at the top of the earnings distribution and considerably less than regular employment for those below the median. These differences are smaller in Eastern Europe, reflecting lower protection of regular employees. This pattern is not driven by low-skilled workers, and it can be observed in both high-skilled and low-skilled occupations. Results are robust to accounting for differences in taxation, hours worked and individual unobserved characteristics. The evidence provided points to the lack of protective rights for the self-employed and low earnings at the beginning of the self-employment spells as the main explanations for lower earnings for the majority of self-employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the influence of formal and informal institutions on firm innovation in transitional economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEEs) by explicitly differentiating between corruption and bribery as distinct informal institutions. We integrate institutional theory and legitimacy theory to explain that the failure of formal institutions creates an environment of corruption which encourages firms to use bribes to facilitate economic exchange. We test our hypotheses on the innovation performance of a sample (n = 1603) of firms in 11 CEEs. The results show that weak rule of law and ineffective business regulations in CEEs propagate the perception of corruption that inhibits firm innovation. However, the use of bribery enables firms to transform this environment of corruption into innovation outcomes. The policy and managerial implications of our research for differentiating between corruption and bribery and our findings that bribery acts as the glue that binds formal and informal institutions are fully discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, former party members were particularly likely to start businesses and become entrepreneurs. What remains unclear, however, is whether this entrepreneurial activity was driven by the resources, information, and opportunities provided by former party membership or because individuals with specific individual attributes were more likely to become Communist cadres (self-selection). This study is the first to separate the causal effect of former Communist party membership from self-selection. Using individual-level Life in Transition-III survey data and a control function approach, we find that former Communist party membership has facilitated business set-up but not business longevity in Central and Eastern European countries. We also show that people who joined the former ruling party had fewer of the traits associated with entrepreneurship such as unobservable personality traits, ability, motivation, and entrepreneurial aptitude, and as such were negatively self-selected. We show that former Communist party membership still matters for business practices, business ethics, and the nature of doing business in transition economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on Schumpeterian theoretical considerations, this paper investigates the innovation behavior of firms during the severe economic crisis of the year 2008/2009. It focuses on transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, which have completely restructured their innovation systems through the course of transition from planned to market economies a relatively short time ago. As a result of the crisis, we observe a strong decline of innovation activity in all transition economies. In line with the literature, there is, however, empirical evidence for both creative destruction as well as creative accumulation. This underlines two key findings: firstly, the universality and durability of Schumpeterian assumptions, and secondly, a call for anti-cyclical innovation policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the drivers of corporate social responsibility anchoring in Poland, a country that has undergone a profound transition from a command economy to a free market system. We use a fine-grained theoretical framework to understand the influence of the interactions between regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive aspects of institutions with firm organizational factors on the diffusion of corporate social responsibility. We show that, in Poland, companies use their slack resources to adopt corporate social responsibility only when facing strong normative or regulative institutional pressures in their organizational fields. When such pressures are absent, companies prefer value-enhancing functions of their resources other than investing in corporate social responsibility. We propose a multilevel approach for studying drivers of corporate social responsibility and show how the importance of organizational-level drivers emerges clearly only if the interactions with institutional-level features are considered. The main policy implication of our study is that corporate social responsibility may establish in Poland, as well as in other Eastern Europe countries, provided that designed and formalized institutional processes reach relevant organizational fields. Furthermore, we find that, for business managers, employing financial slack for social responsibility projects may be perceived as institutionally legitimate or not depending on the type of institutional pressures prevailing in each organizational field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decades, political scientists have studied how the policies and ideas of one political setting are used in the development of policies in another political setting, a process known as 'policy transfer'. In the case of such transfer from one country to another, the role of various institutions and networks as 'agents' of policy transfer becomes central. Many researchers have mapped the role of the international donor community as an agent of transfer of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) principles in developing economies. This article examines the case of 11 transition economies from Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA) to establish whether the role of the international donor community has been similar in exporting the IWRM concept, along with its key river basin principle, into national legislation. Roughly a decade after these 11 former Soviet republics gained independence in 1991, a 'window of opportunity' emerged when the need arose to revise the national water legislation that had been developed according to old Soviet approaches. The present analysis finds that international donors such as the EU, the US and UN agencies have played a significant role as transfer agents, being involved in shaping at least 18 out of 23 key national water laws, programmes or concepts in the selected countries between 2002 and 2023. The article concludes that 10 countries have adopted IWRM basin management principle and one is expected to follow soon as a result of a process involving international donor engagement. • International donors such as the European Union can be important transfer agents, spreading new policies to partner countries • In early 2000 s a 'window of opportunity' opened in studied 11 transition economies as Soviet-era legislation needed revision • International donors used the opportunity to promote modern water management principles in the studied transition economies • Between 2002 and 2023, donor agencies have influenced at least 18 key national water laws, programs or concepts from total 23 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contributions to this Special Issue present the state of the art of growth accounting in economic history, exhibiting its strengths and weaknesses. Three set of articles compose the issue: comparative papers that discuss the challenges ahead, long‐run perspectives on Britain since the Industrial Revolution, Japan, Italy and Spain from the late‐19th century, and Latin America during the 200 years since independence, and post‐World War II episodes under Soviet and Fabian socialism and the transition to market economies in Eastern Europe and India. The papers reveal how sensitive the interpretation of results is to the quality of output and inputs and the growth accounting procedure employed and the need to adopt the new developments in growth accounting to improve economic history narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with China's outward direct investment (ODI) in Europe. The ODI has been on the rise and is unique in the sense that its development is much faster than in any other developing country. We investigate the determinants of Chinese ODI in ten countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the time span of 2005 and 2018. Using panel data analysis, the regression model incorporates both traditional macroeconomic variables as well as selected institutional variables, trying to test which of those work best at explaining the Chinese investment activity in the countries of interest. The quality of the institutional framework is represented by EBRD indicators, which seem to be more suitable for transition economies. Findings generally suggest that Chinese multinational enterprises do not access Central and Eastern European countries primarily for market-seeking reasons. However, the fact of being a member of the EU helps Chinese ODI since the membership is used as a sort of "backdoor" to the large European markets. Still, Chinese ODI is less likely associated with a sound institutional environment of a host country, as the opposite appears to be true. These findings, therefore, support the hypothesis that access to the single EU market and R&D spending are more important determinants of the Chinese ODI than almost any other factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Created to facilitate the transition of economies of Central and Eastern Europe towards democracy and the free market, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is a regional institution in the development finance regime complex. This article examines how the EBRD's independent accountability mechanism (IAM) emerged and changed to demonstrate how policy norms filter through regime complexes. This is important because new ideas can change behavioural expectations and institutional practices across a complex. Tracing where the idea originated from and how it took hold is therefore central to understanding member state interests, the EBRD's response considering its organisational preferences, and how the policy norm solidified through inter‐institutional learning. This deepens our understanding of the development finance regime complex in two ways: first, it, shows how ideas can filter through to seemingly independent institutions via member states, bureaucrats, and stakeholders. This supports the argument that the development finance regime complex is coherent with increasingly consistent rules and obligations. Second, it reminds us not to reify states; while they demanded institutional change nonstate actors influence what constitutes appropriate behaviour for development financiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research background: Research on the performance outcomes of different forms of internation- alisation has attracted significant attention due to its theoretical and practical relevance. Still, the related findings have remained conflicting. Scholars have argued that companies need to possess or acquire firm-specific advantages (FSAs) to succeed internationalisation. However, a significant part of International Business (IB) research has treated FSAs as enablers of internationalisation, while some have argued that internationalisation in itself only helps firms translate the possessed resources into performance. Purpose of the article: The objective of this study, which is based on the resource-based view (RBV), is to explore the moderating effect of internationalisation on the relationship between FSAs and performance, considering internationalisation degree and firm size as boundary condi- tions for that relationship. Methods: We carry out statistical analyses on a longitudinal dataset containing 304 novice inter- nationalisers from the post-transition economy of Poland and a total of 1167 firm-year observa- tions. Thereby, we compare SMEs with large firms. Findings & value added: We find that while FSAs do positively affect firm performance, this relationship becomes weaker for higher levels of internationalisation. However, the negative moderating effect of the internationalisation degree becomes weaker for larger novice internationalisers, which are more able to handle the complexity of managing foreign operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an in-depth understanding of the corruption experiences of migrant entrepreneurs in transition economies. Drawing from ethnographic research, including 50 qualitative interviews with Chinese migrant entrepreneurs active in wholesale markets, non-governmental organizations, and supervisory agencies in Romania, this article demonstrates that normalization of corruption by migrant entrepreneurs should be understood in the historical context of the wholesale market as a product of post-1989 transition in Central and Eastern Europe. At a social-interactional level, normalization of corruption is revealed through how migrants use decriminalizing language to refer to corruption and perceive corruption as a survival strategy by public officials. Moreover, the legal and outsider status of migrants and their knowledge of the language, rules and laws further determine migrants' position as clients of 'on the spot' corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1990s and early 2000s, comparison of transition strategies of China versus those in Central and Eastern Europe raised controversies in the economic and political science literature. However, differences between China and the countries of the former Soviet bloc in their transition strategies resulted not necessarily from a deliberate political choice but from different initial conditions. Low-income and largely rural China, after its first radical step (de-collectivisation of agriculture in 1978), could move more gradually due to its under-industrialisation and retaining administrative control over the economy. The over-industrialised Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and former Soviet Union (FSU) countries where the previous command system of economic management spontaneously collapsed at the end of 1980s, did not have such an option. They had to conduct market-oriented reforms as quickly as they could, with all the associated economic and social pain. Regardless of speed and strategy of transition, almost all previously centrally-planned economies, including China, completed building basic foundations of a market system by the early 2000s although the quality of economic and political institutions and policies differ between the sub-regional groups and individual countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of their sheer size and remarkable growth in recent years, remittances to developing and transition economies have attracted the attention of policy-makers and scholars. One region in which remittances have been growing and having a significant impact on local economies is Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The paper uses data on remittance flows to twenty-seven countries of the former Communist bloc during 1996–2013 and three distinct empirical econometric approaches to study the impact of remittances on financial systems. In particular, the research focuses on the link between remittances and various types of credits and deposits, using dynamic system generalised method of moments estimators to address the issue of reverse causality and allow for dynamic effects. This issue is important for the region, as economic and finance theory documents the growth-enhancing and poverty-reducing effects of financial development. The paper provides evidence of a robust, significant, and positive link between remittances and financial development. The link is especially strong in the ex-Soviet Union and in the case of private credit. The contribution of the present research to the literature is threefold: it is the first study to focus on a relatively homogeneous set of transition countries; the region it addresses is of particular interest because financial development in the region had to start before full-fledged formation of a market economy's financial institutions; and it applies novel, high-quality data on bilateral remittances from Russia to a subsample of transition countries in the former Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using regression methods and propensity score matching applied to two different retrospective samples, this study finds evidence of a positive "property confiscation" effect on educational attainment. We use a 1993 survey of adults (aged 20–69) in the post-transition Eastern European countries of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. In countries experiencing the most private property losses, regression results indicate that years of schooling increase by about 0.19 for each member of an affected extended family (parents, maternal grandfathers, or paternal grandfathers). When all three sets of family members lost property, we find an increase in years of educational attainment of about 0.6. We also find an increase in the probability of post-high school education of about 0.02 for each extended family member whose property was confiscated. Those findings are confirmed using propensity score matching, which provides a larger and more pervasive positive confiscation effect. We also test our hypothesis using current and retrospective microeconomic panel data from Europe's Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement (SHARE), a dataset that covers countries in Eastern and Western Europe. We again find that property confiscation leads to greater educational attainment in the children of the affected households. We apply propensity score matching to the data and find, again, positive and statistically significant evidence of a confiscation effect on years of educational attainment. Auxiliary work indicates a separate channel for property confiscation's effects. Our explanation for the empirical results reported herein can be found in families' ability to pay bribes to advance their children's education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic diversification is recognized in literature as a strong determinant of economic development. The relationship between economic diversification and human development (social welfare), however, is not conclusive. High level of diversification can improve social welfare by providing a large range of alternatives to economic agents. On the contrary, it can also increase complexity of the decision making and hence negatively affecting social welfare. Using data for 20 European countries from 1996 to 2010, we found evidence for positive welfare effects of economic diversification in Central and Eastern European Countries suggesting that diversification is especially important for social welfare in transition economies. Our results hold for all three types of diversification indices (related, unrelated and overall diversification) and are robust to the selection of industries and lag specifications. For the full sample, variety only affects human development after a significant lag. More specifically, in the long run, overall variety improves social welfare while related variety reduces it. A negative relationship between related variety and human development is attributable to obsolescence of skills when new sectors replace existing ones. Such is not the case with unrelated variety as sectors are by definition unrelated to each other and therefore new sectors are less likely to replace old ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although economists have long studied the impact of bribery on firms' development, the debate continues as to whether bribery 'greases' or 'sands' the growth of businesses. For this investigation, we acquired data from the Business Environment and Enterprise Survey conducted by the World Bank; this panel data include firm-level information, every three years from 2002 to 2008, in transition economies in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Then, we estimated the longitudinal impact of bribery upon firms' development over a period of time. We found that bribing firms were more likely to bribe again three years later. In addition, we found that bribery could increase a firm's output and employment growth significantly, while simultaneously deterring that firms' labour productivity and innovation. After grouping the countries based on their income level, we found that significant positive impacts of bribery on output and employment only exist in developed countries, while its negative impacts on productivity and innovation are consistent in all types of countries. Interestingly, bribery can only significantly decrease a firm's time spent on waiting for resource connections in developed countries. When we extended our time horizon from three to six years, the significant longitudinal impacts of bribery no longer lingered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeszyty Teoretyczne Rachunkowości is the property of Stowarzyszenie Ksiegowych w Polsce Rada Naukowa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article, we investigate the main determinants of income inequality in the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States during the period 1990–2018. To this end, we address a major methodological challenge that lies at the core of the cross‐country literature on income inequality: the potential endogeneity of income per capita, which is largely ignored by most empirical studies. We adopt a two‐pronged empirical strategy by (1) using trading partners' weighted average real GDP as an instrumental variable and (2) estimating the model via the two‐stage least squares approach for static models and the generalized method of moments estimator for dynamic models. Our empirical findings are consistent with the Kuznets curve that illustrates a nonlinear relationship between income inequality and the level of economic development. We also find that the redistributive impact of fiscal policy is statistically insignificant and taxation and government spending appear to have the opposing effects on income inequality in transition economies over the sample period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International entries into transition economies occur infrequently and involve considerable uncertainty. This raises the question whether managers, who have limited own experience, take their competitors' prior decisions into account when deciding on their own entry timing and size and whether there is value in doing so. To address these questions, the authors estimate a sequential hazard/Poisson regression model on the top 75 European grocery retailers' decisions to enter the Eastern European market. Indeed, firms pay close attention to prevailing practices in their industry. Prior entries first serve as legitimation but eventually become a deterring factor. Moreover, rather than just imitating the most popular or modal decision when determining the own entry timing and size, managers pay closer attention to the actions of their home competitors, react to prior entries of same-format competitors differently from those of different-format competitors, and adjust the observed industry practice for the specificity of their own resources. The authors show that managers are justified in taking the combined industry wisdom into account; deviations from prevailing industry practice, in terms of both timing and size, hurt the efficiency of their operations in subsequent years. Thus, attempts to develop own, distinct entry rules tend to be dysfunctional. Moreover, corrective actions are easier to implement along the size than along the time dimension; the detrimental effects of entering at a different time from the industry norm persist and even become amplified over time, whereas the negative impact of size deviations is temporary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational transformation in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe is qualitatively different from that observed in the West because of concomitant upheaval in the institutional context. Drawing on organizational change theory, organizational learning theory, and institutional theory, the author suggests an inverted U-shaped relationship between institution-level change and transformative organizational change. By integrating three theoretical perspectives in the conceptual framework of this article, the author more fully explains organizational transformation in a variety of institutional contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The variety of post-socialist agricultural transitions in four different rural regions located in South Bohemia (Czech Republic), with respect to the utilisation of the older premises, is subject to analysis in this article. A complete database was constructed, containing the identification of agricultural premises in 1989 and their use in 2004 and 2017. From 1989 to 2004, a number of agricultural brownfields emerged, and many sites had been utilised for non-agricultural purposes. After 2004, the acreage of agricultural brownfields was reduced and new land-use utilisation for housing and, especially other non-agricultural activities, significantly increased. The transition in the utilisation of pre-1989 agricultural premises is strongly influenced by the social and economic contexts in which particular sites are located. Proximity to an upper-level regional centre is of crucial importance for decisions with respect to how (and if) the site will be reused. The peripheral location of the site also affects the level and the selection of options for the ways in which particular pre-1989 agricultural premises are used. In the case studies reported here, the marginality of particular regions is increased by their location in the border regions of outer peripheries, where the probability of the presence of agricultural brownfields and the probability of long-term abandonment of agricultural premises is higher. For the traditional developed countryside, we found a typical low level of the share of long-term agricultural brownfields. After 2004, the re-use of pre-1989 agricultural brownfields for agriculture was ascertained, which is complemented by their use for housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of audit assurance on tax enforcement, which is represented by whether firms have been visited by tax officials and, if so, the total number of inspections per fiscal year. The efficiency of tax administration is further examined by whether it becomes a binding constraint to a firm's operations. Design/methodology/approach: The sample consists of 18,746 firm-year observations from 28 transition and market-based economies in Central-Eastern Europe. The binary logit model, the Poisson model and the ordinal logit model are applied to test the hypotheses. Findings: The empirical results show that, while audit assurance does not reduce the probability of being visited by tax officials (regardless of visit times) for the two country groups, firms with audited financial reports meet tax officials less often in market-based economies but not in transition economies. Furthermore, only in market-based economies does audit assurance reduce the probability that tax administration becomes a severe obstacle to firms' operations. Originality/value: This study addresses the relationship between tax administration and audit assurance in market-based and transition countries. One implication of the empirical findings is that audit assurance would add benefits to business environments when countries evolve from transition to market-based economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multinational companies coming to grips with the major challenges of international staffing have developed a new practice. In recent years management scholars observed the assignment of so‐called 'expatriates of host‐country origin' (EHCOs), that is, employees of migrant backgrounds in the companies' parent country sent to work in their country of origin. This paper explores management rationales behind this practice focusing on the posting of employees to transition economies in south eastern Europe. Data from Austrian banks and insurance firms operating in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Croatia provide the empirical basis. The analysis reveals that headquarters' management believe that due to their specific competencies EHCOs facilitate the relationship between the headquarters and the subsidiary, enhance resource accrual and offer competitive advantage. As institutional complexity in the host country and the cultural distance between parent and host countries increase, so do the relative advantages of EHCOs for management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• National stock dynamics of four Eastern Europe countries were characterized. • We integrated material stock dynamics into circularity assessment. • Material efficiency varies along life cycles of the entire socioeconomic system. • Material stocks are increasingly coupled to GDP since 1990s. • Overall positive transition towards circularity with large recycling potentials. Developing and transition countries merit more attentions on resource monitoring and circular economy implementation to improve global sustainability. With four Eastern European countries, Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, and Romania, as cases, we integrated economy-wide and dynamic material flow analysis principles to track multiple material flows and stocks during 1990–2019 and investigate circularity performance and decoupling status throughout all life cycle stages of their entire socioeconomic system. Although the absolute stocks presented different trajectories in these countries, they all have witnessed a progressive growth in per capita stocks, reaching 390 t/cap (Bulgaria), 383 t/cap (Croatia), 239 t/cap (Poland), and 306 t/cap (Romania) in 2019, dominated by minerals. Their material use along all life cycle stages has been identified as being in a strong coupling or a relative decoupling with economic outputs and thus further stock expansion is foreseeable. However, their socioeconomic circularity remained at a low level, ranging from 7 % to 14 %. Such sociometabolic patterns affirm demand-side strategies for manufacturing streams close to service provision are required to reduce resource extraction. Proper waste management systems and policy enforcement are needed to maximize recycling and increase circularity, particularly, in Bulgaria and Romania. We call for more bottom-up studies to improve sectoral resolution, zoom in key life cycle stages, and provide tailored insights towards circular economy implementation in such transition countries. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2002, János Kornai and the author organized a project that sought to confront distrust, corruption, and dishonesty in the transition economies of Eastern Europe. In reflecting on that project, this essay highlights present-day weaknesses in the region’s transition and stresses equally troubling developments in the United States that could make government less open to input from civil society groups and low-income individuals. Building a trustworthy state and creating social trust remain challenges for committed democrats in both developed and developing societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the relation between financing patterns and firm growth in transition economies. Using a survey data set covering more than 20,000 firms in 30 Eastern European and Central Asian countries from 2002 to 2014, we find that firms using formal bank finance grow faster than those financed by informal sources. Our results hold after controlling for firm characteristics, country economic development, and potential endogeneity. The effect of bank finance on firm growth is more pronounced in non-OECD than OECD countries, indicating the overwhelming importance of bank finance in countries with less developed institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic reforms in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe have fundamentally reshaped ownership and governance of economic production, notably through the privatization of former state-owned enterprises. These reforms were expected to transform management practices by displacing ‘cradle-to-grave’ welfare arrangements administered by state-owned enterprises. Using data drawn from two large samples of Ukrainian establishments, we investigate, in two different time points, the relationship between non-wage benefits and firm performance during the period of transition to a market economy (1994–2004). We found that non-wage benefits continued to be a critical feature of HRM practices in Ukraine during this period, and were positively associated with firm performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing upon a large scale comparative data-set we explore the preferred approaches to managerial compensation pursued by organizations operating in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) transition economies of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia and Serbia. In order to generate insights on the state of management compensation and the extent to which these transition economies are characterized by idiosyncratic elements, relative to their Western European counterparts, we compare management compensation practices in these CEE economies (N = 1147) with approaches pursued in more developed western European economies (N = 2698). Overall, our results suggest that organizations in the CEE region share some similarities with their western counterparts, most especially in terms of the individual level of determination of pay for managers. Within the CEE region, we find that financial participation is less common than performance-related pay in the composition of the overall managerial reward package, though there are some variations between countries. National culture does appear significant as a determinant of variations in the preferred approach to management compensation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the trajectories of pension system reforms in two of the latecomers to the EU: Bulgaria and Romania. It finds that over the past two decades, the two countries pursued increasingly dissimilar public pension reforms for managing their respective public pay-as-you-go pension systems. Using a political institutionalist theoretical framework, I argue that the divergence between the two cases is attributable to multiple factors. First, different temporary political compromises between national and international actors generated reforms that retrenched public pensions and introduced mandatory private accounts. Second, pension reforms often had unintended consequences that limited their intended impact. Third, incremental adjustments introduced by governments in response to political pressures caused alternating phases of austerity and generosity that catered to different constituencies in each country. In Romania, reform outcomes amounted to a moderately generous pension system, financed through relatively high contribution rates with a small funded component, while in the case of Bulgaria, the pension system evolved into a meagre programme, financed through low contribution rates and a larger private pillar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the application of total reward practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the South-Eastern European (SEE) region and the reward elements positively affecting organisational performance.Design/methodology/approach The sample consists of 199 SMEs operating in SEE countries which are either under economic crisis or transition: Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Kosovo and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.Findings SMEs in the SEE region are implementing a total rewards model which is characterised by a weaker application of individual aspects and by a stronger application of transactional, relational and communal aspects. Within the communal aspects of the model, the study found three elements of the work environment that positively affect organisational performance; work-life balance, employee involvement voice mechanisms, and organisational culture supporting personal and professional development.Practical implications The study contributes to HR practice; the authors found that a better work environment is positively related to improved organisational performance in these SMEs. This means that in times of economic crisis or transition when HR budgets are limited such non-financial strategies can be a viable alternative to costly financial rewards to such organisations.Originality/value The study contributes to both theory and HR practice by shedding light on how employee rewards are affected in economies under crisis and transition, how SMEs can motivate their employees when faced with significant financial limitations, as well as explores which reward elements can lead to enhanced organisational performance in such organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although transition is over, Central and Eastern European countries still lag behind Western economies in terms of cultural support to business creation, which is vital for the development of a healthy entrepreneurship-based society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study empirically examines the validity of the twin and triple deficits hypotheses using bootstrap panel Granger causality analysis and an annual panel data set of six post-communist countries (Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Hungary) from 1994 to 2012. Our findings, based on panel data analysis under cross-sectional dependence and country-specific heterogeneity, support neither the twin deficits hypothesis nor its extended version, the triple deficits hypothesis, for any of the countries considered. In other words, we find no Granger-causal relationship between budget deficits and trade (or current account) deficits or among budget deficits, private savings-investment deficits, and trade deficits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing evidence on whether relative status is an important determinant of well-being has two key features: it is mainly derived from high income countries, and it relies on relative deprivation measures constructed by the researchers, rather than being reported by the respondents. The need to construct relative deprivation measures imposes strong assumptions with respect to obvervability of relative deprivation. This paper adds evidence on the importance of social comparisons based on self-reported relative status assessments, which obviates the need to impose observability assumptions. The underlying survey data has the added benefit of coming from six transition economies at different levels of economic development, making it possible to explore the role of social comparisons at low income levels. Interviewer's observations of the household's relative deprivation are also employed to address the endogeneity concerns associated with using self-reported relative status measures. The results suggest that relative deprivation is indeed a welfare-relevant concern, even in the poorest countries in Eastern Europe. Among multiple reference groups available in the data, local social comparisons appear to be most salient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]