Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues

480-488

Authors: Michal Fabuš, Marek Csabay

State investment incentives are detrimental to the quality of the business environment and create unequal starting conditions for entrepreneurs to implement investment plans. In some cases, however, it is necessary to regulate the allocation of inward investment to regions within one country and thus decrease the disparities. Investment incentives are instruments that in general might violate market principles and thus are regulated within the EU internal market. Despite being aware of this fact most economists and politicians advocate these kinds of measures as necessary and relatively cheap in order to push the economy forward or win international big private equity investments. Investment aid is regional aid to stimulate investment in disadvantaged regions and to create new jobs in the Slovak Republic. Beneficiaries of this assistance may be natural and legal persons authorized to carry on business in the territory of the Slovak Republic and whose investment activities and projects meet the conditions of Act no. 561/2007 Z.z. on Investment Assistance and on Amendments to Certain Acts. This paper will focus on how investment incentive attracts foreign investment in the Slovak Republic and based on the data from 2002 to 2017 we will analyze their effectiveness on the created jobs. Despite the possible support from the Slovak government not all foreign investors areapplying for investment incentives, either are in contact with the government during their investment phase.

503-516

Authors: Jurate Cerneviciute, Rolandas Strazdas

The 'experience' economy, characterizes by the growing needs for cultural identity and social empowerment, and aided by technologies of knowledge generation, information processing and communication of symbols, further reinforce this. The creative industries involve the concretization of an image, through whatever medium for some form of economic return. However, the nature of experience goods makes demand pattern unpredictable and production process difficult to control. The uncertainty of demand for the creative product, pose managerial and organizational challenges. The structure and staffing of creative projects are often temporary, as are capital investment. Success is dependent on the composition of projects teams with individuals and groups working in a highly interactive and adaptive fashioning of the product: Despite this fact, a great deal of research conducted in the area of group dynamics suggests that groups are often much less creative and productive than they are usually assumed. The important question of how to manage creative teams to achieve a high productivity with limited resources and time arises in innovation management both from the theoretical and practical points of view. There is still no clarity which factors affecting productivity of teamwork are more important than others. The study was aimed at the identification most important factors for the productivity of teamwork. The survey of 113 student creative teams in 8 counties (Lithuania, Poland, Canada, China, France, Italy, Russia, and Denmark) was performed. Based of the findings the hierarchy of the significance of the factors influencing the productivity of teamwork is established and described in the article.

538-547

Authors: Valerii O. Omelchuk

The article analyzes the dynamics of availability of housing for Ukrainian citizens in 1990-2017 years. The social and commercial availability of housing is investigated. The refined author's methodology for determining the commercial availability of housing was applied in the article. The actual values of social accessibility of housing in 1990-2017 years, and the commercial affordability of housing in 2011-2017, as well as trends in their dynamics are defined also. It is shown that the coefficient of social availability of housing has promptly fell from 1990 to 2010 years, and in 2011-2017 it has reached a critical low level. This proves that the government of Ukraine was actually discharged from the problem of social availability of housing and it has not developed modern effective tools for solving the housing problem of the poorest layer of citizens, who really need social housing. It is revealed that the mechanism of bank mortgage lending evolves in the direction opposite to the increase of affordability of housing. This indicates the need for radical changes in the state regulation of the mentioned mechanism. It is proposed to introduce new mortgage institutes in Ukraine, particularly, such as savings and credit, and to adapt the best examples of foreign experience for the sphere of state housing policy with the purpose of real increase of the level of availability of housing for Ukrainian citizens

558-576

Authors: Aigul Yerseitova, Sara Issakova, Leila Jakisheva, Almarа Nauryzbekova, Altynay Moldasheva

The paper evaluates the use efficiency of agricultural land in the Republic of Kazakhstan using physical and relative measures, as well as a consolidated criterion defined as the volume of gross output of crops per 100 ha of agricultural land. The assessment of agricultural land use was conducted in the period between 2012 and 2016, after which the acquired results were benchmarked against the results of 1990. That year was set as a reference point since it gives an indication of the Republic’s achievements in agriculture while it was still part of the USSR. The undertaken analysis has shown that between 2012 and 2016, most agricultural land use metrics tended to have a positive dynamic. Despite that, the country has never regained the agricultural performance level it had back in 1990. The agricultural land use score according to the consolidated criterion has also demonstrated an insufficient land use performance compared to Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. The approved ABI Growth Government Program for 2017-2021 outlines efforts aimed at the efficient utilization of the country’s land resources, helping boost the output of domestic products.

591-602

Authors: Michal Fabuš, Marcel Lincényi

The radio market in the Slovak Republic is characterized by the introduction of a dual system that brings the market environment of supply and demand after the change of social conditions after 1989. Since the main source of funding for commercial radio stations and partial revenues of public radio stations is revenue from the sale of advertising space, their main objective is to maximize their share of the results achieved (the number of listeners and the total market share) from advertising within the ad. The main objective of the presented research study is to analyze the development trends of selected Slovak broadcasters in the monitored period 2011-2015, focusing on the analysis of the listening volume and the amount of financial resources spent on advertising for selected Slovak radios in the Slovak Republic.

620-635

Authors: Teodoras Medaiskis, Tadas Gudaitis, Jaroslav Mečkovski

Defined contribution pension pillars often require participants to take an active role in selecting pension funds during the whole accumulation period. It is expected that pension a fund participant will select an appropriate investment strategy and investment risk during the different stages of the accumulation phase and depending on the years left until retirement. In this paper, we have analysed the behaviour of second pillar pension fund participants in Lithuania from the establishment of the second pension pillar (2004) till Q3 of 2016. The aim of the study is to evaluate how rational second pension pillar participants were in decisions on selecting the accumulation rate, the appropriate pension fund (investment strategy and investment risk) and changing the pension fund over the accumulation period during various stages of the economic cycle in the financial markets. The results show that the majority of second pension pillar participants are irrational in selecting participation rates. Additionally, it was also observed that the majority of pension fund participants make irrational choices on selecting the pension fund (investment strategy and investment risk) and changing it over the accumulation period. The majority of pension fund participants have selected an inappropriate pension fund (investment strategy and investment risk) with regard to the accumulation period left till retirement. Moreover, participants are passive and tend not to change pension funds during the accumulation period. Pension fund participants who did change pension funds made irrational decisions and chose inappropriate pension funds (investment strategy and investment risk): in case of peak periods in stock markets, the majority of second pension pillar participants changed pension funds by switching from the funds with a lower proportion of equities to those with a higher proportion of equities or changed their pension fund to a fund in the same investment risk category. Moreover, in case of bottom periods in stock markets, the majority of participants did the opposite, switching from funds with a higher proportion of equities to those with a lower proportion of equities.

649-661

Authors: Vaidas Jurkevičius, Yuliia Pokhodun

In the light of modern commercial relationships, the doctrine of apparent authority plays an important role in ensuring the sustainability of business. Where the business undertaking is a large and complex one, it would be difficult and inconvenient for a person or legal entity to communicate every transaction with the agent. Thus, an agent’s effective powers in dealing with third parties may extend to transactions that he was not authorized to undertake by the principal. Such situations are usually characterized as apparent authority. The difficulty with this type of authority lies in the lack of control on the part of the principal which entails certain questions of liability of either the agent or the principal. Even though the third party has to check the agent’s authority, he cannot know about all the details of the agent’s internal authorization. Therefore, there is always a risk that the agent was not authorized to act. This article is deemed to provide a comprehensive analysis of the doctrine of apparent authority from a comparative perspective. A conclusion is made that the doctrine is an efficient mean of apportioning the risk of liability for agent’s unauthorized act between the principal and the third party with individual factors determining who must bear liability it in every specific case.

677-691

Authors: Boris N. Gerasimov, Vera A. Vasyaycheva, Kirill B. Gerasimov

The purpose of the work is to present the results of studying the factors of competitiveness of the companies of transport machine building of Russia by segmentation on the basis of the module approach. The research consists in analyzing the modern developments in the sphere of managing the competitiveness of industrial companies in economic systems. Materials of the reports on global competitiveness were used. The research is based on the recent tendencies in the sphere of systematization of competitiveness factors of industrial companies. Based on the performed research, the main factors of competitiveness of industrial companies are systematized by segmentation on the basis of the module approach. Each module is assigned with blocks that determine qualitative and qualitative characteristics of their production activities, as well as indicators that allow evaluating the factors of competitiveness of companies of Russian transport machine building. Scientific significance of the received results consists in development of theoretical & methodological and practical aspects of managing the competitiveness of industrial company in the modern conditions. The research results are a certain volume of knowledge increase, which allow solving a range of scientific tasks and are a theoretica basis for further research in the sphere of increase of competitiveness of companies of transport machine building on the basis of the module approach by applying the presented scientific solutions and tools.

711-728

Authors: Rimma Sagiyeva, Aziza Zhuparova, Rashid Ruzanov, Raigul Doszhan, Askar Askerov

Over the past 20 years, sales volumes in the knowledge-intensive sectors of the developed world grew about 2 times faster than in the manufacturing industry. It is no coincidence that the share of knowledge-intensive sectors of the manufacturing industry and the service sector today accounts for an average of more than half the GDP of the leading industrial countries. A new, knowledge-based economy creates new resources that effectively replace natural resources and human intellect. A high-end economy is the creation of new, artificial energy and artificial intelligence and their use in all sectors of the economy. In addition, a knowledge-intensive economy is a large-scale use of scientific developments, a new content of labor and the attitude of all its participants to it. A high-tech economy is born and is able to develop in a social environment with a sufficient level of intellectual development of society. The creation of such an economy requires not only a high level of development and implementation of new resource-creating and resource-saving technologies, but also a mass knowledge of new technologies, skills to use in production and everyday life. A high-tech economy is formed in conditions of sufficient intellectual security. With all this, the urgency of finding answers to the questions is growing: what conditions are necessary for the creation and functioning of a knowledge-based economy. In this regard, firstly, the article compares the level of development of human resources in the Republic of Kazakhstan with other countries of the world, which allows us to conclude that in terms of quantitative indicators (coverage of primary, secondary, vocational and higher education, life expectancy), our country has average positions in the world ranking. Secondly, in order to identify the relationship between a number of indicators of the method of assessing intellectual security in Kazakhstan, a correlation analysis for 2004-2017 was conducted. This article expands the knowledge on methods of assessing intellectual security for the development of a knowledge-based economy in developing countries.

754-766

Authors: Andrey S. Mikhaylov, Anna A. Mikhaylova, Oksana V. Savchina

Innovative milieu is an elusive networking scheme established within geospatial, socio-economic, institutional, and knowledge types of boundaries that enable the actors involved to excel in particular field(s) of activity. Generally these are high-tech sectors of the economy, the so called smart and creative industries that are highly reliant on human capital, knowledge, and competences. Gradual expansion of interregional and international ties increases the possibility for synergies, fostering network diversification and intra-regional overspecialisation all at the same time. Along with numerous positive externalities, such as avoidance of the cognitive lock-in effect, regional clusters of excellence become dependent on their external counterparts, either within national or international domain. This dependence is caused by utilization of shared science and technology facilities, interdependent production processes, complementary technologies, etc. Unforeseen circumstances, such as temporal economic sanctions and product embargo can affect the sustainability of the innovation activity in the region and create structural holes along the value chain. Regional innovation policy should account for possible threats to the regional as well as national innovation systems. In this paper we examine different scenarios for the development of innovative milieus across borders. The study draws upon cross-border cooperation initiatives of European border regions, featuring brief case study examples for each of the negative development scenarios identified. There are three major types of threats to innovation security of a border region determined: a) disintegration and decay, b) internal asymmetries, c) unilateral integration initiatives. The article concludes with policy recommendations on innovation security strategy for the borderland regions.

782-798

Authors: Jerzy Kaźmierczyk, Aleksandra Chinalska

The presented topic is of utmost importance due to the consequences that the implementation of atypical forms of employment has for all labour market actors. Sometimes employees decide on such forms of employment due to the pressure from employers who see it as a chance to optimize the costs. The conducted study confirmed that flexible forms of employment are more common among young people, who are at the beginning of their professional career, than among workers with seniority. The flexible forms of employment are also less frequent among managerial staff. The discussion is supported by empirical research conducted on a sample of 1,920 bank employees in Poland. This study is the first one that investigates the flexible forms of employment on a big sample of Polish bank employees and show the character of Polish bankers.

820-829

Authors: Finogentova, Vasiliy Tokarev, Mikhail Petrenko, Tatyana Primak

The article presents acceptance criterion of the state coercion as a form of power realization. According to authors, essential signs of the state coercion, firstly, are functionaries and state authorities representing the society that in turn, legitimizing this state, secondly, the state coercion mediacy by the right. Its social nature causes understanding the state coercion as a legal relation that coercive and coerced subjects, authorized with certain rights and duties, enter. The authorization of subjects, in relation to which enforcement actions are applied, with legal rights and duties testifies to the legal conditionality of state coercion. As a result, it must satisfy the requirements of legality, legitimacy and justice at both levels of the legal system – sectoral and intersectoral – and at all stages of the process of its implementation. The general acceptance criterion of the state coercion is provided to recognize the conformity of its application to the requirements of justice as a moral category. Structural elements of this criterion are validity and proportionality. Their differentiation in content makes it possible to assert that the state coercion should be based on the law (validity) and correlated with individualizing circumstances, which allowing to correct the influence of the coercive on the coerced taking into account the specifics of the concrete case (proportionality)

840-853

Authors: Tatyana Pritvorova ,Bysuly Tasbulatova, Elena Petrenko

The article describes the psychogram method as a tool for human resource management. The article describes the psychogram method as a tool for human resource management, the use of which is provided by the availability of platform technologies in the modern digital economy. The presence in the market space of firms that provide platform services for complex psychological diagnosis enables the manager to adequately assess the required behavioral competencies of the applicant, using as a standard the system of basic parameters corresponding to this position. The system of basic parameters is formed on the basis of the method of blitz-psychogram after passing by professional employees of this firm professional tests based on platform technologies. This allows the company to identify the character traits, motivation, preferred activities and role in the team with efficient employees with minimal own expenses. Applicants who meet the parameters of a psychographic portrait will be internally motivated for this type of activity. This will further reduce the risk of staff turnover, increase the effectiveness of training and the effectiveness of other actions of human resources management by activating the employee's internal motivation in this type of activity.

871-889

Authors: Viktoriya Valeryevna Manuylenko, Marina Aleksandrovna Loktionova, Nina Vladimirovna Lipchiu, Natalia Vladimirovna Sobchenko , Tatyana Andreyevna Sadovskaya

The study substantiates the need to develop the authors’ model for strategic evaluation of financial potential in corporations based on stochastic simulation, which provides for determination of an absolute indicator for sustainability of financial potential resources (i.e. strategic permanent resources for financial potential and relative strategic ratio), as well as actual and strategic indicators values deviations, the study also provides prerequisites for relevant expert conclusions. Such model implies influence of emergent (macro-, meso-) environment on financial potential of corporations. Its application is of a universal character, it contains integrated interests of different stakeholder groups (owners, financial managers, lenders, potential owners, creditors, investors, suppliers, auditors, lawyers, associations, trade unions) allowing in a short period identify internal actual and potential financial opportunities, risks and hidden potentials, takes into account emergent environment influence on financial potential condition in corporations, thus contributing to development of strategic policies for its generation.

912-926

Authors: Vera Vladimirovna Plenkina, Irina Vladimirovna Osinovskaya

The article addresses the issues related to improving the efficiency of the incentives’ system at the level of oil-producing structures through the improvement of its financial component. It refers to improving the grading system, which is a fairly semipolar remuneration plan in oil companies. The problem of reaching the maximum wage level for employees in the grading system and reducing its incentive function has been considered in its entirety. The development of an efficient, transparent system of personnel incentives is a relevant problem for many companies. The paper reveals the causes of this problem and possible ways to solve it, and also considers the technology of the grading system formation at an oil-producing enterprise. Expansion of grade levels is one of the priority areas for improving the grading system. The pay range is justified with the purpose of ensuring a competitive pay level for different groups of positions. The need for regrading – the revision of the system of ten-tier wage structure of grades to a larger scale, with a large number of pay ranges – is confirmed by the estimated efficiency of the measure. Besides, the paper considers the expediency of shifting oil field employees to grading system payments.

958-967

Authors: Marina Gennadievna Nikitina, Viktoriya Viktorovna Pobirchenko, Elena Alekseevna Shutaieva, Anna Ivanovna Karlova.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a characterization of the current state and level of the investment component in Russia’s economic security and concretize the key focus areas for ensuring it. The study is grounded in the dialectical method of scientific cognition, the method for cognizing the process of attaining investment security in all its contradictions, integrity, and development, as well as the systemic approach to the analysis of the effect of investment activity on the national economy. The authors explore some of the key theoretical aspects of investment security within the national economy and examine the dualism of investment security as a component in the nation’s economic security; establish a system of indicators for ensuring investment security, including its major qualitative and quantitative criteria; compute a set of indicators for the investment component in economic security; identify some of today’s key threats to investment security within the Russian economy. Exploring the theoretical aspects and computing the indicators of investment security serve as a basis for further research into the subject and may help detect and minimize threats that may arise in connection with the investment process, as well as develop and concretize a set of major focus areas for ensuring investment security at all levels.

979-1000

Authors: Lorena Škuflić, Mira Krpan, Berislav Žmuk

European Union (EU) is facing large migration flows, whose distribution and volatility in the observed period between 2006 and 2015 across the EU member states, among other factors, were affected by the financial and economic crisis. This paper examines how the homogeneity of the EU member states was changing with respect to economic performance and migration statistics indicators. Consequently, the non-hierarchical cluster analysis by using k-means method was conducted based on the average values of the selected variables in four time periods: the pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis periods. The fourth period is year 2015, the beginning of massive immigration in the EU area due to world migration crisis. Our results indicate relative stability of the number and structure of clusters of EU-28 member states in the selected time periods on the bases of observed variables. There are few exceptions, however, related to countries that were heavily influenced by the financial and economic crisis, and Germany which stood out with decreasing unemployment rates and increasing net migration values in the post-crisis period.

1018-1027

Authors: Oleksandra Stoian, Tetiana Polozova, Evgen Didenko, Oleksandra Storozhenko, Olena Moskvichova

A matrix of strategies for interaction with a consumer in the Internet is developed based on the use of two-vector coordinate system: the degree of consumer readiness to purchase and the communication environment. The means of promotion has been analyzed in accordance with the strategy of interaction with the consumer in the Internet. The KPI system for the communication activity of the enterprise in the Internet was proposed on the basis of crowd-technologies. The built matrix of areas of correction of the communication policy allows the company to determine the further direction of correction of communications for each level of communication influence.

1041-1052

Authors: Evgeny Lisin, Galina Kurdiukova, Natalya Ketoeva, Joana Katina

The paper discusses the issue of improving the management system of the energy complex sustainable development at the territorial level from the perspective of ensuring energy security. It proposes the management models of the electric power and heat supply territorial systems development that allow taking into account current trends of expanding the use of market mechanisms to manage territorial energy production and to ensure a balance of interests of management subjects at various organizational levels. Based on a multidimensional statistical analysis for selected groups of Russian regions, it gives recommendations on choosing a priority strategy to reduce the energy intensity of the gross regional product.