Open Academic Journals Index

In the expansion of volumes of industrial production, there is an increase of anthropogenic influence and deterioration of the external environment that became the reason for the impossibility of a functioning market system without taking into account negative externalities. The article considers the directions and principles of a “green economy” functioning as the basis for further development of society. The current state and trends of the impact of environmental factors on other indicators of quality of life have been analysed and comparative analysis has been made on the example of developed and developing countries. Effective indices and instruments of influence on the level of ecological and economic development and main tendencies and problems arising at the introduction of “green economy”, have been considered. The use of indicators that take into account negative externalities, such as the Pigouvian tax, has been demonstrated to be more visible than widely used indices. The losses from the negative impact on the resulting economic indicators have been analysed, and a significant decrease in the per capita GDP level has been proved with the extensive development of the economy. Implications for Central European audience: This paper aims to contribute to the development of a green economy as part of a policy aimed at reducing environmental risks in the process of economic growth. The proposed indicators and tools for influencing the level of environmental and economic development arising from the implementation of the “green economy” as the main vector of sustainable development, which can be used further research and development and can be implemented by European companies.

The main unsolved issue in the qualitative research of the "new" institutional economics in the area of the institutional impact on economic growth is how productive institutions occur, i.e., which variables explicitly "stand" behind the institutional "infrastructure" impact on economic growth. The research presents the postulates of the "new" institutional economics, claiming a connection between the institutional structure and the movement of economic growth. Furthermore, the impact of institutional quality on economic growth was analyzed on examples of individual national economies. The comparative method of the assessment based on six criteria: voice and accountability, political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, the rule of law and control of corruption, and the comparison of the GDP per capita of the same as one of the most significant economic indicators, tested the primary hypothesis (H1) in this work: institutions are the fundamental determinant of the long-term success in economy, and the importance of government effectiveness is seen through economic growth, especially long-term growth. The conducted research showed a high level of correlation between institutions' success and the gross domestic product with indications of equal returns per ratio and the fact that the advancement of institutional quality, indirectly through GDP, can lead to the growth of the relative significance of economies.

Both leadership and customer orientation are widely described in management sciences. As independent cognitive categories, they are a frequent subject of research. Customer orientation is still evolving mainly due to the dynamics of changes in the company's environment. The perception of the company as a system and being at the same time a visionary, a strategist and a decision-maker and having an impact on the employees’ subject is responsible for the client's benefits and the creation of its value resulting from building a relationship. This is the role of the leaders in enterprises. The assumption of such an assumption is justified, because in practice marketing orientation means creating a company mission based on values significant for the client, ensuring the participation of all employees in creating growing values for the client and including it in the process of creating value. Nowaday we can talk about a customer-oriented leader. The aim of the study is to identify types of customer-oriented leaders in the commercial and service sector, and to systematize knowledge in terms of leadership and customer orientation. The choice of the sector resulted from the often close and direct relationships that take place in the exchange process. Methods of the research: quantitative studies Computer Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI), monographic/descriptive method, cluster analysis.

There is empirical evidence that business commitment to the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) principles has a direct positive impact on customer loyalty, employees’ performance, and, as a result, on the company’s value. The goal of the current paper is to evaluate the perceived importance of the company’s CSR-related practices from the viewpoint of employees. One hundred nineteen representatives of Latvian companies were surveyed, using the authors’ developed questionnaire consisted of 35 statements. Survey data was processed applying the frequency analysis and the logistic regression method. Most of the respondents (84%) perceive the company’s commitment to CSR principles as necessary. The base on the frequency analysis results, the most important CSR elements from the viewpoint of Latvian employees are paid leaves, consumer interests, and salary. Logistic regression yielded the elements, which contribute the most to the positive perception of CSR: ‘flexible work’, ‘support staff relaxation’ and ‘claims submission system’ within the group’ staff matters’. The measurement scale was tested for reliability and, based on Cronbach alpha results, was accepted as appropriate for use in a cross-country survey. Implications for Central European audience: Despite the high interest in CSR-related issues in academia, the number of published works in Baltic countries is limited. In this particular study, the authors tried to identify — what exactly affects employees’ positive attitude to CSR commitment — the company’s participation in charity programmes or its environmental responsibility, for example? This survey contributed to the theoretical knowledge base about CSR perception among the staff of Latvian companies. In turn, the future survey is planned to be extended, involving respondents from Central and Eastern European countries. This, in turn, will allow making conclusions about the differences in attitude to CSR practices expressed by employees from different countries.

In line with the rural vitalization strategy of China, the performing organizations are getting increasingly more attention from the government to flourish the traditional culture in rural China. Rural troupes have emerged as a new strength to promote the cultural prosperity. The research team, under support of support of the Public Culture Service Department, State Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of China, carried out surveys in three characteristic provinces including Hebei, Chonqing and Zhejiang. After analysing the questionnaires, the situation of rural troupes in these provinces is presented. The article discusses the problems and challenges these troupes encounter in their development and provides a model for continuous ambidexteous rural troupe development.

The modern world is facing hedge amount of challenges in the area of energy management. Information and Communication technologies are on of most important tools for managing, monitoring and improving the energy consumption efficiency if they are implemented and used for that. Not all countries dealing with this issues successfully and effectively. Therefore scientific and practical solutions based on regions specifics are necessary. This article aims to analyze the peculiarities of Middle East countries in ICT usage in energy management sector. After conducting the researches, it can be stated that the positive influences of the ICTs' in managing the energy management sector are valid, valuable and giving progressive results. The research results are presented further in the article and the peculiarities of the factors and the tools that are used to improve efficiency and sustainability of in the energy management sector in Middle East countries.

This article analyses the impact of the changes in hard commodity prices in the world commodity exchanges on the variation of countries’ general price level. In other words, this article aims to determine the impact of hard commodity prices changes on inflation. In this paper, all countries of the European Union (EU) are included in the research, and case analysis is done accordingly. The methodology applied is the following: a study of the recent scientific literature, processing and systemization of statistical data, correlation analysis and Granger causality test. The results of the research show that price changes of selected commodities in world commodity exchanges have no absolute dependence on the variation of the general price level in EU countries in the long period. Natural gas should be distinguished, whose price fluctuations in the commodity exchange market show a positive correlation with 14 EU countries’ CPI changes. In addition, the research shows that Lithuania’s inflation has been affected by all five selected commodities’ prices fluctuations. UK and Romanian inflation relate to four of five selected commodities’ prices fluctuations.

In the article the review of the problem of improvement of technology of high pressure hoses cutting on the hand cutting machines is analyzed. Different methods of cutting of high pressure hoses into the billets are overviewed and the quality of edge cuts of hoses is analyzed. The comparison of treatment on automatic cutting machines and on hand cutting machines is carried out. Different experimental techniques of improvement of the quality of edges cutting of high pressure hoses are presented. On the basis of experimental method, a new cutting technology which consists in maximally close fixation of high pressure hoses to the cutting disc is proposed. In the basic design of the hand cutting machine, the only supports are provided, so that the cutting of the edge section of high pressure hoses causes the metal braid loosening. The proposed technology excludes the scrolling and bending of high pressure hoses during cutting, so that the loosening of metal braid is also excluded. In the paper it is shown that the scheme of distribution of cutting forces during the cutting of high pressure hoses is presented and the mathematical model of determination of normal and tangential cutting forces is formed. With a help of tensiometric table the values of components of cutting forces during free and fixed cutting of high pressure hoses were defined and their comparison was performed. As a result of the use of this technology the edges of the cut off high pressure hoses meet the necessary requirements without using of complicated technological processes.