Search results

Competitively multipolar international system demands bilateral and multilateral partnerships. Joint innovation signals close partnerships. Regional proximity of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to the European Union (EU) defines its research and development objectives. These objectives are additionally subjected to the USA’s geopolitical strategy in this geographical area. Hence, CEE’s limited resources require limited resources make international innovation cooperation. This paper aims to analyse whether and how CEE countries make international innovation cooperation decisions.

This paper used Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) database of total patent applications filed to the patent cooperation treaty (PCT) with co-applicants from abroad, where co-patents with at least one foreign inventor present a measure of international innovation partnership. A vector autoregression analysis and impulse response function were used to analyse international innovation partnership choices of eight CEE OECD countries for the period 1990–2018.

Innovation with the EU is of collaborative nature, commonly displaying complementary properties with the rest of the examined innovation partners, while co-patenting with the Russia and China act as substitutes or complements. Co-patenting with Russia is the most versatile, displaying both properties of collaboration and competition. Some countries exhibit complementarity in co-patenting activities with multiple partners. The significance levels of these relationships vary, indicating varying degrees of impact. Overall, these findings highlight the complex dynamics of co-patenting activities and the influence of different partners on countries’ collaborative innovation strategies.

In addition to significant relationships, insignificant relationships as well as those that could bring about greater synergy are flagged in the paper. Those relationships portray possible direction into which national funds could be channelled to incite cooperation between different sectors and countries, especially as innovation partnerships are not always successful and require a long time period to materialise.

By examining bilateral innovation partnerships, this study provides an insight into the strategic political and economic spheres of influence in the CEE region.

The positive illiquidity–return relationship (so-called liquidity premium) is a well-established pattern in international developed stock markets. The magnitude of liquidity premium should increase with market illiquidity. Existing studies, however, do not confirm this conjecture with regard to frontier markets. This may result from applying different approaches to the investors' holding period. The paper aims to identify the role of the holding period in shaping the illiquidity–return relationship in emerging and frontier stock markets, which are arguably considered illiquid.

The authors utilise the data on stocks listed on fourteen exchanges in Central and Eastern Europe. The authors regress stock returns on liquidity measures variously transformed to reflect the clientele effect in a liquidity–return relationship.

The authors show that the investors' holding period moderates the illiquidity–return relationship in CEE markets and also show that the liquidity premium in these markets is statistically and economically relevant.

The findings may be of great interest to investors, companies and regulators. Investors and companies should take liquidity into account when making decisions; regulators should employ liquidity-enhancing actions to decrease companies' cost of capital and expand firms' investment opportunities, which will improve growth perspectives for the entire economy.

These findings enrich the understanding of the role that the investors' holding period plays in the illiquidity–return relationship in CEE markets. To the best knowledge, this is the first study which investigates the effect of holding period on liquidity premium in emerging and frontier markets.

The paper deals with battlefield tourism and war monuments in the Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Poland. The care of these monuments and their use in tourism today takes place separately and it is interesting to see how the same potential can be used in different ways. One of the aims of the paper is to draw attention to this fact and at the same time to present the possibilities of how to improve the use of this heritage by mutual cooperation.

It is based on field research of the care of military-historical monuments. At the same time, it presents, in the form of retrospective studies, basic experiences from abroad – specifically the construction of thematic trails in Slovakia, Slovenia (The Walk of the Peace) and Poland (The First World War's Eastern Front Trail).

The paper points out aspects such as the care of battlefield tourism sites, cross-border cooperation in the creation of tourism products, the creation of a strategic conceptual framework for the protection of World War I monuments, their presentation to tourists, cooperation between the state, local government and the third sector.

There was no systematic research in this area in Central and Eastern Europe.

The China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, hereafter) has reenergized the Silk Road concept, with most literature focusing on the political and economic effects of the BRI. While certain aspects of the Digital Silk Road (DSR), digital component of BRI, have been researched, much less focus has been placed on the technological development, tech transfer and information diffusion aspects of the BRI. The aim of this study is to investigate the opportunities, issues and critiques that have arisen as a result of the Belt and Road Initiative’s implications on innovation, knowledge transfer and dissemination.

Research in its nature is descriptive. Literature reviews are a significant part of the development of a field. Therefore, secondary sources were considered.

The literature and the study have highlighted several opportunities, problems and criticism that decision-makers and the relevant agencies and institutions should take into account when deciding how to move forward with BRI and its digital component DSR.

This paper contributes to the research literature on BRI and its subset DSR’s impacts on innovation, knowledge transfer and information diffusion. In fact, the DSR’s primary aim is to strengthen international cooperation in the digital economy. Furthermore, digital platforms now play a significant role in global trade, emphasizing the necessity of DSR.

Venture capital (VC) is an essential element in healthy entrepreneurial environments; therefore, many countries in developing entrepreneurial economies support the industry via direct or indirect government interventions. The purpose of this study is to examine through the example of the Hungarian market, whether direct or hybrid state involvement has contributed more to the growth of the invested enterprises. The findings are relevant in the design of government VC schemes and in the contracts mitigating the moral hazards inherent in government funding.

The basis of empirical research is a unique hand-collected database covering Hungarian government-backed VC (GVC) investments. Based on the financial data of investee firms, the authors investigate whether firms financed by hybrid VC involving market participants are able to outperform firms that receive pure public financing using panel regression.

Based on Hungarian evidence, hybrid VC-backed firms generated lower growth and employment than their purely government-backed peers. Both schemes showed meagre innovation activity. The conclusion is that because of the conflict of private and economic policy objectives in hybrid financing, the exposure of hybrid risk capital to moral hazard is higher than that of pure public financing. Private interests in hybrid funds can only improve investment efficiency if they are structured along the lines of market-based independent financial intermediation and the contracts imitate the ones existing amongst limited and general partners in private schemes.

The research covers the data of Hungarian government-backed firms by tracking the full range of 86 investments made in the purely government scheme and 340 firms that received funding in the hybrid scheme. The research focuses on two government initiatives, and the results are influenced by the specific regulation of the programs; therefore, the results cannot be generalized for all government agendas; they are indicative in the designs of the agendas.

There is a limited number of empirical studies investigating the impact of VC in developing markets, especially in the Central and Eastern Europe region. This firm-level research on the impact of public VC can help improve the effectiveness of development policies. By analysing the entirety of investments of a VC program that is near to its completion, the authors provide new insight into the efficiency and prospects of GVC schemes in the region.

The main purpose of the study is to identify the differences and similarities in the communication between B2B participants in cross-cultural environments.

The research methods used in the study are two-fold: the literature analysis is complemented by primary qualitative research conducted in small- and medium-sized enterprises operating in Poland and doing business internationally. The research was focused on two culturally different markets: China and the United States. In the empirical research, the authors used one of the qualitative methods – Individual Depth Interview (IDI).

General findings showed that the strongest influence of culture was identified among older (+50 years old) business partners. The younger ones are eager to adapt and try to understand others' viewpoints. The research results may be used in creating business communication models in the countries researched for companies that plan to enter both American and Chinese markets.

The results of the study may have useful applied managerial value and be used in cooperation between SMEs' B2B business partners, not only from Poland but also from the whole region of Central and Eastern Europe and the United States and China.

The findings may help to understand and communicate with culturally different social groups such as co-workers, students, teachers, etc.

The research presented in the paper covers the gap in the literature because it relates to some new factors (like cultural heritage, age and type of industry) which determine the effectiveness of personal business communication between partners in the international marketplace.

This article provides an overview and analysis of 50 years of European policies, actions, and challenges to align its higher education and research, as well as lessons learned from this for similar initiatives elsewhere.

The study builds on a comprehensive overview and study of policy documents and scholarly literature to identify by decade the main policies and actions and the related challenges towards a European Higher Education and Research Area.

The findings make clear the key rationales, challenges, shifts and lessons to be learned from 50-year European policies for the alignment of higher education.

Its value lies in the historical overview and analysis of current initiatives, in particular the European Universities Initiative (EUI), to provide a historical and geographical context, which might give insight for similar initiatives elsewhere.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of relationship quality among team members in the project team on knowledge transfer effectiveness and analyze the role of organizational structure in the influencing process.

The hypotheses are verified by the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis using Smart PLS 3 software with the data collected from 236 questionnaire samples in Chinese construction industry.

The results indicate that relationship quality has a direct impact on knowledge transfer in project teams and centralization has a negative impact on relationship quality. Moreover, relationship quality plays a mediating role between centralization and knowledge transfer effectiveness and formalization plays a negative moderating role in the effect of relationship quality on knowledge transfer effectiveness.

This paper studies intra-project knowledge transfer from the perspective of relationship quality of project teams and explores the antecedent and moderating role of organizational structure in the influence of relationship quality on knowledge transfer.

The institutional context in which family firms operate influences their behaviour and performance, yet literature reviews seldom analyse family firms on a regional basis. To fill this gap, this review aims to present research on family entrepreneurship in the transition economies of the Visegrád countries (V4). In this particular group of European economies, the current formal institutions have largely evolved along Western European lines. However, the transformation of informal institutions appears to be still in its infancy.

In order to identify the most representative authors, the methodologies used, the main research topics and to establish a future research agenda, the authors selected, through a systematic process, 112 papers from the Web of Science up to the year 2022. The authors performed a bibliographic analysis using clustering algorithms, complemented by a traditional literature review.

The performance of family firms in transition economies has been the subject of very little research. The results allowed the authors to identify four main areas of research: governance, innovation, sustainability, competitive advantage and considering the influence of the region's characteristics on family business behaviour.

Studies from transition economies can contribute to a broader understanding of family firms in terms of the impact of the institutional environment (especially the influence of sociological changes and specific historical experiences of family members) on their long-term planning, socioemotional wealth (SEW) protection and ethics. In light of recent events, research from the region may also contribute to the understanding of how and to what extent “familiness” influences crisis management or socially responsible behaviour in family firms.

Institutional trust is vital for social and economic activity and crucial in reducing uncertainty for entrepreneurs and society. To shed light on the role of institutional trust on productive entrepreneurial activity, this paper analyses the impact of six urban entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) using the contexts of the transition economies of Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. This study aims to pursue the research question: what role does institutional trust play in the relationship between formal institutions and productive entrepreneurship in the EEs of transition economies? This paper aims to posit that the development and enforcement of formal institutions and institutional trust enhance productive entrepreneurship.

In this study, the authors apply a mixed-method approach. The authors’ dataset includes 657 respondents (ecosystem stakeholders) from six city-level entrepreneurial ecosystems in the transition economies of Georgia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, as well as 51 semi-structured interviews from EE representative stakeholders to examine the validity of the findings.

Institutional trust in many cities has been negatively affected by institutionalised corruption and continuous non-transparent reforms, furthering prior research in developing and transition economies. The authors’ findings suggest that institutional trust can be investigated not as a country phenomenon but as a regional phenomenon extending prior research towards understanding the institutional trust – productive entrepreneurship research domain at the city EE level.

The authors apply the institutional trust perspective to the EEs in cities in order to examine how institutional trust affects productive entrepreneurship in challenging institutional environments. The authors contribute to the literature on institutions and entrepreneurship by using a mixed-method analysis to examine the relationship between formal institutions and institutional trust in the context of EEs in transition economies.