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The range of official business that can be handled online has grown in the recent decade. In many cases, e-services are a must. At the same time, the economic impact and social importance of mobile technology have increased. Mobile devices are becoming more and more popular, and their applications diversify. It comes as no surprise that mobile users expect e-services and official information to be available through this channel. The purpose of this paper is to identify problems (difficulties) occurring when browsing websites of local government units (LGU) on mobile devices.

The comfort of website browsing depends mostly on the development technique, and the way content is published. Responsive websites are much easier to view on mobile devices than “static” ones. The study involves 400 websites of LGU in Poland. The websites were subjected to quantitative and qualitative analyses with selected techniques and computer tools.

The set of 400 websites contained 119 (29.75%) that were not responsive. It exhibited a substantial potential for the optimisation of websites for mobile devices. The study revealed the most common usability failures such as distorted images, “scattered icons”, partial responsiveness and bothersome messages in pop-ups.

The research identified the most widespread problems with the tested websites. The study yielded recommendations for local governments, which may be useful when managing content, upgrading the website or replacing it with a new one.

One of the ways of convincing investors, in particular foreign ones, to take part in the implementation of host country economic policies is the development of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) designed to ensure more favourable business environment than those available in other locations. Poland has created and develops the SEZs. They play a positive role in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) or creating new jobs but also may have negative consequences, such as deepening regional disproportions in the country.

This paper aims at examining why certain SEZs in Poland attracted more FDI than other. In our opinion that may result from the location in a particular region (understood as a unit of administrative division of the country at the level of a voivodeship) and from endogenous conditions characteristic of the zone, such as the land it owns, infrastructure and its accessibility and finally high quality performance of the company that manages the zone.

Our calculations have shown statistically significant positive relationships between FDI inflow to SEZ and overall and some partial coefficients that describe investment attractiveness of voivodeships. Test results also suggest that efforts of managing companies with regard to wooing investors (e.g. through promotions, infrastructure development) are important in increasing the inflow of foreign investment.

A Confrontation of Mindsets: French Retailers Operating in Poland traces the history of French retailers setting up operations in Poland in the mid 90s. The case, however, is set in 2006 when a top retailing executive recalls the important watershed period of 1996-97 when the expatriate managers in charge of setting up the first hypermarkets encountered great difficulties with their new Polish recruits. The managers were not succeeding in transferring the practices and routines that were an essential part of their business model on the home market in France: their Polish employees displayed work attitudes that were the contrary of the initiative and responsibility for enlarged jobs that characterized employees back home. This situation called into question the very viability of their business model in Poland. The case poses very clearly the question of what actions the expatriate managers should decide to take to ensure the store launchings in Poland and future growth. The issues raised concern global versus multi-domestic internationalization strategies, business models, paradigms, corporate culture, management of expats, knowledge transfer and the link between strategic implementation and organizational behavior.

HOUSING AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS IN POST-COMMUNIST COUNTRIES

Investment promotion is gaining in popularity, yet its relationship with regional development remains unclear and under-investigated. The purpose of this paper is to combine place marketing and regional development concepts to explore investment promotion in the Czech, Polish and Slovak regions. It identifies elements of best practice and investigates to what extent these are used in foreign direct investment promotion conducted by regional authorities. Organisation- and implementation-related elements are studied. The discussion aims to answer the question of how systematic Central–Eastern European regional investment promotion is, and what are the factors determining regions’ involvement in, and the extent of, promotion activities.

Discussion is based on an original survey of Central–Eastern European (CEE) regional authorities' investment promotion. The paper develops a measurement of regional authorities’ engagement in investment promotion – an investment promotion index (IPI) and using non-parametric, two-tailed Spearmans correlation test investigates the relationship between IPI and socio-economic conditions in the regions. Kruskal-Wallis, a non-parametric test of difference is used to investigate statistical significance of differences in mean values between the three countries.

The analysis provides early insights into the relationship between regional development and investment attraction – the main theoretical contribution of the paper. Diverse levels of engagement in promotion are not influenced by the staple competitiveness factors of gross domestic product growth rates or foreign direct investment stock. Instead, it is conditioned by labour market situation in the countries studied.

Investment promotion relationship to regional development remains under-explored. The main focus of the analysis offered is the varying levels of CEE regional authorities’ involvement in investment promotion and its relationship to the socio-economic conditions prevailing in the regions. Exploring this relationship, the paper provides original contribution in the following two aspects: it establishes a systematic way of measuring regional authorities’ engagement with investment promotion; and it links the level of investment promotion to wider development of the regions.

In the context of debates on the role of social partners in shaping anti-crisis policies, the article explores the developments of social dialogue in Poland following the outbreak of the pandemic. The central research question is whether the crisis has helped to revitalise social dialogue or has it further revealed its weaknesses that were apparent before it.

The paper is based on the combination of literature review and the analysis of primary data derived from 22 expert interviews with the representatives of trade unions, employers and ministries collected in 2020–2021 in four essential industries (education, health care, social care and logistics).

The analysis suggests that the pandemic led to reinforcement of “illusory corporatism” in Poland, deepened mistrust among social partners and triggered a shift to informal channels of influencing policymaking. The weakness of the social partners and the strong position of the right-wing populist government meant that fears of recession and a health crisis were insufficient to develop “crisis” corporatism. While business interests were represented better than labour in policymaking, limited labour-friendly outcomes have been achieved as a result of workers’ mobilisation and unilateral decisions of the government rather than tripartite social dialogue.

Based on original empirical research, the article contributes to the discussion on the impact of the crisis on social dialogue under patchwork capitalism. It points to the role of strong governments and informality in circumventing tripartite structures and the importance of essential workers’ mobilisation in response to the lack of social dialogue.

Investigates ethnocentric tendencies of Polish and Russian consumers and whether tendencies vary by country, demographic characteristics and store type (formerly state owned or private). Examines whether ethnocentrism affects product selection decisions. Poles are significantly more ethnocentric than Russians. Ethnocentric Poles are older, more likely to be female, less educated, and have lower incomes than less ethnocentric consumers. For Russians, the more ethnocentric consumers are less educated. Degree of ethnocentrism is not related to purchase intention for Poles but is related for Russians. Consumers who shop at formerly state‐owned stores are significantly more ethnocentric than private store shoppers for both countries.

Given the importance of food wastes in households, the purpose was to identify the attitudes of young consumers towards the food sharing (FS) phenomenon in its cognitive, emotional and behavioral dimensions and to verify the reliability of the FAB (food sharing attitudes and behaviors) model, used as a research tool.

The study was conducted in 2021 using the computer assisted web interview (CAWI) method. The FAB model was based on the ABC (affect, behavior and cognition) model of attitudes, which includes three components: affect, behavior and cognition. Questions on the phenomenon of FS were scaled on a 5-point Likert scale. A total of 469 correctly completed forms were obtained. To assess the reliability of the FAB model the Cronbach’s alpha was used. In the statistical analysis SPSS Statistics 27 was used.

Young consumers have a positive attitude towards the idea of FS and the initiative of FS points. Gender is a significant factor in FS attitudes. The FAB model has proven to be a reliable tool for exploring consumer attitudes towards FS. A set of activities was proposed to promote the idea of FS on university campuses and among other potential stakeholders.

To contribute to the body of knowledge on FS, the authors proposed the FAB model. The results of this study are relevant for reducing food wastes; they promote sustainable food consumption and the European Green Deal (EGD).

The purpose of this paper is to examine the applicability of the complexity-based temporary innovation system (TIS) framework to social innovation and examine the extent to which “nature-based solution” (NBS) projects may be understood through a TIS lens. It is proposed that TIS provides a framework to facilitate multi-actor engagement in social innovation responses to the complexity of wicked problems? The goal is to explore if TIS provides a useful framework for understanding the evolution of social innovation projects and enabling more consciously designed and facilitated social innovation with the potential for large-scale, long-term impact.

The research uses a case study methodology in which 10 NBS projects in 3 European cities are examined and compared to the expected features of a TIS as proposed by anonymised for the review process (2018; 2019)

Of the 10 NBS projects, only 3 were “TIS-like”, each of which was targeting wicked problems in the city/community. As only one of the remaining 7 projects was aimed at a wicked problem, the authors concluded that the TIS framework may be best suited to those social innovations that address one or more wicked problems and that NBS projects may not display this feature.

The authors conclude with a reflection on theoretical insights arising from applying the TIS framework to NBS in particular, and social innovation generally – and proposes the next steps in developing the TIS framework in relation to social innovation.

This paper applies a new complexity framework to empirical data that have not been examined previously. This analysis contributes to the development of a new framework for designing and analysing complex social innovation initiatives and challenges existing theories presenting NBSs as addressing complex “wicked” problems.