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This research examines consumer reluctance to purchase organic food using the theory of innovation resistance and also extends the theory by investigating the moderating influence of eco-literacy. In addition, the authors used a multigroup analysis to identify differences between consumer segments.

Data collection used computer-assisted web interviewing and a prior screening process to confirm engagement. Through stratified quota sampling, 1,000 useable responses were obtained from 2,887 recipients.

The findings reveal barriers are significant inhibitors to adopting organic food. Among these barriers, usage, risk tradition and image barriers have a significant adverse influence on purchase intention. In contrast, the value barrier has a nonsignificant influence on the purchase intention of organic food. However, the study found that eco-literacy significantly reduces the negative influence of risk and tradition barriers on consumers' intentions. In addition, a multigroup analysis examines notable differences between consumer groups based on education, age and income.

This research has significant social implications for boosting sustainable consumption in Lithuania. It identifies key barriers to organic food adoption, emphasizing the need for strategic interventions. The study highlights eco-literacy as an essential tool in diminishing resistance to organic food, advocating for targeted educational initiatives. Additionally, it reveals the importance of tailored marketing strategies based on different consumer demographics. Overall, this study provides important insights to promote environmentally conscious consumer behavior and overcome resistance to innovation in the organic food sector.

This study expressively advances the understanding of intentional behavior by exploring organic food within Lithuania's Baltic economy. It authenticates the innovation resistance theory's applicability to organic food behavior in the region while emphasizing the moderating impact of eco-literacy in the link between barriers and purchase intention concerning organic food. Furthermore, using advanced methods such as partial least squares statistical modeling and multi-group analysis, the research reveals how barriers affect the purchase intention of organic food among different groups of consumers.

As aging populations lead to longer working lives and increasing automation threatens job security, maintaining lifelong employability is becoming a fundamental challenge for many individuals. The purpose of this study is to examine how lifelong employability can be maintained.

Based on the theoretical perspectives of both movement capital and selection, optimization and compensation (SOC) theories, we used large-scale survey data (N = 2,256) from three European countries to investigate strategies for preserving employability among aging workers. Specifically, we explored the perceived risk of automation, lifelong learner characteristics and self-efficacy for occupational mobility as boundary conditions that may shape the negative relationship between age and employability.

We found a negative relationship between age and employability, which was more pronounced when the perceived risk of automation was higher. Furthermore, lifelong learner characteristics and self-efficacy for occupational mobility mitigated the negative relationship, so that age was not related to employability if people possessed lifelong learner characteristics and were ready for a career change.

Our study implies the importance of investing in enhancing lifelong learner characteristics and self-efficacy for occupational mobility for older employees.

This paper aims to explore how the competence-based vocational education and training (VET) curricula facilitate shaping of work values of VET students. It discusses methodological and ideological orientations of competence-based VET in teaching work values and discloses the typical characteristics of teaching work values in the VET system of Lithuania.

A quantitative research approach leading to a survey method is adopted to investigate how VET students acquire and apply work-related values and attitudes to work.

The survey of the VET students has disclosed that students are open to accepting different values of work, including cognitive values, social prestige and altruist values. However, orientation of the VET curricula to and provision of instrumental values lead to relatively weak internalization of the work values related to societal and spiritual dimensions.

The paper provides empirical evidence regarding the implications of the competence-based curricula for teaching students work values in the school-based VET.

This paper aims to investigate whether paid work activity (PWA) experience of students from five emerging economies is related to academic results and self-assessment of possessed entrepreneurial traits. Additionally, the authors verify the relationship between obtaining work experience and the willingness to start own business among students.

Participants included 3,631 students of the first level of higher education at six universities in five countries (Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine). A survey questionnaire was used which included questions on the previous work experience, paid work during university studies, the assessment of competencies related to entrepreneurship and the assessment of the desirability of entrepreneurship as a career choice.

Findings indicate that students who engaged in PWA before studies are more likely to do it during studies. PWA during studies is related to perceiving oneself as a worse-performing student, but also to the perception of oneself as an entrepreneurial person. No such relationship was found for the PWA experience before entering the university. It was also found that students are likely to start their businesses after obtaining work experience.

Practical implications pertain to the role of the contemporary academic institutions that should consider their approach to enabling students’ PWA and teaching them how to engage in it for the benefit of their own and the societies to which they belong. It is argued that it may be particularly essential in emerging economies.

The correlates of PWA of students have been underexplored. This paper allows broadening the current understanding of this phenomenon. The authors investigated its relationship with feeling entrepreneurial and academic achievements among young people from five emerging economies, which provides valuable insights for policymakers and educational institutions. It is argued that such insights may be particularly essential in emerging economies. Additionally, the authors contribute to advancing two theories that have not been extensively used in the entrepreneurial context: expectancy theory and social learning theory of career development.

This perspective article provides an overview of current research on paradoxes within family business settings and outlines emerging trends and potential avenues for future research in this field.

This article is inspired by a systems-theoretical approach to business family paradoxes.

The article suggests that increasing research interest in more-than and neither-nor approaches to paradox could propel the digital transformation of paradox theory and facilitate the strategic management of family business paradoxes in multi-stakeholder environments.

This article synthesises the state of the arts in the field of research on family business paradoxes and proposes future research agendas.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of economic growth, digitalisation, eco-innovation, energy consumption and patents on environmental technologies on the volume of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) recorded in European countries for a period of nine years (2010–2018).

Two empirical methods were integrated into the theoretical approach developed based on the analysis of the current scientific framework. Multiple linear regression, an extended version of the OLS model, and a non-causal analysis as a robustness method, Dumitrescu–Hurlin, were used to achieve the proposed research objective.

Digitalisation described by the number of individual Internet users and patents on environmental technologies determines the amount of GHG in Europe, and economic growth continues to have a significant effect on the amount of emissions, as well as the consumption of renewable energy. European countries are not framed in well-established patterns, but the economic growth, digitalisation, eco-innovation and renewable energy have an impact on the amount of GHG in one way or another. In many European countries, the amount of GHGs is decreasing as a result of economic growth, changes in the energy field and digitalisation. The positive influence of economic growth on climate neutrality depends on its degree of sustainability, while patents have the same conditional effect of their translation into environmentally efficient technologies.

This study has a number of limitations which derive, first of all, from the lack of digitalisation indicators. The missing data restricted the inclusion in the analysis of variables relevant to the description of the European digitalisation process, also obtaining conclusive results on the effects of digitalisation on GHG emissions.

A similar analysis of the relationship among the amount of greenhouse gas emissions and economic growth, digitalisation, eco-innovation and renewable energy is less common in the literature. Also, the results can be inspirational in the sphere of macroeconomic policy.

As women’s position in the economy and society is often explained by cultural factors, this study aims to verify whether the observed changes in female empowerment in the region of Central and East European (CEE) countries of the European Union (EU) are associated with masculinity as a cultural trait.

The authors apply the k-means clustering method to group CEE countries into clusters with similar levels of female empowerment in two time points – 2013 and 2019. Next, the authors examine the clusters and cross-reference them with the national culture’s masculinity to explore the interrelations between female empowerment and cultural traits in the CEE countries and their development in time.

The analyses reveal that female empowerment is not uniform or stable across the CEE countries. The masculinity level is not strongly related to women’s position in these countries, and changes in female empowerment are not closely linked to masculinity.

Despite the tumultuous history of women’s empowerment in the CEE countries, the issues related to gender equality and cultural traits pertaining to the region are relatively understudied in the literature. By focusing on the CEE region, the authors fill the gap in examining the independencies between female empowerment and cultural masculinity.

This study aims to integrate the resource-based view (RBV) with other theories that consider external factors necessary to respond successfully to dynamic and uncertain entrepreneurial business conditions.

The paper introduces an multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach, utilizing the axial-distance-based aggregated measurement (ADAM) method with weights determined by the preference selection index (PSI) method, to rank eight European countries based on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data. Additionally, the paper extends the existing entrepreneurial ecosystem taxonomy (EET), offering an additional classification.

The performed analysis emphasizes the importance and necessity of involving different dimensions of EE in assessing the countries' entrepreneurship performance, which facilitates creating adequate policy measures.

The crucial limitations are assessments based only on the GEM data from a particular period, possibly leading to a certain bias. Future research should involve data from various resources to increase the results' reliability.

The ranking results and country classification obtained using the ADAM-based approach and two distinct taxonomies served as the basis for formulating tailored policy recommendations, aiming to formulate tailored policy implications for increasing the number of new entrepreneurs and improving innovativeness, sustainability and internationalization of existing entrepreneurs for each group of countries.

Untimely responses to emergency situations in urban areas contribute to a rising mortality rate and impact society's primary capital. The efficient dispatch and relocation of ambulances pose operational and momentary challenges, necessitating an optimal policy based on the system's real-time status. While previous studies have addressed these concerns, limited attention has been given to the optimal allocation of technicians to respond to emergency situation and minimize overall system costs.

In this paper, a bi-objective mathematical model is proposed to maximize system coverage and enable flexible movement across bases for location, dispatch and relocation of ambulances. Ambulances relocation involves two key decisions: (1) allocating ambulances to bases after completing services and (2) deciding to change the current ambulance location among existing bases to potentially improve response times to future emergencies. The model also considers the varying capabilities of technicians for proper allocation in emergency situations.

The Augmented Epsilon-Constrained (AEC) method is employed to solve the proposed model for small-sized problem. Due to the NP-Hardness of the model, the NSGA-II and MOPSO metaheuristic algorithms are utilized to obtain efficient solutions for large-sized problems. The findings demonstrate the superiority of the MOPSO algorithm.

This study can be useful for emergency medical centers and healthcare companies in providing more effective responses to emergency situations by sending technicians and ambulances.

In this study, a two-objective mathematical model is developed for ambulance location and dispatch and solved by using the AEC method as well as the NSGA-II and MOPSO metaheuristic algorithms. The mathematical model encompasses three primary types of decision-making: (1) Allocating ambulances to bases after completing their service, (2) deciding to relocate the current ambulance among existing bases to potentially enhance response times to future emergencies and (3) considering the diverse abilities of technicians for accurate allocation to emergency situations.

Gazelle companies are characterized by rapid growth in a short time. Identifying the determinants of this exponential expansion is important as these firms have a significant impact on the economy. They generate increased employment and investment by investors interested in new opportunities. Previous studies have failed to reach a consensus about what fosters high growth in gazelle companies as each firm’s geographical, political and economic context is different. The present research uses cognitive mapping and interpretive structural modeling (ISM) to overcome the limitations of prior investigations and identify factors that can potentially accelerate growth in gazelle companies.

Two sessions were held with an expert panel with knowledge about and experience with these firms. In the first session, data were collected to create a group cognitive map, while the second meeting comprised ISM-based analyses of the high-growth determinants identified and the causal relationships between them. A final consolidation session was held to discuss the results with two members of the Committee for Central Region Coordination and Development (i.e. Comissão de Coordenação e Desenvolvimento Regional do Centro – a public entity that grants gazelle awards in Portugal).

The analysis system created was tested, and the results demonstrate that the dual methodology used can increase our understanding of the dynamics of high-growth determinants and lead to more informed and potentially better evaluations of gazelle companies. Indeed, once high-growth determinants in gazelle companies are understood, this information can help other firms implement the same business model to achieve similarly rapid growth. The strengths and shortcomings of this new structured analysis model are also analyzed.

The authors know of no prior work reporting the integrated use of cognitive mapping and ISM in this study context.