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This paper aims to analyse the competitiveness of the regions of the Visegrad countries (Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) with respect to their sustainability and discuss the role of the EU cohesion policy in promoting regional competitiveness in this dimension.

The sustainable competitiveness of Visegrad Group countries was analysed with the use of a taxonomic method, to determine the regions with the highest, middle and low level of the sustainable development (competitiveness). The level of sustainable competitiveness of the Visegrad regions was indicated based on the author’s own set of diagnostic variables which define three dimensions of sustainability.

The analysis revealed that the regions of the Visegrad Group countries with high GDP per capita are not necessarily ranked high in terms of sustainable competitiveness. The obtained results confirm the assumption that traditional indicators such as GDP per capita do not capture all aspects of social and environmental sustainability. Thus, the cohesion policy in the Visegrad Group countries should be diversified and adjusted to the special needs of the regions with particular emphasis being laid on sustainability dimension and the level of their economic development. When identifying the directions of support under the cohesion policy, special attention should be paid to the development of modern technologies, including information and communication technology (ICT), that facilitate the transformation of regions towards the smart regions path.

Because of the data availability, it covers only one year, 2014, where it was possible. Further investigation should focus on the comparison of the changes over a certain period and changes that took place in the ranking. In addition, a detailed analysis of the regions with regard to their development of the “sustainable path” should be considered. It is essential to support less developed regions in the field of the sustainable and inclusive development through cohesion policy which is supported in 2014-2020. However, it is also important to promote the ICT investment in the lagging regions.

The analysed 35 regions of the Visegrad countries were ranked according to their level of sustainable competitiveness. The three groups of regions were distinguished. The first place in the ranking was occupied by the region which recorded the highest value of the TMC – a taxonomic measure of sustainable competitiveness and the last region – it is the region with the lowest value of the TMC.

The paper discusses the concept of sustainable competitiveness of regions. The level of sustainable competitiveness of the Visegrad regions was indicated based on the own set of diagnostic variables which define three dimensions of sustainability. The paper makes a contribution to the discussion on the regional smart and sustainable competitiveness and the role of EU cohesion policy in supporting the sustainable competitiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to define the impact of the investment in training in education by the European Social Fund (ESF) in four Eastern countries, namely, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Hungary. Those countries have some political, cultural, social and economic similarities and share some common ground in the human resource development (HRD) sectors.

The authors use the human capital theory with some extensions to analyze the context, operations and impacts of the ESF in the Visegrad four (V4) countries between 2007 and 2013. The authors use three levels of methodology to access each one of those problems.

The authors conclude that the ESF helped building the vocational training system in those countries, and to help them get near the equilibrium of high skills of the V4 Western European neighbors, and therefore, this one was a success story. However, quality issues remain to be addressed that may hinder the continuation of the success in the future.

The research could be enlarged in time and space and deepened in terms of methodology. This is one a first clarifying step. Theoretical work should become aware of the dichotomy between absorption and scientific logic.

Detailed and precise evaluation practices must be implemented to guide and assess the policy.

Precisely because funds are scarce this paper enlights the dilemma and the tension between quantity and quality in the European HRD policy, this is an important social problem.

The study is original because even if the HRD in those countries had already been studied (Sheehan and Buchelt, 2016), no study analyzing specifically the ESF in those countries has been carried out so far. The authors use an innovative methodology and address questions on context, operations and impact, which are also innovative and very relevant.

This paper aims to examine issues surrounding the competitiveness of the Visegrad countries that have recently joined the European Union, and in particular, to analyse a set of structural indicators that help assess the degree to which they are meeting the terms of the Lisbon agreement.

The approach taken is to examine and analyse published economic and associated performance data.

The Visegrad countries lag behind in many of the structural indicators and thus have progress to make in raising their competitiveness to general European levels. There are also some surprising areas where these counties are in advance of general European levels – such as in technical education.

The paper suggests areas where governments might intervene to improve longer‐term competitiveness.

The paper performs a useful analysis of available data to highlight key policy areas and issues.

This study aims to extend the existing body of literature on the individual-level determinants of self-employed persons with (employer entrepreneurs) and without employees (solo self-employed individuals) from the perspective of four post-communist economies (i.e. Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia).

The methodological approach is based on the three harmonised waves (2005, 2010 and 2015) of the European Survey on Working Conditions (EWCS). Multi-variate logistic regression models are used to determine the individual-level differences among employees, solo self-employed individuals and job creators in the selected group of countries.

The results show significant differences among employees, solo self-employed individuals and job creators, especially when it comes to the role of age, gender, education, previous experience, number of working hours and their determination. Job creators in Visegrád countries have, on average, more years of experience, and higher levels of education (tertiary), than wage-employees.

This study provides a series of recommendations for future research on the role of family- and household-related characteristics, entrepreneurship-specific education and migration background.

The previous research on individual determinants of entrepreneurial engagement in Visegrád region was mainly based on the data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. This study offers a novel perspective based on the EWCS data.

I aimed to analyze and synthesize the literature on sustainable HRM and its sub-concepts, such as green HRM and socially responsible HRM, with the focus on research conducted in the Visegrad Group (V4) countries. I posed the following research questions: (1) What are the main characteristics of sustainable HRM research in the worldwide literature? (2) What are the main characteristics of research conducted in the V4 countries? (3) Which future research directions are promising gaps to be filled by research conducted in V4 countries?

For the purpose of this study, I applied bibliometric analysis, scientific network analysis and in-depth content analysis.

The results of the analyses of articles indexed in the Scopus database revealed that there is a growing trend in research on sustainable HRM. However, scarce research comes from the V4; scholars have conducted such studies only in Slovakia and Poland. There are five thematic clusters in the main sample, though the concept of green HRM has been explored the most. Although the keyword network analysis showed that the V4 articles focus mostly on sustainable HRM, the in-depth content analysis provided evidence that the V4 sample represented all concepts.

This is the first study to analyze the achievements of scientists from the V4 in this research field. It applies methodological rigor and a mixed-method approach. Moreover, it presents directions of research that go beyond the recommendations presented in the analyzed articles.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between ESG disclosure and banks performance and to discuss how banks are committed to the implementation of sustainability issues.

The authors examined the annual, risk and sustainability reports published by 26 banks located in four Central European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) in the period of 2017–2021. The authors applied the methodology of content analysis and developed indexes. Panel regression was performed to improve and ensure the robustness of this study.

The results show that social and governance aspects dominate the ESG preparedness; however, after 2019, there was a significant improvement in the integration of environmental issues. This study confirms a strong association between bank size (total assets) and ESG reporting, and between capital adequacy and ESG reporting. The results demonstrate that there is no connection between banks' operational and financial performance and ESG disclosure. Finally, this study concludes that the integration of ESG risks into the risk management framework is at an early stage.

This study also adds to the existing research in the field of sustainability reporting. For regulators, this research proves their essential role in the facilitation of sustainable development. For practitioners, the ESG disclosure index could serve as a “detection tool” in the sustainability self-assessment process.

The authors examined – through a self-developed multidimensional ESG disclosure index – the sustainability reporting of the banking sector in four countries from the Central European region.

The article analyzes the challenges Slovak businesses and organizations are facing in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting human resource management solutions they apply.

The authors present a part of their research conducted in six Central Eastern European (CEE) countries. Based on timely data, the article presents socioeconomic characteristics of Slovakia and the results of the research “HRM Challenges in Times of the Covid-19 Crisis” conducted among employers in Slovakia. The survey method encompassed 247 Slovakian organizations.

The year 2020 was an extraordinary one for businesses, governments, and individuals alike. According to the results of this research, Slovak organizations were not prepared for the Covid-19 crisis. Respondents who had a pandemic action plan at the time of the breakout were hardly found. Measures taken to preserve human health directly impacted the way how work is done and organized. This poses significant challenges for both employers and employees. In general, small organizations used cost and staff reduction tools. On the other hand, some of the respondents, mainly large organizations have been using future-oriented solutions, e.g. organizational development.

In this research the authors analyzed the experiences of a Central European country, namely Slovakia. However, the experiences gained and collected here can be useful in the international arena as well.

This paper aims to present an exploratory investigation into ten‐year (1995‐2004) patterns of trade specialization among Eastern European and former Soviet Union Nations, assessing patterns of comparative advantage across the textile machinery, man‐made fiber, textile, and apparel sectors of the textile complex to determine whether these conform with both trade specialization and industry evolution theories.

A revealed symmetric comparative advantage index is employed to evaluate international competitiveness for 27 Eastern European and former Soviet Union Nations over a ten‐year period. Repeated measures ANOVA is used to determine the significance of the observed patterns across four income‐defined groups of nations.

Overall, the pattern of export development and RSCA generally reflects expectations regarding factor proportions theory and industry evolution models. The RMANOVA partially confirms the observations. The analysis indicates that income group does not independently affect comparative advantage; however, the nature of products is the significant factor influencing national comparative advantage.

The established models may be better at understanding those nations which have established relatively stable politic and economic environment, and been experiencing earlier stages of industry development, but appear less useful in predicting development patterns for those nations experiencing dramatic transitions from regulated to de‐regulated markets.

The patterns of national comparative advantage in a vertical textile complex are identified for Eastern European and former Soviet Union Nations. The dynamics of change over a ten‐year period following economic reforms are revealed.

This study aims to investigate the effect of university atmosphere, macroeconomic environment and business support on students’ entrepreneurial intention. Moreover, it explores whether country moderates these relationships or not.

This research is administered on individual-level data collection through survey distribution. The impact of contextual factors on entrepreneurial intention, along with moderating effect, was examined by using multi-group analysis (MGA) in partial least squares (PLS) in an original data set of 1,352 respondents from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland.

The results indicate that university environment and business support can influence entrepreneurial intention. Furthermore, country did not moderate the proposed relationships.

This study’s contribution enriches literature by providing insights on the determinants of entrepreneurial intentions in the Central Europe context. Limitations may be overcome with further research.

Identifying factors that influence entrepreneurial intention can inform the design of effective policies to boost entrepreneurship and combat youth unemployment.

Understanding the contextual factors that motivate students towards entrepreneurship may inform the design of more effective policies. The findings of this study, particularly concerning moderating effects, are useful to scholars as entrepreneurial behaviour is proved similar across all three countries.

Awarding contracts based solely on the lowest price is unsuitable for every project. Consequently, most procurement systems in developed countries have progressed to the multicriteria selection practices (MSPs) for tender evaluation. MSPs consider a range of quality measures, such as completion time, life cycle cost, functional characteristics, environmental impact and innovation, alongside bid price. This study examines the prevailing MSPs in Sri Lankan public tender evaluations to enhance the effectiveness of the local tender evaluation process.

A desk study approach was employed to collect bidding documents, resulting in the identification of 66 documents. A systematic screening process was then applied to identify those bidding documents that incorporated MSPs. Subsequently, content analysis was conducted to determine the common features of the functions used in MSPs.

The study identified six primary functions related to MSPs incorporated in the bidding documents to procure building and substation projects. Three functions follow the price-to-quality method, while the remaining three follow the quality-to-price method. Among these identified functions, four functions employ objective evaluation criteria, such as thickness, capacity and operational loss. The other two functions utilize subjective evaluation criteria, such as the project’s design and technical specifications. Contract awarding will be based on either the highest score or the lowest bid, depending on the function type.

This study’s originality lies in exploring MSPs in the Sri Lankan public tender evaluation process and in disclosing their characteristics to promote the MSPs in Sri Lanka and developing countries.