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This study aims to statistically investigate the effects of an infodemic as an external stimulus on consumer decision processes based on the stimulus-organism-response theory (SOR). An infodemic is known as an epidemic of misinformation, and the literature on infodemics in marketing is quite limited. With the research model created for this purpose, the mediating role of brand trust (organism) in the relationship between both infodemic and positive word-of-mouth marketing (stimulus) and consumers' store visit intentions (response) is examined. The findings suggest that infodemic news and positive word-of-mouth marketing influence consumers' shopping behaviour. Being influenced by infodemic news does not have a significant effect on store visit intention directly, but it has a positive effect through the mediation of brand trust. In addition, both direct and indirect effects of positive word-of-mouth marketing on store visit intention are positive. This suggests that brand trust functions as a coping mechanism for consumers to deal with the uncertainty or negative impact of infodemic news and that consumers' store visit intentions can be increased by enhancing their trust in the brand. As a result, it emphasises the importance of brands developing various communication strategies to increase their credibility and influence consumer decision-making mechanisms.
Implications for Central European audience: The study aims to investigate the effects of infodemic posts and positive word-of-mouth marketing on consumers' trust in a brand and their intention to visit a store. By doing so, it seeks to provide strategic recommendations that companies can apply in their communications with customers. Data analyses show that being influenced by an infodemic does not have a significant direct effect on store visit intention, but it does have a positive impact through brand trust. Additionally, positive word-of-mouth marketing has both direct and indirect positive effects on store visit intention. The study highlights brand trust as a critical element that can mitigate the negative effects of infodemic news. It is recommended that businesses focus on sustainability projects, ethical practices and the principle of transparency to enhance brand trust.

Our study approaches consumers’ orientation towards e-commerce during disruptive times, taking the COVID-19 pandemic, the most prominent recent disruptive event, as a reference. The analysis of the phenomenon was targeted at two differently developed European countries, Romania and Germany, which were investigated. Considering the time span from January 2020 to January 2022, Google Trends was used to track the search volumes associated with the main e-commerce platforms in the analysed countries, serving as a proxy measure for gauging consumers’ orientation towards e-commerce. Based on sound sentiment and quantitative analyses, our study revealed no statistically significant correlation between consumers’ orientation towards e-commerce and the negativity of news in the media reporting on COVID-19 topics. In contrast to that, the investigation revealed statistically significant positive correlations between consumers’ orientation towards e-commerce and the incidence of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Germany and only partially in Romania. Moreover, consumers’ orientation towards e-commerce was influenced by regulatory interventions, such as the enforced lockdown measures. Particularly during the initial surge of COVID-19 cases, a strong consumer orientation towards e-commerce coincided, from a temporal perspective, with the imposition of lockdown measures. Framed by consumer behaviour literature, our study outlines different behavioural characteristics of consumers during disruptive times – in our case, health crises – and derived typologies of consumers with direct influence on entrepreneurial practice.
Implications for Central European audience: Theoretically placed in the field of consumer behaviour research, our study adds to the literature as it reveals insights about consumers’ orientation towards e-commerce during disruptive times. Focusing on the most recent prominent disruptive phenomenon, the COVID-19 pandemic, our paper also has practical implications of entrepreneurial relevance. By outlining invaluable insights into consumers’ behaviour and their orientation towards e-commerce during the pandemic, our study might set starting points in designing entrepreneurial strategies for survival or development during disruptive times (e.g., health crises).

Political trust is an important indicator for evaluating relations between politicians and stakeholders. In agriculture, political trust has not been researched in depth, although agriculture is highly regulated by policies related to access to resources. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by answering the question of the role of institutionalized and non-institutionalized social communication in shaping farm workers' political trust. The multiple regression on a sample of 1,016 farm workers from the Europe-wide 2020 European Social Survey yields new insights. A key finding is the moderating effect of the opinion that online communication channels expose people to misinformation on the relationship between farm workers' trust in politics as a dependent variable and frequency of social contacts, time spent monitoring politics and current affairs, and membership in professional associations. In addition, political trust was found to increase as farm workers' interest in politics and monitoring news about politics and current affairs increased. While political trust is positively associated with farm workers' institutionalized participation in professional associations, it is negatively associated with non-institutionalized networking. Confirmation bias associated with farm workers' networking is particularly risky. Another important finding is lower political trust among households with a subjectively worse financial situation.
Implications for Central European audience: Government, formal networks (professional associations), and informal networks (social networks) provide verified and trustworthy information. At the same time, farmers themselves should have sufficient information literacy to critically assess the credibility of the information. The farm worker's education plays an important role and is significantly related to most of the main effects. The study's conclusions also include suggestions for follow-up research.

In the young Croatian democracy, there is a necessary role of the strategic approach to the political marketing communication campaigns, especially in using the new media, social networks and Facebook, being the most representative one. This paper aims to analyse to what degree the political parties use Facebook, how they manage this, and the opinions and viewpoints of the voters. This study has two major goals: to analyse how the leading political parties in Croatia use and manage social media services, particularly Facebook, and to evaluate perspectives of the Croatian voters regarding social media during political campaigns. Two instruments were created based on the secondary research: a protocol for in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with the social media specialists of the leading Croatian political parties (n = 3) and a survey of voters (n = 557), ranging in age from 18-45 years (78.1%), 46-55 years (14.7%), 56-65 years (6.1%) and older than 66 (1.1%). Croatian political parties do not use Facebook's entire potential. The respondents who vote regularly believe that the political parties' Facebook pages are significant in their promotion and visit these pages more frequently. These pages are visited more frequently during political campaigns. It is imperative to focus on increased quality and more frequent communication, direct communication and turning to young people in the campaigns. There are statistically significant differences with regard to age on the issue of voting. Croatian political parties can improve the potential of social networks, primarily Facebook, in election campaigns.
Implications for a Central European audience: In addition to the specified deficiencies of the Facebook pages, the voters provided suggestions for improving the Facebook content and increasing page visits. When used in combination with other social media, Facebook has the strongest potential for influencing the young voters. The results indicate the need for professional management of relevant social media strategies and tactics. The improvements of the Facebook pages can be grouped in several categories, the most important being "Content", "Communication" and "Strategy". The improvements would yield more frequent visits by the potential voters.

This study examines the dynamic connectedness between Bitcoin and various financial assets, including the stock market, gold, oil, bonds, and exchange rates, as well as explores portfolio strategies involving these assets. The study covers the period from January 2, 2015, to March 1, 2024. The quantile connectedness approach and portfolio strategies are utilized in the analysis. The findings are as follows: Intermarket volatility spillover significantly increases under extreme conditions. Bitcoin emerges as a transmitter during bullish markets and acts as a receiver in bearish and normal market conditions. Gold serves as a receiver in extreme conditions and a transmitter in normal conditions. Unlike gold, oil acts as a transmitter under extreme conditions and functions as a receiver under normal conditions. Among the fundamental markets, the stock market is the most significant shock transmitter. In risk-mitigating portfolios, the proportion of Bitcoin is low, while the proportions of gold and the dollar index are high. Bitcoin has been found to have low hedging properties.
Implications for Central European Audience: Since the emergence of Bitcoin in 2008, the cryptocurrency market has developed rapidly. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have come to occupy an important place in financial markets in terms of value and volume. Bitcoin can affect portfolio management in the financial system in terms of diversification, hedging, risk management, portfolio strategies, and linkages between financial assets. This study investigates the linkages, hedging and portfolio strategies between Bitcoin and the stock market, gold, oil, bond and exchange rate markets. The results of the study are important for portfolio managers, risk managers, financial analysts and economic managers.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution has propelled many employees to perform work from home (WFH), which has been enabled by rapid digital advancements and the integration of technology into daily workflows. This paper aims to explore the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance for employees working from home in Vietnam due to remote work policies implemented by European enterprises. Based on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory, the research model is proposed. Accordingly, hypotheses are developed, and this study applies a quantitative analysis with a research sample of 256 employees from European multinational enterprises now working remotely in Vietnam. The questionnaire includes close-ended questions sent to these employees via e-mail between January and June of 2023. The collected data are then processed and analyzed by SPSS v.22. The study applies Cronbach’s Alpha as a tool for assessing the reliability or internal consistency of scales. The following is the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and the regression analysis. The research findings indicate that higher job satisfaction levels are a significant predictor of higher perceived job performance when working fully remotely in Vietnam for European enterprises.
Implications for Central European audience: This study's insights on managing remote workforces in a developing country context can guide Central European enterprises in tailoring their remote work strategies when expanding their businesses into Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, where the trend of remote work is on the rise. It emphasizes the significance of comprehending local dynamics and meeting employee needs to improve job satisfaction and performance in remote work environments.

The article researches the impact of anti-ESG factors on financial markets in China and its consequences for the countries of Central Europe. In this connection, the specific aim of the article was to analyze whether CO₂ emissions, as the main factor against ESG concept, negatively affect the return of stock and bond investments in the extreme environment of the world's largest producer of emissions - China. The multiple linear regression (MLR) model method was used for explaining the investment return according to Khan’s and Long’s model specification, applied on annual data for investment horizon from 1991 to 2023. The results at the 5% level of significance (p < 0.05) surprisingly showed that emissions have a positive impact on Chinese stock prices (β = 0.079). This reflects that instead of environmental goals stock investors in China rather have a preference for economic growth, for which China's emission-intensive industry is crucial. On the other hand, ESG-related issues have a slightly negative impact on bonds (β = -0.031), which emphasizes the greater importance of environmental factors for fixed income investments. Overall, the research offers valuable insights into the complex relationship between CO₂ emissions, investment performance and investor sentiment in China, which may have significant implications for other countries subject to strict ESG regulations, as well as the potential to use ESG strategies to increase the attractiveness of their financial markets. Implications for Central European audience: Understanding the impact of CO₂ emissions on Chinese financial markets, holds significant implications also for Central European countries, as ESG is at the forefront of EU regulatory framework. Particularly within the Visegrad 4 (V4) alliance, where industrial production in sectors like car manufacturing plays a crucial role in economy, finding a balance between economic growth and environmental responsibility is paramount. The article therefore implies that by integrating ESG in investment strategies, Central European countries can possibly enhance the attractiveness of their currently passive financial markets. At the same time the findings help societies as a whole, by emphasizing the financial benefits of building a more sustainable future.

It is a well-known fact that consumers demonstrate their status through displaying their consumption and one of the key areas of consumption used to display status is travel. While traditional markers of travel status emphasized destinations, today’s status is more often conveyed through particular, often intangible, elements included in how the travel experience is shared. The display of these more intangible and immaterial aspects of travel consumption has developed vis-a-vis the proliferation of social media, which has allowed displaying the manner of travel in more detail but has also changed what status travel means. Our research aims to investigate this evolving nature of travel as a status symbol, particularly focusing on how social media have reshaped the perception of status travel for the young adult middle class consumers. Using visual analysis, we examine 508 travel-related Instagram posts from nine Czech young adult informants who belong to the emerging cosmopolitan class, focusing on the themes and visual strategies used to communicate social status. The analysis identifies four key characteristics essential for “Instagrammable” status travel: immersion in local or authentic culture, absence of crowds, unfamiliar or non-domestic landscapes and active participation in unique experiences. Our findings show that international travel dominates these status displays, with consumers favouring curated posts that emphasize exclusivity and uniqueness. This research highlights how social media have transformed travel into a form of experiential consumption, where the manner of presentation is as important as the travel itself in conveying status.
Implications for Central European audience: Young adult consumers increasingly signal status through curated, visually appealing travel experiences on social media, marking a shift from traditional status symbols to experiential consumption. These consumers prioritize authenticity, cultural immersion and exclusivity, constructing an aspirational identity aligning with global trends. Despite the preference of international travel, local destinations and marketers have a unique opportunity to attract this audience by offering experiences that emphasize these values and appeal to their visually driven social media use. Destinations that can capture these elements can better engage a digitally native, image-conscious demographic valuing travel as a form of self-expression and status.

This study evaluates Hungary’s equity market using Damodaran’s country risk premium (CRP) framework to estimate its cost of equity and assess investment attractiveness within the Central and Southeast European context. The paper integrates Hungary’s sovereign credit rating, default spread, and a volatility adjustment to compute an implied cost of equity of approximately 11.5%, placing it among the least risky regional markets. The methodology benchmarks Hungary against peers including Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, Bosnia, and North Macedonia using key structural indicators such as market capitalization, turnover, P/E ratios, and foreign ownership. Findings show that Hungary benefits from deeper market liquidity, broader investor participation, and stronger integration with global capital markets compared to its frontier neighbors. However, institutional and political risks—particularly EU governance disputes—continue to inflate its risk premium above fundamentals. The results underscore how sovereign risk, market structure, and integration interact to shape equity valuations. The study concludes that targeted reforms aimed at enhancing governance and investor protections could lower Hungary’s risk premium and align it more closely with developed EU markets, offering a roadmap for peer economies undergoing similar transitions.
Implications for Central European audience: The paper provides a replicable framework for evaluating equity risk in post-socialist economies. Hungary’s example illustrates how institutional quality, liquidity, and policy credibility jointly influence investment outcomes. These insights can guide reforms and capital market strategies across Central and Eastern Europe.

Over the recent decades, the world has experienced several major disruptive events with far-reaching global impacts on societies, economies and financial systems. This study investigates the financial market reactions to one of the most recent global disruptive events, the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the role of investors' herding behaviour during uncertainty. While previous research has mainly explored this on Asian and American markets, our study addresses this gap in understanding Northern European reactions, particularly in rising and falling markets, and aims to explore the existence of herding during the COVID-19 pandemic and to further investigate its occurrence and intensity during the periods of upward and downward movements. It uses Nasdaq Nordic and Baltic daily stock data and employs the cross-sectional absolute deviation method to estimate the reaction of individual Nordic and Baltic stock markets. The results reveal that herding was observed on three out of four Nasdaq Nordic stock markets (Sweden, Denmark and Finland) and one out of three Nasdaq Baltic stock markets (Lithuania). This behaviour persisted throughout the entire COVID-19 period and during market downturns, with no herding observed during upward market movements. This study contributes novel insights into herding on Northern European stock markets, highlighting distinct investor responses to the same global disruption and emphasizing the likelihood of herding during market downturns due to fear and uncertainty. Additionally, the research indicates more pronounced herding behaviour in developed rather than frontier stock markets, suggesting that during global disruptive events, smaller and less liquid stock markets might react more rationally, although more research is needed.
Implications for Central European audience: Acknowledging herding behaviour during global disruptive events is relevant for both investors and policymakers. Investors in Central and Eastern European countries can benefit from their awareness of herding behaviour, especially during market downturns, by taking advantage of mispriced assets. Moreover, understanding the psychological biases driving herding can promote more rational decision-making, enabling investors to resist panic selling. Meanwhile, policymakers can implement measures to promote market rationality, such as investor education programmes, aimed at building investors’ cognitive resilience and understanding of portfolio management strategies during turbulent times. Investors’ ability to recognize and mitigate the effects of herding behaviour should enhance their rationality and promote more efficient financial markets.

The underrepresentation of women in leadership positions is common evidence of gender inequality. Consequently, the European Commission brought a directive to balance the underrepresentation of women on boards in EU countries. Often, females are presumed to be less favourable for top management positions in successful companies and are faced with different obstacles during their careers. However, they possess many different characteristics, which makes them excellent leaders and may create positive differences in financial reporting quality (FRQ). Croatia still lags behind other EU countries in terms of the share of women within corporate boards; therefore, in this paper, we aim to investigate whether the FRQ differs based on the boardroom’s gender structure. The research is conducted on a sample of listed Croatian companies using univariate and multivariate statistical methods. Two sub-samples were formed in order to capture the effects of the Gender Equality Act (GEA) application. Our results show that women are still underrepresented as board members despite the regulations that introduced a list of activities for gender equality. The gender structure of corporate boardrooms is significantly associated with FRQ, and issuing positive audit opinions is related to tilted-structured management boards, where up to 40% of the board members are women. The contribution of our research is twofold: to investigate the trends and level of gender inequality in leadership positions of Croatian listed companies, and to identify whether the gender structure of top management plays a significant role in a company's FRQ.
Implications for Central European audience: The results of this study provide significant insight into the underrepresentation of women on corporate boards within EU countries. Our findings and recommendations may be of special interest, particularly for Central European countries that share the experience of transition from planned to market economy with Croatia and are characterised by similar institutional, political, economic and financial systems. The topic is crucial in contemporary business, especially following and adapting to the directives brought by the European Commission, pinpointing the issue as a current and future challenge.

Many individuals enjoy sharing their stories and experiences through social media, which exemplifies social media word-of-mouth (social media WOM). This study examines the role of social media WOM in driving masstige purchase behaviour. This study involves perceptual distance, luxury perception, purchase intention and gender in such an investigation. Masstige refers to providing prestige to the masses, indicating luxury products for a broad audience. A survey of 246 consumers is conducted and structural equation modelling is employed to analyse the data. We find that social media WOM positively influences perceptual distance, luxury perception and purchase intention. Perceptual distance negatively influences purchase intention, while luxury perception positively influences such intention. Purchase intention positively influences purchase behaviour. This study does not find support that gender moderates the relationship between perceptual distance and purchase intention, as well as between luxury perception and purchase intention. The findings suggest that marketers need to identify social media platforms that match the luxury perception of their target audience and present exclusive content to encourage purchase intention and, further, masstige purchases. Masstige purchase behaviour is vital for collectivist countries because it can increase their consumers’ social status and prestige.
Implications for Central European audience: Cultural and social homogeneity among Asian people brings the popularity of masstige brands from Western countries (Paul, 2015), especially Central European brands to capitalise on the capabilities they have created (Alić et al., 2022). The findings of this study are crucial as Indonesia and the Visegrád Group (V4) of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia have strong business relationships (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia, 2019). 

With rising levels of work-related stress and its dramatic consequences, organizations are increasingly investing in finding solutions to promote employee well-being. As an effective approach to stress management, humour has begun to attract the attention of practitioners and researchers. This study proposes to look at humour as a further managerial tool to improve workplace relationships and associated positive outcomes. It examines how the humour style of supervisors and subordinates affects the leader-follower relationship. Specifically, the effects of humour style (dis)similarity on leader-employee exchanges are examined. Data were collected in 2022 from 128 supervisor-subordinate dyads (N = 53 supervisors; N = 128 subordinates) in an international organization headquartered in Switzerland. Our polynomial regression analysis reveals that leader-member exchange (LMX) is positively influenced by congruence in affiliative, self-enhancing and self-defeating humour. These findings contribute to the discussion on the impact of humour style similarity on workplace relationships and the importance of considering dyadic interactions.
Implications for Central European audience: The results suggest that leaders should take humour seriously and consider including it in their managerial toolkit to improve workplace relationships. It is important to differentiate between humour styles and their effects and apply them with respect to the situation and desired outcomes. Joking together improves LMX, which is why leaders should consider supporting their employees in humorous behaviour to strengthen bonds. Since leaders’ behaviour is perceived as a reference and considering the numerous positive effects of humour in organizations, leaders may practice humour at work more often to lead by example and integrate it into the group culture.

An increasing number of articles published on the nexus between corporate sustainability disclosure (CSD) and tax behaviour (TB) have enriched the academic research landscape. However, they have provided inconclusive results as to the nature of the connection and have not yet adequately examined the sources of variation that might moderate the effect sizes under investigation. This study performs a standard meta-analysis and synthesises the empirical-quantitative results regarding the CSD-TB connection, following Hunter & Schmidt's (1990) research design. Several criteria are employed to collect documents with methodological and content relevance. The selection process results in a final dataset that includes 50 articles covering the period from 2012 to 2022. The findings reveal that the CSD-TB link is not significant enough for practical purposes, while an investigation of moderating variables that can explain the different findings of earlier studies shows either no or little connection. The benefit of such a no-results analysis for the research community is to redirect future researchers, especially PhD candidates, to examine other factors affecting corporations’ TB. In terms of limitations, the meta-analysis is based on the availability of the existing corpus of knowledge and consists only of empirical studies with Pearson correlation coefficients and standardised beta coefficients.
Implications for Central European audience: The present study provides evidence that may influence policy-making processes at the European and international level, particularly with regard to corporate tax transparency. The findings suggest that the implementation of CSD has not proven to be effective in terms of tax behaviour. A meta-analysis of the available data shows no statistically significant correlation between CSD and the tax behaviour of businesses, thus challenging the assumption that CSD obligations can act as an effective tool to enhance tax compliance, which implies that other means of enhancing tax compliance need to be explored.

The increasing complexity of energy security threats, both internal and external, poses significant challenges for businesses in Europe, necessitating a robust framework for evaluating and responding to these risks. This article introduces a comprehensive methodology designed to assess the effects of these threats on a state's energy security through two distinct approaches. The first method focuses on identifying imbalances by analysing the deviation of key indicators from established sustainability benchmarks. The second method combines expert evaluations of changes in comprehensive index components with mathematical computations to assess their overall impact through an energy security model. By employing adaptive control techniques, this methodology disaggregates integrated indices of components and security metrics, allowing a nuanced understanding of energy security dynamics. The energy security model incorporates contemporary evaluation methods that define secure thresholds within various security levels, facilitating a structured analysis of vulnerabilities. This flexible response approach formalises the impacts of threats on the holistic index, establishes new pathways for achieving objectives after a threat and dissects emerging dynamics into actionable components and metrics. The primary research objectives include enhancing the strategic planning capabilities of businesses, improving management decision making processes and quantifying threats to energy security in a systematic manner. The findings indicate that this methodology significantly aids managerial decision making, enabling businesses to alleviate the impacts of threats on energy security strategy elements. Furthermore, the Energy Sustainability Plan formalises relevant response strategies at multiple tiers, ensuring the adaptability of energy systems to maintain a sustainable development trajectory. This study contributes to the broader discourse on energy security by providing a practical framework that can be utilised by policymakers and business leaders to navigate the complexities of energy threats in Central Europe.
Implications for Central European audience: By assessing internal and external threats to energy security, businesses in Central Europe can proactively address risks and optimise their sustainable energy strategies. Utilising adaptive control techniques and contemporary evaluation methods enhances resilience to evolving threats and ensures the stability of energy systems. This approach provides practical decision making insights and empowers businesses to customise their response strategies, thereby advancing the region's energy security and sustainability initiatives.

In the contemporary business environment, many companies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have adopted self-service technologies (SSTs), moving away from traditional face-to-face interactions. Although numerous studies have examined the factors that shape users’ attitudes towards SSTs, the extant literature has primarily focused on the impact of specific individual and technological factors. In addition, a predominant emphasis is placed on SSTs for hotels, restaurants and retail stores. To bridge these gaps, the present research explores the effect of demographic factors on Bulgarian users’ attitudes towards SSTs at filling stations. The methodology employed consists of a review of the existing literature on SST-related attitudes and a quantitative analysis, for which data were collected via a web-based self-administered questionnaire. Results reveal that younger individuals attribute higher convenience to SSTs than persons of older age. Unexpectedly, advanced age is associated with lower SST anxiety and heightened SST readiness. Additionally, females demonstrate greater SST apprehension and reduced SST readiness compared to males. Notably, education plays a role as well, suggesting that individuals with a Bachelor’s degree exhibit escalated SST anxiety and diminished SST readiness in comparison to those with secondary education. The originality of this paper lies in the fact that it attempts to add substantial new knowledge to understanding the interplay between demographic variables and selected individual and technological factors. By virtue of this, the present study highlights another important dimension in the process of designing and implementing SSTs – shaping user experiences that cater to demographic differences so that user acceptance can be reinforced.
Implications for Central European audience: From a social perspective, this study offers valuable insights for the development of user-centric self-service solutions. By gaining comprehension of users’ attitudes towards SSTs, technology providers can tailor their offerings to meet diverse user preferences, thus allowing the enhancement of user experiences and promotion of wider SST acceptance. In an economic context, the research allows filling stations to make informed decisions regarding the integration of such solutions, potentially leading to operational cost reduction and improved service efficiency. This could translate into lower consumer prices/higher profits.

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have a significant influence on global financial markets, with assets exceeding USD 11.2 trillion and accounting for 40% of the world's largest 100 asset owners' total assets. Understanding the drivers behind SWFs' investment decisions is crucial. This study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and irresponsibility (CSI) compared to financial data on SWFs' investment decisions, analysing 72% of their total public equity holdings from 2019 to 2023. Findings reveal that SWFs prioritize company self-reported environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics over public CSI information when making investment decisions. Furthermore, public equity holding CSI data have a more pronounced influence on the investment decision of SWFs in countries with higher transparency of sustainability. The study underscores the necessity for greater ESG integration into SWFs' investment strategies to demonstrate a commitment to sustainable investing practices. This research illuminates the path towards a more responsible and sustainable approach for SWFs on global financial markets.
Implications for Central European audience: Our conclusions could help encourage greater ESG integration into investment strategies and promote sustainable investing practices more broadly, not limited to liquid assets, to showcase a sustainable “walk the talk”. A special focus should be put on CSI's development of target investments. Future research might also consider whether the investment behaviour of SWFs is equivalent to that of other major investors, such as insurance companies and public pension schemes.

Cork is a natural, recyclable, non-toxic and renewable resource with unique functional characteristics that is part of a self-sustaining sector. It is increasingly being applied to fashion brands from its traditional use in the wine and construction sectors. This shift is posing new challenges, starting with the determination of the positioning axes that are viable to create brands with value. To answer this question, the methodology used consists of a three-step sequence that includes a series of interviews to identify potential positioning axes, a questionnaire with 152 answers to confirm the validity of these axes and then applying partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) pyramid model is used as the brand equity model. The results show that fashion brands of cork products can position themselves on the functional and symbolic axes. The axes are sustainability, Portugal, ecology, nationalism, heritage, lightness, creativity, biodiversity, softness, innovation, waterproofness and resistance. The application of PLS-SEM to the CBBE pyramid model has shown that brand equity can be built on the foundation of the validated positioning axes.
Implications for Central European audience: This study establishes a framework for the development of sustainable cork fashion brands, which are representative of the traditions or heritage that symbolically are a nation's identity. It comprises a structured sequence of interviews (to identify the positioning axes), a questionnaire (to ensure brand equity) and the application of PLS-SEM to the CBBE (to verify the compliance of the framework). Based on empirical evidence, this framework can be applied to other industries or products that want to create brands with value.

The automotive industry is regarded as one of the most robotized sectors of the manufacturing industry. The topic of robotization is currently intensely debated as part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0. In this study, we focus on automobile manufacturers operating in selected countries of the European Union and analyse the level of labour productivity and employment in the period 2002-2021. Specifically, we investigate whether the annual installation of robots and the total number of robots in the automotive industry have a negative impact on labour demand. The collected data are evaluated using empirical analysis. Our estimations show that the installation of robots in the automotive industry has a positive effect on labour demand. At the same time, however, it is found that labour productivity tends to decrease as the number of robots increases. A possible explanation for these results is that major manufacturing activities in this sector are being replaced with machines at the expense of human labour.
Implications for Central European audience: Theoretical implications of the article arise from primary literature, which investigates the implications of industry robotization on the labour market. The practical implications stem from our empirical analysis, which investigates the impact of robotization on labour demand and productivity in automobile industries across the EU. 

The success of sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) depends upon the active support of all stakeholders. Thus, it is highly relevant and becomes the goal of this paper to perform a pilot case study of the negative determinants of readiness of the new Central European generation of financially sufficiently strong consumers to support CSR, in particular, to answer two research questions: (i) which is the prevailing determinant and (ii) whether it is gender-sensitive. Therefore, 53 male and 53 female Generation Z students from a private university in Prague, ready to pay a CSR bonus, were surveyed in the summer of 2021 regarding the negative determinants of their decisions. The collected answers were statistically processed via cross-tabulation and chi-squared test measures, and the dependence between negative determinants and genders was considered to answer both research questions. The data analysis implies four prevailing negative determinants, two of them related to the infodemic, represented differently by male and female members of Generation Z. This leads to propositions linked to prior studies and advancing them in a new direction. Namely, this indicative pilot case study suggests that Generation Z's readiness to support CSR by paying a CSR bonus is eroded by the infodemic and that male members of Generation Z are more sensitive in this respect than female members.
Implications for Central European audience: This article targets the underestimated issue of factors deterring committed young consumers from their support to sustainability via their readiness to pay a CSR bonus. It empirically points out the relevance of proper information and the negative and gender-sensitive impacts of the infodemic. Theoretical implications include a pioneering contribution to the conceptual appreciation, methodological processing and assessment of particular aspects of infodemic and negative CSR determinants for an emerging cohort of Central European consumers. Practical implications include the dramatic importance of enhancement of awareness and practical suggestions regarding how to inform these male and female consumers and engage them in sustainability and CSR.

The widespread use of blockchain technology (BCT) and the growing awareness of the numerous opportunities it offers its users have been the focus of recent research. Digital natives are surrounded by technology from birth and are naturally inclined to embrace it, but previous research has not addressed their attitudes towards BCT. This paper aims to investigate digital natives' attitudes towards the use of BCT in Croatia. The survey method is applied and data from 518 questionnaires are analysed with PLS-SEM. Results show that privacy threat, social influence, trust in BCT and trust in the community of blockchain users have a statistically significant positive effect on intention to use BCT. The study identifies the importance of BCT use from the perspective of users who belong to the digital native category, developing a model to better understand behavioural intentions at the individual level and presenting a starting point for future research on this topic.
Implications for Central European audience: The research findings may be of interest to audiences in other Central European countries, where blockchain technology is an extremely important segment of emerging technologies and Central Europe in particular is experiencing exponential growth in the use of this technology. Policymakers in Central European countries can benefit from the findings of this study to formulate policies that support the growth and regulation of the blockchain industry, including information that can contribute to informed decision-making and policy formulation, ultimately contributing to the growth and success of the blockchain technology sector in the region. From a theoretical point of view, the research results represent a contribution to the study of consumer behaviour, especially from the perspective of the use of innovative technologies. The practical contribution is reflected in the possibility of applying obtained results in the development of adequate marketing strategies that help BCT providers improve the quality of their offer and thus meet the modern demands of the digital natives’ segment.

Trends such as advances in digital technologies and diversity in talent management necessitate continuous learning in the workplace and make European employers think about what competencies of their employees, in addition to basic digital competencies, are most in demand both today and in the foreseeable future. Considering this, identifying the main trends in employee training and development in the automotive industry in Central Europe and their impact on current and future competency profiles becomes the main purpose of this article. Both primary and secondary data have been analysed. The qualitative methodology in this article is based on the processing of the primary data from eight semi-structured interviews conducted from June to October 2023 with human resource managers and learning and development managers of selected Czech companies related to the automotive sector. An essential secondary data source was Eurostat’s Continuous Vocational Training Survey on employee training and development within European countries in 2020 among 113,000 businesses. The findings in this article demonstrate that digital competency and soft skills are currently the most important competencies for employee development within the automotive sector in Central Europe.
Implications for Central European audience: The results presented in this article emphasise the importance of adapting actual employee training and development programmes to technology trends influencing the automotive industry. It has been proven that employees’ soft competencies are preferable today and will be in great demand in the next three years. This is because soft skills support the successful implementation of change and improve the competitiveness of the business in the long term, and both education and development managers and employees themselves realise this.

As one of the essential human needs, autonomy affects internal motivation and drives job satisfaction. The aim of the article is based on long-term quantitative research (n = 631) to examine gender, age, education and job position differences in job autonomy and to evaluate the extent to which job satisfaction and job autonomy are related. The research shows that 72.6% of the respondents have a high degree of work scheduling autonomy, 68.1% have a high degree of decision-making autonomy and 53.9% have a high degree of work methods autonomy. An important finding is that most respondents (84.8%) are satisfied with their job. There are differences between generations and non/managerial job positions regarding work scheduling autonomy, decision-making autonomy and work methods autonomy. Additionally, there is a difference between education levels regarding work scheduling autonomy. The Spearman's rank correlation coefficients show positive mutual correlations between job autonomy categories, as well as between job autonomy categories and job satisfaction. The results also confirm the relationships between job autonomy categories and job satisfaction. Employees with a high degree of job autonomy feel more satisfied in their jobs than others. On the contrary, there are no differences between genders regarding work scheduling autonomy, decision-making autonomy and work methods autonomy. Furthermore, there are no differences between education levels regarding decision-making autonomy and work methods autonomy. Understanding the relationship between job autonomy and satisfaction is vital for employers and policymakers to enhance job satisfaction, retain employees and improve organisational performance.
Implications for Central European audience: The research reveals that employees with a high degree of job autonomy, encompassing work scheduling autonomy, decision-making autonomy and work methods autonomy, experience greater job satisfaction. No gender or education-based differences in terms of job autonomy were found, but differences exist between generations and non/managerial job positions and job autonomy. The results confirm that job autonomy drives job satisfaction. Employees with a high degree of job autonomy feel more satisfied in their jobs than others. Employers and policymakers should therefore prioritise increasing job autonomy to improve job satisfaction, retention and organisational performance. 

The metaverse is experiencing a resurgence, embodying a digital realm constructed through technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, cryptocurrency and the internet. The metaverse is a trending and widely discussed topic. Companies are still intensely weighing the pros and cons of joining this space, and it is not an easy decision for them to make. Thus, to make this decision easier, there is a clear need for studies that clarify users’ perception and intention of using the metaverse for purchasing products. Therefore, this study focuses on investigating the relationship between attitude and intention to purchase products in the metaverse and users' level of "fear of missing out" (FoMO) as a phenomenon that is currently significantly influencing consumers. A questionnaire was used for collecting the primary data. The research sample consisted of 425 respondents overall. The findings indicate that individuals in the cluster exhibiting heightened levels of FoMO tend to perceive metaverse product purchases as less sensible. Intriguingly, despite this lower perceived sensibility, over half of the individuals in this cluster express an intention to engage in metaverse-based purchases. Additionally, this particular cluster emerges as having the most pronounced inclination to purchase in the metaverse as soon as possible.
Implications for Central European audience: The outputs offer valuable insights into the intricate dynamics of users' perceptions and intentions concerning metaverse-based product purchases. These insights can serve as a foundation for refining marketing strategies, tailoring product offerings and developing targeted initiatives that resonate with the specific concerns and motivations of the Central European audience. Ultimately, the study outputs contribute to fostering a more informed and strategically aligned approach to navigating the evolving landscape of metaverse-related consumer activities.

The EU has stepped up its efforts to reinforce its presence in Asia, especially in the Indo-Pacific region, due to its increasing geo-strategic importance for the EU, high mutual interconnectedness, as well as trade and investment engagement. In September 2021, the EU adopted its first Indo-Pacific Strategy. The aim of the paper is to point out the development of the partnership between the EU and the Asian (Indo-Pacific) region based on an evaluation of an analysis of trade and investment cooperation between the EU and India with a focus on mutual trade and investment relations between the Visegrad Group countries and India (and point out the comparative advantages that the V4 countries might use to extend mutual trade cooperation). The paper is based on trade analysis and uses the empirical methods of RCA and Grubel-Lloyd indices. There is room for expanding cooperation between the V4 countries and India in deepening intra-industry trade in commodities where the countries have a similar RCA profile. Moreover, the cooperation could complement bilateral relations between both regions.
Implications for Central European audience: The paper evaluates V4’s competitiveness and assesses V4’s export potential (RCA index) with India and potential trade prospects with India (RCA1) to confirm that there is room for expanding trade cooperation between the regions. We consider the V4 countries to be one of the regions that could deepen its mutual relations with India and intensify political dialogue and, therefore, take mutual cooperation and relations to the next level as well as deepen cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. 

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of corporate governance quality on the firm value of companies operating in the Borsa Istanbul (BIST) Corporate Governance Index. Analyzes were made with the data of the 51 companies operating in the BIST Corporate Governance Index for the 2015-2019 period. The GMM techniques were used as a method. AMG method was also used to consolidate the results obtained from the GMM method and to create robustness. The results indicated that the corporate governance quality of companies has positive effects on firm value. The most important finding that reflects the purpose of the research is that companies should also increase the quality of corporate governance to maximize the value of the firm.
Implications for Central European audience: Depending on the results of the study, it is predicted that companies whose profitability has a positive effect on the value of the firm will encourage their managers to increase their corporate governance quality. By complying more with the criteria in corporate governance principles, companies will both increase their institutionalism and maximize the value of the company, which is one of the main financial goals of the company.

Consumers express their ethics through their consumption decisions. The article examines the preferences of Czech respondents in the area of ethical consumption. The aim of the study is to find out the respondents' attitudes towards ethical shopping. We apply a series of ordinal regression analyses to analyse data from a survey (N=1670; aged 15–93 years, M ± SD: 35.51 ± 16.82; 62.00% women; 32.10% with higher education) conducted in 2021. In some cases, the survey results are compared with surveys on the same topic conducted in 2016 and 2018. The research found that customer interest in purchasing is growing, but this trend has not yet manifested itself in the volume of purchases. Beyond the reasons, the decision to buy, ignore ethical products or boycott unethical products is largely linked to the natural interest in and availability of information about “ethical shopping” in general and “ethical” products. The results suggest that personal responsibility is the most important reason for ethical shopping. Poor availability in the sales network, disinterest and higher prices were the most significant reasons for not buying "ethical" products. This research extends existing studies by examining the reasons for purchasing or ignoring so-called ethical products in relation to the intensity of their purchase. We believe that the results of the research can be used as baseline data to support targeted ethical purchasing, for example through education.
Implications for Central European audience: To achieve long-term sustainability, current patterns of behaviour and consumption need to change at all levels. Environmental protection and sustainability are now increasingly implemented in most EU policies, programmes and regulations. In the case of Central European economies, the transition towards sustainable and environmentally neutral practices is still delayed. One of the key prerequisites for sustainable development and its further expansion is sustainable consumption at the level of consumers. The results of our analysis can be used to broaden awareness and raise shoppers' understanding as an important tool to increase ethical consumption behaviour.

Migration processes have emerged as crucial social, political and economic concerns, affecting societies, industries and organisations. The challenge lies in effectively utilizing immigrants' resources. This research aims to determine how AI tools can support matching migrants' skills with labour markets in host countries. We propose the application of an ensemble learning methodology. To validate this approach, we collect data to assess the career trajectories of 248 tertiary-educated Ukrainian immigrants in Poland, a new immigration destination. Various machine learning models are evaluated using the decision tree algorithm on these feature sets. To ensure credible results, a 10-fold cross-validation procedure is employed for each training process of every submodel. This research introduces an original ensemble machine learning classifier that combines pre-selected models with the highest performance, thereby reducing the number of parameters to be investigated. Its application in determining the career paths of highly skilled migrants, specifically Ukrainians, is novel. The study offers significant implications for Central Europe, notably Poland, where migration patterns and the integration of highly skilled migrants, mainly from Ukraine, are increasingly important.
Implications for Central European audience: The ensemble machine learning classifier developed in this study could aid in optimising the career paths of these migrants, combating brain waste and facilitating their successful integration into the labour market. Integrating tools like these into decision-making processes may enhance career management and contribute to Central Europe's social and economic growth.

This article analyses the distribution of firms by size in six selected countries in 2012 and 2017. Estimates are always made for the whole economy and two subgroups of firms. We compare the Visegrad Four countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) with similar economic activities and two neighbouring economically more developed countries (Germany and Austria). As the main objective of the article, we describe the distribution of firms by verifying the validity of Zipf's law in selected economies and their sectors. The results confirm the positively skewed distribution of company sizes measured by sales revenues, but Zipf's law does not apply to the distribution of all companies by the magnitude of sales in the whole economy (or in an economic subgroup), but only to sections in the right tail of the distribution (companies with higher turnover within the whole economy), which is in line with numerous research studies.
Implications for Central European audience: This article attempts to contribute to the state of the art of firm size distribution in two ways. Firstly, it reviews a wide range of research studies looking into the existence of power laws in firm size distribution. Secondly, it analyses the distribution of firms by size in six selected Central European countries in 2012 and 2017, where four sample countries were burdened with interrupted business activities during a communist regime (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), and two countries are their neighbours not exposed to changes in the political regime (Germany and Austria). 

The struggle toward an environmentally sustainable economy brings forward many difficult decisions and actions. Governments may confront substantial resistance from the general public as they try to promote or enforce policies that will be necessary to secure a stable natural environment and sustainable economic performance for generations to come. Understanding the current stances of the population towards environmental issues is a prerequisite for any successful implementation of environmentally concerned policies. The goal of this paper is to provide (based on primary data) structured information on generational and other socio-demographic differences in individual environmental stances and related lifestyle preferences. Given the Likert-scale based data collected from the questionnaires, we use ordered multinomial logistic regression as our main tool for quantitative analysis. Major differences in stances are identified between genders and among different age and education groups. Women and younger individuals exhibit higher levels of environmental awareness. Lifestyle preferences segmentation provides additional context for our analysis and the basis for incentivising and targeting environmental policies. Overall, our contribution brings forward fundamental and actionable information that can facilitate many of the complicated decisions and policy actions leading toward environmental sustainability.
Implications for Central European audience: Environmental protection and sustainability plans are thoroughly implemented into most of EU policies, programs, and subsidies. However, for Central European economies, the transition towards sustainable and environmentally neutral economies may be more complicated as compared to “old” member states. Weaker GDP per capita, a historically strong coal-based energy sector and prevailing energy-intensive production segments imply a slower and more costly transition. Our analysis can be used to ease some of the impediments and complications lying ahead.