Editorial

Welcome to the second issue of the International Journal of Management and Economics in 2023, volume 59. This time we offer six empirical papers in various areas of economics and management. In particular, in this issue we focus on food production and agriculture economics, organization and managerial strategies, and labor economics. The geographical scope of this issue generally remains in Europe, with a special emphasis on Poland, Ukraine, and Germany.

The opening article, entitled “Can the war in Ukraine thwart the green agricultural transformation in the EU? Political economy considerations regarding the case of Germany,” is by Jürgen Wandel. Relying on political economy literature and drawing on the optimal reform context framework, the author examines if the war can foil the greening ambitions for EU’s agro-food sector. The paper focuses on the case of Germany as the largest member state where the ambition for the green transformation of the economy is particularly strong. The war in Ukraine involves two major agricultural producers and threatens food security, in particular that of low-income countries. This requires policy action that makes global agriculture more and not less productive. However, the latest reforms of EU’s common agricultural policy and the agricultural stipulations of EU’s Green Deal actually provide disincentives to increase agricultural production in EU member countries. The author argues that the suspension of some of the greening measures reluctantly adopted by Germany does not indicate a thwarting of the current course of agricultural policy toward intensified greening any time soon. Instead, the major political actors play for time, hoping to push ahead with the green transformation after an end to the war, an end that is hopefully expected to arrive soon.

The second article remains in the area of agriculture economics. Maria Zuba-Ciszewska presents a paper entitled “The role of state aid for the food industry - on the example of dairies in Poland.” She aims to assess the scale of general public aid for enterprises in the one of the most important sectors of the food industry, i.e. the dairy industry, using the statistical analysis based on SUDOP data. The amount of aid granted in 2015–2021 increased from €0.48 million to €32.28 million. The number of beneficiaries of the aid increased from 18 to 47 (representing 2.8% and 4.6% of all entities in the industry). By adapting its state aid policy to the objectives of the Lisbon Strategy, Poland allocates industrial subsidies to horizontal activities. That is why the highest value share (47.6%) involved subsidies for R&D projects. The analysis also reveals a significant concentration of aid regionally and among the beneficiaries. However, it seems that public aid does not affect the structure of the market as market shares of the beneficiaries remain relatively unaffected.

The third paper, entitled “Wide open? Creative industries and open strategizing challenges,” is by Joanna Radomska, Monika Hajdas, Przemysław Wołczek, and Beata Glinka. The study scrutinizes benefits and risks of the open strategizing (OS) approach in creative industries. The authors investigate several categories of challenges that may impact the implementation of higher transparency and inclusion, making OS execution difficult and impacting the final outcome and performance. They collect data during in-depth interviews with the owners or CEOs of chosen creative firms in Poland. The analysis allows recognition of some recurring fears and anxieties accompanying the OS concept in general and different categories of challenges in particular. This paper suggests that a specific mindset reflected in a particular organizational climate (open climate) might undermine a company’s efforts in considering and adopting such a strategy.

The next paper, entitled “The Impact of Organizational Learning on Polish SME’s Market Performance,” is by Ewa Baranowska Prokop and Tomasz Sikora. The authors aim to identify key dimensions of organizational learning (OL) and their impact on Polish small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) performance. Their analyses are based on data collected through interviews with owners and managers from two samples of Polish small and medium-sized firms: a “pre-Covid-19” sample (May–July 2019) and a “Covid-19” sample (December 2020–January 2021). The results from the “pre-Covid-19” sample show partial support for the hypothesis asserting the prevalence of a positive relationship between market performance and organizational learning. Two out of three measures of OL, i.e. the diversity of information sources and the commitment to learning, indicate that a positive relationship prevails with two aspects of market performance, i.e. the sales dynamics and the self-assessed success compared to competitors. None of the OL measures have been correlated with the financial results. On the other hand, for the “Covid-19” sample, commitment to learning seems to have a weak positive correlation with both financial results and sales dynamics. However, no statistically significant findings were detected in relation to other firms’ characteristics.

The fifth article, “Does coopetition pay off? Benefits of intra-organizational coopetition within business groups,” is by Wioletta Mierzejewska. The purpose of this paper is to identify the main positive outcomes in the coopetition relationship between affiliates within business groups. The study is based on a survey among the largest business groups listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The findings reveal that coopetition at the intra-organizational level generates many benefits. The main ones are resource benefits and improved market and financial performance. The positive effects of intra-organizational coopetition are somewhat similar to the benefits of inter-organizational coopetition. However, some differences support the view on the specificity of coopetition at each level.

The final article of this issue is about changes on the Polish labor market after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Grażyna Węgrzyn in her paper entitled “Influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the transition of people on the Polish labor market – hidden threats.” draws our attention to the negative consequences of the pandemic in terms of adverse effects on economic activity and the labor market. The paper offers a stream analysis based on quarterly data of the transition of people between employment, unemployment, and professional inactivity.

As each time, we hope that this issue of the International Journal of Management and Economics will be an inspiring source of knowledge for a large group of our Dear Readers. We encourage you to cite IJME articles in your academic works. Our publishing system constantly searches for cross-references and notifies our authors each time their paper is cited in an online source. We are delighted to announce that the International Journal of Management and Economics received its first Impact Factor with the value of 0.8! Our journal is included in the Web of Science – Emerging Sources Citation Index of the Web of Science Core Collection, and in the Journal Citation Reports.