Volume 19 (2022): Edizione 2 (December 2022)

Research purpose. The paper examines how to successfully adapt the existing business model, develop and introduce a new program in a company and gain new customers.

Design / Methodology / Approach. It has adopted a case study approach, with an online survey of customers’ needs, interviews with employees, and Porter’s five forces of competitive position analysis.

Findings. Based on the results of the study, an innovative business model has been proposed to enhance the company’s business and ensure a sustainable business. The proposed low-cost Car Fix service brings additional customers to the company, as the most significant emphasis has been placed on ensuring a high level of service quality and consequently achieving high satisfaction of Car Fix service users, fostering the image and recognizability of the whole company.

Originality / Value / Practical implications. Due to the fast changes in the business environment, which is getting increasingly complex, resourceful management has to continuously develop, innovate and expand the company’s customer base. The paper offers a template for how to analyze the competitive environment and introduce a sustainable competitive advantage.

Research purpose. This study aimed to identify the effect of the degree of job satisfaction on organizational loyalty through the dimensions of salaries, incentives, and bonuses; conditions and nature of work; relationship with colleagues; and relationship with superiors.

Design / Methodology / Approach. We conducted an empirical study in the employment agency of Mascara for a sample of 53 questionnaires, where the SPSS program was used for statistical processing and data analysis, and to test the hypotheses, simple and multiple linear regression was used.

Findings. Based on the results of the SPSS adopted in testing the research hypotheses, the study concluded that there was no statistically significant effect of salaries, incentives, and bonuses; conditions and nature of work; and relationship with colleagues on organizational loyalty. In contrast, there is a positive effect of the relationship with superiors on the organizational loyalty of the employees of the employment agency.

Originality / Value / Practical implications. This study developed a model to investigate the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational loyalty. This study presents important implications for staffing agency managers wishing to improve job satisfaction in order to achieve organizational loyalty. At the practical level, these results can be used by managers in order to achieve organizational loyalty and identify problems.

Research purpose. Cultural centres are multifunctional interdisciplinary cultural institutions that provide access to culture and a wide variety of cultural services, promote citizen participation in culture, offer lifelong learning opportunities and perform various other functions. Cultural centres are a phenomenon shared with many other countries, especially former Soviet republics; however, although historically different models of cultural centres have also been developed in Western countries, the field has been relatively little studied in an academic setting. The aim of this research is to study the problems of defining and classifying cultural centres, to identify the most characteristic functions of cultural centres in Europe and suggest a classification model based on the functions of cultural centres.

Design / Methodology / Approach. Research design is qualitative research. The research strategy uses qualitative research methods - the data extraction and analysis methods that are characteristic of qualitative research. The following methods were used: a comparative analysis of scientific literature, document analysis as well as secondary data analysis. Qualitative content analysis was used as the method of data analysis.

Findings. Although the literature review shows that there is no single definition and characterization of cultural centres in Europe, researchers generally identify three parameters that characterize most cultural centres (regardless of their legal form): multifunctionality (offer and functions); socio-cultural aspect and orientation towards the local community; having a building/technical equipment. The author has identified and proposed a chart with four main dimensions characteristic of cultural centres: art/culture; education; leisure/recreation; social.

Originality / Value / Practical implications. As a result of the study, the author has developed a model for classifying the functions of cultural centres, laying the ground for further academic research of cultural centres and their roles in society. The four main dimensions characteristic of cultural centres open new directions for research on the impact areas of cultural centres for a society: education, wellbeing, integration, community development, participation in culture etc. The results of the research will be used by the Association of Latvian Culture Centres for the development of cultural centres in Latvia. The research results will be partly used for further research within the framework of Dita Pfeifere’s doctoral thesis. They will be useful for researchers in other countries who conduct research in the field of cultural centres. The practical implication of the research is related to the development of the Law on Cultural Centres in Latvia, clarifying terminology used in the law and the segmentation of cultural centres.

Research purpose. There is a growing trend of society believing more and more in public broadcasting and media because they can objectively explain and reflect on what is happening in the world and Latvia. As the pandemic escalates, people are increasingly listening to what professional journalists and experts are saying. The survey organised by the National Media Council (neplpadome.lv, 2021) also shows that trust in public media in Latvia has been growing. However, one important challenge now is handling misinformation and false news, mostly seen on the Internet and social media. To be able to trace and analyse misinformation and false news that might have a significant impact on the population, first, it is important to identify the traditional and digital media as well as other Internet sources that have been frequently used by the population. The purpose of this study is to identify media platforms, including regional media, that are in daily use by the Vidzeme region’s population.

Design / Methodology / Approach. A quantitative research method was used in this study, specifically, a survey, which consisted of a questionnaire comprising 18 questions on media use. Overall, 333 respondents living in the Vidzeme region participated in the survey. The questionnaire was designed in collaboration with Alberta College communication students. It included questions on traditional (TV, radio, magazines, newspaper) and digital media (portals, social media) that the population uses to access daily and weekly news.

Findings. 1) The most frequently used media are social media (87.5%), while the Internet (85.5%) is considered the most reliable source of information. 2) Regional media continue to be an essential source of information for local communities.

Originality / Value / Practical implications. Communication specialists of regional municipalities can use the results of the study to strengthen communication with the population via municipality websites and newspapers, thus, contributing to regional, local, and fast-growing micro-media ecosystem understanding. One limitation of the study is the limited scope of research, which is why the authors are planning to expand the research into the study of other regions of Latvia.

Research purpose. The subject of this paper is the role of e-commerce for companies in increasing their competitive advantage in the market during and after the pandemic. The paper monitors the digital transformation and e-commerce implementations in a developing country (North Macedonia) and whether this can lead to a better position in the market.

Design / Methodology / Approach. The design of the research contained both a literature review from relevant secondary sources, as well as primary research through empirical analysis. The empirical analysis was performed through a survey questionnaire containing 28 questions of open and closed nature, including a five-point Likert Scale. The data was subject to quantitative and qualitative analysis and presented in the paper.

Findings. E-commerce has been seen as the future of shopping; however, due to the pandemic, the adoption rates increased significantly in the past two years. Primary data from the research shows that consumers in developing countries are open to online shopping, with satisfied trust and security parameters. The research implies that companies can safely implement e-commerce by following several important aspects to ensure customer interest in converting to their e-stores.

Originality / Value / Practical implications. The paper contributes to the e-commerce research field by providing newer data after a global situation-changer, such as the pandemic. The research data can be utilized to compare statistics and generate trends for developing countries in further research, as well as broader usage for customer preferences from other academics and the business sector.

Research purpose. This study aims to assess the impact of selected economic indicators (independent variables) on the turnover of food and beverage service companies in Lithuania.

Design / Methodology / Approach. In order to achieve the intended goal of the study, an analysis of scientific articles was performed, with the primary aim of finding out the consequences of the COVID - 19 pandemic on the Lithuanian economy and selecting five independent variables that could affect the turnover of food and beverage companies. After analysing the literature, five independent variables were highlighted: the number of tourists accommodated, the statistics of Vilnius Airport flights, the number of employees hired, the unemployment rate and inflation.

Findings. The correlation and regression analysis results show that the turnover of catering and beverage enterprises and the number of accommodated tourists are strongly correlated (r---gt--- 0.90). Meanwhile, the linear correlation between the number of Vilnius Airport flights and the number of hired employees with the research variable is average (0.60 ---lt---r ---lt---0.70). However, the linear correlation of macroeconomic factors such as unemployment and inflation with the turnover of food and beverage enterprises is statistically insignificant.

Originality / Value / Practical implications. The originality of this article is that it studies the valuable topic of the COVID-19 crisis in service sectors, which substantially impacted Lithuania’s economy and adversely affected the economic performance of the region in general. The results of this research will contribute to future monitoring and crisis planning in particular sectors.

Research purpose. There is some empirical evidence of the relationship between economic and human development at a country level. Human development is most frequently proxied by the Human Development Index (HDI). Considering the fact that HDI is a measure covering the fields of several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the overwhelming idea of the research is to determine the impact of sector economic development on the achievement of SDGs. The research goal is to establish if there is a relationship between economic development, using Latvian sector statistics, and the human development of Latvia.

Design / Methodology / Approach. The paper uses different types of regression analyses of the longitudinal data to determine if there is a relationship between HDI and economic development indicators in different sectors of the Latvian economy. The sample includes industry-level data on eight industries and HDI data collected from 2010 to 2020. The regression analysis was applied to HDI as a dependent variable, and a selected set of industry variables was assessed as a group of independent variables (both individual for industries and aggregated on the country level). The set included the indicators of the turnover of companies, number of companies, added value, total personal costs and number of employees in full-time employment.

Findings. The findings partly support the proposal that economic development relates to human development because some factors of economic growth have formed a statistically strong relationship with HDI (added value, total personal costs, and the number of employees in full-time employment), while others have not (turnover and number of companies). The fact that some statistically proven relationships had a positive while others had a negative direction suggests that the relationship between economic development and human development is bidirectional depending on specific indicators.

Originality / Value / Practical implications. There is an obvious research gap in the investigated field in Latvia and even in the Baltics. The current paper contributes to the knowledge base about factors affecting human development and enlarges the statistical data basis. Besides, this study contributes to the development of national strategic plans by determining which sectors and which indicators have a significant impact on HDI. Research information will be useful for the NAP report after 2027 for assessing the level of achievement of strategic goals, especially in the priorities “Strong families, healthy and active people”, “Knowledge and skills for personal and national growth”, and “Competitiveness and material well-being of companies”.

Research purpose: Eradicating poverty in the world requires some strategies, such as the poor having adequate access to productive assets and increasing their returns on assets, having adequate access to education and health facilities, increasing their access to job prospects, at the same time complementing these resources with other incomes. Hence, the goal of this study is to examine the link between human resources development and poverty in Nigeria, using annual secondary data from the Statistical Bulletin of the Central Bank of Nigeria from 1990 to 2020.

Design/methodology/approach: The Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Technique was explicitly employed to arrive at the statistical and logical conclusions in determining the impact of human resource development in the face of poverty. In addition, the bound testing approach was used to measure Nigeria’s long-run relationship between human resource development and poverty.

Findings: The study revealed that human resource development has a statistically insignificant but non-decreasing impact/effect on poverty incidence in Nigeria, based on the short-run ARDL assessment. Furthermore, the bound testing approach also indicates that there is indeed a long-run relationship between human resource development and poverty incidence in Nigeria. The study, therefore, concludes that poverty is inescapable and, hence, creates underdevelopment. The study advises governments at all levels to develop and implement policies and programs aimed at improving or enhancing the welfare and well-being of the masses through job creation in order to close the income gap between the affluent and the deprived.

Originality/value/practical implications: Fighting poverty in Nigeria has been one of the major priorities of most governments in Nigeria. These can be observed from the nationwide planning policies that have been focused on adequate provision of access to both human and natural resources. There has been an enormous call for the massive upgrading of the productive capacity of the people through investment in human resources. This paper is one of the several articles employed to evaluate the impact of human resource development on the incidence of poverty in Nigeria.

Research purpose. The ESG literature supports a positive correlation between a firm’s ESG performance and its financial performance; however, the details of this relationship are ambiguous, which has led to conflicting results in the literature. This article asserts that this ambiguity is largely related to the fact that ESG studies rarely consider the important issue of materiality. This article is an expanded replication of analysis by Williams ---amp--- Apollonio (2022), a study that called for deeper analysis of both materiality and the causal link between ESG ratings and financial performance.

Design / Methodology / Approach. This methodology calculates Pearson Correlation coefficients between Bloomberg ESG scores and abnormal returns for S---amp---P 500 firms from 2020 to 2022 after controlling for the material issue of GICS sectors.

Findings. The results show no relationship between ESG scores and abnormal returns, and the conclusion is that controlling for GICS sectors is not the methodology that will clarify the presumed positive correlation between ESG performance and financial performance.

Originality / Value / Practical implications. This study is one of the few that addresses materiality in ESG ratings. The finding that controlling for GICS sectors does not sufficiently control for materiality is a significant building block for future researchers. This article suggests that more granular categorization of sub-industries using a larger sample than the S---amp---P 500 is likely to be useful future research.