Social enterprises have positive effect on sustainable development, and they have become an important instrument for solving social problems (especially in rural areas), as the national and local governments alone cannot solve all such problems. To foster the development of social entrepreneurship, Latvia has introduced several support instruments for social enterprises, which include tax relief, privileged procurement contracts, grants, as well as non-monetary kinds of support. However, social entrepreneurs often point out that support from the national and local governments is insufficient, while the support instruments stipulated in the Social Enterprise Law are not widely used. Therefore, the aim of the research is to analyse national and local government support instruments for social enterprises in Latvia. The research found that the most important financial instrument fostering the development of social entrepreneurship in Latvia is a grant scheme administered by the Ministry of Welfare and the JSC Development Finance Institution Altum, which is available in the range of EUR 5000 to 200 000 for investment and working capital. In the period 2017‒2020, 94 social entrepreneurship projects with a total budget of EUR 6 million were supported, which could be viewed as significant financial support. In contrast, immovable property tax relief, exemption from enterprise income tax (on profits) and relief from this tax for several categories of non-business expenses are considered by social entrepreneurs to be an insignificant kind of support. There is also lack of experience and practice regarding the inclusion of social criteria in public procurement in Latvia.

Poultry production decision setting is full of risk and imperfect information. Attitude towards risk is a measure of farmers’ willingness to take risks which is an important determinant in their production decisions. Strong social capital emanating from social networks can lead to efficient risk management strategies, thereby minimizing risks faced by the farmers. Therefore, the effects of social capital on the risk attitude of small-scale commercial poultry farmers in Oyo state were assessed. Data were collected from two hundred small-scale farmers and analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics, factorial analysis, multinomial logit and a two-stage least square. Results showed that 52.5%, 37.5% and 10% of the poultry farmers were risk averse, risk neutral and risk preferring, respectively. About 31.4% and 68.6% of the female and male farmers respectively were risk averse. Close to a fifth, a quarter and two-thirds of the risk averse, risk neutral and risk takers respectively contributed 21-30% of the decisions in the associations. Fourteen percent of the farmers belonged to homogeneous groups. The choice of being risk averse was affected by marital status, educational level, family size, percentage spent on poultry income and aggregate social capital. There was no reverse causality between risk attitude and social capital.

This research seeks to contribute to the literature by classifying the operational risks to which companies are exposed and that have an impact on the results of sustainability through taxonomy. This study begins with a systematic literature review that covers 103 documents to build the theoretical constructs and establish the taxonomy; from this, the relationship among the constructs is established through reasoning based on 100 business cases. The results show a relationship between operational risks and corporate sustainability in aspects that generate this link, such as causes and consequences. From this, it is concluded that operational risks could affect corporate sustainability given that, based on case-based reasoning; we found relationship patterns linked by the economic, social, and environmental consequences and temporary effects on companies. The major contribution of this work lies in the proposed classification of operational risks regarding corporate sustainability and the establishment of their relationship. The findings of this study allow the management to classify the operational risk related to sustainability to carry out comprehensive risk management in companies, looking at the effects that this generates in the long term. The main limitation of this research was that the results of the connections can change depending on the analysed case. In addition, the CBR case base includes many sectors of the economy, which is why it provides heterogeneous results. It was identified that the relationship can change if a sectoral analysis is performed.

In the 21st century, urban agriculture renews and diversifies approaches to the practice within the context of urban regeneration, climate change risks, and sustainable development and resource consumption balance problems. Influenced by the long historical evolution and intensification of various risks, food production in urban areas involves the widest multifunctionality to date. Therefore, the aim of this research is to identify the main functions of urban agriculture and to evaluate their significance in Latvia. The following tasks were set to achieve the aim: 1) to identify and classify functions of urban agriculture, 2) to analyse the performance and significance of functions in Latvia. Several methods were employed to perform tasks and achieve the aim: the monographic and descriptive methods for making a theoretical discussion; the analysis, synthesis and deduction methods for obtaining information, systematisation and classification of functions; a structured expert interview for rating and ranking functions and identifying interactions between them. The research identified 14 functions of urban agriculture, which were classified into 5 groups: political, economic, social, environmental and technological. The most significant functions of urban agriculture in Latvia are social (promotion of social cohesion and public health, education and maintaining traditions and values) and technological innovations. There are interactions between all functions, and support for urban sustainability, education, provision of ecosystem services and technological innovations have the strongest impact on other functions. Interactions of functions proved the multifunctionality of urban agriculture, which could be an important support tool to contributing to sustainable urban development.