Recently we have been noticing words as 'sustainable development', 'environment protection', 'environmentally friendly' etc more and more often. We understand meaning of those concepts, but there are no unambiguous definitions of these words in literature. Each of these notions includes particular characterizing elements which understanding and characterizing of which make possible to detect correctness of application or context. Sustainability like entrepreneurship is a process which takes place within definite environment around it. Mutual interaction of the processes produces consequences which have to satisfy all the interested parties. Therefore, it is necessary to integrate several science branches to solve this problem- i. e. economics and ecology. Nowadays, environment issues become part of each person, institution, policy and law. Environmental questions are integrated in different fields of economics and entrepreneurship, as well. It is hard to define environmentally friendly entrepreneurship. But there is a flexible definition that could be used in different economical spheres with great variability of economical circumstances, and it is- characterised circumstances would not be secured for a long time, yet. It is complicated to define the concept since this is a value involving process. Values which are sources for idea of sustainable development are based on need to form society satisfying human interests and unthreatening future generations, necessity to secure economical growth including moral, social and ecological aspects.

The municipalities of Latvia are different in terms of business development level. Latvia’s regions are grouped into clusters based on several indicators: number of economically active individual merchants and commercial companies per 1000 capita, territorial development index, and proportion of working-age population. In addition to the business indicators, the following tourism indicators were selected: number of recreational establishments, number of bedplaces, number of individual rooms, number of farms and individual merchants making use of culinary heritage. All these indicators are statistically significant for clustering municipalities. The clustering was performed by employing K-Means clustering and using the data processing programme SPSS. All Latvia’s municipalities were divided into four clusters based on the business development level and the level of exploitation of tourism infrastructure and culinary heritage. The analysis results enable conclusions to be made that a positive correlation exists between the business environment development level, and the level of use of tourism and culinary heritage. Culinary heritage is an important additional possibility for fostering business and economic growth in Latvia’s municipalities. A linear multifactor regression equation was obtained, which associated the revenues of the operating budget of a municipality with the following statistically significant factors: population density, territorial development index, expenditure on economic activity development, number of economically active entrepreneurs and commercial companies, number of tourism establishments, and number of enterprises dealing with culinary heritage. The analysis of regression equation coefficients points to the positive effects of all the factors included in the equation on the revenues of the basic budget of a municipality.

Entrepreneurial activity in various regions of Latvia is one of the most actual topics for politicians at many levels. The aim of this paper is to characterize entrepreneurial activity in the Kurzeme Region in the context of municipalities analysing the accessible statistical data. The entrepreneurial activity in the Kurzeme Region is analyzed both in general and in the context of municipalities in this paper. Analyzing accessible statistical data, one can draw a conclusion that the entrepreneurial activity in the Kurzeme Region is not even. It testifies that the factors which influence entrepreneurial activity development in some areas are to be searched at the level of municipalities. In addition, the analysis of data specifies various correlations. For example, the smallest number of merchants per 1000 inhabitants in Kurzeme region is in relatively small border municipalities, but higher results are in large cities and local authorities who comprise larger cities or in municipalities which border with larger towns. It is similarly discovered that in Kurzeme region there is a smaller amount of self-employed persons in local authorities with a large number of merchants per 1000 inhabitants and vice versa. There are also exceptions, further research is necessary to justify such correlations.

Entrepreneurship education is a relevant topic in today’s study programs of higher education at two levels: as research object and as development of skills while preparing students. In fact, the latter is one of the most important objectives in Lithuanian universities aiming together with other disciplines at developing students’ entrepreneurial skills. The main aim of the article is to analyse theoretical and practical models of entrepreneurship education applied in universities and introduce development trends. Teaching process involves various methods, internships, consultation and instruction, but usually all activities are not systematically applied. From the behavioural perspective, this study analyses students towards entrepreneurship through the opportunity identification, motivational factors, information source, resources impact and entrepreneurial ability. Hypothetical deductive approach was used through a population sample of 194 students of Aleksandras Stulginskis University Faculty of Economics and management. The research summarized in this paper students attitude toward motives, factors encouraging and preventing entrepreneurship and information sources in the higher education institutions. The gap between teaching methods and student attitude towards at entrepreneurship educations can be reduced supplementing collaboration among stakeholders in the entrepreneurship education. In final part of the article, trends of entrepreneurship education in university enabling to assess dimensions of the development of entrepreneurship education are presented.

In educational strategy papers, it is determined that entrepreneurial development should be implemented already in schools. Various methods and approaches can be used for the development. The majority of entrepreneurial competences are developed at the university – subjects devoted to the development of entrepreneurship are included in the study programs. Environment of the university is very friendly to this – not only because of activities devoted to entrepreneurship occurring in the academic environment, plenty seminars and trainings, but also because of the students’ personal maturity and motivation. Scholars actively raise the following questions: how to develop entrepreneurial competences effectively? Which methods are the most applicable? What kind of innovative methods are the most necessary? 104 students, who tried simulation traineeship of entrepreneurial development, were questioned in order to analyse the impact of methods and the change in entrepreneurial competences. The research was carried out in the Faculty of Economics and Management of Aleksandras Stulginskis University. The participants of the research were involved in the business simulation, where they had an opportunity to estimate themselves and improve their backgrounds, abilities and skills. Methods promoting and developing creativity were applied in simulation business enterprises; however, not all methods had worked. The methods of graphic representation were used by the minority and they were not considered to be very effective. The aim of the research was to determine entrepreneurial competences and innovative educational methods theoretically and to test empirically the development of entrepreneurial competences via simulation method.

Social entrepreneurship plays an increasing role in society. It is evidenced not only by the inclusion of a section on social entrepreneurship in the Europe 2020 strategy but also by the engagement of European countries in making legal documents on social entrepreneurship as well as designing support programmes in order to help entrepreneurs to start up a social entrepreneurship business. The research aim is to characterise the legal aspects of social entrepreneurship and support instruments for the promotion of social entrepreneurship in the Baltic States. In order to achieve the aim, the research analysed legal acts and strategic policy documents regulating social entrepreneurship in Latvia as well as analysed the legal framework for social entrepreneurship in Lithuania. To do the analysis, the research examined the kinds of support for starting up a social entrepreneurship business in the Baltic States. The research has found that no uniform definition of social entrepreneurship is available in Europe, which does not result in a unanimous opinion on what a social enterprise should be. In the Baltic States, the Social Enterprise Law has been passed in Latvia and Lithuania; besides, the laws mainly focus on the integration of target groups into society, addressing no other essential problems that could be solved by means of social entrepreneurship, e.g. environmental protection.

It is neccessary for the Regional Universities (RU) to strengthen their regional role. The reason behind such trend is the increased economic and regional differences between regions which applies also to Latvia. The aim of this research is to define the contribution of the RU to the regional development. The research included analysis of scientific sources, correlation and analysis of variance. It was determined that there is a positive correlation 0.979 between the number of students of RU and corresponding regional Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita; thus the RU have a positive impact on the regional development while other drawbacks and problems exist.

Despite the lapse of 30 years since the state system transformation in Poland was started, the rural areas in Poland that used to be occupied by state-owned farms continue to experience many complex economic and social problems. The state reforms, which for example led to the dissolution of all state-owned farms (in Polish, Państwowe Gospodarstwa Rolne, PGR), have had a significant effect on the formation of the institutional system in rural Poland. The existence and then liquidation of PGR affected not only the financial standing of large populations but also instilled in many a sense of entitlement, leading to the so-called learned hopelessness. An investigation into entrepreneurial attitudes shows that as many as 71.60% of the respondents equate ‘being entrepreneurial’ with ‘starting own business’. Despite the difficult situation on the labour market, only 12.35% of the interviewed persons have tried to start their own companies after state-farms were dissolved. The main determinant of such a low level of entrepreneurship among the respondents, in their opinion, was the lack of own funds, as this was indicated by 49.38% of the surveyed population. This attitude is also manifested in the answers concerning expectations towards public administration – 82.10% assumed that the state should be responsible for providing direct financial support. The results of this study into entrepreneurial attitudes as well as previous investigations among residents living in rural areas formely occupied by state farms confirm marginal interest in starting business activity among these populations.

The main objective of the article is to present the level of education in some selected countries, and to explain how education determines a sustainable growth. Education is the main factor to achieve both economic and employment growth. At the same time, education plays an important role for a sustainable improvement of the standard of living in the world. Supporting education is also one of the aims of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Goal 4), but education appears in a number of other SDG targets too. The countries that allocate the most capital for education are Norway, Denmark, Sweden, United Kingdom, Belgium, Finland (over 6.7% of GDP). The share of GDP allocated for education in Romania is only 2.7. This directly affects both the physical conditions for carrying out educational and research activities in school units and the qualitative level of the educational act. The Pearson correlation coefficient (r) between the real GDP/capita (VAR01) and share of GDP for education (VAR02) for our study is 0.694, which again underlines the close correlation between the allocation of funds for education and research and the level of development from a country. The Pearson correlation coefficient (r) between supporting education from GDP and top 100 universities is relatively low (r = 0.287), reflecting an insufficient correlation between the two variables. As a result, the education system in a country must be adjusted and supported both financially and through the adoption of viable policy decisions that will ensure increased performance in the educational system.

The objective of the paper research is to assess the role of the implementation of the local development strategies (LDS) elaborated by the local action groups (LAGs) in the regional development and addressing social problems in Latvia. The paper examines the role and place of LDS in territorial development planning in Latvia, carries out thematic analysis of the projects implemented under the LDS as well as tries to assess the LEADER approach impact on regional development and addressing of social issues on the local level. The authors use unpublished data on LEADER projects and apply quantitative and qualitative analysis methods. Most of LEADER projects have been implemented to facilitate the development of infrastructure related to recreation and quality leisure time as well as culture and sports. Rural inhabitants have noticed positive changes in their local territory introduced by the LEADER approach. Though, in order to enhance the role of LAGs and LDS in addressing regional development and social problems at local level, it is advisable that the potential interaction of the activities provided by all regional planning documents is observed when determining priorities at regional level (presently the place and role of the LDS has not been formally defined), while implementation of the LDS should pay more attention to long-term effects and even accomplishment of target priorities.