In 2018, the Polish Trade Inspection in the whole country carried out an assessment of unrefined vegetable oils and olive oils of various categories. First of all, the correctness of marking, physicochemical parameters, storage conditions, traceability of products and their dates of minimum durability were assessed. In total 380 batches of products were inspected. Results of the examination show that producers cheat consumers by providing, for example, untrue nutritional values or false information about dietetic or health traits. The purpose of this article is to determine what consumers should know to verify the correctness of information on product labels independently. The theoretical part of the article was based on the EU regulations analysis regarding vegetable oils properties, including the characteristics of olive oil. The empirical part concerned data from Polish Trade Inspection reports, as well as statistical data on production and sale of oil and olive oil from the portal Statista. In this article methods of documentary research and comparative analysis were used. For the main conclusion it can be assumed that products of poor quality or incorrect labeling can be found in each product category; therefore, consumers should pay attention to such elements as information in their native language, a full list of ingredients, or correct indication of nutritional values.

Urban-rural income convergence provides an opportunity to reduce the income inequality, ensuring cohesion and increasing economic output. The results show that urban-rural income convergence is a continuous tendency in the EU; the urban-urban income gap declines – rural population received 79% of net income of population living in cities in 2017 (in 2010 it was 69%). The rural population accounts for 27.3% of the EU and any changes have notable impact on the rest of the economy. Nationally the urban-rural income convergence dramatically differs amid the EU countries. In order to model an impact of urban-rural income convergence, a comparative-static approach that involves an input-output model is applied. Two scenarios are estimated for Latvia’s economy: rural net income in Latvia is assumed to be 89% of cities net income (as in the Euro Area average) in both scenarios, in the first one the saving rate is constant; in the second rural households anticipate the additional net income as a gift (saving rate for extra net income is equal to zero). The results of the first scenario argue that households final demand expenditures increase by 4.5%, output by 2.7%. The largest increase of output is modelled in chemical products (8.9%), paper products (8.7%), electrical equipment (6.2%), pharmaceutical products (6.1%), and textile (5.8%) industries. In the second scenario, the output increase: 3%. The results certify that the increase and convergence of income in rural areas are important even in advanced economies, such as the EU countries. The national and EU policies are welcome and can give notable impact on economic growth.

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.

Rapid technology development has had an evident impact on the financial sector during the last eight years. The financial sector experiences changes and it is important for the contemporary financial organizations to set a sustainable business perspective through competency management to ensure competitiveness. The current paper additionally focusses on fintech. Information technology development and competency management are the basis of the research. Authors of this research performed literature review to clarify the technology management competency model proposed by Doggett, McGee and Scott (2013) with the purpose of customizing the model for finance and technology knowledge-intensive fintech companies.

Multiple information systems have been developed during the last decade to gain more from collaboration, knowledge management and ideas. One type of such tools is the idea management systems (IMS) – a manageable systematic tool to generate and evaluate ideas. However, there is a lack of research which explores what web-based IMS are, and how they materialize practically. To fill the gap, the paper aims to create classification and application description of web-based IMS by adapting the theoretical and empirical research approaches. To achieve this aim, first, scientific papers, book chapters, and proceedings focused on the idea management and IMS were analysed using a systematic literature review method and content analysis technique. Based on the analyses, several possible classifications of IMS criteria were found. Second, commercially available web-based IMS evaluation was conducted to verify the criteria and to add data-based classification criteria. Analysis of IMS has helped to characterize parities and disparities of web-based IMS. Results prove that IMS could be classified by their application focus – as ‘active’ and ‘passive’. Dominant type is the active IMS. IMS could also be classified by the sources involved in the idea management – internal, external or mixed IMS. The main structural features of the web-based IMS are idea generation, idea evaluation, and idea retention. Results prove that there are no important differences between theoretical and empirical research results. .

In a landscape of increasing customer/firm interactions in digital space, content marketing, which aims to generate prospects and sales to foster customers’ brand engagement, brand awareness and trust, is on the rise. Notwithstanding, despite significant marketing specialist interest, scientific content marketing research is not widely developed. Therefore, it encourages the need for new studies in the content marketing field. This paper introduces theoretical and practical aspects of content marketing decisions for the creation of desired customer value in the tourism sector. The aim of the presented research is to determine which combinations of content marketing decisions could create the desired value for the customer in the tourism sector. Understanding the content marketing decisions that create the desired value for customers could lead to a proper implementation of content marketing in the tourism sector. The presented results of q-sort study indicate twelve different combinations of content marketing decisions which could be used by tourism organizations in order to create desired value for their customer. Thus, it means that increasement of desired customer value can be made in the light of content marketing usage. The paper ends with insights, conclusions, limitations and future research possibilities.

Dead wood is a significant component in forested ecosystems. In Fennoscandia and Baltic countries, set-aside forest areas, also called woodland key habitats (WKHs), have been created for nature conservation purposes in the production forest landscape. We performed a comparative study on dead wood substrate availability in different WKH types in Latvia. We measured standing trunks and downed logs to estimate biological quantities and qualities for coarse woody debris substrate. In this study, we found out that dead wood availability ranges, on average, from 38.2 to 149.5 m**3 haE−1. This study showed that moderate quantity and quality of dead wood has been found in different types, but the fine quality coarse woody debris was scarcely presented. In general, WKHs provide moderate and high level of qualities and quantities of structural features in the production forest landscape.

A demand for wood resources is increasing. In addition to drainage and appropriate regeneration and thinning, the forest soil fertilization may increase the future harvest rates. Therefore, the improved growth of forest stands raises in priority among the research topics related to forestry. The objective of the study is to evaluate the impact of nitrogen fertilizer on soil water and throughfall water chemical composition to elaborate recommendations for the forest fertilization. The trials were conducted in a birch stand and in three coniferous stands. Nitrogen containing mineral fertilizer (ammonium nitrate) was distributed in the study sites, while the control plots were left without any treatment. The water samples were collected a season before and a season after the soil treatment. The pH level, total nitrogen, potassium and phosphate were determined in throughfall and soil water samples. The chemical properties of throughfall water differed depending on the forest stand type. The concentration of nitrogen was higher in throughfall water samples collected from the birch stand. The mean concentration of total nitrogen was 1.6 ± 0.3 mg LE−1 in the throughfall water samples from the birch stand compared to 1.03 ± 0.11 mg LE−1 in the throughfall water samples from the coniferous stands. Although the forest soil was enriched with the nitrogen fertilizer, there was a significant increase in concentrations of potassium and phosphate in soil water samples from certain stands. It can be explained with changes in pH level that occurred after the forest soil treatment with ammonium nitrate. There was also a significant increase in total nitrogen concentrations in soil water samples at the depth of 30 cm from the treated plots of the coniferous stands – 15 ± 6 mg LE−1, compared to 1.5 ± 0.03 mg LE−1 in the samples from the control plots. However, the concentrations decreased within two months and remained at a steady rate – slightly above the control level.

Forests offer a wide variety of ecosystem services, including cultural or recreational services. In that sense, state-owned forest lands hold the biggest responsibility to acknowledge and provide these services, where it is economically and ecologically viable. Suitability analysis has been extensively used to provide information on species conservation measures, and it is possible to apply similar techniques for potential supply of recreational services. A simple weighted overlay analysis was conducted to locate forest land areas most suitable for potential recreational activities. Several criteria were selected for the analysis, including forest stand parameters such as forest stand age, forest stand type and species, topographical diversity and remoteness. Basis for the weighting of the selected criteria were obtained from the social surveys, previous research work done in Latvia and the Baltics, and European scale scientific data on recreation preferences. The analysis showed that 20% of the total model area analysed provide substantially high recreation potential. Furthermore, these preliminary data can be used for surveying and facilitating community involvement processes. Local tourism and nature leisure activities can be promoted by exploring possibilities of alternative forestry planning options, utilizing such multifunctional assessments of recreational supply.

Freshwater lakes and rivers are habitats of variety of organisms and their populations giving great importance for freshwater ecosystems and providing water resources, food and recreational possibilities for humans. In spite of their fundamental importance to humans, freshwater lakes have been affected by anthropogenic disturbances, which have led to serious negative effects on the structure, functions and quality of these ecosystems. Lake ecosystems are dependent on inflow of water and supply of matter and energy from their catchment area. In studied lakes significant anthropogenic impact in loads of nutrients in their sediments and water was detected. This highlights the well-known problem of freshwaters in the World and in Europe – eutrophication, which can lead to increased productivity of water ecosystems – increased algae blooms, spreading of macrophytes and decreasing of oxygen content in water. Studied lake ecosystems show presence of human impact, not only by physiochemical parameters, but also by changes in biomass production, cyanobacterial algal blooms and overgrowing with macrophytes was observed. In order to improve water quality, appropriate management measures should be applied. We have analysed advantages and disadvantages of such measures as sediment removal, constructing of wetlands, cutting reeds and forming ecotones.