The article deals with the issue of rural population decline in Poland in 1995−2017. The aim of the study was to present the phenomenon of depopulation involving a decrease in the number of people living in rural areas in Poland at the local level. Based on the literature, the potential effects of depopulation on local development were indicated. The data of the Central Statistical Office and the results of own research carried out in three rural communes in 2019 were used. The occurrence of regional differentiation of rural depopulation processes in Poland was found. Analysing the phenomenon at the local level, it was found that as much as 38.6% of rural communes were characterized by depopulation (a loss of over 5% of the population), including for 10.7% of communes, the population decline in the analysed period was more than 15%. These areas can be considered as problem areas. A particularly unfavourable situation occurs in eastern Poland and the Opolskie Voivodeship. There was a positive correlation between the loss of population and the development of own revenues of communes’ budgets. Studies show that the phenomenon of depopulation is mainly caused by a negative natural increase, which was preceded by a migration outflow associated with the lack of jobs in rural areas.

Baltic States and Finland are vibrant regions with similar sized population and historical experience. Their adaptation to the new digital era is undermined by lack of professionals. Across the EU a major reason for labour shortage in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields professionals lies in the insufficient supply of higher education graduates due to stagnant enrolment rates in STEM fields. The aim of this research addresses the existing trends in tertiary STEM education in Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This includes the tasks of analysing the quantitative trends (enrolment and graduation) in the HEIs of Baltics and Finland over the period from 2013 to 2017 as well as analysing the structural changes taking place in the respective higher education systems from 2013 to 2018. The Baltic States combined have numerical advantages in terms of young people, and young professionals (25−34 year olds) with tertiary education. However, in terms of the number of students and graduates Finland is at the forefront. The largest proportion of students enrolling in STEM fields lie within Finland (33.9%) whereas the smallest one is in Latvia (24.0%). Finland is also a leader in the share and total number of information and communication technology (ICT) graduates. In the period 2013−2017 Latvia’s results improved in two (5th and 6th) of the STEM study fields, Lithuania made a remarkable result in one STEM (6th) field by 46.9%, Estonia saw a relative increase in the 5th and 6th study field while Finland experienced a numerical decrease in all three STEM fields.

The aim of this paper is to summarise the experience gained at different levels of tourism destination planning in Latvia, identify the problems encountered during strategy planning and implementation, analyse the causes, and search for solutions. Theoretical aspects of the tourist destination planning have been extensively reviewed in publications, yet the research on what main problems planners have faced during the planning process, has been insufficient. In the last twenty years of Latvian tourist destination planning, at different levels, part of the plans were developed as documents; however, not all of them were implemented. The qualitative research summarises the experience of municipalities and tourism destination planning in Latvia. The research results show formally drafted tourism development documents of different levels and types in Latvia conform to modern planning theory and practice. In some cases even the latest knowledge and experience; create unique, innovative and competitive solutions. Tourism planning at the local level is often a painful process which raises a number of unresolved issues and unimplemented activities. The most significant differences observed from a comparison of theory and good planning practices in tourism development planning in Latvia are that the planning process is implemented within the boundaries of one municipality without taking into account the larger boundaries of tourist destinations. The involvement of entrepreneurs has only been formal and major, large-scale investment projects have not been planned or implemented.

Tourism development contributes to the vitality of rural areas: it increases employment opportunities for residents, promotes the development of relations among different business entities and attractiveness of rural environment. In this article, the situation regarding the development of one type of tourism – educational tourism – in Lithuanian rural areas, factors encouraging and limiting this development have been analysed. The research question is what are the main problems regarding the development of educational tourism in rural areas. The aim of the research is to present relevant solutions after the analysis of the problems regarding the development of educational tourism in rural areas. Theoretical research was performed while applying methods of content analysis and synthesis of scientific literature and other researches. The method of case analysis was chosen to describe the state of the development of educational tourism and to identify main problems. In total 18 cases were analysed (18 providers of the educational tourism services in rural areas). In order to collect necessary information, methods of semi-structured interview, analysis of secondary informational resources and direct participation in researched educational programs were applied. The development of educational tourism is promoted by the factors related to the environment of manor, historical place or nature as well as professional qualification, working experience, enthusiasm and ability to be flexible about customers’ needs of actors responsible for rural development. Volatility of demand regarding educational programs, lack of specialists and challenges related to cooperation were identified as problematic issues.

Today technological progress is reshaping global economic development and changing the overall welfare of societies. Therefore, it is important to assess challenges and readiness of the European Union to use its capacity to ensure that technologies benefit people and bring them towards more inclusive societies enhancing opportunities to use artificial intellect for making health, education, agriculture, services and manufacturing industries more efficient and user friendly. The Digital Economy and Society Index analyses the digital performance of the EU Member States across five main dimensions: connectivity, human capital, use of internet, integration of digital technology, digital public services. However, despite intention to jointly develop Digital Single Market, the gap between the EU top digital countries and less digitally advanced countries remains large. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the digital performance indicators of the EU countries, in particular focusing to Poland and Latvia to assess their progress and potential of their human capital’s digital skills. The research is based on theoretical literature studies on industrial revolution stages, European Union Commission documents, indexes and publications available in relevant public institutions such as ministries and industry reports. The research employed monographic method, analysis and synthesis methods as well as graphical data analysis. The research results give evidence that currently Poland’s human capital is significantly better prepared for making use of future digital economy challenges than Latvia’s human capital, and there is a close link between countries’ R and D expenditures proportion of GDP and their human capital’s readiness to integrate in digital economy.

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. .