Purpose: This study aims to verify the quality of the teacher competency inventory as a pedagogical competencies measure of teachers in higher education institutions.

Design methodology: The development and testing of the teacher competency inventory covered three phases: (1) item generation, (2) dimension identification and data reduction (factor analysis), and (3) scale evaluation. The current study tests its construct validity, using an independent samples t-test, variance analysis, and Anova in two different environments.

Findings: Results indicate that the inventory measures unitary constructs and provide its predictive capacity. The developed instrument measures levels of future-oriented pedagogical competencies with comparable reliability and validity.

Practical implications: Teacher competency inventory may be applied to teachers’ recruitment, selection, development, and performance evaluation with the goal to identify current and required levels of competencies. The inventory allows one to compare teacher competencies with the expected competency profile. Possible differences may indicate deficits or overruns in relation to the expected profile.

Originality: Teacher competency inventory is a meaningful tool to improve human resource practices – including recruitment, selection, and teacher performance monitoring – and to indicate the current and required level of competencies. The identified competency gap can help plan teacher development to increase job performance.

Purpose: The main purpose of the article is to determine the key success factors of enterprise risk management systems, understood as the characteristics of these systems that have the greatest impact on the effectiveness of their functioning.

Methodology: Bearing in mind the most accurate determination of key success factors of enterprise risk management systems, I used several research methods. The conducted research was divided into four stages: (1) literature review, (2) financial statements analysis, (3) individual in-depth interviews, and (4) anonymous surveys. The research embraced enterprises operating in Poland.

Findings: Based on the literature analysis, in-depth interviews, and conducted surveys, a list of risk management systems’ success factors was created and sorted in the order from the most important ones – that have the greatest impact on the success of risk management – to the least important ones.

Additional analysis of financial statements of all WSE-listed companies allowed me to discern that few of the surveyed companies use mature modern ERM systems, and it enabled me to identify a group of companies that qualified to participate in the survey. Moreover, a statistically significant positive correlation appeared between the degree of key success factors’ implementation and the overall ERM implementation’s impact on the organization, while a statistically significant negative correlation emerged between the overall impact of ERM implementation on the organization and the degree of ERM implementation goals’ achievement, but also between the degree of the implementation of key success factors and the degree of the ERM implementation objectives’ implementation. Moreover, I noted that the fact of using individual features has no significant impact on the assessment of a given feature by respondents.

Implications: All factors included in the study are success factors of risk management systems. However, the surveys’ results suggest a different level of individual factors’ significance, thus a different degree of these factors impact on risk management success.

Originality/Value: The article presents an original set of key success factors in risk management systems, created based on my own research. The obtained research results can be used by managers willing to implement or develop risk management systems in their organizations.

Purpose: In order to make an informed choice of the most effective tools for ensuring the development of a competitive economy, it is important to take into account the links between macroeconomic indicators of progress and the most important components of knowledge management. In this regard, the aim of our study is to assess the relationship between knowledge management factors and economic growth in order to select the factors that most determine the positive changes in Gross national income per capita.

Methodology/results: As a result of the systematization of the main international indices, which use knowledge management factors and the authors’ correlation analysis of their relationships with GNI per capita, conclusions are made about the greatest effectiveness at the present stage of action, which results in skills development (such as the ability to work with new technologies and with people, flexibility and cooperation), innovative capacity, access to information and means of communication.

Findings: The perception of these factors as determinants of economic development and the appropriate direction of the levers of economic policy will result in achieving the greatest economic efficiency on the basis of the development of the knowledge economy.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to indicate which information originating in accounting is important for ensuring the information transparency of bankruptcy proceedings.
Methodology: Based on the literature review and the analysis of international legal acts, we determined priority types of information from accounting used in bankruptcy court proceedings. These types included information on the costs of insolvency proceedings, the assumption in the financial statements that there was no going concern, and the book value of assets. A survey was then conducted on a group of specialists in the field of bankruptcy.
Findings: Respondents indicated information on the costs of bankruptcy proceedings as the most important. However, other accounting information under study also received a high assessment from insolvency specialists. The obtained assessments of individual quality features are characterized by high reliability confirmed by low standard errors.
Research implications: Accounting evolves as a response to the information needs of accounting information users. Therefore, knowing these needs may contribute to changes in the requirements regarding the scope of information from accounting that is used in bankruptcy proceedings.
Originality/value: In-depth knowledge of various aspects of the economic side of the bankruptcy phenomenon is part of the current trend in minimizing the negative effects of bankruptcy.

Purpose: Capital flows, tax competition, multinational companies and tax havens weakens governments’ ability to lead independent tax policy. This race to the bottom, especially in the case of CIT rate, seems to work. Aim of the text is to show that the governments are not as powerless as it is often claimed. Despite common opinion, nation-states retain a relatively significant autonomy in creating their own fiscal policies, including tax instruments. Size of funds kept in tax havens have not been growing for few years and international cooperation of tax authorities is more and more efficient in dealing with the tax fraud.

Methodology: The study uses desk research method for theoretical reasoning to verify the research
hypothesis. Moreover, the study seeks answering if the application of EU tax policies determines national tax policy. To that end, the authors utilize time series and cause-effect analysis, as well as quantitative research for the systematization of statistical information and regression analysis for the examination of statistical dependencies. Tax competition or the functioning of tax havens naturally limits the realization of the fundamental functions of fiscal policies, although the taxation remains one
of the most crucial instruments of macroeconomic and income policy of national authorities.

Findings: The most important data on public revenues structure in different OECD countries indicate
that taxation remains one of the most crucial instruments of macroeconomic and income policy of
national authorities. We also show that impact of FDI on hosting economy is not as positive as it is
said to be. There is no relation between FDI and R&D spending and level of wages in hosting country
is even affected in the negative way by the FDI inflow. Irrespective of the regulatory details introduced at the EU level – the basic factor affecting jets coordination in the field of cooperation between tax services brings effects both in terms of the current collection of tax liabilities
and the creation of regulations that hinder tax avoidance and under statement assessment.

Originality/value: The study focuses on an analysis of tax policy. The view that taxation of international corporations is fraught with difficulties finds support in the undeniable reality of tax competition.Moreover, a large and growing share of profits is transferred to low-tax places. The prospects for taxing international companies with positive rates seem unoptimistic. Therefore, it is essential to check how the national economy is affected by the FDI inflow in OECD countries.

Introduction: Crowd logistics is a widely accepted concept in times of the growing popularity of
sharing economy solutions. The popularity of e-commerce and a tendency to provide same-day
delivery are the main reasons for their development. Developing those trends requires new products
and services, now available on the market, known in the transport area as crowd logistics solutions.

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to provide a tool for assessing crowd-logistics solutions, taking
into consideration customers’ requirements. The text includes groups of environmental, economic,
and social criteria to facilitate the choice of the best crowd logistics solution for freight transport.

Methodology: The research is based on the critical analysis of different sources (literature, European
Commission reports, other reports and analyses) and practical solutions in the field of crowd logistics.
The main data analysis method is the Analytic Hierarchy Process, usually used to evaluate variants
in decision-making processes. This method was chosen because of the variety of data types (quantitative and qualitative) and formats, its popularity, universality, and replicability.

Results: This paper contains ready-to-use weights for the assessment of crowd logistics solutions.
The proposed set of criteria and weights can be a useful tool for customers to evaluate the sharing-
-economy services landscape in the areas they manage.

Purpose: The article analyzes the possible methods of public debt management, which not only aim to meet regulatory requirements but also obtain a market premium in the form of an optimal level of the yield on government bond yields that will be profitable for the issuer. The study analyzes the situation in the public finance sector in the countries that form the Visegrád Group (V4). The authors evaluate the main regulatory requirements of EU law in the area of numerical fiscal rules and their impact on the yield on basic securities such as ten-year government bonds, which directly influences the cost of servicing long-term public debt.

Methodology: The study uses desk research method for theoretical reasoning to verify the research hypothesis. The study seeks to answer the question of whether the application of national and EU fiscal rules in V4 budgetary frameworks contributes to lower yields on ten-year bonds and thereby reduces the cost of public debt. The authors utilize time series and cause-effect analysis as well as quantitative research for the systematization of statistical information and regression analysis for the examination of statistical dependencies.

Findings: The basic parameters subject to financial assessment within the fiscal rules index are (1) the deficit of public finance sector and (2) public debt with its servicing costs. In 2005–2016, the ratio of the public finance sector deficit to GDP was shaped in such a way that most V4 countries required the institution of excessive deficit procedures and further disciplinary regulations. The assessment of the situation in the public finance sector in the area of budget deficit and public debt does not translate into the yield on government bonds of non-Eurozone countries. Model-based testing indicates that the financial markets – when deciding to evaluate or purchase government bonds of non-Eurozone countries – failed to acknowledge the implementation of fiscal rules in these countries and its possible effects.

Originality: The study focuses on a unique comprehensive analysis of national fiscal rules employed in individual V4 countries and their impact on the yield on government bonds throughout the entire EU membership of the V4. What holds the greatest cognitive value in this article is the answer to the question of whether Eurozone membership impacts the valuation of a country’s public debt.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to present the concept of social value added (SVA) as a tool for measuring the effectiveness of the activity of not-for-proft cultural institutions. Findings: The modifcations presented in this article make it possible to adapt economic value added (EVA) to the needs and specifcity of not-for-proft public cultural institutions. Applying a modifed EVA parameter, that is SVA, in cultural institutions may facilitate the process of management and the measurement of effective utilization of resources of these entities.

Methodology: A direct application of the measure of economic value added (EVA) in the case of evaluation of non-proft activity of cultural institutions would be impossible because of the specifcity of such organizations, which – as distinct from standard enterprises – are not oriented on generating fnancial gains. The article covers several successive modifcations of EVA, which lead eventually to the measure of social value added (SVA). This parameter represents the difference between the social impact of an evaluated institution and the social cost of capital involved in the conducted activity. A positive SVA means that the activity carried out by the institution subject to evaluation is socially viable. The method of SVA calculation presented in the article has been supported by a numerical example.

Originality/value: Published sources seldom tend to cover the tools improving management process or making it possible to measure the effects achieved by public cultural institutions. The solution discussed in this paper is a contribution to the body of reference literature in the said scope.

Purpose: The research objective was to examine to what extent line manager competencies are
linked to intelligence, and more specifically, three types of intelligence: analytical (fluid), practical
and emotional.

Methodology: The research was carried out with line managers (N=98) who took part in 12 Assessment
Centre sessions and completed tests measuring analytical, practical and emotional intelligence.
The adopted hypotheses were tested using a multiple regression. In the regression model, the
dependent variable was a managerial competency (management and striving for results, social
skills, openness to change, problem solving, employee development) and the explanatory variables
were the three types of intelligence. Five models, each for a separate management competency,
were tested in this way.

Findings: In the study, it was hypothesized that practical intelligence relates to procedural tacit
knowledge and is the strongest indicator of managerial competency. Analysis of the study results
testing this hypothesis indicated that practical intelligence largely accounts for the level of competency
used in managerial work (from 21% to 38%). The study findings suggest that practical intelligence
is a better indicator of managerial competencies among line managers than traditionally
measured IQ or emotional intelligence.

Originality: This research fills an important gap in the literature on the subject, indicating the
links between major contemporary selection indicators (i.e., analytical, practical and emotional
intelligence) and managerial competencies presented in realistic work simulations measured using
the Assessment Centre process.

Purpose: The fundamental aim of this article is to verify an assumption according to which the
proper Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) is a key factor in the rationality of law. Rational law
is a law which is effective and able to realize and achieve social, economic and environmental aims
determined and established by the lawmaker.

Methodology: The scope of this paper – which determines its structure – encompasses the definition
of RIA, including its specific (but non-legal) forms such as benchmarking and evaluation. As
far as we are concerned, these methods can provide – as a kind of Regulatory Impact Assessment
– a significant tool for measuring the rationality of regulations. Furthermore, the usefulness of
benchmarking and evaluation has been recognised by representatives of jurisprudence. We will
also explain the concept and the assumptions of the rationality of law on the grounds and in the
light of the case law of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal and the Supreme Administrative Court.
This should allow to countercheck the main thesis of this paper. The methodology encompasses
primary legal methods such as literature, case law and legislation analysis.

Findings: An indispensable condition of the rationality of law is actual elimination of irrational
regulations which were not subjected to the Regulatory Impact Assessment.
Practical implications: Although RIA is a problematic issue (in terms of its practical application),
it is necessary to carry it out in order to assure the rationality of law. A good and desirable complement
to Regulatory Impact Assessment are non-legal methods such as benchmarking and evaluation.

Originality: Originality and value of this survey lies in taking into account the case law of the
Polish Constitutional Tribunal and the Supreme Administrative Court. Additionally, this paper is
original in that it considers non-legal methods in the examination of the rationality of law.

Purpose: The paper describes the functioning of the RIA system in New Zealand using the analogy
of RIA and the evaluation of public interventions. Presented solutions can provide inspiration for
the Polish government in the process of improving the quality and extent of the use of RIA.

Methodology: The analysis is based on a review of government documents and literature, as well
as individual interviews and correspondence with representatives of the government of NZ.

Conclusions: The RIA system in NZ is not error-free and its shortcomings include inter alia the
lack of solutions with respect to ex-post analysis and insufficiently rigorous methodological
approach. At the same time, a number of solutions can be regarded as good practice, e.g.: regular
external quality reviews of RIS, obligation to supplement each RIS with ‘quality assessment’ and
a ‘disclosure statement’ outlining their credibility and utility.

Practical implications: The presented strengths of the RIA system in NZ may serve as an inspiration
for modifying the RIA system in Poland.

Originality: The RIA system is presented through the prism of the model of evaluation use, which
is a related tool of collecting information about non-regulatory interventions.

Purpose: This paper critically evaluates the development of the impact assessment instrument in
Lithuania’s public administration and suggests improvements to its impact assessment system.

Research question: What interesting conceptual imperatives have appeared in Lithuania’s investigation
of the impact of regulatory policy?

Methodology: This research study uses positivist methodology to analyse the problems that researchers
have identified in Lithuania’s impact assessment. This investigation explains why certain
problems have appeared, what has changed and what system changes can be identified traced. The
study proceeds as follows. First, the research on impact assessment carried out in Lithuania is
analysed. Second, regulations on impact assessment in Lithuania are investigated. A substitute for
non-existent integrated theory is emphased by the logical structure of the EU administrative system
imperatives, principles, and norms, whose modifications have become the basis of impact assessment
system design in Lithuania. The present research combines, integrates and consolidates the
theoretical and practical information on impact assessment into an explanatory scheme, which
could be developed into a model in the future. Information from two qualitative interviews conducted
in 2009 and 2010 was also used.

Conclusions: The present research reveals that Lithuania’s regulatory impact assessment model is
still being constructed and reconstructed towards evidence-based management. A model which
revises the old impact stereotype has been designed, based on contemporary methodologies (cost-
-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses), consultations with the interested parties, a small but
exhaustive legal initiatives impact assessment, and a centralised and institutional coordination of
impact assessment.

Practical consequences: The present research presents the issues which could be useful for the
states that are starting to implement a regulatory impact assessment model. This study described
the pitfalls to avoid in order to implement a successful evidence-based management initiative.

Originality: In the present research, regulatory impact assessment is emphased as an assessment
model and normative of the EU administration effectiveness and optimality, which can be used as
a good-practice example for the modernisation of administrative activities in Central and Eastern
Europe to the level their European counterpart

Purpose: This study is dealing with the application of evidence-based policy-making in Croatian
public administration and the general role of applied policy analysis in the Croatian system of
governance.

Methodology: This development is illustrated by the peculiarities of introducing regulatory impact
assessment (RIA) tools in Croatian public administrative structures.

Findings: The author is pointing out various limitations in the usage of policy analysis tools in
formulating, implementing and evaluating public policies in Croatia. The crucial role of RIA for
enhancing executive capacity of governance structures is particularly stressed in the study. The
final part of the article is devoted to the prospects of further development of RIA as an applied
policy analysis tool within the Croatian system of governance

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to present and assess professional development opportunities for
older employees in SME.

Methodology: In the process of desk research, the author has discerned a number of characteristics
of training activities conducted by SMEs. The management of older employees’ professional development
is discussed on the basis of selected research findings, i.a. CATI and CAPI surveys conducted
in the framework of the “Comprehensive program of activation of people aged 50+” project carried
out by the Department of Human Resource Management at Kozminski University in 2010–2012.

Findings: The first part of the paper discusses the specificity of training measures undertaken in
SMEs. According to a large body research results available, these include: informality, reactivity,
short-term perspective, focus on solving current problems, “learning by doing”, focus on the development
of specific skills and organizational knowledge, lack of professional organization of trainings.
The core part of the paper focuses on the management of professional development of older
employees in SMEs. The majority of surveyed firms have declared providing their older and younger
employees with the same access to training. However, it does not always mean training is organised,
or that employees aged 50+ participate in it. Moreover, the survey has proven the existence of
significant differences in assessments and opinions among entrepreneurs and employees.

Originality/value: This paper discusses professional development of older SME employees, which
is a relatively new problem; it is based on an extensive body of research. Managing professional
development of older workers is one of the most important challenges faced by SMEs in the twentyfirst
century and it shall require extensive and thorough research in the future.

Purpose: The paper discusses the validity of the thesis according to which Polish budgetary framework
in place in 2011 required only minor adjustments in order to be consistent with the principles
set forth in the EU Council Directive on requirements for budgetary frameworks of Member States
adopted in November 2011. Basic elements of the budgetary framework laid down in the Directive
had already been provided for in Polish law.

Methodology: A comparative analysis of the provisions of the Directive with relevant acts of Polish
legislation, including the Public Finance Act, was carried out. The author outlines the Polish
budgetary framework before 2011 and the most important adjustments introduced by the end of
2013 on the basis of the budgetary framework structure set forth in the Directive.

Findings: The assessment of the convergence of provisions encompassed definitions, accounting,
statistics, forecasts, numerical fiscal rules, medium-term budgetary frameworks, transparency and
consistency. Its results demonstrate that Polish regulations complied with the provisions of the
Directive. In order to confirm their correctness, an assessment of the practical application of recent
adjustments, which entered into force in 2014, must be carried out.

Constraints to research: The analysis addresses the main concepts and their most important
characteristics, and therefore a synthetic approach to the subject required omitting a number of
specific issues.

Originality: The paper analyses the convergence of the Polish budgetary framework in 2011 and
its subsequent adjustments to the provisions of the Directive of the EU Council requiring Member
States to amend their legislation by the end of 2013.

Purpose: The objective of the research was an assessment of the experiences of Polish owners of family companies in organizing family meetings as mechanisms of family governance as well as evaluating the usefulness of solutions developed in this sphere for both family and company.

Methodology: The character of the conducted research was qualitative. The main technique used to gather data involved interviews. A total of thirty nine respondents from twenty companies were questioned. Nineteen were representatives of the older generation while twenty represented the younger second generation of owners of family businesses.

Findings: Research results indicated the rather extensive use by the examined owner families of family meetings to discuss company matters. Depending on their needs, they developed various models ranging from the ad hoc bringing up of company matters to the transformation of such meetings into formal, family meetings of the management board organized in company offi ces. Regardless of organizational form, family meetings were an important forum for the exchange of information and views on the functioning of the company among family members. The experiences of the examined families of owners in building family governance systems, understood as a complex of structures and mechanisms making possible the maintenance of a balance between tensions stemming from economic and emotional ties among family members, both involved in the company and outside it, remain small.

Research limitations: The qualitative character of the research, including the size of the examined sample (twenty family companies represented by thirty nine representatives), means that the generalizations made for the purposes of this study refer only to the experiences and opinions of the interviewed respondents.

Originality: The research performed is the fi rst of its kind devoted to family meetings as a component of the system of family governance created in the family forum of owners of family companies. At present, questions of family governance subject to Polish conditions are not a popular research fi eld undertaken with respect to family companies. This is dictated by the current phase of development of most domestic family ventures, where no
signifi cant diversifi cation of stakeholders on the family level has as yet occurred. However, this should in no way suggest that Polish family businesses are not acquiring their fi rst experiences in the sphere of family governance that, in the future, may prove useful in the forming of more complex structures.

Purpose: To present author’s concept of the evaluation of bargaining power in negotiations (in particular business ones).

Methodology: The paper is based on the review and comparative analysis of literature. A universal (general) concept of assessment is applied. The stress is put on presenting characteristic of bargaining power as well as the elaboration of its evaluation criteria and constructing set of indicators (measures) refl ecting those criteria.

Findings: it occurred that an attempt of creating such a concept is effi cient. It can constitute a useful tool of evaluating bargaining power in different types of (business) negotiations, within the process of their planning. Nevertheless presented concept will be a subject of subsequent author’s research, focusing on its improvement, mainly by searching more precise measures of bargaining power.

Originality: in general the suggestion for solving complex and diffi cult problem of evaluating bargaining power is presented, rarely investigated in the literature on negotiations. In particular the set of evaluating criteria and measures of bargaining power is pointed out.