Purpose – Manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have already noticed the tangible benefits offered by artificial intelligence (AI). Several approaches have been proposed with a view to support them in the processes entailed in this innovation path. These include multisided platforms created to enable the connection between SMEs and AI developers, making it easier for them to network each other. While such platforms are complex, they facilitate simultaneous interaction with several stakeholders and reaching out to new potential users (both SMEs and AI developers), through a collaboration with supporting ecosystems such as digital innovation hubs (DIHs).
Design/methodology/approach – Mixed methods were used. The literature review was performed to identify the existing approaches within and outside the manufacturing domain. Computer-assisted telephonic (in-depth) interviewing , was conducted to include perspectives of AI platform stakeholders and collect primary data from various European countries.
Findings – Several challenges and barriers for AI platform stakeholders were identified alongside the corresponding best practices and guidelines on how to address them.
Originality/value – An effective approach was proposed to provide support to the industrial platform managers in this field, by developing guidelines and best practices on how a platform should build its services to support the ecosystem.

Purpose: Self-employment is considered one of the responses to precarious employment, particularly among those who lost jobs during an economic crisis. Although starting a new business is widely available, operating new ventures remains challenging. This article aims to explore the premises of self-employment success, namely self-employment intention and proactive coping as crucial predictors of further performance.

Design/methodology/approach: The authors recruited participants among initially unemployed individuals who participated in the entrepreneurial program aimed at creating self-employment. Since entrepreneurs are expected to have specific personal characteristics important for performance, the authors assessed proactive coping as the key factor for self-employment intention.

Findings: The results depicted proactive coping as crucial in performing own ventures in the long run, which suggests that self-employment intention may change over time.

Practical implications: Proactive coping is particularly appropriate for self-employed at any stage of the entrepreneurial process because it maintains the intention to perform own business. Thus, the findings underline the need for proactive coping training for entrepreneurs, particularly those previously unemployed.

Originality/value: As the self-employment intention may differ in time, the importance of being proactive in operating small businesses increases.

Purpose: One of the regulatory responses to the 2008 financial crisis was to internalize the costs related to banks’ distress by introducing bank levies. More than 23 European banking sectors have been confronted with the new levy regime imposing the additional tax on banks’ balance sheet.

Methodology: This study analyzes the effect of the levy introduction on banks’ profitability, credit activity, and on their business models. More importantly, we confront two different levy regimes – one imposed on banks’ assets and the other on liabilities – to assess their differential impact. A generalized least squares regression with a random effect is performed on a data sample of Hungarian and German credit institutions from 2005 to 2015.

Results: The results show that levy introduction weakened banking sectors in terms of their profitability as well as their lending activity. Even though banks try to compensate for the cost of the levies by passing some of the costs on to the customers and restructuring their operations to limit the tax burden, we find that these activities are not sufficient to offset the whole tax burden. We also note that while the asset levy has a more severe effect on banks’ profits, the liability levy severely affects banks’ lending due to lower interest margin resulting from higher cost of funding.

Findings: Our research results provide important conclusions for regulators, especially during turbulent periods such as the COVID-19 pandemic to strengthen the banking sectors by considering the levy suspension.

Purpose: The present study investigates the survival and success of new organizations in the light of complex network theory.

Methodology: The empirical data was collected using the survey method from the technology park companies are analyzed with social network analysis. Two main methods were used in this study: descriptive statistics and social network analysis.

Findings: The findings indicate that new nodes appearing because of splitting up of bigger nodes from present or other related networks have a higher degree of centrality. In practice, this means that companies founded by former members of large-scale companies from these networks are more successful due to the ease in providing the flow of resources and information through previous links. This suggests that the imprint effect can be observed in the appearance, lifecycle, and performance of new nodes in complex networks.

Originality: The literature lacks studies on new organizations’ lifecycle in complex networks despite the existence of studies about new organizations in organizational networks. This study examines the appearance, success, and survival of new organizations in networks by complex network approaches such as dynamism, dissipative structures, and uncertainties.

Purpose: This study aims to investigate whether controversial TV content impacts the effects of non – standard advertising such as sponsorship vignette among female viewers.

Methodology: The present study used two field experiments (n = 222; n = 219) conducted as a Computer-Assisted Web Interview (CAWI) questionnaire, during which video material was presented. The study manipulated controversial and non-controversial and the variable of congruence and incongruence – through the argument of video material in the form of TV programs and advertising spots.

Results: The empirical investigation revealed that controversial and incongruent content does not necessarily alter the effect of a sponsorship vignette. Loyal viewers who consistently follow programs were found to have higher purchase intent than less loyal ones.

Implications: The results suggest that advertisers should consider placing their messages in the context of controversial TV programming, which does not have to be congruent with the ads displayed.

Limitations: The stimuli applied in the studies were arbitrary, to a certain extent. The study did not investigate program’s about sex that fit the definition of controversiality.

Originality/value: The study contributes to the existing literature on ad–content congruence by investigating consumer responses to innovative ad format: the sponsorship vignette. We investigated how specific content watched in longer periods of time (i.e. a series) may impact the advertising effectiveness of embedded sponsorship vignettes. This approach allowed us to demonstrate the importance of viewers’ loyalty towards a TV program, resulting in a change of the level of purchase intent of advertised product.

Purpose: The paper explores the online dialog of firms and consumers through corporate websites and social networks. The objective is to investigate the state of this dialog, its mechanisms, and outcomes in four export-oriented manufacturing companies that represent a wide spectrum of industries, including FMCG and durable goods, low-priced and expensive products, purchased with high and low involvement.

Methodology: A multiple-case study was used as the research method, with data sourced from in-depth interviews, observations, and published documents.

Findings: The findings show all managers agree that dialog with consumers is useful, they allocate resources to support it, but its intensity is underwhelming. Dialog effects were reported as positive but only as anecdotal evidence without validation in reliable data, which underscores measuring difficulties. It seems that dialog is the easiest to implement in and brings the most substantial benefits for high-involvement products but, even there, the feedback from consumers is not effectively used for developing product innovations. The major obstacle that restricts rich dialog is not technology but the intensity, speed, and quality of personal contact between employees and consumers.

Originality: The empirical material presented here offers original insights that foster a better understanding of online dialog between consumers and manufacturing companies.

This paper discusses ways out of an approach adopted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which I refer to as instrumental rationalism (pl. racjonalizm instrumentalny). It was to determine, inter alia, the place occupied by humans within an organization construed as a machine in the self-proclaimed modern era. It is one in which the substance of what we refer to as “here and now” is determined by rationality, functionality, utility, usability, effectiveness and effciency. This approach was best captured by Max Weber’s metaphor of the “iron cage” (German “Stahlhartes Gehause”, translated as “iron cage” by Talcott Parsons), although Weber himself refers to “like a light cloak, which can be thrown away any moment [...] shell as hard as steel” (Weber, 1994, p. 181).

Purpose: The purpose of this research was to analyze correlates of access to, use of and skills with PC and Internet tools with social characteristics such as occupational category, income and other indicators of status.

Methodology: The research reported here presents trend analysis and multiple regression results
based on nationally representative samples of Poles collected in 2003 and 2008. The data are from
the Polish Panel Study (POLPAN) collected by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish
Academy of Sciences.

Findings: The results showed that there are lingering disparities in PC ownership and Internet use
by occupational status (employed vs. unemployed) and occupational category. On the positive side,
all groups are more likely to possess a PC or use the Internet in 2008 relative to 2003. The results
further showed sharp disparities across occupational categories for PC skills. For example, while
100% of professionals claimed the ability to receive an email, only 51.5% of farmers attested to
such skill. A regression analysis showed that only PC ownership had a weak positive effect on later
income. Neither Internet use nor proficiency with PCs and the Internet were revealed to have
positive impacts on income after five years. The results of this study challenged the notion of the
digital divide. The analysis showed that, except in the case of access to a PC in the home, which
had a small impact on income growth, PC/Internet use and skills in Poland in recent years do not
have any statistically significant relationship with income. It was concluded that the finding where
two of the three factors are not correlated with income growth is evidence of digital parity or
a growing digital equality among citizens in modern Poland.

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to answer the questions (1) whether the reforms of the regulations in the banking sector were effective and (2) which mechanisms discipline the behavior of banks. Moreover, we also raise a question how the behavior of banks depends on the institutional environment.

Methodology: To achieve the objectives, the article uses probit analysis on panel data covering the years: 1995–2006 for the entire period, and for years: 1999–2004 and 2004–2006 for 350 banks from OECD countries.

Findings: The quantitative results clearly argue for banking regulation, rather than leaving the supervision of the banking sector market discipline. However, the survey results also show that the behavior of banks depends largely on the institutional environment. Therefore, we questioned whether the currently proposed regulatory reforms that are homogeneous in nature will be effective in disciplining banks.

Practical implications: Among many reforms that are proposed the most important concerns are ones on banking regulation. Some believe that regulation of the banking sector should not be such useful, others believe that regulations are needed, which showed the fi nancial crisis in 2007–2011.

Purpose: The paper discusses issues associated with using funds that support the development of entrepreneurship – the purpose of the paper is to answer questions regarding the purposefulness and effectiveness of financial instruments from EU funds aimed at the development of emerging businesses (startups).

Methodology: The paper analyzes previously conducted research studies in the fi eld of the discussed topic, it systematizes and describes the fi nancial instruments from EU funds supporting self-employment and startups in their early stages of activity. It also provides an overview of evaluation reports concerning these instruments.

The paper also contains a case study: an analysis of the effectiveness of a selected project supporting the development of entrepreneurship (co-fi nanced from EU funds), in which the method of evaluating the net effect of the support in the short term has been used.

Findings: An analysis of previously conducted research studies has shown that properly designed State aid targeted at those starting up their own business is sensible, as it provides them with seed capital and it helps them survive the most diffi cult period of the so-called “startup”. However, there is a lack of comprehensive studies to confirm the positive impact of business support interventions carried out using EU funds. The methodology of evaluating the net effect used by the Author in the conducted study has made it possible to identify the actualsize of the – positive – impact of the selected project on the growth of self-employment.

Limitations: The study revealed some limitations – the method and time of the study allow to capture the phenomenon on a micro-scale, in the short term. The institutions that are involved in the process of allocating funds should develop a comprehensive methodology that implements the idea of evaluating the net effect, allowing to assess the effectiveness of the support at regional and national level in the long term.

Originality: The originality of the paper consists in applying the theories and results of previous studies to the Polish practice of supporting businesses at their early stages of development as well as applying the method of evaluating the net effect, which allows to determine the actual impact of the intervention.

Purpose: The goal of the text is to show a number of challenges which major central banks must face today. Impressive engagement of the central banks in counter-crisis policy leads to many controversial decisions and its results are not clear both for economic theory and for real economy. For now, one cannot show a full overview of the policy of central banks – on the one hand, thanks to the expansionary monetary policy, recession was quite shallow and the risk in financial markets has declined, but on the other hand, few side effects of this policy can be mentioned, which can jeopardize economic stability in the future.

Methodology: The paper has a theoretical character. The findings are based on a literature review and an analysis of the major macroeconomic data.

Findings: The text indicates the most important areas which have to be investigated by central banks. There are serious doubts about issues like: inflation targeting as a fundamental part of monetary policy, the efficiency of monetary policy instruments and the side effects of loose monetary policy.

Originality: The text presents quite a new approach in analyzing macroeconomic policy by indicating important gaps in contemporary economic knowledge according to which economic policy is conducted.

Purpose: The article investigates whether performance of government-owned banks
is influenced by electoral considerations.

Methodology: To verify the political interference hypothesis, net interest margins
recorded by banks during different stages of the electoral cycle are studied. Univariate
tests are applied and random effects regression models are estimated.

Findings: It is established that government-owned banks exhibit statistically and
economically significantly lower net interest margins and interest incomes during
pre-electoral periods in Central European countries. The results support the view
that government-owned banks do realize political goals.

Research limitations: The role of only one political factor, i.e. electoral cycle is analyzed.
A comprehensive research project should encompass the effect of such factors
as political competition, non-electoral political events, electoral expectations,
government political complexion, and institutional development on governmentowned
banks’ behaviors. It should also assess the political determinants of lending
volume.

Originality: The article uses a new dataset including financial information since
1992, i.e. since the early transformation years.