Purpose: This article aims to assess strategy and technology as key drivers of Greek businesses’cdigital transformation and compare the results to those of international studies and sources.

Methodology: A research was conducted on 124 Greek businesses from different sectors and industries with the use of an anonymous questionnaire from December 2019 to January 2020. Greek businesses were categorized as early, developing, and maturing according to their perceptions about the level of their digital maturity, and differences were identified. The results were finally compared to an international relevant survey.

Findings: Several differences were located among the Greek businesses of the three digital maturity categories as formulated after their self-evaluation, and evolution has been identified on their perceptions about their digital strategy, its existence, objectives, and structure, which can be seen developing and expanding from the lowest to the highest levels of digital maturity.

Originality: The findings can be useful in creating an initial picture of the perceptions and practices applied by Greek businesses to their use of digital technologies. They can also become a measure of comparison for the self-evaluation of Greek businesses in their efforts to digitally transform.

Purpose: This study aims to assess the direction of changes in the extent of extreme, relative, and statutory poverty in 2008–2017 in Poland, along with the spatial differentiation of poverty in individual voivodships.

Methodology: The study of poverty differentiation based on data from Household Budgets Survey. Obtained results were subjected to statistical analysis, using elements of multidimensional analysis.

Results: The research revealed that there are significant differences in the level of poverty in individual voivodships, with lower values observed in Western Poland. A significant drop in the level of poverty, especially extreme poverty, was recorded in 2008–2017. Furthermore, fluctuations in the extent of poverty are strongly impacted by state policy.

Implications: Research results may be useful to policy-makers at the local government level not only in Poland but also in other countries, mainly from the perspective of the European Union’s Europe 2020 strategy.

Originality/Value: The article undertakes the topic of poverty, which constitutes an important and current socioeconomic concern. Despite progressive economic development, there still exist disadvantaged groups of entities and households.

Purpose: Assuming a duopoly industry with pollution producing processes, the aim of this work
is to study the firms’ choice to engage in Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility (ECSR)
by means of “green” managerial delegation, i.e. hiring managers with preferences for environ mental
concerns to whom owners delegate both sales and decisions to adopt green technology.

Methodology: Depending on the firms’ strategic choices, a two/three-stage game takes place solved
by the backward induction method to obtain sub-game perfect Nash equilibria.

Results: When the market structure is a Cournot duopoly, and the environmental sensitivity of
“green” managers is extremely low, then the engagement in ECSR is the firms’ dominant strategy,
regardless of the efficiency level of the available abatement technology. Nonetheless, firms are cast
into a prisoner’s dilemma. On the other hand, if “green” managers have low-intermediate to intermediate
environmental sensitivity, then either no ECSR, multiple symmetric equilibria, or ECSR
engagement can emerge as a result in equilibrium. Finally, if managers’ environmental sensitivity
is adequately high, then firms do not engage in ECSR. When a market entry game is considered
with the Stackelberg competition in which the incumbent adopts ECSR while the entrant does not,
socially responsible behaviors cause the market to be more contestable. However, the incumbent’s
owners can use ECSR to secure a dominant position in the market, provided that they hire “green”
managers with adequate environmental concerns.
Implications: In the case of entry, non-trivial policy implications arise. Due to increased competition,
the welfare of consumers improves (lower prices for the goods). However, the entry of a polluting
firm increases emissions. Higher emissions damage consumers and lower the overall social welfare
of an environmentally concerned government. Thus, a complete welfare analysis is required prior
to the design of a government’s regulatory intervention.

Originality/Value: This paper is the first that introduces the figure of the “green” manager who
shows, in its utility function, an environmental concern.

Purpose: This paper focuses on the effects of positive and negative online reviews (eWOM) on the metrics of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) in the context of the Polish restaurant sector.
Methodology: The dedicated online survey was completed by 777 consumers, which we then analyzed with structural equation modeling. Each catering outlet was to allow to order meals online. We used descriptive analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and path analysis to test the hypotheses.
Findings: The findings suggest that positive online reviews affect each CBBE variable in the online catering outlet’s context. In the case of known catering establishment’s offering in the option of placing orders via online platforms, negative eWOM only affects the perceived quality and brand loyalty. However, it does not change brand awareness and brand association.
Implications: This paper contributes to the body of literature on eWOM, which to date offers very little understanding of the topic of positive and negative online reviews and CBBE dimensions. Moreover, in terms of practical and managerial applications, this study can be used to delineate strategy in terms of management of eWOM to optimize brand strategies.

Purpose: Strategy determines the patterns of internationalization. The speed, scale, and scope of
internationalization are important dimensions from the perspective of firms’ behaviors and activities.
The aim of the article is to identify and verify the relationship between the international
strategy and its impact on three dimensions of the studied phenomenon.

Methodology: The article uses a quantitative approach. The survey was conducted on a sample of
355 internationalized firms from Poland, varying in size.

Findings: The analysis with t test and U test (ANOVA) shows a correlation between a company’s
international strategy as a planning instrument and the speed and scope of internationalization.

Research limitations/implications: While considering a firm’s development, especially its international
growth, one should plan the activities related to entering into foreign markets. The results
presented in this article are just a starting point for further analyses. In an attempt to eliminate its
limitations, further research should focus on building a comprehensive model that includes the
remaining components of international strategy and other categories that stimulate internationalization
processes.

Originality: The originality of this article lies in three elements: (i) the article comprehensively
captures the scale, scope, and speed of internationalization at the same time, (ii) the strategy is
introduced as a determining factor of the scale, scope, and speed of internationalization, and (iii)
the article enriches empirical studies about emerging markets such as Poland.

Purpose: The article discusses the pace of internationalization by empirically verifying the speed of internationalization of Polish international firms and identifying which pattern is more frequently used by international startups from Poland: born global or born regional.

Methodology: The article employs a quantitative approach. It builds on a sample of 355 international businesses from Poland (CATI survey).

Findings: By using t test, U test, and ANOVA, the analysis showed a correlation between the compa-ny’s international strategy as a planning instrument and the speed and scope of internationalization. Research limitations/implications: Based on prior studies from other parts of the globe, we assume that among Polish companies the number of born regionals – i.e. businesses that are international from their inception – is growing, while their activity is mainly restricted to the European Union. Among Polish international firms, there are many born global. In the studied sample (selected randomly), the share of born globals was 61.5%, and global startups 43%, which is a very high rate. The results enable to adopt a hypothesis that the number of Polish-born regionals is relatively high in comparison with the traditional path and born globals.

Originality/value: The article describes one of the first studies to (i) capture the phenomenon of born regionals in Poland and (ii) enrich empirical studies on emerging markets such as Poland.

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to better understand why some SMEs who pursue a niche strategy on the international scale are more effective with a differentiation via innovation while others with marketing differentiation.

Methodology: Therefore, the paper studies the effectiveness of different points of differentiation (innovation, marketing) of hidden champion type of companies: (1) from the perspective of the unknowns of the key success factors in the specifc market segment, and (2) from the perspective of the professional mindset/education of the strategist.

Findings: The results show that differentiation via innovation positively impacts frm performance when there are many market unknowns over key success factors, whereas marketing differentiation positively impacts frm performance when there are few market unknowns over key success factors. On the other hand, when top management earns a business education, the impact of marketing differentiation on frm performance is signifcant, positive, and strong. The effectiveness of differentiation via innovation does not depend on education.

Research limitations/implications: These results mostly consider the hidden champion type of companies, which prefer not to reveal themselves or their data to the public. The transferability of this research is thus limited.

Originality/value: This paper studies the hidden champion type of companies, which usually receive little attention from researchers, through the lens of differentiation via innovation and marketing differentiation as two distinct ways of competing as their effectiveness is contingent on the market unknowns.

Purpose: This paper aims to analyse selected aspects of the marketing strategy of the frst and biggest network of self-service shops with organic products in Poland – Organic Farma Zdrowia.

Methodology: The adopted methodology involves a qualitative approach. The case study is based on an analysis of company documents and marketing communication, especially that offered on its website and in its social media channels.

Findings: The company specializes in distribution of organic products in Poland. It has gone through organic growth, acquisitions, attracting a Dutch investment fund, and entering the NewConnect stock exchange. It operates based on the model of multichannel distribution, combining physical and online retailing. The assortment consists of 4,000 products, including organic food, cosmetics, and cleaning aids. The company has managed to create 3 own label product lines. The online retailer belonging to the company (organic24.pl) is organized in a professional way, although some improvements are possible. In 2015, the company engaged in ambitious marketing projects.

Practical implications: The fndings may be useful for the Organic Farma Zdrowia company as certain modifcations in its marketing communication are recommended. Other companies operating in the sector may also beneft from the analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the business in question. Furthermore, our case study may offer a framework of reference for researchers interested in this area.

Originality: This is the frst study to examine the strategy and marketing activities of Organic Farma Zdrowia, a major player in the sector of organic food distribution in Poland.

Purpose: Despite the importance of innovation, the full innovation potential of companies operating in the industrial sector of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) seems not to have been unlocked yet. Thus, the primary purpose of the study was to explore the key elements of company innovation policies applied on the way to successful innovation.

Methodology: The article presents results of an empirical quantitative analysis. The data has been collected through an anonymous online and postal survey. The analysis focuses on 345 companies active on foreign markets and involves a Mann-Whitney U test and a regression analysis.

Findings: The conducted analysis points to the importance of the degree of interorganizational network embeddedness for the performance of companies active on foreign markets. It shows that the higher the degree of the overall network embeddedness (measured with adaptations, trust and mutuality), the higher the company’s perceived performance relative to its competitors.

Research limitations: The research was burdened with such limitations as respondents experiencing time pressure and the use of only one source of information (the interviewees).

Originality: Despite much general evidence, the study attempts to complement the rare qualitative studies on innovation in CEE. It was carried out as a response to the lack of an in-depth study covering such recurrent challenges in the feld of company innovation policies as disruption, portfolio balancing, integration, intangibilities’ management, and play.

New pragmatism is an original, paradigmatic and heterodox theoretical concept within the feld of economic science, which attempts to address current civilizational challenges and factors that will determine the future functioning of economic systems. It strives to advance economic theory in a direction that allows a more in-depth and accurate cognition of the economic reality than is possible through the prism of orthodox theories. At the same time, it provides an outline of a theory that is strongly applicative in nature and immanently combines scientifc cognition (positive perspective) and the formulation of guidelines and practical recommendations (normative perspective). This, indeed, forms the foundation on which to build the economic policy and strategy for development, as they both determine the world’s civilizational advancement.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to examine shareholders’ reaction to the decision of the supervisory board to appoint a CEO in companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

Methodology: An event study and the mean-adjusted model were applied. The abnormal returns were measured as the CAAR in the entire (-60, + 60) window and selected sub-windows.

Findings: The obtained values of abnormal returns indicate the shareholder’s negative reaction. Throughout the observation window, they oscillate slightly below zero, and in the window (0, +20) they are negative at -1.566%. Irrespective of the observation window, negative abnormal returns were obtained for over half of the observation (52–57%). Therefore, preliminary results indicate the predominance of the information effect over the real one. The decrease in market value as a result of the event may result from an increase in investors’ uncertainty as to the effects of changes in strategy and skills of the new CEO.

Originality: The research is a unique one. To date, no one has carried out research into shareholders’ reaction to a CEO appointment in either the Polish or Central and Eastern European capital markets. They primarily bring the value of cognition of shareholders’ behaviour in the analysed event, which is reflected in share prices. They extend the literature on the signalization instruments, i.e. the activities that boards can undertake due to the new information transmitted to the capital market participants and stakeholders. The market reaction to a CEO appointment will without a doubt interest investors; the institutions responsible for supervision (which in the case of Poland is the Financial Oversight Commission) and the legislator in charge of regulations that prevent insider trading while promoting corporate disclosure transparency.

Purpose: The main purpose of this study was to compare the phenomenon of interfirm cooperation strategy in both hyper-growth, and stable-growth knowledge and technology–intensive firms, in a country characterized by a high level of generalized trust: Sweden.

Methodology: Qualitative methods were incorporated: direct semistructured interviews with top managers in 13 ICT firms (8 hyper-growth and 5 stable-growth), analyzis of reports, corporate websites and press releases. Furthermore, interviews in 3 expert firms in the industry were conducted, facilitating interfirm cooperation.

Conclusions: There were significant differences in interfirm cooperation strategy in two distinguished groups of the frms: hyper-growth, and stable-growth. Managers’ individual approaches to uncertainty, strategy and cooperation might be more important than institutional settings. The ICT firms operate in a constantly changing global environment and local context seems to have only a minor impact on the rules of the game in the industry.

Research limitations: This study was a qualitative explorative approach as an introduction to further empirical research.

Originality: The study presents an interfirm cooperation phenomenon incorporating different perspectives and settings. It contributes to alliance portfolio literature (forming and managing of alliance portfolio in a different context/country/industry), and enhances understanding of firm strategies characterized by different growth rates.

Purpose: This article provides an understanding of international retailers’ successes and failures when expanding in the Polish market. Accordingly, the objectives of this article were to define and identify what are the critical factors of success and failures of international retailers’ strategies while expanding in the Polish market according to the retailers themselves.

Methodology: Adopting an interpretative research approach, this article elaborates a multiple explanatory case study design to discover how existing theory on internationalization compared to how internationalization is experienced and conceptualized by practitioners in their natural contexts.

Findings: Twenty cases were studied among which were found four successful retailers and two who had failed. Coding of categories highlighted five critical success factors and five critical failure factors. Pricing strategy, necessity of adapting operations to local market, learning by doing, e-commerce and early entry timing appeared as factors of success or at least as “facilitating factors.” Choosing the inappropriate entry method, underestimating competition, developing the retail network and retail environment at a slow pace and not giving enough means of abnegation led to failures in Poland.

Originality: This article contributes to filling two main gaps identified in the literature review. Many different theoretical approaches exist but no conclusive framework has emerged. Besides, most concepts were developed and tested on western European countries and nothing proved adequate to the specific retail landscape of eastern Europeans countries such as Poland.

Purpose: There have been numerous studies analyzing the role of psychic (and cultural) distance in the internationalization process focused on relationships between distance and market selection, entry mode, or subsidiary performance. Still, cumulative findings of this body of research are mixed and inconclusive. Thus, this review aims for a rigorous presentation of past research on psychic distance, with particular focus on the aspects of international business operations affected by psychic distance in the light of empirical studies.

Methodology: This review encompasses 55 papers, both empirical and conceptual, published between 1990–2015 in top IB, international marketing, and management journals. In general, the papers under review were published in 27 journals, with the vast majority of them being published in 2005 or later. The vast majority of reviewed papers are of empirical character (47 papers), while eight are conceptual.

Findings: Since 2005, the number of articles published in top academic journals that featured the term “psychic distance” in the title has quadrupled. Common research topics include not only the core domain of internationalization process and performance, but also focus on understanding the concept of psychic distance, analyzing its antecedents and coping modes. Other studies have addressed the performance implications of psychic distance in conjunction with variables like strategy adaptation to foreign markets.
Research limitations/implications: While the present review is limited in the number of papers taken into account, it does provide an initial overview of the structure of the field. However, the comparability of findings of different studies is limited by factors such as firm samples or presence of multicultural nations. In terms of directions for further research, promising topics include the relationship between perceived and ‘real’ distances or the effectiveness of different coping modes.

Originality/value: The present paper identifies key research streams related to psychic distance and its role for international business. Based on an analysis of their content, it outlines several avenues for further investigation.

Purpose: This study attempts to make a contribution to theory by disentangling the concept of creating shared value (CSV) from corporate social responsibility (CSR). In doing so, the study provides a preliminary outline for CSV analysis.

Approach: This study is conceptual in character. It is based on a review of literature on CSR and CSV and adopts the perspective of economic and social value creation.

Findings: The findings show that 1) CSR comes down to sharing the economic value created in order to build social value and 2) CSV is the process of change of the relation between a firm’s outcomes and inputs that generates social value. In other words, it comes down to economic value creation through creating social value.

Originality: This study provides arguments revealing that to understand the differences between the notions of CSV and CSR, it suggests adopting the concepts of economic and social value. The study therefore bridges the gap in theory in this respect and outlines a preliminary conceptual basis for CSV analysis. It is expected that the findings of this study will serve as a reliable basis for further discussion and CSV concept development.

Objective: The aim of the present study is to examine whether the European Union budget comprises significant resources for financing measures relating to social cohesion. The analysis is based on the contents of the Europe 2020 Strategy.
Given the constraints of space and for the sake of clarity of the argument, the author focuses on the role of the EU budget rather than all measures aimed at social cohesion undertaken by EU institutions or targeted by policies of individual Member States.

Methodology: Documents, studies and reports published by the European Commission constitute the main source of information. In addition, the author has taken into account macroeconomic data demonstrating the deterioration of the social situation since 2009, as well as the instruments that the European Commission has deployed since 2013 in order to respond to post-crisis challenges.

Conclusions: It can be roughly estimated that more than 40 percent of total resources within the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020 shall be allocated to the social cohesion policy. Opportunities afforded by the implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy include primarily the definition of objectives whose priority is indisputable and the introduction of the hitherto neglected analysis of certain socio-economic indicators, classified by country or region and, in certain cases, examined in more detail than required by the European Commission. The monitoring of objectives is conducive to the introduction of new solutions and implementation tools, as exemplified by the new instruments within the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020, as well as the adjustment of available funds in light of the most pressing challenges. The European Semester has facilitated the task of comparing progress in strategy implementation by individual Member States, as well as the provision of recommendations for each of them and an individualized approach.

Research implications: This article contributes to the discussion on further integration of the European Union's social dimension, with particular emphasis on the need to work out a common approach to immigration policy.

Originality: The author presents her own opinions regarding current events in terms of the post-crisis social cohesion policies of the European Union, taking into account the European Commission’s financial instruments.

Purpose: Explanation of the essence and features of the “city placement” strategy, while observing the changes in “classic” forms of marketing communications used by cities and regions, including main pros and implementation procedures.

Methodology: This paper is conceptual and relies on diagnosis and analysis of “city placement” strategy implementation in a chosen Polish city as well as on the author’s professional experiences. Analysis of scarce existing marketing literature, including the notion of “product placement,” allowed us to present model structures, variations, and rules that explain the role and pros of the “city placement” strategy in the promotion mix of places.

Conclusions: This paper comprises not only a set of notions and models structuring the “city placement” phenomenon but also many operational concepts related to the implementation of this strategy, which makes this paper a valuable point in the discussion on innovative changes in the “promotion mix” of cities and regions.

Originality: “City placement” is a novelty in promotion strategies of cities and regions. In the existing literature on place marketing, there are no in-depth conceptual works explaining the role, features, and forms of “city placement.” This paper is a new approach suggested by the author and is an attempt to explain the process.