Purpose: This study presents a nine-factor, 32-item measure of work environment scale in the service sector. A healthy work environment is one in which employees trust the people they work for, have pride in what they do, and enjoy working with the people (Levering and Moskowitz, 2004).

Methodology: This instrument builds on the conceptual model espoused by Insel and Moos (1974), Gordon (1973), Fletcher and Nusbaum (2010), Amabile et al. (1996), and Spector (2003). The scale included items elicited through a literature review, the use of the Delphi technique with a panel of experts, and tested on 824 full-time employees from nine service sector industries and five major cities in India.

Findings: The Work Environment Services Scale (WESS) is a reliable and valid scale useful for measuring the nine work environment factors in the Indian services organization, with its own norms and a detailed manual.

Originality/Value: The prevailing scales for measuring work environment do not capture the influence of ethics, recreation facilities, and the impact of social giving on the work environment. Most scales were suitable for sectors in the Western context, and there were no Indian scales measuring service employees’ perception of their work environment.

Purpose: The article sought to answer research questions regarding investigated branded content generated by players in simulation video games. How does the process work in video games? What are the characteristics of branded user-generated content in video games? To what extent players are willing to participate in branded content creation?

Methodology: I conducted 20 in-depth interviews among Polish players, with the application of snowball sampling. The study participants were adult users of chosen simulation video games: The Sims, Second Life, and Euro Truck Simulator 2.

Findings: We can distinguish content based on game mechanism, official add-ons, or game modding. Players frequently check some brands from a set offered by game developers and create content (e.g. in The Sims users can design house interiors with IKEA furniture). Some players are not satisfied by what a game offers and generate content based on modding (e.g. DHL trucks or McDonald’s restaurants inside the Euro Truck Simulator 2). In this respect, the article refers to Smith’s, Fischer’s, and Yongjian’s content dimensions. Branded game modifications described by respondents are characterized by a high level of similarity towards real brands and positive brand sentiment (valence). I noted no statement about player and marketer (brand) communication in gathered material. The biggest challenge for practitioners in the field of UGC in video games is how to manage brand messages.

Practical Implications: Brand-related user-generated content is an important phenomenon in terms of the brand-building process and its impact on brand reception, which all require marketers’ attention. For game developers, such a content is a source of information about customer expectations. Players show their personal expectations by game modding.

Originality/Value: Brand-related content generated by users is frequently associated with social media. The scholarship shows a lack of knowledge of branded user-generated content in video games.

Purpose: Although social capital and positive reputation in organizations are essential for career success, there is a limited perspective in the literature on the political characteristics (motivation and ability) that enable one to acquire and develop the two elements. This study seeks to investigate the sequential role of political skill and network resources as serial mediators of the political will–personal reputation relationship.

Methodology: In total, what provided data for the study were 457 sales executives from 13 different sectors in the cities of İstanbul, Kocaeli, and Bursa, which is an economically leading region of western Turkey. Executives rated their political will, political skill network resources, and personal reputation. Based on the complementary theories of political influence, social network, and signaling, we analyzed the relationships between constructs with structural equation modeling.

Findings: Political skill mediated the relationship between political will and network resources,
network resources mediated the relationship between political skill and personal reputation, while political skill and network resources sequentially mediated the relationship between political will and personal reputation.

Implications: The data were collected from a single source.

Practical Implications: Political will, political skill training, and social networks may help individuals manage their personal reputation at work, thus benefiting their careers.

Originality/Value: This is one of the first studies to sequentially investigate how individuals’ characteristics (motivation and ability) develop their social network and personal reputation at work. Moreover, theories of political influence, social capital, and signaling were jointly used for the first time ever.

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.

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 paper is to examine the relationship between working capital management and firm performance for firms listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange. Prior works have employed many indicators of the working capital. The results of previous studies, however, have been inconsistent. This study is an attempt to find out the best proxy of working capital in explaining firm’s performance.

Methodology: This study employs regression panels for five measures of working capital to model the data for fifty-four firm-year observations that meet the sampling criteria, covering the time 2010–2014. This study also uses adjusted R-squared as the criteria to select the strongest relationship between measures of working capital and firm performance.

Findings: The findings indicate that all proxies of working capital management met expected signs and statistical significance. Hence, working capital management significantly improves firms’ performance. The proxy of inventory turnovers is the best measure of working capital in explaining firm performance.

Originality: To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study examining the relationship between five measures of working capital management and firm performance in Indonesia or in any emerging markets; hence, this study contributes to the scarce literature on the management of working capital.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to explore the phenomenon of an advanced form of internationalization: foreign direct investment (FDI) in a distant location. We label this transaction “adventurous FDI”, and explain how this new concept is related to, yet distinct from, other widely studied theories: born global companies, the LLL model, and the Uppsala model. We propose a theoretical typology of adventurous FDI based on two critical factors for risk­taking: distance and embeddedness.

Methodology: We present a theoretical proposal of a typology of AFDIs. To support our proposal, we illustrate the typology with examples from a longitudinal study of foreign direct investments undertaken in the years 2007-2009 by Polish frms. Selection of the time period for this study is justifed by the fact that the number of FDI transactions and AFDIs has almost doubled in the observed time period. We apply methods of social network analysis to identify embeddedness of FDIs and use geographic distance measures to classify transactions on a distance scale.

Originality: Current theories of foreign direct investment (FDI) focus broadly on either gradual learning or instant globalization. We identify a new category which we term “adventurous FDI”. The distinctive features of adventurous FDI includes the exploration of many unknowns related to distant locations and the use of advanced internationalization forms. We propose that embeddedness in country networks is instrumental to adventurous FDI, as the rapid learning inherent in such network arrangements enables frms to overcome the ambiguity associated with vast geographic, psychic, and cultural distance.

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.

Purpose: Developing a strong, favourable employer brand of a retail chain may be regarded as an important means of creating a competitive advantage. Retail chains should attract personnel with desired competence required for their particular purposes. The retail sector in Poland is perceived as a strongly disliked employer. Thus employer branding can be an important element of strategies adopted by retail chains operating in Poland. The main objective of this paper is to analyse the development of employer branding strategies implemented by selected global retailers operating in Poland and the impact of such strategies on their respective competitive positions in the Polish market. The time frame for the analysis is the period of 2009–2014.

Research design and methods: In addition to a review of the literature on the development of employer brands, this paper includes a case study of a few global retail chains operating in Poland. The paper is based on the assumption that retail chains pursue competitive advantage by developing employer brand strategies.

Implications and recommendations: A continued engagement in strategic activities in the feld of employer branding is very important for retail chains. Decision makers need to pay special attention to the promotion of their retail chains as a good workplace, using employer branding techniques

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to identify what are the cause-effect patterns of how company actions influence value drivers in Polish frms.

Method: The method used in the study consists of (1) the generation of informant reports (stories) about what actions performed in their frms influenced the value drivers and (2) the identifcation of the repeating (replicating) patterns of such influence.

Results: The study identifes fve actions that reduce the unproductive time of participants of business processes and three actions influencing new product introductions or modifcations.

Managerial implications: Managers should (1) use standardization and automation, delegation of secondary activities, and trainings in teamwork to reduce unproductive time, more quickly fulfll contracts (with current products), and influence four fnancial value drivers. Moreover, they should (2) gather knowledge about the alternative ways of thinking about particular problems and (3) use personal participation of knowledge possessor’s teams in clients’ problem-solving places.

Limitations and future research: The author identifes fve limitations of the performed study and formulates relevant suggestions for future research.

Originality/value: The study contributes to management theory by (1) clarifying conceptual relations between the actions of frms (causes) and value drivers (effects) and (2) analyzing the manager reports about the real business value-creation processes.

Purpose: The paper investigates whether employees’ strategic awareness influences the shape of
management control systems (MCSs) in Polish micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (mSMEs).

Methodology: The study is based on data obtained from 223 companies between November 2010
and January 2012. The quantitative analysis used a set of variables which depicted MCSs: ‘goalsetting
process’, ‘control framework’ and ‘organisation of control’. Strategic awareness was considered
an independent variable.

Findings: The results showed positive correlations between strategic awareness and considered
variables. Regression models developed by the authors proved statistically valid. The study evidences,
that increasing employees’ strategic awareness stimulates their participation in goal-setting,
contributes to the development of more comprehensive MCSs, or may even imply formalisation of
management control.

Research limitations: The study does not include an analysis of the extent to which employees
find MCSs useful in their work. This will be considered in future research. Another possible extension
of the project is to identify factors which enable the capturing of the dynamic character of
MCSs and their changes over time.

Practical implications: The knowledge of MCSs does not explain whether or not the strategic orientation
of a company stimulates a need for MCS. Such knowledge may be important to managers
who have to face Polish employees’ general aversion to control.

Originality: The study contributes to the limited body of knowledge in a scope of relations between
employees’ strategic awareness and control mechanisms in Polish mSMEs.

Objective: This paper describes the level of knowledge of the areas in project management. The aim of this article is to diagnose the fi rst level of project management maturity in four surveyed companies. A common language is the fi rst of the fi ve levels of project management maturity.

Methodology: Qualitative research on target sample has been carried out using a questionnaire.

Test results: The study presents a fragment of the results of research on the project management maturity in organizations in the process of product innovation. Project knowledge is a resource for knowledge about methods and techniques related to the coordination of project activities and project experience gained from the implementation
of previous and earlier projects.

Conclusion: Proper knowledge management during the project can undoubtedly bring many benefi ts as: developing and improving their own solutions, eliminating duplication of work, saving time, learning from mistakes and the mistakes of others, the use of best practices.

Originality: Knowledge of project areas by the team indicates the level of project management maturity in the creation of product innovation.

Purpose: The paper presents results of research on determinants of selection of the moment of starting running own business.

Methodology: The method of questionnaire research (partial) was used in the paper. 60 students of full-time studies in Poland, who were selected at random, took part in the research. The research constitute continuation of the researches on entrepreneurship conducted by the SES students of full time studies at the University in Szczecin since 2003.
Data obtained from presented research were compared in the paper with international material, which was collected in the previous editions (obtained from the Lithuanian, Latvian, Russian, Ukrainian and Hungarian students).

Conclusions: Results of the conducted research let positively verify the hypothesis that actual tendency of individuals to set up own business appears after few years of professional career – what explains quite substantial disproportion between percentage of people declaring willingness for setting up own business and actual percentage of self-employed in the working population. Preferences concerning this scope have infl uence on shaping the level of self-employment in a given country.

Practical implications: The material contained in the paper can be useful for appropriate public services, which deal with support of development of self-entrepreneurship of citizens, because of the fact of paying attention to analyzed relationships.

Originality: The results of presented research constitute an attempt of filling the gaps, which occur in the literature of subject concerning entrepreneurship. There are not papers concentrating on the issues of factors determining moment of choice of setting up one’s own business.

Purpose: The aim of the article is to present a problem of long hours in law fi rms from insiders’ perspective.

Methodology: Presented research was based on qualitative methodology. More than twenty unstructured interviews have been conducted with lawyers, the Harvard LLM graduates.

Findings: The research material shows that lawyers have no sense of agency to control their work time. All respondents reported that their work day was usually longer than standard eight hours. This element is perceived as a standard, inseparable part of work in a law fi rm. Long hours become an important element of lawyers professional identity. Despite the fact that long hours are perceived as disturbing respondents do not considers themselves in power to make a change.

Originality: Article presents a unique insiders’ perspective on the phenomenon under study. This approach, which is new in the literature, allowed us to identify the lack of the sense of agency as a crucial element of the problem of long hours in law firms.

Purpose: The objective of this paper is to describe concepts and assumptions of predictive marketing analytics in reference to decision making. In particular, we highlight issues pertaining to the importance of data and the modern approach to data analysis and processing with the purpose of solving real marketing problems that companies encounter in business.

Methodology: In this paper authors provide two study cases showing how, and to what extent predictive marketing analytics work can be useful in practice e.g., investigation of the marketing environment. The two cases are based on organizations operating mainly on Web site domain. The fi rst part of this article, begins a discussion with the explanation of a general idea of predictive marketing analytics. The second part runs through opportunities
it creates for companies in the process of building strong competitive advantage in the market. The paper article ends with a brief comparison of predictive analytics versus traditional marketing-mix analysis.

Findings: Analytics play an extremely important role in the current process of business management based on planning, organizing, implementing and controlling marketing activities. Predictive analytics provides the actual and current picture of the external environment. They also explain what problems are faced with the company in business activities. Analytics tailor marketing solutions to the right time and place at minimum costs. In fact they control the effi ciency and simultaneously increases the effectiveness of the firm.

Practical implications: Based on the study cases comparing two enterprises carrying business activities in different areas, one can say that predictive analytics has far more been embraces extensively than classical marketing-mix analyses. The predictive approach yields greater speed of data collection and analysis, stronger predictive accuracy, better obtained competitor data, and more transparent models where one can understand the inner working of the model.

Originality: Authors describe the importance of analytics which enhance the decisions that the company makes as it executes strategies and plans, so that the company can be more effective and achieve better results. The key factor that enables to execute marketing strategies accurately and build competitive advantage in the future includes predictive modeling. The ability to predict probable futures allows us to shape the future, rather than
merely survive whatever it brings.

Purpose: Modernity consists of many confl icting aspects: It brings many empty promises, yet has resulted in new institutions that create bridges between the values and interests of millions of people who seek freedom, prosperity, quality of life, strengthened democracy and social justice. In this paper I attempt to a gain and loss account against modernity, because institutional rules are not only conducive to cooperative interactions, but to hostile interactions as well. People are not always guided by moral commitment, but rather more often driven by cold calculation or coercion.

Methodology: Modernity has at least three defi nitions. The fi rst defi nition is based on ideas that took over the imagination of the era. The second defi nition is based on an analysis of the behavior of people who respond to reason as well as emotion and believe that they act more rationally than their ancestors or the traditional “others”. The third defi nition is the one closest to my heart, consisting of the use of institutional categories.
Institutions offer practical ways of connecting ideas and people. The challenge for them is the result of deepening local and national interdependencies, but increasingly often also regional (e.g. European) and global. Interdependencies are the result of the scientifi c and technological revolution, global markets, global governance mechanisms, the emergence of new social forces and cultural confl icts (against the background of reconciling identity and differences).

Conclusions: The most important task is to identify the mechanisms of complex systems so that people know how to act under conditions of uncertainty, risk and crisis. Hence, the expectations toward institutions often exceed their abilities. Even though new institutions are being created and old ones are being fixed, we are witnessing and participating in, institutional paralysis and the decay (e.g. corruption). In this situation, it is imperative not only to improve control methods (e.g. legal), but also to resort to normative systems (values and identity) and knowledge (competence and skills). The source of this paralysis is often man himself, convinced of his own maturity and equipped with all sorts of rights, but manipulated on a scale not yet seen in the past. We are experiencing our own struggle as to what roles are closest to us, e.g. consumer, investor, or citizen?

Research Implications: Modernity is an emblematic, but confusing term. Therefore, the most important task is to identify the activities of complex systems, so that people know how to act under conditions of uncertainty, risk and crisis. People – agencies must operate in structures that defi ne the boundaries of their actions. The main task of social sciences is to identify the conditions for the construction of successful confi gurations of agencies and structures.

Originality: Sometimes the “old” is better than the “new”, but to adopt this as a principle of life would be a mistake. It is better to think that the “new” is a metamorphosis of the “old”, sometimes expected, sometimes not. Based on the example of capitalism – fi rst commercial capitalism, then industrial capitalism, and today financial capitalism – I demonstrate how the mechanisms of institutional morphogenesis work, with emphasis on structured cooperation and organized conflict.

Purpose: This article aims to analyze business models and their key elements. In light of the considerations on the merits and circumstances of innovation in business models, it presents the results of a panel discussion conducted in this area during the interdisciplinary conference “Time to develop. Strategic thinking in work and everyday life”.

Methodology: Discussion, literature studies, the results of studies carried out by international research centers and the results of a panel discussion conducted during the conference.

Results: As a result of the discussion the Authors conducted an analysis of the components of the business model, demonstrated the circumstances in which changes in the business model are needed and outlined the main stimulators and inhibitors of change.

Originality: The topic of innovation in business models is current and important for the development of both theory and practice, but is rarely addressed in Polish scientific studies. In times of economic crisis, when more and more companies are considering the revision of the current model, an accurate identification of the key conditions is important for the effective implementation of innovation in the business model.