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: 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: Entrepreneurship is a vital tool for the economic development of any country. As a fiel of research, entrepreneurship has become a diversified area of study. A plethora of studies appeared that investigate the antecedents of entrepreneurial intention, most of them focus on personality traits and other psychological factors. However, the studies focus less on practical entrepreneurial education such as internship and business incubation. Thus, the current study seeks to fill this gap by empirically investigating the impact of business incubators and internship programs on student’s entrepreneurial intention in the Pakistani context.

Methodology: The authors collected data through a structured questionnaire from students and ran partial least square structural equation modeling technique by SmartPLS software. Findings: The results show that business incubators and internship programs have a strong and positive statistically significant impact on entrepreneurial intentions.

Implication: The current study can help policy-makers get a better insight on entrepreneurship so as to improve its innovation, proactivity, and risk-taking ability and how these factors can amend the lack of entrepreneurial awareness among business students.

There is no alternative to the development of external interdependencies in the era of globalization. An alternative was even less conceivable when Poland switched from Communism to Western-style capitalism in the course of political transformation that began in 1989. Globalization projects may differ in terms of their institutional and ideological context, but they share common foundations, namely the objectively increasing interdependencies caused by the scientific and technical revolution; particularly apparent in the field of information and communication technologies, the growing openness of economic markets, soaring social expectations of mobility – especially the mobility of human resources – as well as the readiness to coexist with fellow humans that represent diverse cultures. Even in conditions of partial de-globalization – resulting from the protectionist economic policy of governments like the Trump administration – nobody really regards the idea of reversing the globalization trend as realistic or rational. Only those who hoped that globalization – albeit exclusively neoliberal! – would imminently diminish the importance of the nation-state are bitterly disappointed, given that the process merely redefined our understanding of the latter notion.

Purposes: The main goal of the paper is to determine the signifcance of selected sources of strategic information, used by Polish farmers in decision making. In addition, an attempt was made to determine the factors impacting the evaluation of those sources among the traits of the farmer and his farm.

Methodology: Data was gathered using the questionnaire method and analysed with standard tools of descriptive statistics.

Findings: The farmers deemed personalised sources of strategic information the most important, especially agricultural advisers, input suppliers and buyers of agricultural products. From among institutional (non-personalised) sources, local government and the chamber of agriculture were signifcant. Business information agencies and survey companies are the least important sources for farmers. The characteristics of the surroundings of the farm – specifcally, its geographic location and the size of settlement where it is located proved to have the widest impact on the evaluation of the sources included in the study. From among the organisational factors, only farm size has a signifcant impact.

Research limitations/implications: The study was confned to a representative group of farmers in Poland. A closed list of sources of strategic information was used.

Originality/value: The study results contribute to the knowledge on the functioning of Polish agriculture and may also be used in comparative studies, characterising this sector’s diversity within Europe. They can in turn contribute to properly focusing on supporting the policy of balanced agriculture development in the EU.

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 study is based on qualitative methods. The aim of the study has been achieved through 24 semi-structured interviews conducted with senior management, project leaders, and R&D specialists employed at companies operating in the industrial sector in CEE. The time frame covers the period of the fourth quarter of 2016 and the frst quarter of 2017.

Findings: Managing disruption consists of focusing on innovation development stage and following market imperatives by making the innovation try to address the market needs. Balancing portfolio requires considering product and process innovation jointly. Furthermore, 62% of the interviewees say that breakthrough innovation results ultimately from numerous incremental advancements. As far as policy integration is concerned, achieving competitive advantage through internal research is common amongst technological leaders, while market contenders turn to external cooperation. Moreover, incorporating CSV principles into the concept of innovation policy appears to be a necessity. Managing intangibilities comes down to patents.

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: 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 study concentrated on the process of evaluation of public programs currently implemented with the support of European Union funds in Poland. The aim was to show how the evaluation practice was adopted in the regional administration within programming and implementation of Regional Operational Programs 2007–2013 (ROP). The author analysed what types of decisions are primarily supported by evaluation and what
functions evaluation serves.

Methodology: The quantitative analysis was based on data drawn from documentation of the full population of ROP evaluations completed in 2007 to 2012, which was acquired from 16 ROP evaluation units.

Findings: The practice of evaluation was well adopted in regional administration and has grown rapidly in recent years. 236 studies, costing more than 16 million PLN, were completed by the end of 2012. However, most studies were of limited value as they concentrated on the implementation process, not on the effects and justification of intervention.

Implications: This study focused on quantitative aspects of the knowledge production process (evaluation reports). It omitted the question of actual evaluation use, which together with evaluation process quality and development of evaluation culture should be a subject of further investigation.

Originality: This study was the fi rst review of ROP evaluations in Poland. It went far beyond the scope of data collected previously by the Ministry of Regional Development and proposed novel categorizations of evaluation subjects that may be useful for other than ROP evaluations.

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 paper aims at identifying the major information gaps related to the financial sector that have emerged during the last years, including the explanation of the reasons and consequences of these gaps.

Methodology: The analysis is conducted using the descriptive methodology based on real developments in the financial sector. This analysis identifies substantial institutional changes within the financial sector combined with the introduction of new financial instruments that significantly increased information gaps related to financial developments.

Findings: We found that one of the main reasons for the breakdown in the financial liquidity market was the sudden buildup of a systemic risk caused, among other things, by substantial information gaps and limitations in the transparency of financial markets. The low transparency of the financial markets has been caused by institutional changes and new financial instruments introduced within the financial sector. They were introduced by the financial institutions themselves to facilitate very risky financial activities that were very profitable for them in the short term, but – as it occurred – very disruptive for the whole financial system and the whole economy in the longer term.

Research limitations: The analysis is limited only to the consideration of the causes and consequences of statistical gaps substantially reducing the transparency of the financial sector. A more comprehensive project should also explore and provide an appropriate proposal for remedy data and – even more important – a proposal to setup a macroprudential policy framework.

Originality: The original contribution of the paper is the link between specific institutional changes within the financial sector as well as new financial instruments and the emergence of particular information gaps.