Purpose – The article aims to determine the implementation extent of the regulations around appointment and characteristics of audit committees and regulations concerning disclosure of information about the audit committee in Polish practice.
Design/methodology/approach – The author analyzed the informative content of management reports and corporate governance statements. The survey covered all domestic companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in the years from 2017 to 2021.
Findings – The new guidelines resulting from hard law had a significant impact on the corporate governance on the Polish capital market. According to the research results, over the analyzed years, the share of companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, which appointed an audit committee within the supervisory board, clearly increased. Moreover, the research found that in the period under study, not all companies fulfilled the obligation to disclose information about the audit committee resulting from hard law. In particular, this applies to disclosures on how the members of the audit committee acquired competencies in the area of accounting.
Practical implications – The article concerns the operation of the audit committee in public companies listed on the Polish capital market.The study can serve as a reference point for further research on corporate governance. The results of the research may be an indication for those who create legal solutions in the area of corporate governance.
Originality/value – This is the first such comprehensive study on the characteristics of the audit committee and disclosures about the audit committee resulting from the introduction of hard law in this area.

Purpose: The article explores changes in the institutional autonomy and accountability resulting from university reforms carried out over a period of 28 years under the influence of the traditional public administration and new public management logic.

Design/methodology/approach: This qualitative study uses rich empirical material, which includes archival documents as well as 16 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with deans, professors, representatives of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, and HEI experts. For analysis, we used the general inductive approach. Institutional logic has been used as the theoretical framework to analyze changes in resource allocation, autonomy, and accountability of HEIs.

Findings: Following the idea of reform as routine, our study shows that the implemented reforms have proven ineffective in comprehensively increasing the autonomy and accountability of HEIs and that they tend to turn into a routine. However, over the past 30 years, a certain increase in autonomy, combined with accountability shifts from input toward output control mechanisms can be observed. An important finding of this research is also the limited understanding of the concept of accountability by the top management of universities and by the ministry’s representatives. Moreover, this illustrates that accountability is understood only as a formal obligation to report to the funding agency and is treated as an integral part of the Polish HE landscape, increasing from reform to reform.

Originality/Value: This article explores the evolution of the Polish state funding systems of universities and analyzes the development from a stable traditional funding model – that was in place before the collapse of the communist system – to a complex multi-tier system and to recent attempts at reforming the HE field, aimed at increasing the autonomy and accountability of Polish universities. More efforts should be made by policymakers to create a sustainable balance between autonomy and accountability in the HE field.

Purpose: Design and UX are effective means of embodying value, but if marketers couple these with an ambiguous concept, the product/service loses its uniqueness. Starbucks exhibits strength in creating value based on concepts. Various studies report factors that contribute to brand loyalty, but the underlying idea remains unexplored. This study comprehensively verifies the contribution of four factors to Starbucks’ loyalty in Japan: concept, product, place, and staff.

Methodology: Using an online survey, a question was framed about the brand image to identify loyalty-related factors, since consumers form brand image through brand experience. To avoid bias, the responses were based purely on recall. The contribution of each derived factor to loyalty was evaluated using structural equation modeling.

Findings: When asked about the Starbucks brand image, respondents mostly recalled its products (related words), but the brand concept was the most effective factor for loyalty. In addition, places were more significant than products. However, product superiority was confirmed in terms of both frequency and contribution compared to place.

Implications: Companies should reaffirm the importance of brand concepts. Thus, emphasis should be placed on the index of concept recall in brand management.

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 aim of this study was to identify the content of disclosures presented by public companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange on the internal control and risk management systems in relation to financial reporting.

Methodology: The study contents were formulated with the use of literature studies. Content analysis studies and disclosure index studies were used for the study of narrative disclosures. The research was of a qualitative nature.

Results: The results showed that the companies listed on the Polish capital market are still at the stage of formulating reporting practices in the area of control systems over financial reporting. It should be noted that the diversity in information presented within disclosures about control systems over financial reporting is considerable. For some companies, the disclosures are formulated at such a high level of generality that no firm conclusions can be drawn. Detailed items of disclosures presented by particular companies can be identified in the reporting practices. The findings may provide the basis for constructing an index of disclosures about control systems over financial reporting.
Scope of research: The study examined disclosures about internal control and risk management systems in relation to financial reporting presented by public companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

Originality: Disclosures about internal control and risk management systems in relation to financial reporting are a relatively new issue in Polish practice. The literature studies carried out as part of the research indicate that this issue is a research gap.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of corporate posturing and deception in the area of social and environmental responsibility, its main types and causes and to assess the actual scale of the problem.

Methodology: The paper discusses major issues with references to existing literature and practical examples.

Findings: The main fi nding of this paper is that environmental and social responsibility statements accurately represent corporate commitment in the majority of cases. There are a number of reasons for this state of affairs. The most important of them are: easy consumer and investor access to various sustainability ratings, the rising scale of external verifi cation of social responsibility reports by independent third parties and stakeholder groups, and the rising liability for corporate social responsibility frauds.

Research limitations: The paper explores issues related to the problems and challenges of fair and accurate corporate social reporting. Many questions remain to be addressed.
Practical implications: Social and environmental branding could give companies competitive advantage as a growing number of consumers become more sustainability-conscious. It could also help overcome the increasing skepticism of consumers towards corporate social responsibility practices.

Originality: The paper raises the importance of the different conditions of corporate disinformation in the field of social and environmental responsibility and adds value to the existing body of literature on corporate greenwashing.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to confirm the thesis that the amount of public funds expenditure has no impact on the effectiveness of state functioning, which – to a greater extent – is dependent on the efficiency of these funds. In the article, the author claims that in the case of the European Union there is no explicit evidence concerning the efficiency of public funds in Member States – both on the micro and macro level.

Methodology: A literature review conducted on the basis of collections of academic and scientific articles and an analysis of particular solutions implemented in the European Union and in OECD Member States as well as concerning the consolidation of public funds in the context of the effectiveness of state functioning.

Originality: The author of this work – on the basis of the (performed) analysis presented in the article, explains that the optimal fiscal policy should use appropriately selected tools allowing to achieve the best (optimal) method for the management of public funds, in particular the external and internal position of the economy of the given country. The key factors that decide on the effectiveness (excluding non-financial factors) are neither
universal (absolute) nor relative extent of public spending. The author concludes that the level of effectiveness is either dependent on the structure of this spending and procedures connected with public expenditure planning, executing, accounting and reporting processes, or the level (quality) of the effectiveness and efficiency evaluation system.

Purpose: The article presents the results of the analysis of the employment and salary policy in Polish public administration in the period of 2002-2011 in terms of public administration management in times of the financial crisis and the competitiveness of employment in government administration. The authors of the article examine the effectiveness of the subsequent government efforts to institute “a cheap state”. They have assumed that in the
examined period the effectiveness of government administration did not change considerably.

Originality: The presented analysis covers such issues as: identifying the determinants of changes in salary and employment rates in government administration; an analysis of the relevant major legal institutions; a study of the main changes in the salary and employment policy in government administration; an analysis of the employment nd remuneration budget in public administration; an assessment of the changes in the effectiveness of the
functioning of government administration.

Methodology: In their studies the authors conduct inductive and deductive reasoning by means of the following research techniques: an analysis of legal acts, strategic government documents and reports of the Supreme Audit Office (NIK); a statistical dynamics and structure analysis; a comparative analysis and a one-dimensional analysis of public expenditure efficiency.

Purpose: The article aims to assess the informative value of the financial statements of public enterprises, auxiliary enterprises and budget institutions which have been transformed into public sector enterprises (IGB). The goal of the article is also to interpret the data included in financial statements, from the property and structure management point of view.

Metodology: The main research tool was the economical analysis of the chosen elements of the financial statements of public sector enterprises. Review of the data which describe the public sector enterprises which conduct business activities was done. In relation to “Center of Logistic Services” entity, the method of case study was used.

Findings: The analysis shown in the article implies that the legal and organisational changes have not improved the public finance sector operations in this area. It results from the fact that the changes in management, way of thinking should be directed to managerial model.
Research implications: The article is the first author’s insight into the problem of public sector enterprises. There is no doubt, this type of research should be continued in many aspects.

Originality: The author presented the interesting and current problem concerning public finance sector. Stated in the article theses and the analysis of the financial standing of the public sector enterprises is one of the opinions in the debate on the expected direction of changes in the organisation of public finance sector.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to assess the competitiveness general landscape
of MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) in sub-Saharan Africa through
selected factors driving productivity and effectiveness in doing business, as elements
of the general business environment.

Design: To present a general outlook of competitiveness a narrow number of factors
was chosen – public institutions, infrastructure, women in business and strategic
partnership – corresponding to the contents of four Global Competitiveness Index of
the World Economic Forum pillars (public and private institutions, infrastructure,
labor market efficiency, business sophistication). The factors selected – elements of
the general business environment, have one common feature: all are state-performance-
dependent. The scientific method of research in this study, uses primary sources like the Global Competitiveness Report or The World Bank documents and data. Secondary sources
include a number of syntheses, calculations and interpretations of primary sources
presented by Polish and foreign scientific literature. Primary and secondary sources
gathered became a base for semiotic and semantic analyses.

Findings: The approach in this paper highlights the organization general business
environment elements set by the state and their adverse affect on business environment
of MSMEs across the region. Competitiveness’ paths then may be called
devious.

Originality: This study is at the intersection of two different strands relating to organization
theory: the business environment and competitiveness, and critical management
studies. A qualitative research, a thorough theoretical approach concerns
issues hardly available in Poland.