The Economics and Business Review (earlier as the Poznan University of Economics Review) has been published by Poznań University of Economics and Business Press since 2001. The EBR provides a platform for academicians all over the world to share, discuss and integrate state-of-the-art economics and finance thinking with a special focus on emerging market economies. The EBR invites submissions of original and unpublished articles. The journal is published in English only, with a frequency of four issues yearly. Texts are double-blind reviewed. EBR is an open access journal. To submit, process and publish an article in Economics and Business Review authors are not required to pay any charge. Impact Factor 2024: 1.6| CiteScore 2024: 2.1 Call for papers: Global Economy under Geopolitical Pressure The Economics and Business Review invites empirical and theoretical contributions that explore how uncertainty and conflict are driving shifts in global power structures, fragmenting traditional trade and financial systems, and prompting new alignments among states and markets. For more details check the call for papers.
Poznan University of Economics and Business Press
Corporate governance, financial markets, and economic growth: Does corporate governance moderate the finance-growth nexus?
This paper examines whether corporate governance plays a moderating role in the impact of financial development on economic growth. It collects a dataset of 39 advanced and developing countries for the 2006-2020 period. The empirical results show that the credit-to-GDP ratio is negatively associated with economic growth, and this finding is consistent with the literature showing the relevance of "too much finance". The main findings indicate that the negative growth impact of credits is attenuated by corporate governance as measured by minority investor protection and disclosure extent. This moderating effect is economically significant and holds for different country groups and horizons. Hence, the paper argues that corporate governance measures the quality of financial markets, while credit ratio measures its quantitative dimension. Therefore, it shows that both quality and quantity dimensions need to be taken into account to understand the finance-growth nexus properly.
Copyright (c) 2025 Mustafa Kilinc, Talat Ulussever https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Speaking up in financial co‑operatives: How values and job type shape employee commitment
This article examines the relationship between employee voice and affective commitment in co-operative financial institutions. It focuses particularly on the moderating role of perceived employer orientation towards co-operative values and principles as well as job type (front- or back-office) on the relationship between two types of voice (challenging and supportive) and affective commitment. The analysis was performed with a dataset of 217 employees from 8 UK building societies. Results indicate that supportive employee voice has a clear positive relationship with affective commitment, while the effect of challenging voice is more complex. Moreover, both employee voice types correlate with higher affective commitment for employees who view their employer as little oriented towards co-operative values and principles, but not for those who rated their employer attached to these values. Finally, job type has little impact on the effects of employee voice, although a slightly more positive reaction from back-office staff is noticeable.
Copyright (c) 2025 Przemysław Piasecki, Maciej Ławrynowicz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Gender diversity in corporate boards and firm risk-taking: Evidence from Pakistan
Using annual data from 49 publicly listed non-financial firms from January 2011 to December 2022, this study investigates how board gender diversity affects firm risk-taking behaviour in Pakistan. We use the exogenous shock introduced by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) through the Companies Act in 2017, mandating the inclusion of at least one female director on corporate boards in Pakistan. To address endogeneity, we employ the Two-stage Least Squares (2SLS) and Two-stage Residual Inclusion (2SRI) estimations and validate the findings with the Difference-in-Differences (DiD) and Markov Switching (MS) models. The results indicate that greater female board representation correlates significantly with lower financial leverage and reduced earnings volatility. These results suggest that mandated gender diversity can shape strategic decisions that can help mitigate firm-level financial risk.
Copyright (c) 2025 Mohsin Khawaja, Sobia Shakeel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Clustering S&P 500 companies by machine learning for sustainable decision-making
This study examines the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance of S&P 500 companies using three clustering algorithms: K-Means, Gaussian Mixture Model, and Agglomerative Clustering. ESG scores from leading data providers are analysed to uncover sectoral patterns and performance trends. The findings indicate that technology and healthcare firms achieve the highest ESG scores, particularly in the governance and social dimensions, while the industrial and energy sectors face the greatest environmental challenges. Among the methods compared, K-Means demonstrates superior clustering performance by forming compact and well-separated ESG groups. These results offer a robust foundation for sector-specific ESG benchmarking, supporting investors and policymakers in identifying sustainability leaders, assessing risk, and targeting areas for improvement.
Copyright (c) 2025 Cansu Ergenç, Rafet Aktaş https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Fair trade and its role in sustainable development of agri-food system: A systematic literature review
The ‘fair trade’ movement aims to promote equitable trade relations between developed and developing countries. By guaranteeing producers a fair price, it seeks to improve livelihoods of farmers and workers in marginalized regions. This review critically explores Fairtrade certification's impact on economic, social, and environmental sustainability of agri-food systems using PRISMA methodology and SWOT analysis. Key themes emergent from the reviewed papers include sustainable consumption, social equity and women empowerment, and governance in alternative food networks. Most sources focused on consumer behavior and Fairtrade, concluding that consumer-driven strategies are crucial for systemic change and long-term success. Fairtrade still faces obstacles including market competition with other certification schemes and uneven distribution of benefits between producers and supply chain actors. The final retail price is significantly affected by the value added by retailers, contrary to the Fairtrade mission, which can undermine confidence in the system.
Copyright (c) 2025 Aleksandra Kowalska, Ashura Salim, Louise Manning https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Monika Banaszewska, Paweł Niszczota, Michał Pilc https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Innovation and Industry 4.0 in building the international competitiveness of food industry enterprises: The perspective of food industry representatives in Poland
The aim of the research is to determine the impact of innovations and Industry 4.0 solutions on the international competitiveness from the perspectives of representatives of food industry enterprises. The empirical layer used information collected on the basis of a survey using the CATI method conducted on a representative sample of representatives of food industry enterprises. Descriptive statistics, the Kruskal-Wallis test, Mann-Whitney test, multiple comparison test and box-plot plots were used to analyse the data. The study confirmed that implementing certain innovations and solutions, both intangible and tangible, is important for maintaining and improving competitiveness on the international market. This applies particularly innovative, modern ways of reaching the customer, developing innovative products, the use of IT systems and the use of innovative methods in advertising and promotion. The conclusions present direct implications for managers of food enterprises who formulate competitive strategies.
Copyright (c) 2024 Katarzyna Łukiewska https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
What makes stocks sensitive to investor sentiment: An analysis based on Google Trends
We capture Google’s vast search volume through Google Trends to generate a weekly investor sentiment index (2018–2022) using the most popular keywords (extracted from Google Search) from a keywords collection of 92,000+ words found in business, finance, and common language dictionaries. The results show that Google Trends is an efficient measure of investor sentiment as reflected in relative trading volume. To check what makes stocks sensitive to investor sentiment, 500 randomly selected US firms from various industries are categorised by firm characteristics. We generate two sub-portfolios: large, old, profitable, and dividend-yielding firms versus small, young, unprofitable, and non-dividend-yielding firms—and find the relative trading volume of the latter to be more sensitive to investor sentiment. Our results remain robust when control and autoregressive variables are introduced, in addition to when an alternative measure of sentiment is used, thereby confirming our primary findings.
Copyright (c) 2025 Adeel Ali Qureshi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Energy mix and its implicationson the Vietnamese economy by 2030: A CGE analysis using GTAP-E-Power
This study uses the GTAP-E-Power model to examine the economic and environmental implications of transitioning to different energy generation mixes in Vietnam by 2030. Three scenarios were considered for that year: (1) low-coal and high-gas, (2) low-coal and high-renewables, and (3) high-coal. Scenario 2 emerges as the most balanced approach, resulting in a 1.02% GDP decline and a 0.78% increase in CO2 emissions. In this scenario, the electronics sector grows slightly (+0.3%), while metals (-3.1%) and chemical products (-1.0%) experience moderate declines. In terms of exports, Scenario 2 gives rise to an increase in the trade balance (151 million USD) and a modest gain in exports to China (+0.46%), Japan (+0.37%), Korea (+0.33%), and Western Europe (+0.35%). Across all three scenarios, the output of the electronics industry shows sensitivity to energy mix changes, while the coal mining sector seems to be resilient to changing the energy mix.
Copyright (c) 2025 Duy Chinh Nguyen, Dr. Jong-Hwan Ko https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
How initial price history influences expectation formation in multi-asset experimental markets: An exploratory case study
We present an exploratory study on expectation formation in a controlled experimental setting. Participants predicted the prices of three risky assets, with their key information being the initial price history. Our research investigates the impact of the initial price history on overall price dynamics and the participants’ coordination. We provide tentative evidence highlighting several key points. Firstly, a stable initial price history reduces asset price volatility. Secondly, the correlation between assets during the initial price history is crucial for price dynamics. Notably, two assets exhibited strong negative dependence, which significantly influenced participants’ expectations. It is important to note that this dependence persisted in subsequent price evolution. In general, the initial price history played a pivotal role in shaping participants’ expectations. Given the exploratory nature of this study, we acknowledge that these findings are preliminary and should be interpreted with caution.
Copyright (c) 2025 Michaela Sedláková, Aleš Kresta https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Game-theory behaviour of large language models: The case of Keynesian beauty contests
The growing adoption of large language models (LLMs) presents potential for deeper understanding of human behaviours within game theory frameworks. This paper examines strategic interactions among multiple types of LLM-based agents in a classical beauty contest game. LLM-based agents demonstrate varying depth of reasoning that fall within a range of level-0 to 1, which are lower than experimental results conducted with human subjects in previous literature, but they display similar convergence pattern towards Nash Equilibrium choice in repeated setting. Through simulations that varies the group composition of agent types, I found that environment with lower strategic uncertainty enhances convergence for LLM-based agents, and environments with mixed strategic types accelerate convergence for all. Results with simulated agents not only convey insights on potential human behaviours in competitive setting, they also offer valuable understanding of strategic interactions among algorithms.
Copyright (c) 2025 Siting Estee Lu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Economic growth in the European Union: Exploring the role of innovation and gender
This paper aims to investigate the linkages between human capital and employment in high-tech sectors and their impacts on economic growth, considering the overall level of innovation in both the public and private sectors and exploring the role of gender. The analysis employs dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) to estimate a model for the EU-27 across the period 2008–2021. The results indicate that employment in high-tech sectors is the variable that most contributes to economic growth in those countries that are leaders in innovation. However, in these countries, a positive and significant effect of the gender gap in employment is observed.
Copyright (c) 2025 Vicente J. Coronel, Carmen Díaz-Roldán https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Financial inclusion, remittances and household consumption in sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from the application of an endogenous threshold dynamic panel model
This paper examines the effect of financial inclusion on per capita household consumption expenditures in sub-Saharan Africa. It uses data from 28 countries over the period 2004-2022 and an endogenous threshold dynamic panel model for econometric estimations. The study finds evidence of asymmetric effects of financial inclusion on household consumption expenditures in the region. There exists a remittances threshold that varies between 2.6% and 6.5% of an average sub-Saharan African country’s GDP below which, financial inclusion increases per capita household consumption expenditures. However, above that threshold, financial inclusion does not contribute to improving household welfare in the region. Therefore, given that the effect of financial inclusion increases with liquidity constraints, policies that target a better allocation of remittances received would amplify the effect of financial inclusion on household consumption.
Copyright (c) 2025 Mahamat Ibrahim Ahmat-Tidjani https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Joanna Lizińska, Katarzyna Schmidt-Jessa, Konrad Sobański https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The impact of women’s economic empowerment on human development in sub-Saharan Africa: A panel quantile regression approach
This paper uses a panel quantile regression approach to study the economic empowerment of women in sub-Sa­haran Africa and how it impacts human development. Analysing data collected from 42 countries covering the period 2000–2023, the study looks at various indicators of women’s economic empowerment. The impacts of wom­en’s economic empowerment are found to differ depending on quantile levels; female entrepreneurship shows a sig­nificant impact only at higher levels. Across all levels, mar­riage rights and workplace participation repeatedly show positive impacts. The Gender Development Index’s signifi­cant positive impact underscores the importance of gender equality for overall human development. Parenting rights and mobility show positive results at most levels, though there are some variations.
Copyright (c) 2025 Lotfi Mekhzoumi, Sabrina Chikh-Amnache, Nabila Mekhzoumi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The quality of work life in competitive potential development in the tourism industry: A conceptual model and research propositions
In order to be able to deal successfully with the challenges of increased competition tourism enterprises have to take measures to acquire adequate labour resources and to maintain a sustainable competitive advantage based on these resources. The aim of the paper is to create a conceptual model explaining relations between the quality of work life and competitive potential in the tourism industry. It is argued that the quality of work life, which is measured as a discrepancy between expectations towards work and its perceptions, is affected by individual and organisational factors, whilst its influence on competitive potential is moderated by individual characteristics and local labour market conditions.
Copyright (c) 2025 Marlena BEDNARSKA, Marcin OLSZEWSKI, Dawid SZUTOWSKI https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Fundamentals of tourism: What makes a person a potential tourist and a region a potential tourism destination?
The paper introduces a conceptual structural model to describe which central factors determine whether and where tourism takes place. It refers to five factors that are considered to be a prerequisite for tourism: assets, amenities (or facilities) and accessibility on the side of a potential destination, and ability and motivation to travel on the demand side. Empirical evidence is presented based on large sample population surveys in Germany of the strong influence of these five factors. Whether a person becomes a potential tourist or not depends strongly on ability and on the motivational intensity. In addition, the perception of assets, amenities, and accessibility (rated for 10 regions/countries) is essential for the selection of regions considered for the initial consideration set. Both findings support the structure and links used in the conceptual model. They thus emphasize the importance of these basic factors as fundamentals of tourism.
Copyright (c) 2025 Martin LOHMANN, Henrike BEER https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Prosumers in the tourism market: the characteristics and determinants of their behaviour
The goal of this article is to characterise the prosumer as a specific consumer category in the tourist market. The author presents the general characteristics of a prosumer and how his/her behaviour is conditioned as a result of general social trends as well as specific features of the tourist market. In order to empirically illustrate the issues involved the author presents results of a direct survey conducted with 3 representatives of various types of tourist companies (a tour operator, a travel agent, an airline representative). The interviewees noted their customers’ intensifi ed activity. While customers have greater expectations and requirements, their knowledge does not translate into cooperation with tourist agencies. The respondents claimed that the new customers interested in new forms of the product included primarily young people as well as business people acquainted with new technologies.
Copyright (c) 2025 Agnieszka NIEZGODA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The role of culture in building regional innovation systems and its impact on business tourism – The case of the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region
In recent years increased attention has been paid to the role of culture and creativity as significant factors infl uencing economic development. Another crucial phenomenon shaping the economy is the great importance of regionalism. Culture, creativity and regionalism seem to facilitate coping with the troubles of our times in a better way. This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the ways culture and creativity influence the building of a regional innovation system. A review of crucial literature considering the regional innovation system and the role of culture and creativity in the economic development is provided. The conclusion from qualitative research suggests that the signifi cance of creativity in the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region is widely acknowledged and is an attempt to exploit this finding.
Copyright (c) 2025 Anna BIALK-WOLF, Harald PECHLANER, Christian NORDHORN https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The emergence of entrepreneurship in organizations: joint decision-making about new sales practices in management group meeting interaction
This study examines the emergence of entrepreneurship in organizations. The material consists of the audio-recorded meetings of management group members in one Finnish firm specialized in management services. The analysis illustrates how the members jointly negotiated new entrepreneurial sales practices in their meeting interaction but failed to demonstrate commitment to their future application. The findings conceptualize the emergence of entrepreneurship as a collaborative, four-stage decision making process based on shared understandings of entrepreneurial ideals. They further suggest that this process is contingent on the agreement and commitment of organizational members to whom the responsibility to apply entrepreneurial practices in their daily work is assigned.
Copyright (c) 2025 Soili PELTOLA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Renewable energy sources as a new research area in tourism
The article identifies and describes a research gap in the tourism economy with regard to renewable energy sources and delineates the biggest research needs and challenges. First of all, the subject of the paper is the tourism phenomenon as a multidimensional research area. Then, the paper concentrates on the renewable energy sources (RES) market in the modern economy with particular regard to investment processes. It characterises investments and innovations in the tourism economy and presents the greatest research difficulties in this respect. The last part of the paper concerns the characteristics of a research gap in the tourism economy identified from where investments and innovations in RES meet. The summary includes effects and desired research directions related to the discussed phenomena.
Copyright (c) 2025 Łukasz NAWROT https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Constructing entrepreneurial orientation in a selling context: the qualitative attitude approach
This paper explores the construction of attitudes in argumentative talk to underscore the context-specific nature of the dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and their interrelations. The material comprises interviews in which the directors, who form the management group of a Finnish firm, individually commented on a statement that ‘each salesperson is an autonomous entrepreneur’. Our analysis identified two opposing evaluations of entrepreneurial autonomy, which were labeled as proactive selling and internal competitive aggressiveness. The analysis points out limitations on the realistic and positivist premises of the conventional EO measures by identifying related yet differing understandings which actors involved in everyday organizational practices display in their talk.
Copyright (c) 2025 Soili PELTOLA, Kari Mikko VESALA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Social values, societal entrepreneurship attitudes and entrepreneurial intention of young people in the Finnish welfare state
The article is focused on Finnish youth’s social values, societal entrepreneurship attitudes and entrepreneurial intention. The study addresses how the relationship between social values and societal entrepreneurship attitudes becomes visible among Finnish young people. What is the relationship between social values and entrepreneurial intention? What is the relationship between societal entrepreneurship attitudes and entrepreneurial intention? We also analyze the relationship between diff erent social values of the Finnish welfare state. Survey data (N = 873) were gathered in electronic format from secondary and vocational schools in the Helsinki–Uusimaa region, and questions were based on a multiple-choice Likert scale. The analysis was undertaken using statistical methods. We found that Finnish young people consider entrepreneurship first and foremost a pragmatic career option, which is not supported by ideological arguments or assumptions. On the other hand, the connection between social values and entrepreneurial orientation remains largely at the level of attitudes.
Copyright (c) 2025 Teemu RANTANEN, Timo TOIKKO https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
From going international to being international – strategies for international competitiveness
While the international business and international entrepreneurship literature has commonly focused on market entry mode choices, the increase of a firm’s international involvement causes changes in different aspects, such as the confi guration of value chain activities, the design of the organisational structure and business processes. Given the inconclusive research on the relationship between internationalisation and corporate performance, we argue that the impact of internationalisation on a firm’s competitiveness is contingent on its stage of advancement. The analysis of four case studies shows that different dimensions of competitiveness are affected at rising levels of commitment to foreign markets. However, the organisational challenges related to managing international operations require strategy adaptations so that the firm can remain internationally competitive.
Copyright (c) 2025 Piotr TRĄPCZYŃSKI, Thomas WRONA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The aim of this paper is to present the issues connected with female entrepreneurship and in particular to analyse the changes in the rates of female entrepreneurship in Poland between the years 1993 and 2010 against the background of the job market situation, as well as identifying the factors which determine the entrepreneurship of women. The dynamics of female entrepreneurship will be contrasted with entrepreneurship among men. The entrepreneurship gender gap in Poland only slightly decreased during the studied period even though the situation of women in the job market is more difficult than that of men, which could engender a negative entrepreneurial motivation. The results of the research show that female entrepreneurship is signifi cantly more susceptible to the influences of the general market situation, measured by GDP, than the entrepreneurship of men. This means that the entrepreneurship gender gap can decrease only when there is long-term economic growth.
Copyright (c) 2025 Aleksandra GAWEŁ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Consumer surplus and macro valuation of tourism projects
There cannot be a tourism industry without projects. These projects can take different forms, such as development of attractions, accommodation, entertainment, transport, new resorts, congress centre, events, ski infrastructure, etc.. They all involve considerable investment. This paper focuses on five topics. First, it focuses on the nature of investment appraisal and explores the difference between micro and macro approaches. Secondly, attention is paid to externalities in tourism. Indeed many projects belong to the general tourism infrastructure, and the benefi ts do not only accrue to the paymaster, who may not consider the negative effects. In other words, externalities must be taken into account. A third section deals with the identifi cation of cost and benefit items or the cost-benefit scheme. Environmental costs are an important part of the scheme.
Copyright (c) 2025 Norbert VANHOVE https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Tourism research and education in Poland. History and contemporary issues
The article identifi es socio–economic changes in Poland aft er 1989 and their influence on the improvement of macroeconomic indicators and competitiveness. It also evaluates the impact of macroeconomic eff ects on the tourism market in Poland. Against this background the author considers the relationship between scientific research and tourism education arguing that quantitative changes in the development of tourism higher education have not resulted in the increase in both quantity and quality of research in the field. The article identifies drivers of tourism research that have expanded knowledge and were of practical use. The issues discussed include statistical capture and analysis of tourism-related phenomena, regional studies on sustainable development and the tourism function of regions as well as microeconomic problems such as quality of services, innovativeness and entrepreneurship.
Copyright (c) 2025 Grzegorz GOŁEMBSKI https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Forty years of tourism education and research
After 40 years of growth, tourism education can be found in the higher education repertoire of countries across with world. Indications of its progress can be seen in the development of popular courses that attract large numbers of students as well as in a range of research outputs in some good academic journals. However, progress in the past few years, especially since the 2008 economic crisis, has been less certain. Notably the context of higher education has changed and this has brought some problems for tourism. Increasingly it needs to justify its position in the academy, especially in terms of student recruitment, student quality, research outputs and income, and societal impacts. For many centres of tourism study this represents a challenge. This is creating uncertainty for the future.
Copyright (c) 2025 David AIREY https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Clusters as absorbers and diff users of knowledge
The last two decades have been characterized by rapid developments in networking and clustering. The first clusters emerged spontaneously, led by internal forces oriented towards competition. Temporary clusters are much more dynamic, searching for other sources of competitive advantage, and cross national borders. This paper is an attempt to identify the effects of knowledge spillovers and knowledge transfer within regional business networks, especially business clusters. These eff ects are associated with the innovations which appear within such networks and clusters. The paper indicates those barriers and solutions that support innovativeness within the networks under study. Knowledge transfer within business networks that shape the innovative environment in the Wielkopolska region has been described using both a theoretical and practical approach. The findings and conclusions of the research provide an opportunity to increase business efficiency within business networks.
Copyright (c) 2025 Barbara JANKOWSKA, Maciej PIETRZYKOWSKI https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Price limit bands, risk-return trade-offand asymmetric volatility: Evidence fromTunisian Stock Exchange sectors
This paper explores the impact of imposing various price limit bands on risk-return trade-off and asymmetric volatility on the Tunisian Stock Exchange (TSE). The study applies the EGARCH-M approach during the period spanning from 2 January 2019 to 31 January 2024, covering the periods before, during, and after the COVID-19 era. During the COVID-19 period, the TSE reduced the per-session price limit to protect investors from severe price fluctuations. Despite this protective measure, the results show that higher volatility is compensated by lower returns on all sectors’ returns. After the crisis, as a first step, the TSE widened the price limits, but subsequently, it narrowed them. The results show that the shift from the wider price limit regime to the narrow price limits regime structurally modifies volatility for small and large cap sectors.
Copyright (c) 2024 Othman Mnari, Bassma Faouel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0