Emerging Patterns and Behaviors in a Green Resilient Economy

Due to excessive carbon dioxide emissions, the world is facing environmental devastation. Energy and environmental innovations are considered to be critical tools in combating the growing CO₂ emissions. Developing these innovations requires extremely high investments in research and development processes, where knowledge is generated as one of the important outputs. This knowledge serves as a basis for innovation development and raising awareness among all relevant stakeholders about excessive environmental degradation. One of the significant sources of knowledge is scientific publications. Therefore, the aim of this research is to examine whether increased CO₂ emissions stimulate the scientific community to publish a greater number of papers, as well as whether the knowledge contained in these publications is utilized in reducing CO₂ emissions. The sample consists of G7 member countries. The time frame of the research is 1996–2019. The dynamic properties of the vector autoregression (VAR) models were summarized using impulse response function and variance decomposition forecast error. In most G7 countries, it has been determined that an increase in scientific production in environmental science and energy leads to a reduction in CO₂ emissions. On the other hand, increased CO₂ emissions affect higher scientific productivity in environmental science and energy only in Canada.

Sustainable development is inseparable from rational and responsible use of resources and promotion of green entrepreneurship. The contemporary green development agenda encompasses climate, economic, technical, social, cultural, and political dimensions. International efforts to greening the global development are conducted by the major economies, including China as the world’s largest consumer of energy and the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. China is aware of its environmental problems, as well as of its part of the overall responsibility for the accomplishment of the sustainable development goals. By means of the decarbonization efforts, the latter are integrated both into the national development agenda (the concept of ecological civilization) and China’s international initiatives (the greening narrative within the Belt and Road Initiative). Over the past decade, China has made a breakthrough on the way to promoting green entrepreneurship and greening of its development (better quality of air and water, renewable energy, electric vehicles, and organic farming). On the other hand, emissions remain high, agricultural land loses productivity, and freshwater resources degrade due to climate change. In conventional industries (oil, coal mining, and electric and thermal energy), decarbonization faces an array of impediments. In this chapter, the authors summarize fundamental provisions of China’s approach to building an ecological civilization and measures to reduce emissions and achieve the carbon neutrality status within the nearest decades. The analysis of obstacles to the decarbonization of the economy and possible prospects for the development of green entrepreneurship summarizes China’s practices for possible use in other countries.

Energy affects all areas of daily life. Especially with the industrial revolution, the fact that manufacturing has become the engine of economic growth has led to a rise in energy consumption. In this process, the countries of the world have increased their economic growth with traditional energy consumption, and this has increased carbon emissions. However, to fulfill the sustainable development goals, both the continuation of economic growth and the reduction of carbon emissions are required. In this context, the substitution of renewable energy consumption in place of traditional energy sources has started to be discussed. The aim of this study is to research the relationships among CO₂ emissions, manufacturing growth, and renewable energy consumption. For this aim, the relationship among carbon emissions, manufacturing growth, and renewable energy consumption is analyzed for the period 1997–2019 in 38 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. With respect to the findings of autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) test results, manufacturing growth enhances CO₂ emissions both in the short and long terms. As the proportion of renewable energy consumption in total energy consumption rises, CO₂ emissions decrease both in the short and long terms. On the other hand, according to the Dumitrescu–Hurlin causality test results, there is a one-way causality relationship from carbon emissions to manufacturing growth and from renewable energy consumption to carbon emissions. When the findings are evaluated together, it is understood that renewable energy consumption is a substantial factor in tackling the deadlock of lessening the carbon emissions without adversely impacting manufacturing growth. Therefore, policymakers need to encourage renewable energy consumption.

Human resources (HR) are undoubtedly one of the most important factors of any organization. That is why making decisions on the HR policy is becoming a very sensitive issue, both when hiring adequate candidates for the job and during the process work, i.e., during training and development of employees who work in the organization. The purpose of this study was to investigate the importance of HR and decisions on the HR policy as the premise for generating the organization’s expected business excellence. The starting assumption of this chapter is that appropriate decisions on the HR policy are predictors of engaging adequate employees and managing their potentials on the right way. The research is directed toward identifying differences in decisions on the personnel policy in organizations from Serbia that have different decision-makers and different management styles, which are directly related to their business success. Apart from the decision-maker, a significant role in profiling an organization’s personnel should also be done by the Human Resource Department, who take part in recruiting, selecting for education, building, and motivating personnel. In order to confirm the starting assumption, the comparative analysis method, the synthesis method, and the multiple comparison and statistical test methods are used.

This chapter addresses the intricacies and hurdles in female entrepreneurship within Romania, scrutinizing the often-indistinct lines among authentic entrepreneurship, self-employment, and fraudulent self-employment. It notably spotlights the unique challenges faced by women, stressing the necessity of educational initiatives, legislative backing, and precise policy development. Emphasizing the importance of thorough data gathering and research, the study seeks to deepen the understanding of the specific obstacles and opportunities present for female entrepreneurs. It provides a thorough overview of the status quo of women’s entrepreneurship, outlines the systemic challenges, and discusses potential empowerment and development strategies in this domain.

This chapter aims to identify the current challenges facing women entrepreneurs. Female entrepreneurship must be analyzed from a binary perspective: the position of women in society and the role of entrepreneurship in society. The study focused on women entrepreneurs in the European Union (EU). Considering the social-economic diversity in the EU, we evaluated the five economic systems. To highlight how these differences are manifested in the different systems, we considered for analysis one country belonging to each model, namely, Denmark for the Scandinavian system, Germany for the Continental system, Ireland for the Anglo-Saxon system, Spain for the Mediterranean System, and Romania, for the Catching-up system. The analysis considered women entrepreneurs in the labor market, female employment/management in the labor market, female entrepreneurs in the labor market, and female mentality regarding work and entrepreneurship.

The global economy has been subjected to systemic shocks that have disrupted the global energy transition strategy. A paradigm of shifting in address the issue of green energy in a multidimensional context is facing now. This work aims to highlight the experts’ opinions regarding energy management in the context of sustainable development approaches and the extent to which the strategic orientation toward green energy and the energy transition can be considered as economic, social, and environmental efficiency objectives. Based on the specialized literature found in the Web of Science (WoS) database, a qualitative analysis was performed to identify the development directions of the economic policies, emphasizing the specific aspects of the transition to green energy. The findings reveal that specialists, through scientific research carried out in the various fields of science, can offer solutions and identify risks in the development, but the essential role remains for decision-makers, responsible for maintaining the balance between expectations and possibilities in building policies that facilitate a sustainable energy transition, for the benefit of all.

The author’s interest in studying this topic was inspired by new extraordinary external influences, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and war operations in Europe, which have a direct impact on economic entities and therefore on the economies of many countries in the surrounding area and beyond. The aforementioned external, unpredictable factors appeared unexpectedly. As soon as they appeared, they caused major disruptions in business operations and a crisis on the market, which could not be influenced beforehand, nor could its occurrence be prevented. The impact of external shocks on economies will vary depending on individual countries’ exposure to Russian energy sources, food security, as well as their own economic structure, geographic location, and the degree of flexibility of their public finances. Empirical findings show that there are relatively significant differences in the reactions to the resulting conditions, between large companies that still take into account the durability and publicity of development indicators and others, which are characterized by the absence of a long-term perspective and its reduction to a set of short-term goals that are sought to be achieved in the framework of the visible future. In addition to the standard theoretical analysis, the authors conducted research by surveying selected business entities in Serbia, which provided an insight into the current state of the company and indicated the necessary directions for changes both at the level of business entities and at the level of the entire economy. Based on the conducted research, the authors came to the knowledge that economic entities can solve economic instability by implementing one or more reorganization models.

Marketing tourism is essential for long-term tourism development which requires gaining knowledge about the motivation and needs of tourists. In order to help tourists gain a hospitable experience, information regarding the needs, perception, and their behavior while on site is important. This research attempts to explore the priority of tourists’ needs in visiting historical sites. It also tries to conceptualize new forms of hospitality strategies for smart tourism development. Based on grounded theory, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is conceptualized for historical tourists and used as the main framework for this work. The Persepolis-Pasargadae Historical Range (PPHR) is chosen as the case study of the research because of the historical and cultural attractions located in this historical range. Results indicate that tourists interested in visiting this destination are looking to fulfill their growth needs. These growth needs can be complemented by new technologies while on site such as virtual reality (VR) goggles that help tourists gain knowledge about the reality of these destinations. The research concludes with findings and suggestions that can contribute to the planning of an effective marketing plan based on tourists’ motivation and needs for visiting historical destinations.

This bibliometric analysis underscores the increasing importance of corporate sustainability in the post-COVID-19 era. Despite existing confusion and a dearth of studies on measuring corporate sustainability, the study identifies a significant methodological gap and endeavors to address it by proposing a comprehensive measure. The primary goal is to bridge this gap by conducting a bibliometric analysis on the scale of corporate sustainability, examining 126 documents spanning from 2001 to 2022. The study employs an expert opinion survey to identify and finalize dimensions and sub-dimensions of corporate sustainability, followed by a literature mapping process to formulate questionnaire items. A pilot survey is then conducted to ensure the reliability of the questionnaire. The study proposes utilizing the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) index construction methodology to establish the Corporate Sustainability Index (CSI). The key findings reveal that corporate sustainability comprises economic, environmental, and social sustainability. Environmental sustainability encompasses aspects such as air, water, land, biodiversity, ocean preservation, waste prevention, and environmental management. Social sustainability involves the satisfaction of various stakeholders, including employees, shareholders, customers, community, government, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and suppliers. Economic sustainability is characterized by long-term profits, cost efficiency, trade-offs, sustainable investments, and spin-offs. Rooted in stakeholder theory, the proposed scale holds theoretical significance for researchers and is pertinent to policymakers striving to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030. Additionally, it serves as a crucial tool for practitioners and companies to assess their level of corporate sustainability.

This chapter in its first part analyzes the Leader approach in terms of concept, constituent elements, application, and its contribution to rural development and rural entrepreneurship. In the continuation of the text, authors analyze the application of this approach in Serbia, looking at the activities of the ministry in charge and the views of local action groups (LAGs)’ managers on this matter. The aim of this chapter is to present the results and problems Serbia has seen so far in the implementation of the Leader approach for development of rural areas on a local level. The results indicate that the lack of systemic and continuous state support resulting, among other things, in the lack of a financial portfolio for the LAGs, is the main cause of low local entrepreneurial initiatives and projects implemented within the Leader approach. Future steps in the implementation of this approach in Serbia will depend on financial support for the LAGs from all levels of government, as well as from the possibility of using funds within the EU pre-accession assistance for rural development. Also, it will be necessary to launch larger innovative and entrepreneurial initiatives both by LAGs’ managers and all stakeholders involved in local rural development.

The aim of this chapter is to develop a conceptual model for the analysis of sustainable development and the ranking of cities based on selected standard criteria and metrics of smart cities. The conceptual framework contains standard and measurable indicators that influence the creation and survival of smart cities that could be self-sustaining, Green Resilient. We can measure the level of smartness of cities from two perspectives, first from the point of view of the degree of automation of services, infrastructure, buildings, transport, etc. and second from the point of view of planning the further development of the city in order to raise the quality of life of its citizens. Indicators should satisfy the principles of specificity, measurability, availability, relevance and timeliness (Schomaker, 1997). Researchers in the field of smart cities define different sets of characteristics, on which they construct a system of indicators that together describe the degree of development of a smart city. It must be taken into account the fact that there is no single set of indicators that would refer to the level of smartness of the city. It is a complex phenomenon, which occurs differently depending on the conceptual framework and the goal of classifying cities according to the complex characteristics of smartness, especially if you take into account the fact that the general well-being and quality of life of citizens are more important than only indicators of the quality of city services.