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The topic of farms that deal with environmental constraints is an ongoing agricultural policy issue, including within the Common Agricultural Policy. We propose empirical evidence based on a sample of Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) farm households, evaluate the influence of chosen factors on financially sustainable farm development and verify less-favoured area (LFA) farms’ growth compared with non-LFA households. To specify farm households, we use the Sustainable Growth Challenge (SGC) model and DuPont decomposition based on financial measures and indicators that were adopted from corporate finance. It is concluded that the differences in SGC and revenue growth values between LFA and non-LFA farms mainly results from the system of subsidising LFA farms that receive compensation for farming in areas with adverse environmental conditions. Generally, the impact of agricultural policies on LFA and non-LFA farms is significant and may weaken the effect on LFA. With the exception of education, other sociodemographic factors do not highly influence farm efficiency. Along with improvements in the quality of human capital (e.g., higher education level), awareness of subsidies, and debt and innovative solutions increases. The interest in precision agriculture and agriculture 4.0 is also growing, which directly translates into better technological and financial efficiency of farms.

The strategic documents of the state provide for inclusive and green growth aimed at the inclusion of society in the development of the state. It causes the need to highlight the main components of growth and guidelines for their calculation. The international community moved away from using the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of economic development, and started measuring growth by calculating the Inclusive Development Index. The study conducted in the article is concentrated on the main directions of the international community development, which focus on assessment of the mineral resource management as one of the levers of increasing the production efficiency and taxes distribution. This article suggests to improve the rent payments for the minerals extraction through a correction factor, since the Tax Code of Ukraine does not take into account the multifunctionality of the territory where these resources are mined. The coefficient is estimated to vary from 1.25 to 2.0, depending on the polyfunctional characteristics of the mining area. This approach will improve existing methodological recommendations and include such an important area as inclusive green growth in the calculations, as not only the economic indicators of economic activity, but also the environmental feasibility of using the territory where it is carried out will be taken into account.

Objective: The main goal of the article is to assess the level of fiscal sustainability at the local government level in the Visegrad Group (V4) economies. Research Design & Methods: Two different methods of fiscal sustainability measures were used in the article to verify whether the local government deficit is sustainable: estimations of the no-Ponzi conditions, and calculations of the threshold primary balance. The research period covered the years 2001-2016. Data were taken from the Eurostat database. Findings: Three out of four V4 countries met the initial no-Ponzi condition. The sums of discounted primary balances of their local governments were positive (Poland was the only exception). However, those sums were insufficient to cover the initial debt volume. It was possible in Hungary only. The Ponzi scheme was significantly reduced during the recovery time after the financial crisis of 2008-2009. Implications & Recommendations: Generally, all the countries showed the potential to produce primary surpluses at the local level and they have been generally able to stabilise the local debt to GDP ratio. However, these surpluses in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland were insufficient to cover the initial level of debt. Especially Poland should try to generate higher primary local surpluses to avoid the Ponzi scheme and increase the level of fiscal sustainability at the local government level in the future. Contribution & Value Added: The originality of this work lies in using the Ponzi scheme and the values of the threshold primary gap to assess the fiscal sustainability of local government levels in the Visegrad Group Economies.

The paper reveals the relevance of solar energy development in the modern world. Attention is focused on the fact that solar energy increases its potential yearly. It was determined that China, India, Japan, the USA, Germany, Spain, and Australia play the primary role in increasing the volume of electricity generation from SPPs worldwide. The prominent leaders in the development of solar energy in the world are two countries: China and the USA. The hypothesis about the potential impact of such factors as the demand for electricity and the level of economic development of a particular region, expressed by the gross domestic product per capita, has been confirmed. Correlation analysis showed a positive linear relationship between the volume of electricity generation from SPPs and indicators such as GDP per capita and electricity demand. A panel regression calculated in the Rstudio environment of the dependence of the development of solar energy on the demand for electricity and the level of economic development among the TOP 7 countries - the leaders of the development of solar energy in the world showed that an increase in GDP per capita by 1 USD. USA leads to an increase in electricity generation from SPPs by 0.00155 TWh*h; an increase in demand for electricity by 1 TWh leads to an increase in electricity generation from SPPs by 0.04188 TWh. The obtained result suggests that each additional unit of electricity demand is satisfied on average by only 4.19% due to solar energy. A comparison of the marginal coefficients of the two explanatory factors shows that electricity demand is a much more influential determinant of solar energy development than the country's economic development level. It is highlighted that solar energy development will be determined in the future by increasing solar panels' efficiency and service life, making solar energy more attractive for the civilian population and low-power military autonomous systems. Keywords: alternative energy supply, renewable energy, solar energy, solar energy development factors, economic efficiency of alternative energy.

The utilisation of typological concepts of participation-based research on the community of practice (CoP) examines Uganda’s public sector in relation to environmental impact assessment (EIA) of national projects. The re-assessment of participatory knowledge is analysed and incorporated into EIA project planning, design and implementation. A case study within the five divisions of the Kampala District used 250 semi-structured and open-ended survey questionnaires and 20 key informants by way of piecewise random sampling. The findings suggest that the majority of respondents were non-informed, on components of CoP, within the selected EIA projects. The CoP revealed concerns regarding Uganda’s security and corruption which intertwined on how the CoP was conducted. We provide original data on the CoP in relation to EIA projects with the intention of facilitating public sector entities a suitable level of knowledge in aiding affected communities.

The digitization of logistics processes enables, among others, real-time data exchange, which is currently the driving force of the modern economy, as well as functioning supply chains. Digital transformation has been accelerated in recent years, primarily by the development of the Industry 4.0 concept. It is also perceived as a trend supporting the sustainable development of organizations and industries. The main research challenge was identifying current research directions related to the digitalization of supply chains. Therefore, this article aims to present the literature review results of the last five years (2018–2022) regarding the digitalization of supply chains. The research used the PRISMA method (The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses), and 127 articles were analyzed. On this basis, we proposed a two-level qualifications framework that includes eight core categories and sixteen subcategories. The main contributions of this work are as follows: providing a complete and up-to-date (last five years) literature review on supply chains in the digital age from a global perspective that summarizes the current state of the art in an integrated framework; and provides an indication of the two most significant challenges currently observed, which are interrelated. The first key challenge is the digital transformation of businesses and supply chains; the second is sustainable development, which focuses on the Sustainable Development Goals; reducing the complexity of the issue by providing structure and clarity (Identifying categories and subcategories as the mind map); and identifying research gaps that we will work on in the future. Based on the review, we indicate three identified research gaps: there is a lack of research assessing the use of digitalization to build supply chain resilience; there are no studies evaluating the risk of the negative impact of technologies and threats on relations integrating future supply chains; and there is a lack of research on the changing role of man in modern logistics systems.

A continual increase in the influence of exogenic conditions on a company’s ability to sustain and develop and increasing complexity of the management processes correlated with the discovery of new dimensions of an enterprise, which determine its potential—these all lead to a growing interest in the search for the factors which might facilitate the elevation of the level of integrity of a business model of an enterprise/organisational and managerial system of an enterprise. Currently, it is absolutely necessary to perceive an enterprise not only in the terms of a rational economic system that, in its activity, concentrates on the generation of a positive financial result, and the creation of its value for the stockholders, but also as the system, at the same time, is meant to act responsibly in relation to its stakeholders, society and the market. The observation of successful enterprises shows clearly that the company values make up an element indispensable for the creation of effective strategies of development, and, at the same time, an element guaranteeing them an appropriate level of strategic integrity in external and internal dimensions, paired with the preservation of flexibility for necessary reconfiguration. Some special attention should be paid to the fact that, in order to build permanent competitive advantage, in the context of the strategic dimension of company management, values should play a key role also in the enterprises within heavy industry, including the energy sector. This article aims to present the significance of selected aspects of strategic dimension management in the context of company strategy in one of the largest energy sector companies in Poland. It is based on an analysis of the results of research carried out in the second part of 2021 and at the beginning of 2022. Qualitative studies based on a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews were conducted among this institution’s managers who are responsible for formulating the company strategy. The study results have shown that social and employees’ personal values, organisational culture, and management by values, have a substantial impact on the character and quality of the strategic dimension management of the analysed company. The article aims to show the role of social values in determining efficiency in the area of managing the strategic dimension of a company. In the context of this aim, the following important research questions should be asked: What is the influence of social values and values represented by the TMT (top management team) on a given company’s efficiency in the context of strategic decisions; and how do these factors influence the stability of the company development, and do they ensure the organisation’s resilience to short-term external changes?

Activities aimed at the improvement of instruments of rural development have been undertaken in Europe for many years. Those focusing on the changing the ownership structure, implemented through the traditional process of land consolidation, are gradually replaced by multifunctional activities for rural development, considering elements of environmental protection, agricultural landscape management, and solutions concerning soil and water protection. Such development must be accompanied by the application of new pro-ecological design and material-technological solutions regarding the construction of rural roads. The roads should be designed with possibly the fullest consideration of a rich resource of data on a given area, performance of many spatial analyses, and decision making in the scope of selection of the most appropriate solutions acceptable to all stakeholders (e.g. residents, farmers, local authorities, entrepreneurs, and investors). The article presents the concept of a model solution of the development of the rural road network based on the multiple-criteria model of spatial analyses with the application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process method. The research process was conducted in the geographic information systems environment. The importance of the proposed methodology was verified in actual conditions based on the example of the Harta village located in the southern part of Poland. The obtained results suggest that the process of development of rural roads with the application of the multiple-criteria model of spatial analyses is more accurate, more efficient than the traditional design method, and considers the requirements of the sustainable development of rural areas. Moreover, it permits presentation of solutions in the form of maps to the local community, almost in real time, and making excellent decisions with its active participation.

This paper discusses the conversion of solar irradiance energy into electricity. Double-sided (bifacial) panels are gaining increasing popularity in commercial applications due to the increased energy yield with a constant occupied mounting surface. However, the value of the additional energy yield produced by the back of the panel depends on several important factors. This paper presents the influence of working conditions on electricity generation in bifacial modules. This paper also investigates the influence of weather conditions, the module inclination angle, and the substrate beneath the panel surface on electricity generation. Fill factor and efficiency were calculated for each case included in the study scope. Based on the current voltage, power characteristics, and calculations, the module operation for different conditions was compared. It was observed that the optimal inclination angle to the surface is higher for the bifacial modules compared to the unilateral modules. The type of surface under the module has also been indicated to impact the amount of electricity generated. The additional energy yield associated with the panels’ rear side accounts for 2% to more than 35% of the total power generated by a photovoltaic (PV) module. The unit cost of electricity generation in the analyzed cases was also determined.

The agricultural sector ensures food security and is a major source of employment, income, and economic activity in rural areas. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) considers that family farms are the key to a sustainable future in Europe and Central Asia. In Romania, small farms represent the pillar on which Romanian society has been developed. Although the trend has been a reduction in the number of small farms and an increase in the number of large farms, the Government of Romania understands the importance of small farms and therefore supports them through policies involving direct payments, rural development instruments, special initiatives, and loans and outstanding obligations, among others, which focus on increasing their economic performance. The aim of our research was to determine the relationship between farmers’ motivation, their job satisfaction, and the farm economic performance in the case of small Romanian farms. The research sample consisted of 900 small farms (utilized agricultural area (UAA): under 20 ha; standard output (SO): under EUR 15,000). The data obtained after applying the questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS 20.0 and Amos 24.0. For the exploratory factor analysis, values of Bartlett’s test of sphericity, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin test, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient were calculated for each dimension of the proposed model. The hypothesis that motivation, job satisfaction, and farm economic performance directly and positively influence each other was confirmed. An important finding was that the correlation coefficient between farmers’ motivation and farm economic performance was ρ = 0.78, while that for the relation between farmers’ job satisfaction and farm economic performance was ρ = 0.53, which was similar to the correlation coefficient calculated for the relationship between farmers’ motivation and farmers’ job satisfaction. This result allows us to conclude that the influence of farmers’ motivation factors on farm economic performance is stronger than the influence of job satisfaction in the case of Romanian farmers on small farms. This might explain why, although work in agriculture is considered to be worse than an office job and the people that work in agriculture are sometimes stigmatized and receive lower incomes, there are still very strong motivators for Romanian farmers to continue their work in agriculture. This is proven by the fact that Romania has the highest number of small farms in Europe, and this number is not decreasing.