Welcome to the fourth issue of the International Journal of Management and Economics in 2024. In this issue, we present six papers written by authors representing various Polish and foreign universities and institutions.
The first paper by Ewa Baranowska-Prokop and Tomasz Sikora focuses on the role of small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) organizational learning (OL), measured by a scale of commitment to learning, and their economic performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research is based on two samples of firms from Poland and Finland. Interviews with owners and managers of Polish and Finnish SMEs were conducted in December 2020 and January 2021. The authors show that OL was quite high among analyzed firms except for Polish non-exporters. Unlike the “pre-COVID-19” sample of Polish SMEs, results for the two “COVID-19” samples show no significant relationship between the applied measure of OL and firms’ market performance. However, analyses indicate a significant impact of COVID-19-related disruptions on market performance measures for both Polish and Finnish enterprises.
The second paper, written by Mariusz Sagan, Rajesh Sannegadu, Sharmila Pudaruth, Thanika Juwaheer, and Matthew Lamport, aims to explore the factors affecting mobile marketing acceptance and adoption. Unlike existing studies that investigate the mobile marketing adoption factors from the end users’ perspective, this article explores the challenges, opportunities, and implications of the state of the art of mobile marketing from a multi stakeholders’ perspective. Primary data were collected through a focus group meeting among several stakeholders. The qualitative data from the focus group discussions were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings of the focus group meeting revealed that many businesses acknowledge its strategic importance for their growth and sustainability although mobile marketing in Mauritius is still at an infant stage and has promising growth.
The authors of the third paper, Zbigniew Korzeb, Michał Bernardelli, and Paweł Niedziółka, aim to establish patterns of relations between the profitability of the banking sectors and sets of variables (assigned to three groups: macroeconomic, business environment, and bank-specific) appropriate for clusters of countries into which the 27 countries of the European Union are divided. The random forest method was deployed to identify the factors influencing the value of the ROE for selected groups of countries. Shapley additive explanations were exploited to add interpretability to the results. The results show that the sets of variables shaping the profitability of banking sectors in the EU grouped by use of sovereign rating criterion are different. However, there are variables common to all banking sectors. These include cost efficiency and default risk.
The fourth paper by Andreas Bielig states that Poland disposes of a large stock of mostly aged private passenger cars. In contrast, younger cars still play a minor role in individual mobility. The contribution analyzes reasons for lagging modernization by focusing on new cars’ prices with respect to regional price discrimination. It finds that from 2004 to 2021 there was a substantial increase in new cars’ prices and regional price discrimination between Poland and Germany. Price differentials were positive, with lower prices in Poland, and increased over time. Producers discriminated by prices increasingly but also limited arbitrage transactions by controlling excess differentials. Optimal regional price discrimination could support car market developments in Poland by stock age composition shifts toward younger cars.
The main aim of the fifth article by Bogusław Czarny is to present and organize the findings of the research of the Norwegian tax reform of October 2001, which resulted in an increase in transparency of taxable income, wealth, and tax paid by all citizens. The digitization of relevant data and publishing it on the Internet made all of this information accessible directly from a home computer. The author has provided an overview of the historical and cultural background, as well as the direct causes of the changes introduced in Norway and their consequences. He has also described the evolution of the reform up to 2014. To reach these goals the author has reviewed the economic literature on the Norwegian reform.
The last paper, prepared by Łukasz Ambroziak, aims to assess the changes in the food industry in Poland in 2010–2022 resulting from the inflow of foreign direct investment. The food industry is understood as the production of food, beverages, and tobacco products. The analysis uses descriptive statistics methods, total correlation, and partial correlation. The study shows that companies with foreign capital are usually larger and have higher productivity than companies with domestic capital. During the period under study, the difference between companies with domestic capital and companies with foreign capital decreased significantly. It may be related to the transfer of technology and knowledge to domestic companies.
I hope that all papers included in the current issue of the IJME will be a good reading and a source of inspiration for our readers.
Professor Mariusz Próchniak, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Dean of Collegium of World Economy
SGH Warsaw School of Economics