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This article was inspired by current events. The shopping craze generated by the coronavirus pandemic raised some questions that this article aims to answer by analysing a variety of suppositions. The coronavirus pandemic caused panic shopping amongst consumers, whose motivation for increasing the volumes of shopping revolved around ensuring a safety margin of groceries while also reducing the number of shopping trips. The consumers did most of their shopping in hyper, and supermarkets, as well as in bigger ABCs and grocery stores (Lidl), where there's a wider range of products and larger stock. The average consumer bought much more than the basic groceries during this period. Our research started in March 2020 and ended in May 2020. To validate our assumptions, primary information is derived from the statistical processing of a large number of data from a representative questionnaire survey of 724 respondents. The results show that for many people this period was about stockpiling storages of groceries. Flour saw the biggest increase in purchase volumes, but chicken and pastas were also amongst the more popular items. Stores with the biggest range of selection were able to satisfy this demand. As evidenced by data, consumers also purchased items, which are needed for any household during an emergency and are easy to store in higher volumes. These items include different oils and fats, which are required for cooking, and non-perishables, such as salamis, canned foods, rice and mineral water.

The study focuses on revealing key monetary policy instruments that can influence stock market development and elaborating whether shocks from financial markets and other macroeconomic conditions are further transferred to the real sector, as expected under the monetary transmission mechanism. This paper is an extension of our previous theoretical and empirical research expanding to ten developed and eight developing economies for the period of 1999-2020 using panel data and vector autoregressive models, impulse response functions, and scenario analysis. Firstly, it was examined that actions of monetary policymakers were efficient for stimulating the development of stock markets mostly for developed countries, whereas stock indices in most developing countries seemed not to be sensitive to changes in monetary conditions. Using scenario analysis and impulse response functions, it was discovered that in developing countries, including Poland and Ukraine, an expansionary policy focused on increasing money supply would mitigate deceleration and facilitate the growth of stock indices in the next four quarters, whereas, in developed countries, including the USA, a decline in interest rates under expansionary regime would stimulate the development of stock markets. Finally, the evolution of financial markets together with macroeconomic, social, and political conditions was concluded to be a statistically important factor of economic growth, as initially expected.

The subject of the paper is to explain the impact of three braking negative transition factors causing the long-term stagnation of socio-economic development in the three selected countries of South East Europe (SEE) - Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia. It is about institutional inefficiency (which is generated in the synergistic action of alternative institutions and neoliberalism), the post-socialist totalitarian legacy related to the nomenclatures of power, and the underdevelopment of socio-cultural capital. The aim of this paper is to prove their dominant influence on the reproduction of the socio-economic development deficit (in fact: stagnation) in the observed countries through a hypothetically constructed survey model. The starting point is the basic hypothesis that the overall phenomenology of developmental stagnation is caused by wrong, slow, and inefficient institutional changes (political and macroeconomic), which have caused the dominance of alternative institutions. It also starts with the auxiliary hypothesis that privileged institutional monism (expressed in pronounced non-market appropriation) was the basic motive for the action of these braking factors, although methodologically and essentially it was in paradoxical contradiction with the proclaimed promises of "reformers". In addition to the usual methods of social sciences, the paper used the results collected through an electronic survey of 900 respondents. In conclusion, the set hypotheses were verified, confirming the imperative need for democratization of society and the application of institutional pluralism on the model of developed countries, which implies the elimination of the considered braking factors.

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the impact of governance on supply chain performance. Two dimensions of governance: contractual and relational and its simultaneous interplay called ambidextrous governance were considered. The study presents alternatives models from buyer and supplier perspectives. The analysis is based on Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews among buyers and suppliers from manufacturing companies. For the model development structural equation modelling was applied. The obtained results confirmed that supply chain performance is impacted by relational governance from both buyer and supplier perspectives; contractual governance influences the supply chain performance in case of suppliers and there is a second-order construct called ambidextrous governance confirming interplay or relational and contractual governance when impacting supply chain performance from supplier's perspective.

Climate change, urban sprawl, a global pandemic, and the general trend of digitizing economies are driving the need for digital transformation of utilities. Policymakers of industry digital transformation need some aggregated metric that captures the essence of this multidimensional concept, identifies the pros and cons of current policies, and guides future directions based on cross-country benchmarking. This study develops the Industry Digital Transformation Index for the utility industry (IDTIu) as a composite indicator. IDTIu provides an aggregate score for the digital transformation of the national utility industry based on 31 indicators grouped into 8 sub-indices. IDTIu scores were calculated for 34 European countries based on 2020 data. To avoid the methodological challenges of equal weighting and expert assessments, we applied the original Benefit-of-the-Doubt (BoD) model and its two extensions for the proportion and priority of sub- indices. Our results show that (i) the full flexibility of the original BoD model leads to the expected deficiencies in ranking leaders and assigning zeros to insignificant sub-indices; (ii) BoD model with ordinal sub-index share restrictions does not allow ranking of laggards when IoT, AI, and BDA are ranked as top 3 priorities. Therefore, at the current stage of the digital transformation of utilities, we recommend the BoD model with proportional sub-index share restrictions.

AbstractResearch Question/IssueMotivated by the recent regulatory reforms, in the forms of the UK Corporate Governance Code (UK CGC) in 2011 and the enaction of section 414C of the Companies Act 2006, to increase female representation on corporate boards, this study investigates the effect of boardroom gender diversity (BGD) on investment inefficiency (IE). These reforms were aimed at enhancing corporate governance by allowing a pool of female directors into directorship positions and bringing fresher and independent perspective of female directors, thus strengthening board monitoring and its internal control systems. This study therefore seeks to understand whether and how female directors align managers' and shareholders' interests by improving investment efficiency.FindingsUsing a sample of UK listed firms from 2005 to 2018, this study provides the first empirical evidence on the impact of BGD on IE. Consistent with our theoretical predictions, we find a negative and statistically significant association between BGD and IE. Furthermore, in a difference‐in‐differences analysis, we find a significant impact of UK CGC on the BGD‐IE relationship. We also identify three possible channels (board dynamics, stewardship effect, and information environment) through which BGD is likely to affect IE. Finally, we also document that the said relationship is more pronounced in firms with three or more female directors, which is consistent with critical mass theory, and that BGD mitigates concerns surrounding both the underinvestment and overinvestment decisions. Our main results are robust to endogeneity bias, alternative measures of BGD and IE, and controlling for potential bias with a two‐step investment estimation method.Policy ImplicationsOur findings have important implications for regulators, policy‐makers, and other corporate stakeholders. Most importantly, the recent policy initiatives on improving representation of female directors can strengthen board monitoring and could reduce inefficient investments.

The subject of this article is to research the role of trade unions in the hotel industry in this century. Looking at trade union density across the Horeca sector in the EU27 plus Norway, it can be seen that overall density is relatively low (less than 15%), irrespective of the diversity within the Horeca sector in each country. Accordingly, the main objective of this article is to investigate the future of the trade unions in the hotel industry considering social and economic changes of the last few decades. It starts from four hypotheses, which refer to the attitudes of employees and union members towards the role of unions in the hotel industry and their power. The results of field research have served as primary data. The survey has been carried out among hotel employees (N=452) along the Adriatic coast in the summer season before the COVID-19 crises. In order to evaluate, formulate and present the findings, the following scientific methods have been applied: analysis and synthesis together with descriptive and inferential statistics.. The main finding of this paper points to the conclusion that employees who achieve high productivity do not have faith in the power of unions in the hotel industry. In terms of demographic variables, union employees above the age of 50 believe the least in the power of unions. These employees mostly point out that they are not adequately rewarded, that their superiors do not help them, and do not respect their working hours. The findings obtained may be significant for trade unions and their representatives to support them to form a new strategy that is necessary for unions to reach their goals.