SciPap, Volume 30, Issue 1 (2022)

Open Access Article SciPap-1580

by Fazal Ur Rehman, Viktor Prokop, Bestoon Othman, Farwida Javed, Sadia Ijaz

Abstract: This study examines the influence of social advertising on the buying behaviour of Malaysian consumers along with the moderating role of gender and education. We use our own Primary data that were collected through questionnaire-based survey from the shoppers at various shopping malls of fashion clothing brands at Kuala Lumpur and State Johor in Malaysia. The collected data were analyzed by using step wise regression and correlation statistics to find results. The findings revealed that social advertising, informativeness, entertainment, credibility, ease of use, contents, and gender have positive effects on the buying behaviour of Malaysian consumers toward the fashion clothing brands. By contrast, we find negative effects of privacy and education. Next, we show that gender has moderating effects in the defined context. The main contribution of this study is the assessment of the effects of some unique and influential factors of social advertising on the buying behaviour among Malaysian consumers towards the fashion clothing brands. In addition, this study has also assessed the moderating effects of gender and education to extend the body of knowledge in that area. Finally, we present practical implications for managers.

Keywords: Gender, Education, Consumer Behaviour, Social Advertising, Fashion Brands

JEL classification: H, P35

Open Access Article SciPap-1550

by Jindra Peterková, Katarzyna Czerná, Jarmila Zimmermannová

Abstract: There are no official statistics in the Czech Republic and Poland mapping the number of start-ups, spin-offs, and organizations supporting innovative businesses. The paper defines the specifics of innovation ecosystem in selected regions of the CZ Moravian-Silesian Region and PL Silesian Voivodeship. Similar economic and socio-cultural developments characterize chosen regions. Hypotheses are defined whose statistical significance is evaluated through the Pearson Chi-Square test. The results are estimated separately for the Moravian-Silesian Region and Silesian Voivodeship and focus on identifying the ownership of organizations, the nature of services provided, and the average annual occupancy of clients in the business phase financing business support programs and possible cooperation between organization. Using the hierarchical cluster analysis with the Ward method, the authors described four clusters. Based on the results obtained from the solution, a general model of the innovation ecosystem supporting innovative entrepreneurship is defined.

Keywords: Business Incubator, Startup, Coworking, Innovation Ecosystem, Science And Technology Park

JEL classification: M1, M2, O3

Open Access Article SciPap-1509

by Liliana Inggrit Wijaya, Zunairoh Zunairoh, Andri Rianawati, Vincentius Riandaru Prasetyo, Indro Harianto

Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic has created various new restrictions, including restrictions on direct interaction in the administrative process of hospitals. In fact, the administrative process in Indonesian hospitals is still complex, not well organized, and has not used technology properly. This study aims to analyze the effect of financial technology (fintech) and financial literacy on the efficiency of the Indonesian healthcare industry during the Covid-19 pandemic era. This study uses a quantitative method with an online survey for data collecting. The purposive sampling was applied to get 225 respondents. The dependent variable is financial technology usage, which is measured through three perceptions of fintech users: perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and internet usage of all healthcare service users in the healthcare industry in Indonesia. The moderating variable adopted in this study is financial literacy, which is a combination of the understanding (knowledge), skills, attitude, and ability to make sound judgement and decision (behavior) on personal financial matters resulting in individual financial well-being. This study uses the SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) method to analyze the efficiency of the healthcare industry. The study results show that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness have an effect on fintech; fintech has a positive effect on efficiency, where financial literacy also strengthens the effect of fintech on efficiency in the Indonesia healthcare industry during the Covid-19 pandemic. The results of this study are expected to make a significant contribution to the development of the healthcare industry that currently becomes a top priority, given the urgency in handling public health, including Covid-19 patients. Additionally, this research provides a theoretical contribution by increasing fintech literacy in the healthcare industry in increasing efficiency during the Covid-19 pandemic. While practical contribution is about giving new insight to consider the technology in improving management process in healthcare industry.

Keywords: Efficiency, Covid-19, Healthcare Industry, Financial Technology, Financial Literacy

JEL classification: F64, F65, G, G01, G38

Open Access Article SciPap-1397

by Septian Wahyudi, I Made Sukresna, Rintar Agus Simatupang

Abstract: The main goal of social entrepreneurship is to achieve organisational performance while facing various challenges, including a lack of financial support and difficulty harmonizing commercial activities with social missions. The authors suggest that government institutional support can revitalize social entrepreneurship through financial support and various policy measures. In addition, social entrepreneurship can increase the creation of social change to meet their social needs, known as social value creation. Hence, this study proposes institutional factors and social entrepreneurship as predictors of social value creation. Social value creation mediates the relationship between social entrepreneurship and organisational performance grounded on innovation theory. The study applies structural equation modeling with AMOS-24 software to test the research hypotheses with 249 Indonesian digital startups with a social impact as a sample. The results find that government institutional support can increase social entrepreneurship and enhance social value creation. As hypothesized, social value creation is a mediator in improving organisational performance. This study contributes to a comprehensive understanding of government institutional support, social entrepreneurship, social value creation, and organisational performance.

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship, Government Support, Social Value Creation, Innovation Theory, Digital Startup

JEL classification: L26, M, M13

Open Access Article SciPap-1460

by Valeria Nemethova, Miroslav Šipikal, Alexandra Salamonova

Abstract: Universities play a crucial role in new knowledge production that is considered as key driver of economic growth. Hence, the support of university research is essential, usually provided by the public sector. This article presents an evaluation of small grants of universities through examining research projects in the field of economics implemented in years 2008-2018 in Slovakia. A negative binomial regression analysis was used to determine the effects of small grants on publication outputs of supported researchers. Impact of subsidy on the number of all publications and separately on the quantity of higher quality scientific articles was distinguished. Results show a slight positive impact of the volume of funds on overall publication outputs, even though other factors seem to be more important as the size of the research team, the proximity to the capital city as well as the quality of faculty at which the project is implemented. Conversely, the impact of the volume of funds on higher quality publication appears to be not significant. In this case, more substantial are factors indicating the previous reputation of the research team, ranking of faculty and general research environment. Our findings indicate that researchers with great publication activity are willing to report high quality scientific articles in forthcoming periods regardless the support. Ergo, less active scientists are not benefiting from small grant in terms of their publication improvement.

Keywords: Universities, Project Funding, Small Grants, Economic Research, Negative Binomial Regression

JEL classification: H52, I28, G28

Open Access Review SciPap-1454

by Markéta Mlčúchová

Abstract: The paper focuses on platform business models as ubiquitous features of the digital economy whose economic importance is continuously increasing. Considering their varying definitions and diverse typology, the aim of this paper is to coin a unified definition and identify the main attributes of platform business models. In line with fulfilling the aim of the paper, the following research question is addressed: ‘What are the main attributes of platform business models?’. Based on a vast literature review, the paper coins a unified definition and devises a novel typology, distinguishing four main types of platform business models: transaction, innovation, integrated and investment. Furthermore, the importance of both digital data and network effects as the main identified attributes is highlighted. Additionally, the paper devises a novel typology of network effects, amplifying users’ value-creating activities and interconnected relationships. The novel typology of network effects is distinguishing direct, indirect (cross-sided, cross-network or two-sided), data, positive and negative network effects.

Keywords: Digital Economy, Business Model, Platform Business Model, Digital Data, Network Effects

JEL classification: L86, F23

Open Access Article SciPap-1405

by Jozef Kučera, Juraj Nemec

Abstract: National sports associations in Slovakia are the umbrella organizations for individual types of sports and help achieve the objectives of public policies in the field of sports. In the Slovak Republic, these sports organizations are predominantly funded from public funds. This paper focuses on the system of financing of national sports associations in the Slovak Republic according to the rules laid down by the new law on sports in 2016. The aim of the paper is to identify the main changes in the methodology of financing national sports associations in the Slovak Republic and redistribution of public resources. Based on an interview with a selected group of experts in the field of sports in Slovakia and analysis of empirical data, changes in the methodology of financing national sports associations were identified. In conclusion, it could be said that the new system of financing national sports associations following the adoption of the new law on sport is not only not fairer from the point of view of the redistribution of public funds, but also poses fundamental implementation problems.

Keywords: National Sports Associations, Recognized Sports, Public Funds, Contributions To Recognized Sports, Share Of Recognized Sports, Financial Brake System

JEL classification: H41, H51, I18

Open Access Article SciPap-1384

by Jurica Bosna

Abstract: This paper deals with a comparative analysis of the determinants of unemployment in CEE and SEE countries. The comprehensive analysis for the observed period from 2002 to 2019 provides important insights into the homogeneity of the determinants of unemployment and the efficiency of the labour markets of CEE and SEE countries, thus contributing to the existing literature. As determinants of unemployment in CEE countries the analysis confirmed the importance of unemployment from the previous period, GDP, public debt, labour force participation rate, self-employment and the population aged between 15 and 64, while the importance of unemployment from the previous period, GDP and the population aged between 15 and 64 were confirmed as determinants of unemployment in SEE countries. The demographic factor had an exceptionally strong impact on the reduction of unemployment in CEE and SEE countries – population aged between 15 and 64, which is a devastating fact and a great challenge that the observed countries will have to manage. Without effective demographic policies, labour market policies, education system in line with market needs, investment in research and development, and the systematic promotion of a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation, it will be difficult to increase the efficiency of the labour market in the long run and achieve sustainable economic growth.

Keywords: Unemployment, Labour Market, Panel Data Analysis, Flexibility, Demography

JEL classification: J01, J11, E02

Open Access Article SciPap-1478

by Martin Fridrich, Petr Dostál

Abstract: In e-commerce retail, maintaining a healthy customer base through retention management is necessary. Churn prediction efforts support the goal of retention and rely upon dependent and independent characteristics. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a consensus regarding a user churn model. Thus, our goal is to propose a model based on a traditional and new set of attributes and explore its properties using auxiliary evaluation. Individual variable importance is assessed using the best performing modeling pipelines and a permutation procedure. In addition, we estimate the effects on the performance and quality of a feature set using an original technique based on importance ranking and information retrieval. The performance benchmark reveals satisfying pipelines utilizing LR, SVM-RBF, and GBM learners. The solutions rely profoundly on traditional recency and frequency aspects of user behavior. Interestingly, SVM-RBF and GBM exploit the potential of more subtle elements describing user preferences or date-time behavioural patterns. The collected evidence may also aid business decision-making associated with churn prediction efforts, e.g., retention campaign design.

Keywords: Retail, Machine Learning, Customer Relationship Management, User Model, Churn Prediction, Electronic Commerce, Feature Importance, Feature Set Importance

JEL classification: C60, M31

Open Access Article SciPap-1389

by Oliver Rafaj, Stefan Rehak, Tomáš Černěnko

Abstract: Smart Cities is a widely discussed topic in the social sciences. At first, awareness of Smart Cities in society was based mainly on the fact that these are cities that use modern information and communication technology (ICT) to ensure the provision of public services to their citizens. However, with the development of technology and the growing openness, the role of citizens in the city administration is changing. Thanks to the day-to-day use of ICT to communicate with the city administration, citizens are gradually becoming from ordinary consumers of public services to their co-designers and co-authors. The existing body of literature has so far focused mainly on describing examples of forms of involving citizens in the design and creation of specific public services in selected application domains. However, a comprehensive overview and comparison of citizen participation between different application domains is lacking in the literature. Therefore, the aim of this article is to provide an overview of the development of citizen participation in the concept of Smart Cities and its various application domains. Our research has shown that the topic of Smart Cities is a widely discussed topic in society, especially over the last 10 years. At the same time, our findings confirmed that there exist differences between application domains in citizen participation. From an analysis of published scientific articles on Smart Cities, we found that most of the articles on Smart Cities deal with the fields of natural resources and energy, transportation and mobility, and living. However, from the perspective of the participation of citizens, there are other application domains at the top of the number of publications.

Keywords: Citizen Participation, Smart Cities, Application Domains, Smart City Governance

JEL classification: H41, R58

Open Access Article SciPap-1380

by Renata Korsakienė, Agota Giedrė Raišienė

Abstract: While increasing awareness of issues such as raising energy prices, increasing customer concerns about the safety of products and services, and the reduction of carbon emissions influence firms, scarce studies focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). This study seeks to systematically analyse the literature focused on sustainability of SMEs. Bibliometric analysis of 220 articles included in the WoS database (Clarivate Analytics) database and visualization with VOSviewer software let us reveal the cooccurrence of author keywords, bibliographic coupling sources and references, leading journals, and countries. The second step of the research is based on a systemic review of 25 articles with the purpose of reviewing empirical findings in the field of firm-level sustainability of SMEs. The analysis has led to thematic commonalities considering resources and capabilities, strategy, stakeholders, human capital, and innovations. The paper fills the literature gap on systematic analysis of SME and sustainability and develops recommendations on how to address prevailing research gaps.

Keywords: Sustainability, Smes, Bibliometric Analysis, Thematic Commonalities

JEL classification: L21, Q01

Open Access Article SciPap-1359

by Michal Stoklasa, Kateřina Matušínská

Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 changed consumer purchasing behaviour and brand perception. Regional brands were denied their traditional availability and communication channels due to lockdowns. This poses a question whether regional brands are even relevant for consumers and companies in 2021? The aim of the article is thus to find out what the consumer regional brand awareness is, what are perceived regional brand characteristics/benefits, and what are regional brand customers characteristics. The sample used is 1050 respondents from the Czech Republic, gathered by Ipsos. The method used is online survey. The results are compared, where available, with results from 2014 and 2018 to illustrate the trends. Three research questions were formulated based on the three parts of article aim. Main findings include: the regional brand awareness is rising over the researched period to 73 % prompted awareness; main characteristics include region support, traditional production, high quality, and uniqueness; most favourable customer segments are age groups 46-55 and 56-65, with secondary and tertiary education, and income of 30 000 CZK and more.

Keywords: Consumer Behaviour, Regional Brand, Regional Brand Characteristics, Brand Model, Brand Awareness, Customer Characteristics.

JEL classification: M31