Issue #1 (Volume 7 2023)

In Latin America, the age group made up of women is at a disadvantage compared to men in terms of their economic empowerment, which is reflected in the lack of access to paid employment, their average wages are lower than those of men and their performance in poor quality jobs. In this context, the objective of this study is to analyze what aspects of knowledge are developed by the main government financial education programs focused on Peruvian women belonging to organizations (Comedores Populares Programs) or participants in a state social program (Juntos Program) in order to include them financially. The method used is documentary research that seeks to deepen the financial education proposals that the Peruvian government has provided in the last 10 years. The results show that the implementation of government programs increased the participation of women in financial education actions by 61%, achieving a significant improvement from 31% to 77% in the knowledge obtained by the beneficiaries in financial matters; and that, due to the poverty characteristics of the beneficiaries, there were limitations in access to digital media and the current programs are carried out in person. It was concluded that the knowledge management component of the programs should focus on economic empowerment and attitudes towards money and not only on practical knowledge of financial products and services; and that the State must implement policies to ensure that beneficiaries have access to technological equipment so that training uses digital resources and not only resources for face-to-face training.

In order to set economic policy goals, it is important to understand the difference between adult education and lifelong learning, and how much research on SDG 4 combines lifelong learning and economic policy. The purpose of the article is to determine the main directions for justifying the lifelong learning system development, including for achieving sustainable development goal 4 (SDG 4). Based on scientific research data from the Scopus database using the VOSviewer software, this article analyzed the theoretical foundations for substantiating the temporal and geographical interrelationships of the categorical-conceptual system of such terms as “SDG 4”, “adult education”, “lifelong learning” and “economic”. This made it possible to identify the main trends in scientific research and cluster directions of international research on the relationship between adult education, lifelong learning and economic policy. The following trends were obtained: adult education as a driver of economic development; as a social phenomenon and as a source of innovation. The following clusters were identified: adult education as a part of life-long education; adult education under the influence of physical and age-related changes; adult education as part of professional education; the learning process, which is not related to professional activity. As a result of the analysis, an insufficient level of attention among scientific studies devoted to adult education within the framework of SDG 4 was revealed. The article confirmed the need for economic policy to support the lifelong learning system, as well as the difference between the concepts of adult education and lifelong learning.

Acknowledgment
The educational outcomes in this publication were created with the support of the EU Erasmus+ program within the framework of projects ERASMUS-JMO-2021-HEI-TCH-RSCH-101048055 – «AICE – With Academic integrity to EU values: step by step to common Europe» and ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH-101085198«OSEE – Open Science and Education in Europe: success stories for Ukrainian academia». This study was funded by the grant from the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine “Modelling educational transformations in wartime to preserve the intellectual capital and innovative potential of Ukraine” (registration number 0123U100114). “Convergence of economic and educational transformations in the digital society: modeling of the impact on regional and national security” (state registration number 0121U109553).

This study examines young people’s perspectives on local government bodies’ and universities’ roles in revitalizing de-occupied territories. A mixed-methods approach was deployed to examine their roles in returning and retaining young people in these areas. An initial quantitative survey was conducted among 1,180 young individuals from Berdyansk and its district (a temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine), focusing on the prospects of their return after de-occupation. A subsequent “Youth of Berdyansk” forum assembled roughly 300 participants, including university and local government representatives, to further explore youth perceptions. Findings revealed that 52.8% of respondents envision their future in the de-occupied region. Local government bodies and universities were seen as crucial for the region’s development and restoration by 92% and 86% of respondents, respectively. Moreover, 69% recognized the potential of partnerships between these institutions to enhance the territories’ appeal. Most respondents indicated readiness to participate in creating recovery strategies (41% absolute readiness, 38% with certain guarantees), though views on youth-centric strategies were mixed (80% agreement, 13% disagreement). The study concludes that local government bodies and universities are critical in the territories’ recovery and development, necessitating explicit engagement and focusing on young people’s needs for effective outcomes.

This paper explores how the war in Ukraine changed the interest in higher education of Ukrainians who stayed on the territory of Ukraine and emigrated to other countries. The methodology is based on Google Trends Analysis and peak approach with Google Trends Scale of Internet user inquiries about higher education from June 20, 2021 to June 20, 2023 with a middle point on February 24, 2022. Dynamics of changes in the queries of Internet users by keywords regarding studied higher education are: 1) exclusively from the territory of Ukraine; 2) from the territory of Poland, Slovakia, Germany, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Austria, i.e., top-10 countries by number of registered Ukrainian refugees according to the UN Refugee Agency. The key results are: 1) increased interest of Internet users in higher education after beginning of the full-scale war: Poland – 22.9%, Romania – 28.9%, Ukraine – 31.2%, Hungary – 32.4%, Slovakia – 35.8%, Moldova – 49.0% of average number of «university» inquiries; 2) increased requests for professional education (42.2%), distance education (25.6%), distance learning (34.1%) after February 24, 2022; 3) correlation between negative trends of interest per 32% from July 2021 (100 GT Scale) to July 2022 (68 GT Scale) in Ukraine and positive trends of this indicator in European counties in August 2022 (80-100 GT Scale). Chi-square test showed statistical significance of changes in interest in higher education (p-value = 0). Key findings demonstrate the following trends after February 24, 2022: distance learning development, increased Internet users’ orientation towards professional education for high-paying jobs, popularity of flexible schedules.

Acknowledgments
The educational outcomes in this publication were created with the support of the EU Erasmus+ program within the framework of projects ERASMUS-JMO-2021-HEI-TCH-RSCH-101048055 – «AICE – With Academic integrity to EU values: step by step to common Europe» and ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH-101085198 «OSEE – Open Science and Education in Europe: success stories for Ukrainian academia».

Small companies face many obstacles and limitations that require more attention, especially the low quality of human resources, so that they continue to make a strategic contribution in creating innovation and becoming a driving force for a country’s economy. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of human capital, knowledge creation and knowledge sharing on innovation. Data were collected using an online questionnaire. The research sample consisted of 396 small companies, and 187 were returned, filled in completely by managers of small companies in the Province of Bali, Indonesia. Data were analyzed using SEM with the PLS approach with WarpPLS 7.0. The results demonstrate that human capital has a significant positive influence on knowledge creation (β = 0.784; p < 0.001), human capital was found to have an effect on innovation (β = 0.212; p < 0.001), human capital has an effect on knowledge sharing (β = 0.853; p < 0.001), knowledge creation influences innovation (β = 0.428; p < 0.001), knowledge sharing has an effect on innovation (β = 0.323; p < 0.001), knowledge creation successfully mediates the influence of human capital on innovation, and knowledge sharing mediation is successful in the influence of human capital on innovation. This study improves the understanding of human capital by reducing the scarcity of empirical research and by uncovering the mechanisms through knowledge creation and knowledge sharing that influence innovation.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of knowledge management on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises during the COVID-19 period in Indonesia. Furthermore, the study also highlights the role of digital variables such as digital capability, digital orientation, and digital innovation as mediating variables. A total of 247 valid responses were collected for this study through the survey conducted among managers of SMEs in Indonesia. The collected data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling with the Partial Least Squares approach. The study’s findings revealed several significant insights. It established the positive impact of knowledge management on digital capability, digital orientation, and digital innovation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the study identified digital capability as a mediating factor between knowledge management and SMEs’ performance. However, the full support for the mediating roles of digital orientation and digital innovation in the relationship between knowledge management and SME performance was not confirmed, suggesting potential context-specific variations. This implies that the influence of knowledge management on SMEs’ performance is mainly channeled through digital capability. The research underscores the importance of knowledge management and digital factors in shaping SMEs’ performance, particularly in the challenging context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Knowledge-based economy causes changes in the higher education system: university graduates must have the ability to constantly learn and improve their skills, generate and disseminate new knowledge, form and multiply the knowledge capital of business. This paper aims to investigate a pairwise interconnection between higher education indicators and sets of parameters characterizing knowledge creation, impact, and diffusion. The following higher education indicators are used: expenditure on education, tertiary enrollment, graduates in science and engineering, tertiary inbound mobility, researcher, gross expenditure on R&D, top 3 global corporate R&D investors, top 3QS university ranking. Knowledge creation indicators are patents by origin, PCT patents by origin, utility models by origin, scientific and technical articles, citable documents, H-index. Knowledge impact is characterized through labor productivity growth, new businesses, software spending, ISO 9001 quality certificates, high-tech manufacturing. Knowledge diffusion parameters include intellectual property receipts, production and export complexity, high-tech exports, ICT services exports. The information base of the study is the data of the Global Innovation Index Report from the World Intellectual Property Organization for 40 European countries (selected depending on the availability of statistics) for 2022, research method – Canonical Correlation Analysis. The strongest positive correlation was found between higher education indicators and knowledge creation parameters. The second position takes connection between higher education indicators and knowledge diffusion parameters, the third – between higher education indicators and knowledge impact indicators. Among the higher education indicators, the most significant were gross expenditure on R&D, top 3 global corporate R&D investors, top 3 QS university ranking.

One aspect that needs to be developed in work is competence. In this case, competence is knowledge, skills, and attitudes sufficient to meet needs, such as good job performance. One of the employee behaviors that has not been developed and improved is the behavior of innovation at work. This study aims to analyze the role of Vocational Lecturers’ innovative behavior. This study was conducted based on data about 1,494 lecturers from vocational higher education institutions in East Java, Indonesia (seven state polytechnics and two state community academies). Using the proportional random sampling method, the Slovin formula of 316 people was used. The questionnaire was conducted as through Google Forms, as a person by seeing research respondents, and by holding virtual meetings from March to April 2022. The collected data were processed using descriptive statistical analysis methods to determine the characteristics of the respondents and inferential statistics using the SmartPLS version 3.0 program. The results of this study indicate that organizational support and transglobal leadership characteristics significantly affect employee engagement, proactive personality, proactive work behavior, and performance. Transglobal leadership influences proactive personality and job engagement in positive and significant ways. Organizational support significantly and beneficially influences work engagement and proactive attitudes. Work engagement positively and meaningfully encourages innovative work behavior, with a path coefficient 0.22. The path coefficients of the relationship between inventive work style, proactive attitude, and employee performance are 0.55 and 0.617, respectively. In addition, job involvement has a statistically significant adverse effect on worker performance.

Ethical behavior is the attitude and actions of a person who adheres to commonly accepted social norms regarding good, proper, beneficial, and non-harmful activities. This study aims to examine the influence of emotional, intellectual, and spiritual intelligence on the ethical behavior of educator accountants at private universities in Indonesia, moderated by locus of control. This study’s population comprised all educator accountants who taught at nine private universities in Indonesia. At the same time, the sample size in this study was 196 accountant educators. The samples were educator accountants who had worked for at least one year. Data collection techniques used questionnaires and interviews (WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook), while the data analysis used was Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with data processing using PLS software. The findings revealed that accountant educators’ ethical behavior is influenced by their emotional (p = 0.016), intellectual (p = 0.030), and spiritual intelligence (p = 0.039). The locus of control can moderate the influence of emotional intelligence on ethical behavior. However, it cannot moderate the effect of intellectual and spiritual intelligence on educator accountants’ ethical behavior.

The study examined the Nepalese youth’s self-directed learning and job-seeking characteristics. It collected primary data from fresh graduates of Nepal’s leading universities to understand self-directed learning motivations and job search behavior. It focused on graduates enrolled in different job preparatory programs to improve their chances of securing employment in 2022. Using a five-point Likert scale, the survey covered general information, self-learning, and job-searching. The purposive sample field survey in Kathmandu Valley from July to December 2022 targeted 500 respondents and yielded 327 completed surveys for analysis. Data analysis shows a substantial correlation between self-directed learning and job-seeking among Nepalese young people (β = 0.877, CR = 18.203, p < 0.01). A substantial positive correlation was identified between self-monitoring, adaptability, and job-seeking activity (β = 0.927, p = 0.000). Likewise, this study found a substantial positive correlation between motivation and job-seeking activity (β = 0.887, p < 0.00), and goal setting and planning have a significant favorable effect on job-seeking behavior (β = 0.445, p < 0.00). Such findings contribute valuable insights into the interplay of self-learning elements and their implications for the job-seeking behavior of young individuals in the Nepalese context. The importance of promoting self-directed learning and emphasizing fundamental attributes has grown significantly as young individuals navigate the dynamic job marketplace and seek assistance in integrating into employment.

Acknowledgment
The authors would like to express profound gratitude and appreciation to the University Grant Commission (UGC) Nepal for supporting this research (FRG-78/79-Mgmt 02).

In the context of Peruvian public universities, knowledge management is a key tool for academic advancement and social progress. This study investigates how transformational leadership impacts knowledge management, with a special focus on the moderating effect of organizational culture. Data were collected from 370 managerial staff members, both teaching and administrative, across various public universities in Peru, through online surveys. The methodology employed was the analysis of regression models with interaction terms. The results demonstrate that transformational leadership has a significant positive effect on knowledge management (β = 0.7092; p < 0.01), especially highlighting the influence of charisma (β = 0.5315; p < 0.01). Organizational culture proved to be a significant moderator in this relationship. This was reflected in the significance of the interaction terms between the dimensions of organizational culture and transformational leadership. Participation has a moderating effect (β = 0.4507; p < 0.01), consistency is a significant moderator (β = 0.5356; p < 0.01), adaptability has a moderating influence in the relationship between leadership and knowledge management (β = 0.4890; p < 0.01), as does mission (β = 0.3846; p < 0.01). This suggests that in contexts where organizational culture is robust and focused on learning and collaboration, transformational leadership effectively enhances knowledge management. These results provide a deeper understanding of the role of transformational leadership and organizational culture in knowledge management practices in the academic field, offering valuable insights for future research and administrative practices in the educational sector.

Research and development (R&D) is considered a critical factor in the long-term performance of companies. Governments are therefore seeking to increase the availability of R&D support for enterprises. This support may include indirect or tax support, often offered as deductions from the tax base or credits on already calculated tax. The paper analyzes the average amount of R&D deductions depending on the size of enterprises in the Czech Republic that use R&D deductions. The research sample includes all companies residing in the Czech Republic that filed tax returns between 2009 and 2021. The methods of descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and trend analysis were used to test the hypotheses. The results suggest a statistically significant difference (α < 0.01) between the average R&D deduction of companies using the R&D deduction and a company’s size. Furthermore, it was found that the average amount of the R&D deduction has changed and is expected to change as well. This trend in the case of micro companies is negative, and by other groups, it is relatively constant or slightly rising and is also expected to increase. Authorities could use these results to adjust tax laws governing R&D deductions in the Czech Republic.

Acknowledgment
This article was written as one of the outputs of support from the project of Excellent Research called “The impact of tax optimization of intangible assets on corporate finances and national public budgets,” which is being continuously implemented at the Faculty of Economics of the Technical University in Liberec within the years 2021–2022.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how knowledge assets and corporate social responsibility jointly influence the market value of a firm. In the contemporary knowledge-driven economy, where competitive advantage is based on intangible and intellectual capital, this paper emphasizes the strategic significance of knowledge assets, open innovation, and sustainable development practices in creating and maximizing market value. By employing multiple regression analysis on panel data for ten financial years, the study examines the optimal composition of knowledge assets and the impact of CSR initiatives on firm value. Key findings highlight a crucial threshold leading to the peak of market value, approximately when knowledge assets account for about 36% of a firm’s total non-current assets. Further, this study demonstrates that maintaining a balance between internally developed knowledge assets and external acquisitions significantly enhances value, correlating with the cultivation of a capitalization ability. Finally, this paper shows that corporate social responsibility emerges as a substantial driver of generating firm value, suggesting that integrating these practices into corporate strategic decisions not only aligns with ethical goals but also enhances market valuation. The insights from this study offer valuable perspectives for both academic researchers and industry professionals, advocating for a well-balanced approach to corporate asset management and underscoring the strategic importance of incorporating corporate social responsibility.