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Educational indicators offer a straightforward means of gauging a country's education. Besides, evaluation based on these indicators is of great significance and value. Nonetheless, education does not take place in a vacuum, and thus these indicators are results of the conditions in a country. Particularly, time and money spent on education, the family's share in economic distribution play a role in determining the current state of education. So, this study aims to evaluate the current state of education in Turkey by examining human capital indices and income distribution in countries in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region. For this purpose, the study uses data from the World Bank. The results of the study indicate that children born in developed countries can access near 80% of their potential upon reaching their productive age, compared to only 65% in Turkey. Additionally, Turkey has the greatest degree of income inequality, as indicated by its GINI coefficients, among other countries in the ECA region. Moreover, there are vast disparities between the income of the top 20% and the bottom 20% of Turkey's population.

Entrepreneurial universities are a significant element of entrepreneurial ecosystems and aspire to foster entrepreneurial initiative through their "third mission". However, while entrepreneurial ecosystems are scrutinized using a contextual approach to detect differences and similarities and how they affect entrepreneurship, little is known about how entrepreneurial universities impact entrepreneurial initiatives in general, considering multiple environments. Drawing on entrepreneurial university and entrepreneurial ecosystem theories, a conceptual framework is proposed that aims to explain the effect of the entrepreneurial university on an entrepreneurial initiative through its three "missions", using an entrepreneurial ecosystem taxonomy. Based on individual data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, this entrepreneurial initiative analyzed 18 European countries in 2017. The results do not generally support the importance of entrepreneurial universities to entrepreneurial initiative. The relevance of entrepreneurial universities increases in more fragile entrepreneurial ecosystems since individuals need support over multiple dimensions. Conversely, the entrepreneurial universities that are embedded in stronger entrepreneurial ecosystems lose relevance and negatively affect the entrepreneurial initiative. Therefore, the value of entrepreneurial universities is reduced when individuals receive greater support from other dimensions. The variations across both groups suggest that the concept of entrepreneurial universities is not a contemporaneous phenomenon; however, their effect is progressively revealed by the maturity of each university's mission. This perspective substantially changes the understanding of entrepreneurial universities as a thwartwise strategy, suggesting that the universities' impact is expanded as their missions gradually evolve. Overall, the study contributes to an understanding of the implications for universities that blindly follow entrepreneurship, neglecting the exogenous environment, namely, the entrepreneurial ecosystem and individual drive.

Research Managers and Administrators (RMAs) face various challenges caused by conflicting and contradictory organizational subcultures in knowledge-intensive organizations (KIOs), but their human capital, such as skills and personality traits, helps RMAs to maintain job and organizational engagement and professional growth. Focusing on self-leadership of RMAs, the effects of the RMAs' human capital on their performance and job satisfaction are statistically tested with the Research Administration as a Profession (RAAAP) wave-1 dataset that captures the current states of RMA around the world. RMAs more willing to mobilize their self-leadership are more successful in terms of their career development and are happier with the job, and thus, they are surviving even in conflicting and contradictory subcultures. Implications are also provided about human capital and agency of RMAs as well as human resources practices of KIOs.

This article revisits the Mincer earnings function and presents comparable estimates of the average monetary returns associated with an additional year of education across different regions worldwide. In contrast to the traditional Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method commonly employed in the literature, this study applied a cutting-edge approach known as Support Vector Regression (SVR), which belongs to the family of machine learning (ML) algorithms. SVR is specifically chosen to address the bias arising from underfitting inherent in OLS. The analysis focuses on recent data spanning from 2010 to 2018, ensuring temporal homogeneity across the examined regions. The findings reveal that each additional year of education, on average, yields a private rate of returns of 10.4%. Notably, Sub-Saharan Africa exhibits the highest returns to education at 17.8%, while Europe demonstrates the lowest returns at 7.2%. Moreover, higher education is associated with the highest returns across the regions, with a rate of 12%, whereas primary education yields returns of 10%. Interestingly, women generally experience higher returns than men, with rates of 10.6 and 10.1%, respectively. Over time, the returns to education exhibit a modest decline, decreasing at a rate of approximately 0.1% per year, while the average duration of education demonstrates an increase of 0.16 years per year (1% per year). The application of the state-of-the-art ML technique, SVR, not only improves the accuracy of estimates but also enhances predictive performance measures such as the coefficient of determination (R[superscript 2]) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) when compared to the OLS method. The implications drawn from these findings emphasize the need for expanding university education, as well as investments in primary education, along with significant attention toward promoting girls' education. These findings hold considerable importance for policymakers who are tasked with making informed decisions regarding education expenditure and the implementation of education financing programs.

Purpose: This study aims to shed light on how internships' features drive employability outcomes and answers the question of how internships that maximize the employability of interns can be designed. The study assumes that the duration of an internship, degree of formalization and the use of internship-specific motivational practices by companies are likely to influence interns' perceptions of employability. Design/methodology/approach: A study among interns investigated the relationship between different internship features and interns' employability. Data on the duration of the internship, motivational practices specific to internships and the formalization of the internship process were collected from a large sample of 13,565 interns in 27 European countries from 15 to 35 years old. Findings: The findings suggest that internship duration has a curvilinear effect on employability with increasing effects on employability at the beginning of the internship, followed by a decrease over time. In addition, the use of practices specifically designed to motivate interns also favors the interns' employability. Finally, formalization of the internship placement moderates the effect of motivational practices on employability. Originality/value: By identifying key features of the internship experience -- duration, formalization and motivational practices -- the authors contribute to the theory related to the development of career resources and employability in young adults and show that these features significantly shape young adults' employability perceptions.

Purpose: This paper aims to understand the development track of skills mismatch research and discover the hidden internal connections between literature. Design/methodology/approach: The authors gathered data through scientometric quantitative analysis using CiteSpace. Specifically, this article applied basic analysis, journal cocitation analysis (JCA), author cocitation analysis (ACA) and document cocitation analysis (DCA), cluster analysis, citation burstness detection, scientific research cooperation analysis and coconcurrence analysis of keywords of 3,125 documents from Web of Science core collections for the period 2000-2020. Findings: Through the document cocitation analysis and the keywords' co-occurrence, this article identifies influential scholars, documents, research institutions, journals and research hotspots in research on the skills mismatch phenomenon. The results showed that the publications had ballooned, and the phenomenon has become an interdisciplinary research subject. The USA and Finland remain the main contributors, which is attributed to their high-yield institutions such as the University of Helsinki, the University of Witwatersrand, the University of Washington and so on. While the African continent lacks research on skills mismatch even with the continent's effort to overcome such a crucial issue. The paper presents an in-depth analysis of skills and educational mismatch issues to better understand the evolutionary trajectory of the collective knowledge over the past 20 years and highlight the areas of active pursuit. Research limitations/implications: The authors only used Web of Science core collection to collect data; however, they can added Scopus indexed database as well to extend the research trends and explore more new research hot topics to solve the skills mismatch phenomenon. Originality/value: The scientometric analysis is of great significance for identifying the potential relationship between the literature and investigating the knowledge evolution of skills mismatch research. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Labor Organization and the World Health Organization are the giants who are mostly concerned of the mismatch skills phenomenon. Researchers can refer to this study to understand the status quo, gaps and research trends to deal with the skills mismatch issue.

This paper undertakes a critical analysis of the various hegemonic educational discourses applied to schemes for a minimum income and the social effects that they cause in the field of education and training for groups at social risk. Through consideration of these discourses, it will be determined what role education plays within them, highlighting the principles of employability and the Theory of Human Capital underlying training in minimum income schemes. The paper will shed light to the "poverty business" that training courses for the poor have provided for certain private enterprises. These characteristics have taken the shape of an increasingly prevalent educational discourse that may be termed `the Holy Crusade to Educate the Poor'. Finally, the paper will argue about the possibilities and limitations of an alternative model for minimum income schemes: The Universal Basic Income (UBI).

In a globalising world, the international mobility of academics and researchers is important for their career. However, increasing migration of academics in the form of an academic brain drain is becoming a major challenge especially for Europe due to an ageing population. The issue of brain drain has been addressed usually through quantitative studies that fail to explore the in-depth reasons behind it, and present standard outcomes. Through a synthesis of qualitative literature over two decades (2000-2020), this paper presents a new perspective of the root causes of academic brain drain in Europe. After careful examination of the qualitative literature, five factors have been found to be responsible for the outflow of human capital. These include: (1) attractive salaries outside Europe; (2) short-term fixed contracts for early career researchers; (3) unfair recruitment procedures; (4) attractive migration policies and (5) the indirect role played by internationalisation policies to encourage permanent mobility.

This paper revisits the relationship between human capital and income inequality, using an updated data set on human capital inequality and a novel database on earnings inequality. We find an inverted U-shaped relationship between these two inequality indicators, but with significant differences across countries regarding the turning point. Skill-biased technological change is found to be an additional force that may blur the relationship between human capital and earnings inequality. Over and above the effect exerted through earnings inequality, the paper shows that human capital inequality has a direct positive effect on income inequality.

Purpose: The study aims to investigate whether participation to massive open online courses (MOOCs) may lead to labor market returns and through which mechanisms such relative advantage may take place. Indeed, despite high figures of registered users, empirical studies on occupational returns are limited and MOOCs may represent a viable, cost-efficient example of lifelong learning practice to respond to the demand of a better skilled workforce for the fourth industrial revolution. Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on qualitative empirical material constituted by a set of 21 qualitative semi-structured interviews conducted in 2019 among learners who registered in MOOCs provided by European higher education institutions. Findings: Interviews return a situation in which MOOCs are beneficial for work: learners appreciate the new knowledge and skills they can access, with time flexibility and low entry cost. However, MOOCs positive contribution is not at everyone's reach: self-selection issues tend to further advantage individuals with high levels of education and individual resources. Moreover, MOOCs can increase the risk of a shift of responsibility for training to the employees and qualify as a lower tier type of qualification, reinforcing social closure mechanisms based on educational credentials. Originality/value: The study contributes to the empirical analysis of MOOCs economic returns empirically, by providing original qualitative material. Second, it contributes theoretically by bridging literature on economic and occupational returns to education on one side and literature on digital technologies in education on the other, providing new insights on the potentials and limits of MOOCs as a new form of lifelong learning.

Using a unique European dataset for graduates, this paper examines the determinants of college satisfaction and investigates the relative importance of human capital, course composition, and subsequent employment outcomes. We find that aspects of the degree programme related to the mode of teaching and personal development were considerably more important in determining college satisfaction, relative to the field of study, or the subsequent jobs that they obtained. Our results highlight that practical learning approaches and an experience that enhances non-cognitive personal development (NCPD) are some of the course attributes most valued by students retrospectively. Therefore, universities can enhance the quality of student experiences, and also equip them with aspects of human capital allowing them to prosper within the labour market, with an increased focus on both applied learning experiences and non-cognitive personal development.

This paper examines interactions between the presence of top-ranked universities and other conditions that encourage regional competitiveness. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was conducted to assess the combined effect of the conditions. The analysis yields several noteworthy conclusions. First, no single condition is necessary for a region to be competitive. Second, R&D expenditure is important for regional competitiveness. Third, different configurations of conditions are sufficient for high competitiveness in different regional clusters. Furthermore, some of these configurations do not include the presence of top-ranked universities. A 'magic recipe' consists of the combination of a private research system, an inter-firm collaboration network and high levels of human capital. The analysis shows that university excellence is valuable. However, in terms of its contribution to regional development, it is not crucial and must always be contextualised. This conclusion is important for smart strategic planning of local knowledge systems.

The link between higher education and employment is central to the understanding of social stratification and social mobility. We use three theories to analyse the importance of education and credentials in recruitment decisions in European graduate labour markets: human capital (HC), network capital (NC) and reputational capital (RC) theory. Latent class modelling was applied to data from over 5,000 European private-sector companies to allow segmentation. The results identify four groups of companies using different HC, NC and RC mixes in the recruitment process. A 'complementary effect' was found between these forms of capital at the time of recruitment. Company classes, however, vary in their emphasis on different types of capital according to their characteristics. The article further contributes to the literature by exploring how national political economies relate to segmentation patterns, and questioning some of the central tenets of the Varieties of Capitalism literature.

The accession of Eastern European countries to the European Union increased family wealth and the returns to schooling. I analyze the change in student achievement due to the EU accession of Eastern Europe building on a panel of six PISA waves covering more than 1 million students in 32 countries. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I find a positive and statistically significant link of EU membership to reading scores by one tenth of a standard deviation. The effect seems robust to including controls from the human capital production function.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to define the impact of the investment in training in education by the European Social Fund (ESF) in four Eastern countries, namely, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Hungary. Those countries have some political, cultural, social and economic similarities and share some common ground in the human resource development (HRD) sectors. Design/methodology/approach: The authors use the human capital theory with some extensions to analyze the context, operations and impacts of the ESF in the Visegrad four (V4) countries between 2007 and 2013. The authors use three levels of methodology to access each one of those problems. Findings: The authors conclude that the ESF helped building the vocational training system in those countries, and to help them get near the equilibrium of high skills of the V4 Western European neighbors, and therefore, this one was a success story. However, quality issues remain to be addressed that may hinder the continuation of the success in the future. Research limitations/implications: The research could be enlarged in time and space and deepened in terms of methodology. This is one a first clarifying step. Theoretical work should become aware of the dichotomy between absorption and scientific logic. Practical implications: Detailed and precise evaluation practices must be implemented to guide and assess the policy. Social implications: Precisely because funds are scarce this paper enlights the dilemma and the tension between quantity and quality in the European HRD policy, this is an important social problem. Originality/value: The study is original because even if the HRD in those countries had already been studied (Sheehan and Buchelt, 2016), no study analyzing specifically the ESF in those countries has been carried out so far. The authors use an innovative methodology and address questions on context, operations and impact, which are also innovative and very relevant.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of a variety of levels of education, namely, high school, vocational and university education, on the probability of being employed in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Design/methodology/approach: The data are from two waves of the Life-in-Transition Survey that covers 29 post-communist transitional countries. The number of binary logistic models is estimated to quantify the effects of different types of education on the likelihood of being employed, while controlling for different sets of covariates. Findings: The findings reveal that the effect of employment associated with university education is higher than that of vocational education, which in turn is higher than that of high school education. However, the differences between the effects of the various levels of education are not considerable. Any specific level of education is always associated with a higher effect in Eastern Europe as compared to the former Soviet Union. The effect of education is also found to be higher for females than for males. In the former Soviet Union, the positive effect of university and vocational education on employment is found to go down with age. Originality/value: This is the first study which compares effect of different types of education on probability of being employed on a diverse sample of 29 post-communist countries over the period of five years.

In a recent contribution, Redding and Schott [2003. "Distance, Skill Deepening and Development: Will Peripheral Countries Ever Get Rich?" "Journal of Development Economics": 72 (2): 515-541. doi:10.1016/S0304-3878(03)00118-4] add human capital to a two sector NEG model, highlighting that remoteness represents a penalty that gives disincentives to invest in human capital. But is this hypothesis consistent with long-term evidence? We test the persistence of this effect at the regional level in an historical setting. The results show that market access has a significant positive influence on human capital in OLS, Tobit and IV regression models. Thus, the paper confirms the 'penalty of remoteness' hypothesis for Europe in the long run.

In our contribution, we investigate the relationship between social investment (SI) and lifelong learning (LLL), discussing how LLL can be integrated theoretically within a SI approach, by focussing on the ideational principles and policy strategies. First, we describe the SI and LLL perspectives, reviewing their foundations and main principles. These approaches present overlaps, but also differences related to the scope and aims of interventions. Moreover, both the critical debates on SI and LLL stress the relevance of ambiguities that can be traced back to the existence of a narrower functionalistic understanding and market-lead human capital approach. This view is contrasted with a holistic comprehension of inclusion taking into account issues of social participation and human capabilities. Second, we discuss institutional and contextual complementarities as preconditions for the effectiveness of SI policies, to be identified in the complex and time-framed interface among the labour market, the education system and the welfare state. By doing this, we argue that LLL policies play a key role in a social investment strategy, specifically addressing the time dimension by means of coherent interventions over the life course. We suggest that further research may investigate, according to this conceptual framework, the specific combinations of SI and LLL policies within different national contexts.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the human capital theory tenets hold in Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) that transitioned from socialist regimes to a market-based economy. The modeling approach relied on 18 years (1994-2012) of country level data collected from the World Bank, in order to explore whether the increase in labor force with tertiary education (i.e. human capital) was associated with better economic outcomes in post-socialist European countries, measured by GDP per capita. Findings from the panel data estimations indicated that, despite of the rise of GDP, the increases in the proportion of labor force with post-secondary education were not associated with this economic growth in post-socialist countries, and that the opposite was true for other European countries. Given that these findings problematize the applicability of the human capital theory in CEEC region, the recently developed theory of academic marginalism is utilized to help further explore this issue.

Recent economic and technological developments have led to a growing international demand for highly skilled human resources. The increased competition for human capital has determined numerous OECD countries to take special measures for attracting and retaining human capital in such fields as: information technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, health care, etc. These measures have stimulated the emigration of highly skilled professionals, especially from less developed to more developed economies. In this international context, in the last decade, Romanian and other Eastern European people with an academic background have had a significant propensity towards emigration. This phenomenon is not surprising if one considers the limited (although increasing) number of attractive career opportunities in this region. Consequently, numerous scientists and other highly skilled individuals from Eastern Europe have been attracted by the United States, Canada and other Western countries, which have facilitated the access of certain categories of qualified foreigners. (Contains 5 tables, 3 figures, and 14 notes.)

The most painful effect of the Great Recession in European countries has been the surge in unemployment rates during a period that has been characterised by an increase in income inequality and the heterogeneous pattern of this inequality by educational level. Thus, workers with low levels of educational attainment were among the first to lose their jobs. This article addresses two main research questions: first, it estimates the importance of the level of skills and education on the probability of being unemployed, disentangling the extent of the effects of human capital and signalling theories of education; and, second, it provides evidence of the impact of inequalities in the previous socioeconomic and cultural background of individuals on the probability of being unemployed. These two objectives are assessed using data for 24 jurisdictions that participated in the first round of the OECD's "Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies" (PIAAC). Skill levels play a central role in explaining unemployment in Europe and act as an indirect channel via which a family's sociocultural background has an impact on its labour market status. Combining the results of alternative models, we identify those European labour markets that are most sensitive to human capital.

Various studies show that higher education institutions contribute to regional economic development by R&D, creation of human capital, knowledge and technology transfer, and by creation of a favourable milieu. It is brought out that the basic procedure is to sum expenditures of the college community (students, faculty, staff and visitors) created by the presence of the institution and apply multipliers to account for the interdependency of economic activity in a local economy, resulting in an estimated "local economic impact." The aim of the paper is to investigate the relationship between students in tertiary education and economic growth in NUTS 2 level in Europe from 1998 to 2008 by looking whether the share of tertiary students (measuring human capital) is correlated with the share of knowledge-intensive employment (KIE) in different regions. The increase in KIE is related to increasing levels of GDP per capita and R&D expenditures. Taking into account regional-level fixed effects, the share of tertiary students is not statistically significant. We found out that the increase in KIE is related to increasing levels of GDP per capita and R&D expenditures. The share of students five periods ago has a positive relation with the KIE: as we assumed, it takes time for the human capital to contribute to the economic development.

Ageing populations and accelerating economic change make it increasingly important to update the skill levels of populations over the whole life course. Adult education is believed to allow adults' skills to adapt continuously to constantly changing economic requirements. Both research into adult education, and discussions on lifelong learning policies have been dominated by a supply side view of the labour market (the human capital approach), which has tended to underplay the role of the demand side of the labour market. This paper aims to extend previous analyses by examining how both labour supply and demand characteristics influence participation in non-formal job-related education in countries with different skill formation systems. The paper emphasises skill use at work. The purpose is to understand better the relationship between participation in adult education and workers' skills profiles as well as the extent to which those skills are used in jobs and how this relationship differs in different countries. We used data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies and applied logistic regression analysis.

This article explores the experiences of young, well-educated Eastern Europeans who have moved to Western Europe in search of opportunities for professional development, opportunities that, for the most part, are not available in their home countries. The focus of this paper is on the resulting outcome of downskilling, where these individuals work in positions well below their levels of education and capability. Based on 22 in-depth interviews with workers living in Ireland, England, the Netherlands, Poland and the Czech Republic, the study offers two major findings. First, although self-directed expatriates move to host countries specifically for professional development opportunities, they do little to research on their career and employment options prior to moving to the host country. Second, organizations are not fully utilizing the available human capital offered by Eastern Europeans, suggesting untapped opportunities to achieve competitive advantage through human capital.

The paper presents the processes of entrepreneurial human capital accumulation and its impact on rural business growth. Data are derived from four surveys on rural businesses in mountainous and less favoured areas in Southern Europe. Formal pathways of entrepreneurial human capital accumulation refer to education and training, while informal pathways include the cognitive processes of work and managerial experience acquisition and the non-cognitive processes of being raised within an entrepreneurial family environment and/or being raised in the area within which the business is later set-up. The studies reveal that there is a variety of processes of entrepreneurial human capital and knowledge accumulation that are case study specific. Human capital accumulation processes related to education and training or to work and managerial experience still plays the prime role in predicting successful businesses. Results indicate the need for decentralised, flexible and selective entrepreneurial human capital accumulation support programmes that take into account local idiosyncrasies and needs.

The 1980s and 1990s have been decades of quite good economic growth in North America and much of Western Europe. But how have the fruits of growth been shared? This paper reviews changing income distributions in the U.S., Germany and the Netherlands. These three countries may be taken as exemplars and leading economic performers in "the three worlds of welfare capitalism" (Esping-Andersen, 1990). The U.S. is a liberal welfare-capitalist state, Germany a corporatist state, and the Netherlands (less clearly) a social democratic welfare-capitalist state. The paper focuses particularly on income changes in the bottom, middle and top quintiles and takes a ten year period into account. Previous analyses have shown that labor and market income dispersion are increasing, with increased returns to human capital. The potential impact of government through the tax-transfer system has been largely ignored. All three governments redistribute income from the rich to the poor. However, the paper shows that only the Dutch government has redistributed sufficiently to ensure that the bottom quintile has gained along with others. In Germany and the U.S. the poorest quintile was considerably worse off in absolute terms at the end of the decade.than the beginning. The German government somewhat counteracted the trend towards greater income dispersion by redistributing to the poorest quintile, so the loss of market income was partly compensated. In the U.S. the impact of government on the poorest quintile stayed about the same, so this group ended up with about the same decrease in disposable income as market income. The U.S., Germany and the Netherlands are the only three countries for which ten or more consecutive years of panel data are available. The data come from the PSID-GSOEP Equivalent File 1980-97 and from a comparable file constructed from the Dutch SEP data.

Provides cross-country estimates on private rates of return to higher-education qualifications across various transitional economies spanning Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and the former Soviet Union. Rates tend to rise in most transitional economies over the period considered. Rate variabilities help explain variabilities in wage inequality. (38 references) (MLH)

Lasting imbalances between the demand for educated labor and the size and educational composition of the supply of university graduates has been a common phenomenon for both developed and developing countries. Drawing on human capital theory, this paper develops a methodology to help education planners restore the balance. Includes 49 references. (MLH)

PurposeMethodology/ApproachFindingsResearch ImplicationsPractical ImplicationsOriginality/Value/ContributionTransformative marketing (TM) has reached considerable attention of both academic and practitioner communities. Being defined as the “confluence of a firm’s marketing activities, concepts, metrics, strategies, and programs that are in response to marketplace changes and future trends” (Kumar 2018, 2), TM aims at fostering beneficial customer-solutions and providing competitive advantages for firms and their stakeholders. However, five notable research gaps persist within TM to date: First, inadequate consideration of B2B contexts despite being a uniquely disruptive market constellation. Second, a lack of empirical TM studies hindering substantial insights on generalization. Third, scarcity of contextual foundations such as the prototypical, yet highly transformative application context of mobility ecosystems. Fourth, absence of a holistic view capturing TM instruments, strategies, and success metrics. Fifth, unexamined aspects of the Resource-Based View (RBV) in TM enabling further insights into firm’s transformation readiness. A distinctive feature of this research is its deliberate focus on B2B mobility firms, a domain characterized by high levels of disruption yet surprisingly neglected in TM literature. By delving into this overlooked sector, we aim to address critical knowledge gaps and unravel the intricate dynamics of disruptive B2B mobility ecosystems. For this purpose, we firstly delineate the morphology of disruptive B2B mobility ecosystems, shedding light on their structure and components. Secondly, we aim to develop a robust frame for assessing the “transformation readiness” of B2B mobility companies, crucial for navigating disruptive landscapes effectively. Thirdly, we endeavor to identify and scrutinize the TM instruments deployed within B2B mobility, with a view to constructing a comprehensive typology of TM strategies tailored to this context. Finally, we aspire to establish metrics for measuring the success of TM initiatives within B2B mobility companies, providing valuable insights for practitioners and scholars alike.This work presents a comprehensive qualitative study involving 30 in-depth expert interviews conducted between July-September 2023 in Europe and the U.S. Capturing the perspectives of multiple firm types active in B2B mobility, as suppliers, technology firms or mobility service providers (MSPs), the study takes a deep look into the TM phenomena of this turbulent environment. In addition to 14 managers with leadership experience in marketing, strategy and sales, our study incorporates 11 distinguished professionals from management boards encompassing CEOs, CFOs or CDOs. Further, we engage 5 leaders specialized in innovation and digitalization. The findings are derived through a thematic analysis employing both structural and open coding techniques (Saldana, 2013, Strauss & Corbin, 1998).Our study involves six major findings related to the questions defined. First, suppliers in B2B mobility have not yet transformed from a value-based toward an ecosystem-based acting and lack a customer-centric perspective (RQ1). Second, a company’s readiness for transformation is notably influenced by its commitment to design a market-oriented and integrated organization, its adoption of a transformative culture and its success to acquire software-oriented human capital (RQ2). Third, the transformative marketing (TM) instruments applied in B2B mobility markets relate to six thematic categories and are dominantly characterized by strategic levers – a facet, which has so far received limited theoretical and conceptual attention (RQ3). Fourth, there are four foundational TM strategies evident, namely dependent, progressive, reactive, and evasive approaches, distinguishable through their intensity and proactivity (RQ3). Fifth, the selection of TM success indicators remains largely independent from organizational types and management levels, with a primary focus on financial and profitability metrics (RQ4). And sixth, explaining the success measurement of TM in B2B mobility companies requires the consideration of a firm’s foundational TM strategy (RQ4).Our research advances the theoretical understanding of B2B TM, lays the foundation for further generalizing research and theory-building and enhances the current B2B TM perception toward a more strategic perspective. Additionally, we seek to contribute to a greater consideration of B2B marketing in contexts of turbulent environments. We emphasize that the integration of TM with the Business Ecosystem (BES) and the Resource-Based View (RBV) increases further explanatory power of transformational phenomena. In terms of the BES, we show that the perception of a turbulent environment varies depending on company type and has a major influence on a firm’s transformation. In relation to the RBV, our results demonstrate that within the B2B TM context, a stronger focus should be placed on identifying supportive and hindering transformation resources. Thus we propose describing the gap between existing (positive and hindering) and required resources as the “transformative resource gap (TRG)” and suggest, that this construct has the potential to enhance the RBV perspective on TM.The study presented offers the practitioner community to more thoroughly examine B2B firms’ TM phenomena. Connecting TM with concepts of the BES and the Resource-Based View (RBV) enables a deeper understanding of strengths and risks related to organization’s market-related activities. Further, we underline threats resulting from a missing market- and customer-centric perspective and recommend validating market assumptions near customers to reduce misjudgments. Additionally, our findings assist in managing the proactivity and intensity of TM, suggesting ways for reaching a progressive TM strategy. Ultimately, we encourage companies to select success metrics in line with their chosen strategy.Our research stands at the forefront of advancing the theoretical landscape of B2B TM by integrating two pivotal frameworks: the Business Ecosystem (BES) and the Resource-Based View (RBV). This integration is not merely incidental but strategically chosen to amplify our understanding of transformational phenomena within B2B contexts. By leveraging the RBV, we delve deep into the internal resources, capabilities, and competencies of B2B mobility BES, unraveling their unique strategic characteristics and sources of competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the skill structures of European countries and their transformations from the perspective of capability development. The constructed skill space illustrates the skill sets of European nations based on product space methodology by linking skill occupation and occupation–country data from 2011 to 2018. The results show that there are remarkable differences in skill structures among countries, and there is a strong path dependence in skill development. The findings suggest that skill convergence is unlikely to occur and that skill inequality among countries requires serious consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how different forms of digitalization affect inequality in Europe. Using a cross-national dataset of economic development and digitalization across a range of regression specifications including country and time fixed effects, this article explores the heterogeneous relationships of disparate forms of digitalization -- human capital, broadband connectivity, integration of digital technology into small and medium enterprises, and digital public services -- with income inequality. Fixed country and time effects models show that only the digitalization of human capital and integration of digital technology by SMEs are associated with decreases in income inequality. Causal mediation analysis reveals that tertiary education, despite its oft-cited connection to digital technology uptake, has no causal effect on the pathways through which digitalization of labour and SME operations lower inequality, which are direct. The findings tentatively suggest that there exist informal sources of digital skills training apart from formal tertiary education and point to SMEs as a potentially impactful area for investing in digitalization as pathways for income redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of entrepreneurship-related human capital in primary-school entrepreneurship education programs (EEPs) is of great interest to European policymakers. European education systems have widely implemented EEPs since the Oslo Agenda for entrepreneurship education in Europe was passed in 2006. However, primary-school EEPs remain an underresearched domain of entrepreneurship education. The present article investigates the development of entrepreneurship-related human capital in EEPs for 9-14-year-olds in 22 primary schools. It uses a quasi-experimental design with repeated measures. Based on data obtained from a sample of 180 participants, the analysis finds that the whole group partly improved only one of the components of human capital. However, the given EEPs positively impact the development of certain components of entrepreneurship-related human capital when investigated through the lens of entrepreneurial family background or gender. When subset by gender, results show that girls improved some components, while boys upgraded others. Also, pupils from entrepreneurial families improved more of the measured constructs than pupils from non-entrepreneurial families. The study provides valuable insights into the evolution of human capital among early adolescents in primary-school EEPs and uses human capital theory to explain this development. It also supplies evidence of the positive effect of EEPs on individuals of specific social groupings. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed and guidelines for further research are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental sustainability concerns are growing worldwide. Reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is crucial to combating global warming and reaching sustainable global economic development. Many recent studies have focused on key indicators of CO2 emissions, but less consideration has been given to associated factors such as renewable energy and human capital. This article applies the two-step system FOD-GMM (Forward-Orthogonal Deviations-Generalized Method of Moments) to estimate the role of renewable energy and human capital in reducing environmental degradation in Europe and Central Asia. The results reveal that renewable energy consumption and human capital have a significant negative impact on CO2 emissions in the EU and Central Asian countries, government efficiency has a positive effect on CO2 emissions, and economic development has a neutral effect, confirming the strong role of renewable energy and human capital in reducing CO2 emissions in EU and Central Asian countries. The role of human capital and renewable energy in promoting CO2 reduction should be fully utilized. Policymakers should develop infrastructure for renewable energy and education to support the decrease in CO2 emissions in Europe and Central Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relation between alcohol consumption and well‐being is a controversial issue. Although the deleterious effects of heavy alcohol consumption on health have been demonstrated, research found that moderate drinking may have positive effect on various dimensions of human capital. Our contribution to this debate is original. We provide new cross‐country evidence on the relation between alcohol consumption and well‐being controlling for a whole set of confounders. While binge drinking has an overall negative impact on well‐being, we also found a negative impact of complete abstinence. For drinkers, consumption of beer and wine have opposite effects: beer have a small but significant negative effect on well‐being but only in combination with binge drinking. The positive effect of the consumption of wine on subjective well‐being may be minimized or even ruled out by a higher frequency of binge drinking. [EconLit Citations: D12, I31, L66] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores theoretically, empirically, and quantitatively the role of age diversity in determining aggregate productivity and output. Age diversity has two conflicting effects on output. On the one hand, due to the complementarity between education and experience, age diversity may be beneficial. On the other hand, rapid skill-biased technological change makes age diversity costly as up-to-date education tends to be concentrated among younger cohorts. To study this trade-off, I first build an overlapping-generations (OLG) model which, in view of these two opposing forces, predicts a hump-shaped relationship between age diversity and GDP per capita. This prediction is established analytically, and also quantitatively using real-world population data in an extended computational version of the model. The prediction is then tested using country-level panel data with a novel instrument and regional data from Europe. Moving one standard deviation closer to the optimal level of age diversity is associated with a 1.5% increase in GDP per capita. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an age-group, young people are most at risk of poverty. Yet significant cross-national variation persists, which seems puzzling: the countries displaying the highest levels of youth poverty are (uncharacteristically) Nordic. How can such diversity be accounted for? Is the welfare state part of the story? First, I argue, unlike most studies, that in order to measure youth poverty it is better to use material deprivation and subjective poverty indicators, rather than income poverty. Second, I hypothesize that the welfare state has two potential routes to the alleviation of youth poverty. On the one hand, via 'individualization' of claims (allowing young people to claim benefits as full adult citizens), access to income support leads to lower levels of youth poverty. On the other, youth poverty levels can also be reduced through investment in young people's human capital, in line with the 'social investment' strategy. These claims are confirmed by multilevel logistic regressions on three waves and across 23 European countries of the Eurofound's European Quality of Life Survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finding pathways to enhance the resilience of farming systems (FSs) in Europe is key, given the increasing challenges threatening them. FSs are complex socio-ecological systems in which social and ecological components are strongly linked. Social actors have the capacity to shape the FSs' resilience, but there is a knowledge gap about how they can best do it. The aim of this paper is to analyse the roles played by the actors in FSs when dealing with challenges and assess how these roles may contribute to the resilience attributes (conditions that enable resilience) and resilience capacities (robustness, adaptability, and transformability). To this end, ten focus groups have been conducted across FSs in Europe. Results suggest that each actor in the FSs can shape and strengthen different resilience attributes which in turn result in combinations of resilience capacities that are specific to the FS. Thus, enabling resilience is best accomplished with actors taking different roles and jointly configuring the most adequate combination of capacities, which differs across FSs. This paper provides a set of resilience-enabling roles that delineate the pathways to make FSs more resilient. The diversity of actors and resilience-enabling pathways require flexible, coordinated and comprehensive policies that encompass the complexity of the socio-ecological systems. • Enabling resilience of farming systems is best accomplished with actors taking different roles. • Improving farming systems' resilience requires enhancing their transformability capacity. • The actors enhance resilience by reinforcing human capital, response diversity, social organization and learning. • This paper provides a set of resilience-enabling roles that delineate the pathways to make farming systems more resilient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]