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Celebrating food has become an increasingly visible part of local and regional calendars worldwide. The rise of food festivals represents this trend. Food festivals have gained momentum for various entrepreneurs and producers, including farmers, fishermen, food manufacturers, food accessory producers, chefs, and restaurateurs. Much research is available on visitors (consumers) at food festivals, but knowledge about producers/vendors is almost absent. This study aims to bridge this research gap by reviewing and analyzing food producers' entrepreneurial intentions to participate in food festivals and the role and meaning of festival participation in their professional and individual development. The study is inspired by ideas about artisan entrepreneurship. It draws empirically on primary data from 58 in-depth interviews among vendors at three food festivals organized in Poland in the summer of 2020. The results show that food festivals offer creative ways to discover and exploit business opportunities where lifestyle and altruistic values can feasibly coexist with business goals. However, the study also reveals that some food producers/vendors are reluctant to change their product or marketing approaches or to redirect their entrepreneurial orientations based on the feedback received at the festivals and on the dilemmas they face. This study elaborates on the nature of such challenges and proposes policy recommendations to overcome them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of the article was to assess the financial resilience of agri-food companies operating in the Mazowieckie Voivodship between 2018 and 2020. An intermediate objective was additionally to assess the financial health of these entities. The study used descriptive statistics methods, ratio analysis, and Taffler's discrimination model. Empirical data were derived from annual financial statements downloaded from Dun & Bradstreet and EMIS databases. The results showed that between 2018 and 2020, most entities in the agri-food sector were doing very well and there was a low probability that their financial situation would deteriorate. It is worrying that during the period under analysis, there remained a considerable number of agri-food enterprises with a high probability of financial problems (Z-score below 0.2). This group of enterprises accounted for approximately 30% of the sample. Entities with an elevated risk of financial problems struggled with significant excess liquidity and recorded negative profitability ratios – ROS and ROA. Asset indebtedness was a factor strengthening the financial resilience of the entities under analysis. The results of the analyses can be the basis for deepening the methods for assessing resilience in the agricultural sector (e.g., as part of the CAP 2023–2027 evaluation). Future research should include, inter alia, the identification of differences in Z-score by company size or production type, as well as the identification of determinants of financial resilience in terms of other factors that have not been analyzed yet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the European Union, the course of the Community's energy and climate policy as well as changes in the objectives and priorities of the Common Agricultural Policy, as reflected, among others, in rural development programs subject to ex ante, environmental and ex post evaluation, should be considered. Individual EU countries are still implementing their own programs focused on improving energy efficiency, energy modernisation and supporting renewable energy, and they also intervene in the energy market on an ad hoc basis, as was the case after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. This article fits into such a broadly understood research perspective, and its primary goal is to identify the impact of the costs of energy consumption and the reimbursement of excise tax on motor fuels on the operational durability and financial sustainability of 103 farms belonging to the Polish FADN network, which in 2017–2021 implemented modernisation projects under the rural development program. Logistic and linear multivariate regression were used to estimate the strength, direction and significance of correlation relationships. It was found that relative energy costs were significantly negatively correlated with financial sustainability only in the linear model, while the impact of excise tax return was positive but not significant. Thus, an empirical proof of the advisability of a possible public intervention aimed at making farmers' access to energy cheaper was obtained. All public interventions in agricultural energy use should be subject to careful and systematic ex ante, mid-term and ex post assessments based on sound program theory. It is necessary to identify the cause-and-effect chains, in which the regression proposed in the article may be helpful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to identify the resilience capabilities of farmers from the Western Pomerania region in response to emerging economic, social and environmental challenges. Design/methodology/approach: The research used literature studies and quantitative surveys. This study used a set of primary data obtained by direct survey using a structured survey questionnaire. The survey was conducted in 2022. This study focuses on the concept of thinking about resilience. Findings: The subjective assessment of resilience (past, current and future) as well as its components showed that farm managers are aware of the formation of this economic and organizational category. Resilience was most frequently associated by respondents with adaptive capacity and least frequently indicated a link with transformation. It should be considered as worrying that the same percentage of farmers stated that the farm is and will be resilient to external factors. This indicates that farmers do not treat the category of resilience as a process that changes over time. Methods/techniques for strengthening resilience as one of the three dimensions mainly include those relating to the payment of current liabilities (equating current financial resilience with liquidity), long-term financial resilience, provisioning and the use of insurance (mainly crop insurance). Research limitations/implications: The research adopted a purposive sampling method, which has its limitations. Originality/value: The research contributes to the long-standing discussion on identifying pathways to improve the ability of agricultural actors to survive and recover from shocks in the light of the growing challenges of today's world, and to develop strategies and policies for the resilience of agriculture and related systems in the context of economic, social, and environmental challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The study aimed to present the entrepreneurial intentions of students and to identify factors that motivate and limit these initiatives. Design/methodology/approach: The research used literature studies and quantitative surveys. This study used a set of primary data obtained by a direct survey using a structured survey questionnaire. The survey was conducted in 2019. The respondents were students of economic studies from the Koszalin University of Technology. Findings: Many students are willing to start a business in the future. They are motivated, in particular, by the desire for greater professional independence and the opportunity to implement their business ideas. Students see self-employment as an opportunity to earn a higher income. The challenge in starting a business is the lack of sufficient financial resources and the lack of sufficient knowledge and skills in running a business. Increasing students' motivation to start a business is possible by improving existing policies to support entrepreneurship, especially among young people. In addition, an important element that can stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit among students is adapting teaching programs to students' needs in terms of acquiring practical skills in starting and running their enterprise, including deepening knowledge in the field of financial knowledge and skills. Research limitations/implications: The research adopted a purposive sampling method, which has its limitations. Practical implications: The research results may serve as an inspiration for further analyzes of factors determining the initiatives of entrepreneurial students, and may also be used in practice by various types of organizations supporting entrepreneurial initiatives among young people at the local, regional and national level. Originality/value: The article extends research on student entrepreneurship by presenting an international comparison of student entrepreneurship motives and challenges in developed and developing countries and enriches existing research on the identification of entrepreneurial initiatives among Polish students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to advance the understanding of the experience-satisfaction relationship and the impact of the event context on such a relationship. In particular, there is an interplay between four dimensions of experience (i.e. affective, cognitive, physical, and novel) and satisfaction. The current study builds upon a primary dataset consisting of 1599 responses obtained from visitors attending two leisure activities, namely, a sport event and a music festival in Norway. The results show that the four experience dimensions' direct effects on satisfaction differ between the two types of activities. The impact of affective engagement on satisfaction is significantly higher at the music festival than at the sport event, and the impact of cognitive engagement on satisfaction is significant at the sport event but not at the music festival. This paper highlights the importance of carefully managing events and festival engagement profiles to improve visitor satisfaction. Furthermore, it contributes to the literature by showing that the values assigned by respondents to cognitive, physical, and novel engagement differ significantly between sport events and music festivals and are contextually dependent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]