While targeting waste reduction and maintaining the value of products and resources in the system as much as possible, undertaking circular economy practices at the company level is a way of ...achieving entrepreneurial sustainability. This paper explores entrepreneurial decision models for adopting circular economy practices, focusing on European SMEs. Decision tree models are applied on data from Flash Eurobarometer 441 in order to uncover business strategies in relation to the implementation of circular economy practices at the company level and with the optimal level and nature of investments in the circular economy for improving economic performances of companies. The main findings of the article offer a better understanding of the relation between characteristics of European SMEs and their decisions in the field of circular economy. Such results are relevant from both macro and micro perspectives, as they can be used for customizing circular economy programs and intervention strategies for various groups of SMEs, as well as for supporting sustainable entrepreneurial decisions.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically shaped higher education and seen the distinct rise of e-learning as a compulsory element of the modern educational landscape. Accordingly, this ...study highlights the factors which have influenced how students perceive their academic performance during this emergency changeover to e-learning. The empirical analysis is performed on a sample of 10,092 higher education students from 10 countries across 4 continents during the pandemic's first wave through an online survey. A structural equation model revealed the quality of e-learning was mainly derived from service quality, the teacher's active role in the process of online education, and the overall system quality, while the students' digital competencies and online interactions with their colleagues and teachers were considered to be slightly less important factors. The impact of e-learning quality on the students' performance was strongly mediated by their satisfaction with e-learning. In general, the model gave quite consistent results across countries, gender, study fields, and levels of study. The findings provide a basis for policy recommendations to support decision-makers incorporate e-learning issues in the current and any new similar circumstances.
Students' commitment and engagement in the educational process are shaped by a dense combination of factors, with effects on educational attainment and on the length of their educational careers. ...Decisions of prolonging education by enrolling in master's degrees are beneficial for both individuals and societies, as such programs provide higher levels of specialized skills Longer educational careers are favored by a mix of factors acting at the level of individual, university, or wider environment. We focus our study on exploring factors conducive for students' intentions to pursue master's degrees considering longer educational careers as desirable outcomes. Thus, this article investigates how the individual and environmental factors interplay and shape the predisposition of students to prolong their educational career by enrolling in master's degrees. For this, we applied three-level logistic regression models for a sample of 502 students enrolled in their final year of bachelor studies grouped by universities and universities grouped by counties. The empirical results revealed that the final grade, the father level of education, the type of working contract, and job seniority are individual-level determinants influencing the decision of enrolment in a master's program. At the university level, the type of university and the university performance score positively impact the students' decision to enroll in a master's program. At the county level, the empirical evidence pointed out the significance of determinants such as the proportion of students enrolled in bachelor studies; participation rate in education and training; employment level in high-technology sectors (HTC), total-knowledge intensive sectors (KIS), and knowledge-intensive high-technology sectors (KIS_HTC); proportion of persons with tertiary education employed in science and technology; proportion of scientists and engineers; local development; R&D expenditure, personnel, and researchers in the business sector; average gross earnings; density of active firms; birth rate of companies; proportion of innovative enterprises or those introducing product innovations on the decision to enroll in a master's program.
Lung cancer ranks second worldwide after breast cancer and third in Europe after breast and colorectal cancers when both sexes and all ages are considered. In this context, the aim of this study was ...to emphasize the power of dual analysis of the molecular profile both in tumor tissue and plasma by NGS assay as a liquid biopsy approach with impact on prognosis and therapy modulation in NSCLC patients. NGS analysis was performed both from tissue biopsies and from cfNAs isolated from peripheral blood samples. Out of all 29 different mutations detectable by both NGS panels (plasma and tumor tissue), seven different variants (24.13%; EGFR L858R in two patients, KRAS G13D and Q61H and TP53 G244D, V197M, R213P, and R273H) were detected only in plasma and not in the tumor itself. These mutations were detected in seven different patients, two of them having known distant organ metastasis. Our data show that NGS analysis of cfDNA could identify actionable mutations in advanced NSCLC and, therefore, this analysis could be used to monitor the disease progression and the treatment response and even to modulate the therapy in real time.
Young people have to be provided with opportunities to access prosperous, resilient and fulfilling lives. Investing in education and skills is considered one of the most important ways to support ...young people’s well-being and to enable them to enjoy good career prospects. Using the framework of human capital theory, we explored the role of education among the factors explaining wage variation among Romanian youth. We built our analysis on micro-data for Romania from the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions 2020. In order to identify the most important factors influencing the wage distribution, we employed the elastic net regression approach. Moreover, we considered the phenomenon of expansion of education and ran the analysis by alternately using a traditional measure for education and a relative measure reflecting the theory of education as positional good. We ran the analysis for different cohorts of the population, focusing the discussion on the results for young people. Our findings confirm the importance of education for wage distribution together with other factors of influence, such as gender, degree of urbanization, region, sector of employment and working experience. Our conclusions are relevant for designing more effective educational and social policies to deal with various disadvantages faced by youth in Romania.
Perceived academic self-efficacy represents an important component of students’ mental health and well-being. The link between efficacy beliefs and level of academic performances relies on the fact ...that they regulate the anxiety and foster motivation, school engagement, effort, and perseverance of students. This paper aims to identify factors that are conducive for more efficacious beliefs in different socio-economic and educational contexts. We build our analysis on data collected from a sample of Romanian upper secondary education students on their beliefs in relation to their ability to perform at the baccalaureate exam. We employ decision tree models in order to unveil the way factors interact and predict perceived academic self-efficacy, with focus on the positive support received from parents and teachers, as well as on features of the school environment. Our results can be useful for building more resilient educational environments that support mental health and academic well-being of students.
While there is a rich literature on the school-to-work transition in developed countries, an equally robust literature is lacking for post-communist countries. We analyse the patterns of labour ...market entry of higher education graduates in several formerly communist countries by drawing on the HEGESCO data set, which provides information on the school-to-work transition of higher education graduates leaving education in 2002/2003 in four countries: Poland, Hungary, Lithuania and Slovenia. The results of Cox and logistic regressions show multiple differences among these countries in the speed of labour market entry, stability of the first job and education-job match among graduates. It is argued that a large amount of the variation among countries in the school-to-work transition can be attributed to differences in labour market circumstances.
Sustainable innovation at a company level drives economic, environmental and social improvement at a national level. Recent evidence has shown that businesses have increased the managerial attention ...and investments dedicated to sustainability. This paper aims to identify the most important drivers supporting companies to develop innovation activities oriented towards making the business models more sustainable. We explore microdata from the 2016 Innobarometer “EU Business Innovation Trends” (Flash Eurobarometer 433), covering 8635 companies from 29 countries. Using statistical classification methods, we identify the most important factors that are related to innovation activities that have the potential to shape the efficiency of raw material usage and environmental protection. The most relevant factors emphasized by our analysis are: innovation performance of the country (innovation), percentage of the company turnover invested in innovation activities, percentage of total turnover invested in acquisition of machines, equipment, software or licenses, percentage of total turnover invested in company reputation and branding, including web design, percentage of total turnover invested in software development.. Also, our analysis highlights the skills that are needed the most by companies in order to support their innovation activities targeting sustainability. Our results are useful for better understanding the attention that is given to sustainability by innovative companies, and what the main factors that boost innovation dedicated to sustainability are.
Resilience represents the ability of systems and individuals to adapt and overcome the difficulties and challenges they face. Resilient entrepreneurs are those who cope with stressful or adverse ...situations by relying on both internal and external factors. This article examines the way higher education graduates express entrepreneurial resilience in various national contexts. We analyze the Research into Employment and professional Flexibility (REFLEX) data set that provides information on early career of higher education graduates leaving education in the academic year 1999/2000 in 13 European countries. We study resilience in entrepreneurship by considering both how long higher education graduates succeed to remain in self-employment and the extent to which they re-entry in entrepreneurship after exiting. Survival analyses, logistic and cox regressions indicate important differences in patterns of starting, remaining and returning in self-employment and in factors influencing the retention in entrepreneurship among higher education graduates. It is argued that structural factors, personal characteristics and educational background explain a large amount of variation in resilient entrepreneurship.
Innovation and knowledge-intensive economy are considered crucial for addressing challenges and opportunities currently faced by Europe. The present paper aims to provide inputs for building a ...long-term vision aiming to promote innovation and knowledge economy for fostering smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. We analyze microdata from the 2016 Innobarometer “EU Business Innovation Trends” (Flash Eurobarometer 433), covering 14,112 companies from 30 countries in order to shed light on main drivers and results of business investments in innovation. We focus our analysis on high-tech industries and knowledge-intensive services. Additionally, expected positive impacts of innovation in knowledge-intensive sectors are explored in terms of job creation, digital economy, environment protection, health, transport, food quantity and quality, development of smart cities, etc. Our results are useful for designing an improved support for the emergence and impact of knowledge-intensive economy.
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