Economics, Finance and Management Review

THE CZECH REPUBLIC’S NATIONAL ENERGY AND CLIMATE PLAN: PATHWAYS TO DECARBONIZATION, ENERGY SECURITY, AND INDUSTRIAL TRANSFORMATION

Dmytro Tkach — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0300

The energy transformation of Central European countries is becoming critically important in the context of achieving the EU’s climate goals and ensuring energy security following the geopolitical upheavals of 2022. The Czech Republic, as one of the most carbon-intensive economies in the EU with a coal share of approximately 40% in its energy mix, faces unique challenges in balancing the needs of its energy-intensive industry with its environmental commitments to the European community. The approval of the updated National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) in December 2024, after prolonged delays and the threat of sanctions from the European Commission, marked a key milestone in shaping the country’s long-term energy transition strategy. The purpose of the study is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the updated Czech NECP and assess its impact on the country’s energy transformation by 2030, with a perspective toward 2050, including mechanisms for achieving European climate goals. The research object encompasses the strategic priorities, target indicators, and institutional mechanisms for implementing Czech energy policy in the context of the requirements of EU Regulation 2018/1999 on the Governance of the Energy Union. The research methodology is based on a systemic analysis of official Czech government documents, expert assessments by the European Commission, and statistical data from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, employing methods of structural analysis of energy strategies, comparative analysis of European energy planning practices, and evaluation of the compliance of national plans with European directives. The study findings indicate that the plan envisages a fundamental restructuring of the energy sector, increasing the share of renewable energy sources from the current 18% to over 30% by 2030 and a complete phase-out of coal-based generation by 2033. Consequently, in sectors covered by the EU Emissions Trading System, the Czech Republic plans to reduce emissions by 63% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, surpassing the EU-wide target of 55%. For instance, total investments in the energy transformation are estimated at 2.8 trillion Czech crowns, with projected additional GDP growth of 2% and the creation of new jobs in the clean technology sector. As a result of the plan’s implementation, the country’s energy dependence on imports is expected to decrease from 40% to 26% by 2050, significantly enhancing national energy security. The practical value of the study lies in identifying effective mechanisms for coordinating industrial and environmental policies, tools for financing the green transition, and strategies for addressing socio-economic challenges in coal-dependent regions, which can serve as a practical model for other industrialized countries in Central and Eastern Europe during their energy transition.

HYBRID THREATS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: CHALLENGES AND RESPONSES IN THE CONTEXT OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Iryna Mazur — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0300

Hybrid threats have become a defining challenge for economic development, representing a complex combination of cyberattacks, disinformation, economic pressure, energy dependence, and political manipulation. Their strength lies in the synergy between instruments of influence, amplified by digital transformation, which increases exposure to manipulation, data breaches, and disruptions of critical infrastructure. The article aims to determine how hybrid threats shape economic development within a digital environment and to outline strategic responses that strengthen resilience and sustain growth. The study characterizes hybrid threats as multidimensional and cross-sectoral; analyzes mechanisms that link micro-level disruptions to macro-level outcomes (investment, markets, innovation, trust); identifies highly exposed sectors (finance, energy, telecommunications, critical infrastructure); and systematizes countermeasures by integrating technological safeguards, institutional arrangements, and policy instruments. It further contributes a framework mapping threat vectors to economic transmission channels and resilience levers, an operational indicator set combining digital signals with traditional statistics, and a sector-sensitive template for risk and resilience scoring with a forward research agenda. The analysis indicates diversified hybrid-campaign pressure across regions and a pronounced escalation in Ukraine, translating into measurable pressures on investment attractiveness, market stability, and digital-infrastructure reliability. The evidence supports integrated detection, attribution, and mitigation that spans technical, informational, and policy layers. The article underscores the need for whole-of-society responses that align international cooperation, governance mechanisms, and technological innovation. Strengthening cross-border resilience and hardening digital infrastructure operate as pro-growth measures, while the proposed framework and indicator set provide practical guidance for building resilient, adaptive, and secure economic systems in an interconnected world.

FINANCIAL LITERACY IN POLAND: MACROECONOMIC DRIVERS, RISK FACTORS AND POLICY RESPONSES

Robert Jurczak — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0300

Poland’s recent macro-financial landscape, shaped by the 2022 inflation shock, swift policy-rate increases, and record levels of household arrears, has intensified the social and economic consequences of low financial literacy. A growing body of evidence also points to pronounced deficits in digital financial competence, especially in the contexts of BNPL usage and cryptocurrency awareness. The aim of this study is to synthesize current evidence on financial literacy in Poland, diagnose the most critical behavioral and digital gaps, and propose a framework for implementing the National Strategy for Financial Education (NSFE) with clear key performance indicators for the period 2025-2030. Methodologically, the paper undertakes an integrative review of Polish and international sources-including OECD/INFE profiles, successive NBP survey waves, and industry statistics on arrears-and triangulates these with structured policy-design elements covering governance, standards, and behavioral safeguards. Narrative insights are explicitly connected to tabulated evidence on the macroeconomic setting, risk factors, KPIs, and groups at heightened risk. Findings indicate that while overall adult financial literacy in Poland hovers near the OECD average, substantial digital “blind spots” remain: only a minority of adults meet minimum digital thresholds and many misinterpret the legal status of crypto assets. Macroeconomic indicators for 2020–2024 reveal inflation volatility, a steep interest-rate cycle from 0.10% to 6.75%, and a new peak in overdue household debt, all of which amplify the cost of poor financial choices. The analysis highlights behaviorally driven vulnerabilities – BNPL fragmentation, insufficient emergency buffers, and exposure to phishing – and links them to priority cohorts such as youth entering the labor market, households already in arrears, and migrants. In response, the paper outlines an NSFE-aligned implementation toolkit comprising national outcome standards, a public registry and quality label for programs, just-in-time digital nudges such as standardized total-cost-of-credit calculators, default limits, and cooling-off periods, and an annual Financial Literacy Scorecard with open microdata and KPI targets through 2030. Embedding digital literacy, debt hygiene, and targeted support within a coordinated NSFE ecosystem can reduce arrears, bolster resilience to shocks, and increase participation in long-term savings. Immediate priorities include piloting design-tested interventions, expanding teacher and counselor capacity, and institutionalizing impact evaluation to guide iterative policy refinement.

CAPITAL STRUCTURE AND FIRM PERFORMANCE IN DIFFERENT ECONOMIC CONDITION

Ananya Sharma — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0300

Agency theory suggests that debt can mitigate agency problems between managers and shareholders while influencing firm value. This study investigates the relationship between capital structure and firm performance, with a particular focus on the moderating roles of economic growth and corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure. The study adopts a conceptual-empirical design. First, a narrative synthesis of the capital-structure and stakeholder/CSR literatures is used to articulate testable propositions about the baseline leverage–performance link and moderating roles of GDP growth and CSR disclosure. Second, these propositions are empirically validated on a balanced panel of Bombay Stock Exchange–listed manufacturing firms (2011–2019), combining firm financials with macro indicators and hand-collected CSR disclosure. Estimation relies on firm- and year-fixed effects with robust errors, supplemented by robustness checks (alternative performance proxies) and endogeneity-sensitive specifications (e.g., dynamic panels). The empirical findings reveal that capital structure is negatively related to firm performance, consistent with agency theory predictions. However, this negative association is attenuated in periods of strong economic growth and among firms with higher levels of CSR disclosure, suggesting that favorable macroeconomic conditions and transparent stakeholder engagement can offset the costs associated with higher leverage. These results highlight the importance of contextual factors in shaping the capital structure–performance nexus. By incorporating data from India, this study contributes fresh evidence from a major emerging economy and provides new insights into how external conditions and voluntary disclosure practices moderate financial outcomes. For Indian manufacturing firms, higher leverage generally depresses profitability, but its impact is context-dependent: strong macro growth and credible CSR reporting mitigate the drag of debt. Managerially, prudent financing should be paired with operational discipline, high-quality CSR disclosure, and macro-aware debt timing. Future research should extend the framework across sectors and countries, incorporate market-based performance measures (e.g., Tobin’s Q), strengthen identification (e.g., instruments for leverage/CSR or system-GMM), and trace mechanisms - cost of capital, customer/employee responses - through which growth and disclosure temper leverage-related risks.

FINANCIAL AND DIGITAL LITERACY OF YOUTH IN POLAND: RATIONALE AND DIRECTIONS OF DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

Igor Britchenko — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0300

The article substantiates the urgency of strengthening financial and digital literacy among Polish youth in the context of rapid digitalization, the diffusion of BNPL products, and rising household arrears. It distinguishes between conventional financial literacy and its digital dimension and frames a strategy-oriented inquiry that links competencies to decision points in real interfaces. The aim of the article is to substantiate the necessity of developing a comprehensive strategy for enhancing financial and digital literacy among youth in Poland, to identify the key problem areas that hinder the effective transfer of knowledge into practical behavior, and to outline strategic directions for curriculum design, digital safeguards, and equity-oriented monitoring. A structured desk review integrates Polish empirical evidence with competence descriptors for children and youth. Findings are mapped to four core domains (money and transactions; planning and managing finances; risk and reward; financial landscape) plus a transversal digital axis and are translated into performance tasks and indicators that allow disaggregation by educational track and locality. The article confirms comparatively solid conceptual knowledge alongside weak behavioral transfer, particularly in budgeting under income variability, building an emergency buffer, and interpreting the total cost of credit; in the digital sphere, binding constraints concern phishing resilience, permissions/data-consent management, provider verification, and interface navigation. Persistent gaps by school track and locality justify differentiated curricular carriers. These findings inform a strategy built on curriculum integration, digital-safety training, and “just-in-time” market tools (standardized total-cost calculators, BNPL checklists, aggregate-debt warnings), supported by partnerships with regulators and industry and by an annual Youth FDL Scorecard. Pairing practice-oriented instruction with embedded digital safeguards can translate knowledge into measurable behavior and reduce equity gaps. The article sets out concrete three-year targets and a scorecard architecture aligned with European frameworks to ensure transparent monitoring and continuous improvement.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF ACCOUNTING AND ANALYTICAL PROCESSES IN UKRAINE: TRENDS, CHALLENGES, AND SECURITY IMPERATIVES (2020–2025)

Vira Shepeliuk — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0300

The study addresses the global digitalization of business processes and its implications for transforming traditional accounting and taxation, emphasizing the rise of ICT, cloud services, and ERP-class systems (notably BAS) alongside heightened risks in information security, data quality, and regulatory compliance under martial law in Ukraine. The article aims to identify the features of digital transformation of accounting and analytical processes in enterprises, assess the impact of cloud technologies, BAS corporate information systems, and IFRS online reporting standards (Inline XBRL) on management efficiency, and develop proposals to strengthen information security amid crisis dynamics and global challenges. A combined systemic–functional approach is applied: the systemic lens situates technologies, institutions, and human capital as interrelated elements, while the functional lens focuses on practical deployment in accounting and taxation. Comparative analysis of international practices and Ukrainian cases (Diia, EDM adoption, fintech) is complemented by statistical indicators and a desk review of scholarly sources; qualitative assessment captures wartime adaptations. From 2020 to 2025, Ukraine expanded e-services and digital documents via Diia, advanced cashless payments and e-commerce, modernized telecom infrastructure, improved digital literacy, and widened business uptake of cloud/ERP/CRM and analytics, enhancing transparency and productivity. Simultaneously, cyber resilience and continuity of critical services strengthened, while convergence with European standards progressed. Persistent challenges include regional disparities, skills shortages, and regulatory harmonization needs. Sustainable digitalization requires integrating systemic, processual, functional, and spatio-temporal perspectives to ensure technological adoption, institutional readiness, legal standards, human capital development, and reinforced cyber resilience. Future work should prioritize inclusive access, interoperability of ERP/BAS and EDM, and governance measures that align security and compliance with innovation during crises.

THE IMPACT OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE ON DIVIDEND POLICY: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM TUNISIAN LISTED COMPANIES

Mohamed Aymen Ben Moussa, Amira El Feidi — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0300

Corporate governance has emerged as a central determinant of financial policy, influencing not only strategic decision-making but also firms’ approaches to dividend distribution. Dividend policy represents a critical choice between profit retention and shareholder remuneration, carrying implications for signaling, agency costs, and stakeholder protection. While international studies highlight diverse and sometimes contradictory links between governance and payouts, evidence from North African markets remains limited. This study investigates the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on dividend policy among Tunisian listed companies. The primary aim is to determine whether board characteristics, ownership structures, and monitoring bodies significantly shape dividend decisions, or whether such policies are largely explained by financial and macroeconomic conditions. A balanced panel dataset of 30 non-financial firms listed on the Tunisian Stock Exchange over the period 2015–2024 (300 firm-year observations) is employed. Static panel estimation methods are used, with both fixed- and random-effects specifications assessed. The Hausman test supports the use of fixed-effects estimators, while multicollinearity diagnostics confirm the robustness of results.The findings reveal that board independence, CEO duality, ownership concentration, and profitability (ROA) are positively and significantly associated with dividend payouts. In contrast, audit committee size, managerial ownership, leverage, and inflation exert negative effects, highlighting the constraining roles of insider control, debt commitments, and macroeconomic pressures. Other governance attributes, including board size, gender diversity, and firm size, show no significant impact. The study concludes that dividend policy in Tunisia is simultaneously governance- and constraint-driven, reflecting the interaction of monitoring structures, insider incentives, and financial conditions. These results contribute to the broader literature by demonstrating that governance quality and structural ownership arrangements decisively shape payout outcomes in emerging markets. From a policy perspective, strengthening independent oversight and fostering transparency in ownership could enhance dividend discipline and investor confidence. Future research may compare these findings with other emerging economies or explore dynamic models of payout adjustment.

INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT OF INTERNET MARKETING EFFECTIVENESS IN THE DIGITAL ECONOMY

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0300

In the digital economy, evaluating Internet marketing effectiveness is pivotal for aligning strategic goals with market dynamics. European firms typically embed advanced analytics (Big Data, AI, GDPR-aware data practices) within mature CRM ecosystems, whereas many Ukrainian enterprises are still consolidating analytical infrastructure, KPI standards, and digital competencies. This asymmetry underscores the need for integrated, comparable assessment frameworks across contexts. The article aims to systematize scientific approaches to assessing Internet marketing effectiveness and to justify an integrated indicator - the EMD (Efficiency of Marketing in Digital)—that aggregates financial, behavioral, and perceptual metrics for comprehensive evaluation and inter-firm comparison. A mixed-methods design combines a narrative review of contemporary scholarship on performance measurement in digital marketing with a comparative analysis (2022–2024) using open company reports, advertising platform data (e.g., Google Ads, Meta Business Suite), and secondary industry sources. Quantitative procedures include normalization and weighted aggregation of KPIs (ROI, CLV, CAC, CR, RR, NPS) into the composite EMD index; qualitative interpretation considers market positioning and strategic objectives. The study confirms a shift from fragmented, finance-only metrics to integrated KPI systems that capture profitability (ROI), customer economics (CLV/CAC), funnel quality (CR), loyalty (RR), and advocacy (NPS). The proposed EMD metric consolidates these dimensions, enabling transparent benchmarking and strategy adjustment. Testing the model on leading Ukrainian telecom operators demonstrates discriminative power: firms investing in segmentation, personalization, automation, and advanced CRM outperform peers on ROMI, retention, and the composite EMD score; those relying on price competition without robust analytics lag on CLV and NPS. The EMD framework thus supports real-time control, cross-company comparison, and evidence-based optimization of marketing resources. An integrated, data-driven assessment architecture is essential for strategic management of Internet marketing. The EMD index operationalizes this architecture by unifying key indicators into a single, scalable measure that enhances decision quality and transparency. Future research should validate EMD across sectors and countries, calibrate weighting schemes under GDPR-like constraints, link metric movements to causal interventions (e.g., AI-based personalization), and explore predictive variants of EMD for proactive budget allocation and customer journey orchestration.

A CONCEPTUAL STUDY ON THE RELATİONSHİP BETWEEN ORGANİZATİONAL POLİCY, STRATEGİC PLANNİNG, AND BUSİNESS ETHİCS İN COMPANİES

Bozkurt Kağan Aktürk, Recep Yücel, Şebnem Yücel — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0300

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in managerial practice and heightened the importance of three interdependent pillars of corporate resilience: strategic planning, organizational policy, and business ethics. Sustainable functioning depends not only on financial stabilization but also on the coherence of these pillars in decision-making under uncertainty. The aim of the article is to theoretically substantiate and systematize the relationships among organizational policy, strategic planning, and business ethics in companies, demonstrating how their alignment shapes responsible conduct and long-term competitiveness. The study is conceptual and relies on a narrative review of interdisciplinary literature in management, strategy, and ethics. It synthesizes classic and contemporary approaches, compares the roles of the “strategy formulation—implementation—evaluation” stages, specifies boundary conditions (crisis contexts, stakeholder pressures), and derives propositions about mutual influences among the three pillars. Strategic planning sets mission, vision, and priorities, ensuring fit between organizational capabilities and the external environment; organizational policy translates these choices into operational rules, incentives, and controls; business ethics serves as a normative filter that constrains opportunism, reduces ethical dilemmas, and builds stakeholder trust. Their interaction is described as a cyclical “communicating vessels” dynamic: changes in one dimension propagate to the others, while ethics permeates the entire cycle—from goal selection to acceptable means and accountability. In crisis conditions, transparent and fair policies concerning employees, customers, and suppliers strengthen legitimacy and execution quality, thereby improving strategic outcomes. Sustainable effectiveness is unattainable without embedding ethics into the architecture of strategy and policies; treating ethics as peripheral compliance is insufficient. Future research should empirically test the proposed model across sectors and cultures, examine digital-era mechanisms (data governance, AI oversight) that operationalize ethical constraints within policies, and analyze post-pandemic institutional shifts in the ethics–strategy–policy nexus, linking them to measurable execution and performance indicators.

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO ASSESSING CORPORATE REPUTATION AND ECONOMIC SECURITY OF ENTERPRISES

Igor Korzhevskyi — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0300

This article systematizes methodological approaches to assessing the economic security of enterprises and their corporate reputation, treating reputation as a multidimensional, stakeholder-oriented intangible asset that shapes performance, consumer behavior, and competitive positioning. The aim of the article is to synthesize core approaches and conceptual foundations of reputation assessment and to organize practical methods and limitations into a coherent, decision-useful framework. Methodologically, the study integrates stakeholder-centered perspectives with quantitative and qualitative indicators, multidisciplinary lenses (management, marketing, social psychology), and sensitivity to the dynamic, evolving character of reputation. It summarizes sector-specific contingencies and consolidates principal methods - reputation indices and rankings, stakeholder surveys and interviews, media and content analysis (including sentiment and thematic analysis), social-media and digital analytics, reputation audits, and economic-impact analysis - highlighting their complementary roles in benchmarking, real-time monitoring, internal diagnostics, and financial linkage. The main results include a structured conceptual basis for reputation evaluation; a systematization of theoretical frameworks (stakeholder theory, resource-based view, social identity theory, signaling theory) and their instruments; and a synthesis of key challenges such as subjectivity and bias, data quality and availability, the dynamic and context-specific nature of reputation, and the integration of digital with traditional metrics. The conclusion underscores the need for adaptive, context-dependent methodologies that triangulate multiple data sources, employ longitudinal and event-based designs, and leverage real-time analytics to capture inflection points. The perspectives emphasize continuous refinement to integrate ESG considerations, tailor indicators to industry conditions, and apply advanced diagnostics for early-warning detection - thereby enabling organizations to sustain and enhance reputational capital in an interconnected environment.