Regional Formation and Development Studies

The aim of this paper is to analyse the level of awareness and interest of parents and other relevant subjects in a new form of educational preparation for the inclusion of specially talented children, and the adequacy of its introduction to the market, through the analysis of demographic development at selected locations. The research in this area is very underdeveloped, because the focus is shifted towards the other end of the spectrum, and that is why we would like to draw attention to this problem via our article. In the introduction, the paper deals with the theoretical definition of social inclusion of gifted children and social entrepreneurship and its conditions in the Slovak Republic. In a separate chapter, the paper describes the methodology, data collection procedure, and sources and methods used, such as abstraction, comparison, and basic statistical and mathematical methods. Then exponential smoothing was used for prediction. We analysed through a survey the interest of parents and other relevant subjects, and the data collected was then synthesised. The last chapter presents the results of our work together with its limitations, and recommendations for future research. The whole idea of our preschool facility could be summarised in four words based on our results, namely, adequate, necessary, desirable and original. The paper serves to clarify and support the solution of our chosen research problem: education and the inclusion of above-average gifted children through social entrepreneurship.

The development process of any area is anfractuous. It is a multi-stage process. It starts with the area’s attractiveness, attractingresources, which are necessary for its development and ensures their preservation and retention for the area. When using theseresources optimally, efficiently and productively, area’s competitive advantages are achieved and, the area becomes competitive.Competitiveness is driving force and potential of growth of the territory. Growth facilitates quantitative changes of the resources,i.e. accumulation and development of resources, leading to state of development of the territory. The purpose of the process of territorialdevelopment is qualitative distribution and management of these resources aiming at achieving the concrete result – state ofdevelopment of the territory. In this article, the author structures stages of the territory development process in a definite sequencetaking into account earlier developed theoretical findings in this sphere, as well as she completes the layout of these stages with herown scientific view concerning the final aim of the territorial development to be achieved in the process of the development of theterritory. This aim is the territory’s state of development, which can be measured and compared, when considering success of theprocess of territorial development.

This article analyses the Maritime Sector economic grow impact to Lithuania’s economy from a Cluster perspective. The potential competitive Maritime industry Cluster in Lithuania is on interest because Lithuanian Maritime Sector is expanding its connections to the whole European region, going beyond the boundaries of anyone industry sector, is supported by EU Strategic documents, but the steps towards clustering still are tentative and negligible. Assessing the Maritime sector impact on Lithuania's economy, the total economic impact (direct and indirect) was calculated by using the following indicators: number of Employees, Turnover and Value Added at Production Cost (VAPC). The period for the evaluation of the statistical givens trends has been chosen for 5 years, according to Official 2007 – 2011 period statistical givens, provided by Department of Statistics.

Social enterprises are crucial for Europe and its economy. These enterprises significantly contribute to job creation (especially for socially sensitive groups) and accounts for about 6 % of GDP across the European Union. In Latvia the role of social entrepreneurship is underestimated. The research aim is: based on the international experiences regarding social entrepreneurship, to determine economic gains of social businesses in Latvia. During the first year of developing social enterprises (2015) in Latvia, it is envisaged to establish 250 social enterprises, in which in total 1250 people will be employed, of which 50 % will be individuals from socially sensitive groups. Thus, the social benefit burden in municipalities will decrease by EUR 61 thousand, while almost EUR 222 thousand will be collected by the national government. The total gain from social entrepreneurship will amount to EUR 1.5 million over a six year period (2015–2020).

Social entrepreneurship is becoming more and more popular as there is a growing share of people who would like to contribute for social enterprises and are ready to become customers of the social enterprises and in this way participate in reduction of poverty in the country and support entrepreneurship development. For social enterprise marketing communications to be effective, an understanding is necessary not only of the information channels which are most effective but also of the preferences customers hold regarding the information channels that they would like to receive information from. Purpose of research: to investigate the preferences for different information channels among customers of Latvian social enterprises. Research methods: scientific publications analysis, analysis of previous conducted research results, social enterprise customers’ survey conducted by Kristīne Casno. Results of research have indicated that regular customers of social enterprises prefer such information channels as social networks, followed by television and radio.