Regional Formation and Development Studies

Importance of sustainable coastal governance also in the Baltic sea region has been widely recognised and since such governance has to have integrative nature that requires horizontal cross-sectorial integration as well as involvement of all governance levels and subsequently organisation of vertical integration among the levels. Besides some succesfull local cases around Europe, mainly special outside projects based, there is to be recognized that the municipal integrated sustainable coastal governance has not been yet neither well and widely locally developed in practice nor sufficiently researched field in order to permit necessary design of adequate policy innovations. Practical development and local realisation of the municipal integrated coastal governance often encounters obstacles of the basic nature, e.g. because there are not sufficiently understood and applied cross- and trans-disciplinary approaches – studies and governance of the coastal territories as the complex social-ecological systems (SES). For understanding the process and structure of coastal governance, application of system thinking and system dynamics methods are to be emphasized as well. The paper demonstrates adaptation of coastal nature studies based System Analysis Framework (SAF) methodology for its application to coastal governance studies and general municipal governance system adjusting and upgrading towards coastal issues, what could be seen as the new step for SAF further planned developments. As the part of the EU BONUS programme BaltCoast project, the authors performed, including main stakeholders participation elements, the issue identification step, system definition and also a conceptual model building steps of the SAF methodology application in the particular, local governance innovations rich, case study territory – Salacgriva municipality in Latvia. Coastal governance problems in Latvia are especially relevant for rural coastal municipalities with limited administrative capacities and long and low populated coastline territories. The next SAF application steps will include development of coastal governance system scenarios using a systems modelling tool and the design and testing of complementary set of governance instruments as science-policy interface, that shall support sustainable use of coastal resources in the interests of coastal nature and culture protection, and local socio-economic development.

The purpose of the article is to identify the key factors influencing socially responsible consumption and the reasons why consumers do not choose products of socially responsible companies. The article highlights two dimensions of socially responsible consumption: environmental dimension (avoidance to buy products that have a negative impact on the environment) and public dimension (avoidance to buy product of companies who have a negative impact on the welfare of the public). Consumer decisions when purchasing goods are more selfish than justified in the public interest. This is why socially responsible consumption is motivated when users see the benefits for themselves. Users almost always give priority to products with better functional features.An analysis of the literature proves that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is not the dominant criteria in making purchase decisions of consumers. CSR is less important than the other purchase criteria such as price, quality, reliability, customer service, product warranty period, etc. The main reasons, which restrict socially responsible consumption are misconception of consumers, the perception that they have not much power to solve global problems, as well as lack of income, education and information about socially responsible consumption.

The paperwork provides formulas for measuring value (created through CSR) gained by company, its partners (members of VCC) and employees. As far as expert survey confirmed, customers gained value generally might be evaluated by more favourable purchase decision and justification of higher price. Therefore it is suggested to pay main attention on customer’s gained use value – the value which is expressed through more favourable purchase decision and justification of higher price is already calculated as value gained by company.

Nowadays, managing co-creation has become an important topic among practitioners and researchers, but there has been little research on addressing and managing the challenges faced by the complexity of co-creation. The paper argues that co-creation should also be understood as a complex, dynamic phenomenon. The purpose of the paper is to summarise and classify extant research into co-creation. The paper reviews complexity as a new way of understanding co-creation processes for corporate social responsibility in business. A review of the literature has established that corporate social responsibility, along with the complexity of co-creation, can produce successful results for businesses.

The relevance and importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) have long been recognised in the business sector. Previous research has shown that CSR has a positive impact on a company’s financial performance, value, reputation, brand image, customer loyalty, and a variety of other factors. CSR has been studied from a variety of viewpoints, with the bulk of studies focusing on the meso-level dimensions of CSR. The number of studies on micro-level CSR processes has so far been limited, but has recently increased. For CSR to be effective, it is necessary to understand the correlation of the processes on both levels. The purpose of the research is to investigate CSR micro-level processes and their impact on meso-level performance, with additional attention to the hospitality industry. Research methods: analysis of scientific publications, analysis of previously conducted research and results, and other scholarly literature. The results of this study indicate that the micro-level processes of the stakeholder groups involved, mostly customers and employees, have a direct impact on internal and external CSR initiatives and their meso-level outcomes, which might be both positive and negative. The results also indicate a possible research gap, as the number of studies on micro-level CSR processes in hospitality has so far been limited, and the findings cannot be considered exhaustive or conclusive.