Klaipėdos universitetas

Economic sustainability based on the triple bottom line is not new, but topical in the scientific discussion on the development of economic growth. International organisations globally, together with governments, budget an increase in funding for education as the main tool for sustainable annual economic growth. On the other hand, it is difficult to measure the outcome of financial effort, as it is an intangible asset. The current research is based on interviews with 20 professors and 20 students at Klaipėda University and LCC International University, to learn how they understand their role in economic development, and to verify the dependency of their desire to contribute more to their awareness. The findings of the qualitative research show that productivity by both students and educators depends on their awareness of their economic role. On the other hand, as the study shows the limitation of participants’ perception of their economic role, its promotion is suggested.

The ar­ti­cle ad­vo­cates the prin­ci­ples of So­cial Econ­omy (SE) as pos­si­bil­ity to de­velop in­no­va­tive so­cial tech­nolo­gies for the so­cial co­he­sion of so­ci­ety in situa­tion of eco­nomic break­down. The con­cept of So­cial Econ­omy can be con­sid­ered as Eu­ro­pean tra­di­tion and chal­l­enge for ap­ply­ing and find­ing sus­tain­able forms of so­cial in­clu­sion on na­tional level. The purpose and the ob­­ject of the study is to in­ves­ti­gate, which spheres and prin­ci­ples of SE are evi­dent in the ac­tivi­ties of com­mu­nity ini­tia­tives in Lat­via thus es­tab­lish­ing the rec­og­ni­tion level of con­cep­tual un­der­stand­ing and prac­tice of So­cial Econ­omy in na­tional con­text among the Third Sec­tor ac­tivi­ties in Lat­via and spe­ci­fi­cally non-profit move­ments. The overview of selected community initiatives showed there are initiatives that could be (1) placed in the sphere of productive economy on the scale of a community (2) by the very marginal people involved in initiatives, (3) administered as small businesses, (4) controlled by the people involved with democratic means of decision-making and (5) supported by social services and social workers, in order to overcome social exclusion.