Despite recent progress in measuring entrepreneurial activity in the entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) of cities and regions in developed countries, the ‘black box’ of entrepreneurial ecosystem elements remains largely unexplored in emerging economies. This study addresses this gap by developing and comparing latent dimensions of entrepreneurial ecosystems using partial least squares analysis applied to perception-based data on the quality of entrepreneurship. The dataset contains survey responses from 1789 ecosystem stakeholders with different roles within the EE across seventeen cities in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Our exploratory analysis identifies four strongly associated ecosystem dimensions emerging from stakeholders’ perceptions: quadruple helix collaboration (university–industry–government–formal networks); informal networks; culture; and the perceived rate and quality of entrepreneurship, highlighting the systemic and complex nature of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Also, we highlight that EE effectiveness depends not on isolated dimensions but on how government – as a key bridging mechanism – enables complementarities across formal and informal layers of EEs. Implications for entrepreneurs and policymakers are discussed.
After the 2008 economic crisis, the European Union promoted a regulatory framework aimed at correcting fiscal imbalances and strengthening economic stability, which in Spain resulted in the approval of Organic Law no. 2/2012 on Budgetary Stability and Financial Sustainability. In this context, this study analyzes the relationship between financial sustainability and compliance with Sustainable Development Goal 8, focused on economic growth and decent work within the 2030 Agenda. A descriptive and explanatory analysis is conducted on a sample of 103 Spanish municipalities with more than 80,000 inhabitants in 2020. The results indicate that higher GDP levels and lower current expenditure per capita are positively associated with SDG 8’s performance. Additionally, higher unemployment rates may improve the financial capacity of local governments by reducing economic activity and the demand for public services. Overall, the findings show that financial sustainability alone does not guarantee better SDG 8 outcomes, highlighting the need for efficient, responsible, and results-oriented public management.
Public sector organizations increasingly struggle to attract and retain skilled personnel, especially in emerging economies where private and nonprofit employers offer strong alternatives. Although employer attractiveness has been widely studied in corporate contexts, less is known about how public organizations can strengthen their appeal. Drawing on signaling theory, this paper examines how observable organizational practices shape perceptions of public employer attractiveness. Survey data from 207 Romanian public sector employees were analyzed using PLS-SEM, complemented by cIPMA. The results identify professional development, compensation, and a supportive work environment as key drivers of attractiveness, while work–life balance, CSR, and organizational culture operate mainly through indirect pathways. The study extends signaling theory to a resource-constrained public sector context and identifies practical priorities for improving employer attractiveness.
The article examines key issues in public admin¬istration regarding the provision of social services to poor households with children in Ukraine under conditions of war and increased institutional pres¬sure. It focuses on the challenges the public admin¬istration system faces in ensuring the accessibility, coverage, and quality of these services. Based on the Sample-Based Household Socio-Economic Sta¬tus Survey (HSESS) data, the authors assessed the coverage of poor households with children by social services, the quality of social services as assessed by recipient households, and the ratio between the actual provision of services and declared potential needs. It was found that among poor households with children, 4.4% received at least one type of so¬cial service, whereas among such households with¬out children, this figure is 5.7%. The service with the largest reported unmet needs among poor house¬holds with children is in-kind assistance. A signifi¬cant number of households also declared needing supported living services, as well as information and counseling. At the same time, a significant gap has been ob¬served between declared need and actual receipt of several services, suggesting possible weaknesses in targeting, access, and administrative coordination. Notably, among households that actually received social services, quality assessments were relatively positive, while overall coverage remained very low. These quality assessments reflect the experience of service recipients and should not be interpreted as an assessment of access or the effectiveness of the social-service provision system as a whole. The authors analyzed the main barriers to access¬ing social services, including: lack of entitlement to the service, insufficient information about eligibility, complex application procedures, bureaucratic ob¬stacles, financial inaccessibility of certain services, psychological discomfort when seeking assistance, and geographical and infrastructural limitations. It is argued that the existing problems are not only social but also public-administrative in nature, as they are linked to possible weaknesses of mechanisms for informing, coordinating, targeting, and routing ser¬vice recipients from vulnerable population groups. In wartime conditions, these weaknesses may be further intensified by displacement, changes in the place of service provision, infrastructure disruption, and uneven local administrative capacity. It has been concluded that improving the effectiveness of public administration in the field of social services for poor households with children requires more targeted service provision, simplified administrative procedures, the development of preventive and supportive services, improved interagency coordination, and systematic mon¬itoring of needs and the share of declared potential need met. The Ukrainian case also illustrates the importance of maintaining effective access mechanisms when social service systems operate under conditions of crisis and institutional strain. The results obtained can inform management decisions in social policy at the national and local levels.
A large body of empirical academic research has focused on exploring the consequences of municipal territorial reforms on various aspects of democracy. This article examines a case in which territorial amalgamation itself altered the ethnic composition of a municipality. The case study of Kicevo in North Macedonia demonstrates how such a multi-ethnic environment, in which no ethnic group holds a clear majority, can modify the expected effects of amalgamation on democratic processes. Contrary to the typical post-amalgamation decline in local electoral turnout, we noted a short-term surge in voter mobilization leading to increased local electoral turnout. The analysis employs a quasi-experimental design based on the synthetic control method to assess changes in voter mobilization following the reform.
