Mobility, its current state and development perspectives in the future creates challenges with respect to sustainability, the first of which is the uncontrolled increase in greenhouse gas emissions in the last few decades, while road transport is one of the “sinners” creating long-term negative impact. The second is the dominance of car travel and car usage in the passenger transportation segment before the latest COVID-19 pandemic accelerated environmental problems. Although recent trends show new, greener patterns in consumption, there is still a relatively low share of consumers acknowledging the importance of sustainable and green preferences. This research study aims to investigate car sharing from users’ perspectives and to determine the most significant factors influencing their choice of sharing services to ensure upscaling of car sharing and, thus, contribute to urban sustainability. This research study contributes to the overall scientific discussion on car sharing and its role within urban sustainability, particularly with the following: (1) deeper investigation of car sharing and its users motivation perspectives in Latvia; (2) analyses of the most significant motivational factors for car-sharing users and aspects of sustainability; and (3) the insight into the generational differences triggering a number of car-sharing users. The existing and potential users of car sharing were surveyed in order to determine the motivational factors for its usage and attitudes towards it. Socio-demographic variables in statistical analysis were used to identify economic and environmental factors that meaningfully influence the choice of car-sharing services. The results of this study can support further development in new car-sharing business models and the value proposition for consumers in Latvia, as well as preparing policy recommendations on the promotion of sustainable transport. These findings are also useful to academics for the investigation of recent trends in car sharing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

PurposeThe economic system is an expectation's feedback system, thus decisions made by economic agents are based on their expectations about the future state of the economy. These decisions affect actual realization of economic variables and this process leads to the new expectations. For a long period of time, economics was based on the erroneous belief that economic agents apply rational calculations to economic and financial decisions. The main purpose of the current paper is to present the theoretical model explaining emotion's component of expectations in the process of financial decision making.Design/methodology/approachThe research is based on the generally accepted scientific qualitative and quantitative methods, including monographic method.FindingsThe paper shows how the expectations and subjective beliefs of different financial market participants could be translated into prices. After describing the main investor's categories, it is possible to model their subjective beliefs about the current price evolution on the stock exchange and formulate the demand strategy of each investor's group. Finally, the model shows mathematical considerations how prices result from demands, considering that they are set by the market maker.Originality/valueThe paper shows how emotions impact investors' beliefs and could be transmitted into prices. A particular agent category – the emotional investor – was formulated, who exclusively follows his intuition and whose presence influences market prices. So, there is no doubt that an appropriate rational strategy requires the adoption to the new kind of market agent and theoretical considerations presented in the paper could contribute to this process.

Nowadays cities face numerous challenges amplified to build necessary urban municipal and community capacity to ensure sustainability transformation to respond to the local and global challenges of climate change, inequality, and access to resources. This research combines the study fields of sustainability, economic development, governance of sustainability transformation, providing the multidisciplinary approach as a systemic-oriented view encompassing the social, technological and ecological aspects of urban transformation. The purpose of the paper is to explore how the concept of urban transformation could be operationalized for research of economic development under the economic strain assuming the emergency of Covid-19 grand challenge. The research methods used are a systematic literature review and the content analysis. The paper provides a detailed characterization of the urban transformation exploring this concept from the structure and system perspectives for the economic exit from the crisis.

The world is facing several challenges, and the problem of sustainable development is one of the most important. It is worth considering that European countries are playing a significant role as pioneers in building a sustainable world, such as those promises made by signing the Paris Agreement and European Taxonomy. To achieve ambitious targets within sustainable development, a huge amount of capital is necessary, while financial and capital market participants are expected to demonstrate a high level of engagement in the domain of sustainability. Facing growing interest and demand, a relatively new product—the ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investment fund—was introduced. Scientific literature is providing some controversial views regarding the overall evaluation of this product. Therefore, additional research providing different angles would contribute to a better understanding. This study examines European ESG funds in the energy sector, from the perspective of news flows and investors. It is worth noting that the authors use the word “European” to refer to members of the European Union (EU). The paper consists of the following parts. In the introduction, the current state of this issue is discussed. The following section offers a literature review and a news flow analysis that contributes to a deeper understanding of these issues. A description of the methodology applied for the data analysis follows this, and the final section presents the research results and conclusions. The authors apply statistical analysis and the Carhart model to determine the differences in the performance of the ESG and conventional funds and use their own tool for text analysis to examine the relevance of the topic of ESG to attract client interest. The authors claim that the performance of the European ESG equity funds do not show a statistically significant difference from the non-ESG equity funds in the majority of the periods examined. The application of the adjusted Carhart model demonstrates that the factor of sustainability has a non-significant and negative effect on the fund performance. Finally, the authors highlight the urgent necessity for the unified usage of keywords and terminology, such as “ESG”, “sustainability”, etc., to ensure comparison and attribution possibilities.

In order to create a sustainable future for the urban environment in s=Smart cities, it is necessary to develop a concept of urban transport, partially reduce the use of traditional transport, primarily cars, as well as the environmental pressure on society, which is essential to move to a sustainable urban future. In the latest discussions on the future of the urban transport system, the quality of the environment, and the possibility of its improvement are discussed, this issue became especially relevant with the onset of the pandemic, when the lockdowns were introduced. The problem of sustainable transport in urban areas has been recognized in academic studies, searching for appropriate models and solutions. The article presents the latest literature review and illustrates the newest trends with several examples. VOS Viewer software has been used to classify the different keywords, according to their co-citation, following clustering techniques. By analyzing the research conducted by other researchers, it has been possible to structure the ecosystem and trends in the Urban Transportation Concept, also mentioning likely future trends. Based on the literature analysis of the Sustainable Urban Transport, the authors of the study found that a large group of researchers deal with technical solutions and innovative business models, while the essential behavioral aspects are examined in less detail. Extensive literature analysis allowed the authors to select several solutions to achieve the transformation towards sustainable transportation in urban areas: new vehicle technologies and their environmental factors’ analysis, geographic information systems, the analytic hierarchy process method, the time series analysis of road traffic accidents using multiplicative models, electrification and use of Friedman Analysis of Variance by Ranks, as well as innovations in sharing mobility.

Purpose of the article: Due to globalization processes and technological development, companies are having more influence on global society than ever. Therefore, business misconduct causes enormous harm to stakeholders, whereas ethical behavior is becoming an important issue. The goal of the following study is to verify and measure a positive effect from investments in social activities on financial attractiveness of companies in the form of its stock portfolio value growth. Methodology/methods: In order to achieve the goal of the research, quantitative analysis is used by comparing performance of stock portfolio of companies having long-term investments in social activities with market index increment. The quantitative results are accompanied with the review of corporate social responsibility definition and some practical issues on governmental and corporation level. Scientific aim: The conducted research contributes both to the scientific discussion about development of appropriate investment strategy in companies applying CSR principles as well as to the discussion of related terminology used in the field. Findings: The research has shown that engagement in the CSR activities tends to have strong positive effect on companies' financial results and investors' financial performance. The research proves this fact by comparing value increment of CSR-portfolio (+35.99% gained from January 2015 to March 2017) with market index (+22.37% in the same period). Conclusions: Regardless the positive result achieved in the study the authors have determined several gaps in the research, which will be discussed in the further studies on the field.

Since the beginning of the XXI century, there have been clear modifications in the sector of higher education, when the institutions have moved near to the economic sector. These changes were primary introduced as the consecutive response to the transformation processes within the society, which should be embedded in the following construct: there was a clear move towards a more competitive and market-based system. Due to the changes in the operating environment financial sustainability and its management for the higher education institutions became one of the core elements. The main objective of the current paper is to discuss the practical application of the methodology for the management of higher education institutions based on the example of Latvian private higher education institutions. The author would like to argue that the paper contributes to the fundamental discussion of financial sustainability in the field of higher education institution management. Moreover, it has got practical implications for the management of the organizations not only in Latvia but also in other countries when efficiency and effectiveness are primary issues.

During seasonal studies 2012 (August/October), samples of zooplankton were collected and analyzed according standard method. Chemical quality of the Rezekne River's water investigated. Changes of quantitative and qualitative characteristics, saprobity index, species diversity (Shannon- Wiener index) and Renkonen index were employed for the analysis of zooplankton community structure in the Rezekne River. The Rezekne River saprobity varies from o – saprobity to β – mesosaprobity. The lowest ecological quality was determined in the leg of the Rezekne River in the territory of Rezekne city, which characterises with decrease in the total zooplankton abundance and species diversity according to Shannon - Wiener index, increase of saprobity.