No abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to position self-employment within an entrepreneurship paradigm. The authors create a structured approach to the existing concepts and definitions of entrepreneurship and self-employment, as well as interrelations between them. The text proposes a framework to analyze these two phenomena by establishing their categorization. Methodology: An in-depth critical review of selected literature of the classical and contemporary entrepreneurship theories and definitions in the context of self-employment. Findings: The main results of the study show major discrepancies between existing definitions and approaches in entrepreneurship and self-employment theories and the official EU definitions. Practical implications: The findings offer a starting point for quantitative, methodologically sound, comparative studies on entrepreneurship and self-employment and their role in the contemporary labor market. The proposed categorization structures current terminological chaos and standardizes the terms and tools used in labor market statistics. Originality: The article comprises a set of notions related to the concept of both entrepreneurship and self-employment. The text positions self-employment within an entrepreneurship paradigm and offers new arguments in the discussion on their similarities and differences. The summary offers an original idea that confronts self-employment forms with selected entrepreneurship characteristics.

In the context of the debate on platform economy, on the one hand, and the gig economy, on the other, this paper delineates the conceptual boundaries of both concepts to query the gig economy research included in the Web of Science database. The initial search, cutoff date February 2020, targeting “gig economy” returned a sample of 378 papers dealing with the topic. The subsequent analysis, employing the science mapping method and relating software (SciMAT), allowed to query the body of research dealing with gig economy in detail. The value added by this paper is fourfold. First, the broad literature on gig economy is mapped and the nascent synergies relating both to research opportunities and economic implications are identified and highlighted. Second, the findings reveal that while research on gig economy proliferates, the distinction between “platform” and “gig” economy frequently remains blurred in the analysis. This paper elaborates on this issue. Third, it is highlighted that the discussion on gig economy is largely dispersed and a clearer research agenda is needed to streamline the discussion to improve its exploratory and explanatory potential. This paper suggests ways of navigating this issue. Fourth, by mapping the existing research on gig economy and highlighting its caveats, the way toward a comprehensive research agenda in the field is highlighted.

The aim of this article was to identify challenges of emissions trading that the Polish and CEE Central and Eastern Europe energy industry will face, as well as to indicate key implications for the competitiveness of the companies from the energy sector resulting from that trading. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is the emissions trading system, which results from the EU policy concerning climate change. It is a tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). The system regulates an annual allocation of the allowances. The price of CO2 emission allowances is subject to constant fluctuations because it depends on various macroeconomic factors as well as is an effect of proprietary trading by global investment banks. Polish energy companies have an increasing share in the emission of CO2 in the European market. This is due to the fact that other European countries are rapidly moving away from fossil fuel-fired sources. The cost per MWh related to CO2 price has been growing in the last 10 years from ca. 5 up to 30 EUR/MWh at the beginning of 2021. From an electric power utilities perspective, the ability to set up a proper strategy in trading CO2 will be crucial to be competitive in the wholesale power market. The higher price of CO2 (and electric power) at the domestic market in relation to more green (more renewable energy sources RES in energy mix) surrounding countries translates into a worse competitive position.

W 2017r. Nagrodę Nobla z dziedziny ekonomii otrzymał Richard Thaler uważany za twórcę kierunku ekonomii nazwanej ekonomią behawioralną. W oficjalnym komunikacie po przyznaniu Nagrody Nobla uzasadniano, iż Thaler wprowadził do analiz ekonomicznych bardziej realne założenia związane zachowaniami ludzkimi podczas podejmowania decyzji. Wykazywał sceptycyzm wobec teorii racjonalnego wyboru i wykazał, że podejmujący indywidualne decyzje kierują się ograniczoną racjonalnością, i że podczas podejmowania decyzji dużą wagę odgrywają systematyczne, a nie losowe błędy, związane z opisanymi przez Thalera zjawiskami takimi jak błędy poznawcze, wewnętrzna-umysłowa księgowość (mental accounting) czy brak samokontroli.   Thaler nie był pierwszym badaczem zajmującym się tą tematyką. Wcześniej Nagrodę Nobla otrzymali Simon (1978), Akerlof (2001), Kahneman (2002) czy Shiller (2013). Oni też zajmowali się podobnymi zagadnieniami – analizowali zachowania ludzi podczas podejmowania decyzji, w dużej mierze korzystając z dorobku psychologii. Ale dopiero Thaler zbudował pomost między ekonomicznymi i psychologicznymi analizami procesu indywidualnego podejmowania decyzji. Jego odkrycia związane z badaniami empirycznymi i teoretyczne spostrzeżenia odegrały zasadniczą rolę w tworzeniu nowego i szybko rozwijającego się obszaru ekonomii behawioralnej, który wywarł głęboki wpływ na wiele obszarów badań i polityki gospodarczej. Był między innymi twórcą i badaczem finansów behawioralnych.

The article gives an overview of the definitions of „self-employment” and „self-employed” used both by the Polish and international institutions. Authors present a great ambiguity of the terms used. Due to the growing role of self-employment in the national economy authors postulate a modification of the classification of groups of self-employed and unification of concepts defining this category of work. A proposal for definition of self-employment was submitted for the purposes of Polish official statistics. The authors present the scale of self-employment in Poland in the fourth quarter of 2014 resulting from Polish labour force survey.

PurposeThis article aims to review critical thinking (CT) as a future skill in business.Design/methodology/approachThe study employed two research methods: science mapping analysis based on bibliometric keyword co-occurrence data and systematic literature review following PRISMA guidelines. The application of two distinctive research methods meant that we could obtain a broad picture thematic overview as well as a detailed, fine-grained insight into the content of CT business research.FindingsResearch in CT in business studies is dominated by themes related to education, university and learning that far outweigh CT business application, which focuses on three research axes. These are specific business functions (e.g. accounting, marketing, human resources and identifying business opportunities), certain skills used in business (e.g. decision-making and creativity) and other business-related topics (including ethics, stakeholder relations and individual employee performance).Practical implicationsThe article identifies new research gaps related to the link between CT and business performance, a firm’s ability to innovate and company characteristics. Moreover, the article highlights that CT positively influences business decision-making under the influence of cognitive biases and heuristics.Originality/valueThe article provides the first literature review on CT in business research. It uses a novel method of science mapping analysis to show unbiased algorithmic-based insight into the structure of the research, followed by a systematic literature review.

The aim of the paper is to present the relationship between economic growth and self-employment in Poland. Economic growth indicators were selected, such as GDP growth, the increase in gross added value and the number of unemployed, and correlations between these indicators and the number of self-employed persons were examined. Since the self-employed group is very heterogeneous, these correlations were examined for a group of self-employed people in general, and for different, identifiable subgroups. In this way, it was