This paper aims to investigate the relationship between the existence of firm digitalization and firm internationalization in selected companies in the European Union (EU). The study provides evidence that upper echelon characteristics bring new competences and skills, including digital skills, which are essential for company internationalization in the modern world of turmoil, crisis and uncertainty. The research paper argues that top management team (TMT) characteristics, and particularly digitalization awareness and skills among the senior management, are critical factors for driving success in international markets and for the sustainability of the business. The dataset in this paper includes around one hundred executive and non-executive profiles in selected European countries, distributed in different industrial sectors. The empirical data have been collected from available online secondary sources on private companies in Germany, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The paper’s findings suggest that a relationship exists between TMT digitalization and firm internationalization. Additionally, the paper’s results illustrate that the companies with an on board Chief Information Officer or Chief Digitalization Officer tend to be more international in comparison to those which do not possess these two job positions in their top management.

This paper aims to determine and explain the main factors for power losses (the so-called “leaky bucket” effect) in Kazakhstan and the reasons for inefficient energy distribution within the country. Energy efficiency in Kazakhstan is much lower compared to more economically developed countries. The differences between energy efficiency in various regions of Kazakhstan are also significant. This article explores the impact of administrative monopoly tariffs on the regional energy efficiency, based on a national study conducted in Kazakhstan in 2017. The purpose of the study was to identify the administrative barriers and their impact on the sustainability of enterprise development. What hinders the distribution of energy resources among different regions is artificial barriers in the energy market and the administrative tariff monopoly for electric power. This leads to the inefficient distribution of resources throughout the country. In addition, it is difficult to leverage low distribution efficiency in the absence of a market. The authors attempt to prove that the magnitude of administrative barriers directly affects the efficiency and competitiveness of business, as well as the final prices of goods and services for the end consumer.

The paper aims to examine the development of modern innovative management methods and practices such as Holacracy, Obliquity, Adhocracy and Sociocracy, which are novelty in the Management science and practice. The study illustrates contingency approaches in designing, managing and developing agile companies from wide varieties of industries. The paper sheds light on contemporary methods in organizing, planning and setting goals of companies in a post-knowledge era. It is like an operating system for business that requires the installation of different applications as applications for hiring employees, for setting salaries, for planning or logistics. In the paper, literature review on management innovations is conducted and subsequently statistical operationalization through STATA software has been employed to examine how particular organizations design and set up their organizational structures such as lean, agile or scrum. Paper results show that smaller companies are more agile and they tend to acquire Holacratic Management models thanks to the fact that self-managing teams exist internally and their organizational structures are flatter and more adaptive in comparison to the multinational corporations. Consequently, the paper concludes with suggestions on innovative management implementations for future development of companies and emphasizes the need for further research on what is the impact of Holacracy and Obliquity on shaping the organizational culture of companies.

The purpose of the work is to determine the features of application of tax measures for stimulation of formation of information economy in modern Russia, to substantiate the perspectives of their expanded application, and to develop practical recommendations and to compile a tax mechanism of managing the process of formation of information economy in modern Russia. The authors use the systemic approach, methods of statistical analysis (analysis of statistical data), analysis of causal connections (logical analysis), and formalization (graphic presentation of authors' conclusions and recommendations). The authors conduct a complex evaluation of the level of development of information economy of modern Russia (as of 2018) based on the data of the National Research University "Higher School of Economics", IMD World Competitiveness Center, and the World Economic Forum and determine that for building competitive, highly-effective, and sustainable information economy in modern Russia, it is necessary to pay attention to the issues of development of E-government and the spheres of new information and communication technologies. The authors also perform a complex empirical analysis of the practice of taxation in modern Russia, which showed that tax measures that are used for managing the process of formation of information economy in modern Russia are contradictory and insufficient for achieving substantial progress in formation of information economy. As a result, it is determined that the current Russian tax mechanism of managing the process of formation of information economy in modern Russia could be characterized as restraining. Its drawbacks, related to insufficient attention to underdeveloped characteristics of information economy and contradiction, could be solved with the developed tax mechanism of managing the process of formation of information economy in modern Russia, which could be characterized as stimulating.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in February 2020, has radically changed the processes related to higher education. The main purpose of our study is to help scholar communities distinguish between educational approaches that seek to sustain the “unsustainable” and to identify the problems of lecturer–student interaction in the midst of the mass transition to distance learning and to find ways to solve them. The results of our research show that the transition to distance education during the pandemic took place; however, it highlighted a whole complex of problems connected with deterioration of emotional state and reduction of incentives to study. That might challenge the existing status quo, a revision of the principles of “Humboldt universities” and the birth of new forms of education. The study consists of three parts that allow analyzing the lecturer–student relations, as well as the management of the learning process. The first part analyzes the characteristics and attitudes towards distance education in different countries. The second part presents the results of students’ emotional state in two countries with different population restriction regimes. The third part is devoted to the study of students’ time planning in the distance-learning environment. We used the following methods to achieve the goals of the study: a questionnaire survey of students and lecturers, HADS (The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), and self-timing method. The thesis about the “gameover” in universities education management is open for discussion by the scientific community.