The Enhancement of Sustainable Competitiveness of the CEE Regions at the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic Instability

Abstract

The promotion of competitiveness of regions is a key issue nowadays. However, because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequences of territorial dimension it caused, the approach towards the concept of regional competitiveness needs to be reformulated in which the sustainability perspective is underlined. Thus, the composition of factors that determine regional competitiveness should be redefined in a way that not only economic but to a greater degree social and concurrently environmental factors need to be considered. The objective of the paper is to discuss the concept of sustainable regional competitiveness and to identify factors that are of utmost importance for this regional competitiveness. The position of particular CEE regions in light of the selected indicators that could determine sustainable competitiveness has been examined. The analysis has allowed us to identify some factors that are crucial for sustainable regional competitiveness in the regions of CEE countries to enable achieving long-term growth in the sustainable manner. This study contributes to the research through proposing some factors that could reflect particular dimensions of sustainable competitiveness in CEE regions, by providing a measure of sustainable competitiveness and through identifying the position of CEE regions in terms of sustainable competitiveness. The support of these key factors may be taken into consideration while planning the interventions within the regional policy.

Macroeconomic Determinants of Competitiveness: Evidences From Factor Efficiency and Innovation-Driven Countries

“…Moreover, several studies cover economic aspects determining sustainability and competitiveness of countries, some others use multi-criteria indices (Kiseľáková, Šofranková, Onuferová & Čabinová, 2019), such as: the global competitiveness index (Roy, 2018;Marčeta & Bojnec, 2020), the economic freedom index (Mushtaq, Ejaz & Khan, 2018), the global innovation index (Jankowska, Matysek-Jędrych & Mroczek-Dąbrowska, 2017), and the human development index (Khan, Ju & Hassan, 2018). It is worth mentioning that the COVID-19 epidemic has had many impacts on the development of countries and their competitiveness (Dziembała, 2021). However, of all factors affecting competitiveness, the macroeconomic environment is vital (Alomari, Marashdeh & Bashayreh, 2019;Musyoka & Ocharo, 2018).…”

The Stance, Factors, and Composition of Competitiveness of SMEs in Poland

“…Porter [27] (pp. [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]. This theory brings together two categories, which are competitiveness and specialization [28].…”

“…Porter's concept of competitive advantages [41] (pp. [44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62]. It proposes that by improving efficiency it is possible to obtain factors that contribute to the expansion of the enterprise and obtain competitive advantage [42].…”

“…Competitive advantage is distinguished from market advantage; the latter does not guarantee the obtaining of the former [44]. The origins of competitive advantage are currently mainly intensive factors, which are caused by increasing the volatility, turbulence, and complexity of the business environment [45]. Such a factor can be a permanent restructuring, innovation, knowledge, and information [46].…”