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The main purpose of the paper is to identify the most important directions of research to date and to indicate new, emerging areas of research concerned with application of financial technology (FinTech) solutions in microfinance companies.

This paper systematically reviews the literature on FinTech in microfinance, highlighting its role in enhancing operational efficiency, customer experience and financial inclusion through technologies like blockchain and AI. Despite these advancements, significant gaps remain in understanding the key drivers of FinTech as a digital innovation, most important direction of research to date and emerging areas for future research in microfinance literature. This paper has attempted to systematise the results of the research carried out so far, based on the publications indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus databases, using selected multidimensional statistical methods.

The findings identify key themes, gaps and future research directions, shedding light on the strategic implications of digital technology in microfinance. This comprehensive analysis significantly advances the understanding of how FinTech enhances microfinance management operations and objectives, contributing to both academic discourse and practical applications.

The research’s novelty lies in its focussed exploration of digital innovation within microfinance, an area that remains relatively underexplored. No similar paper was found during the literature review.

The aim of the paper is to theoretically and empirically explore the issue of well-being (WB) of female administrative employees who work on managerial positions at higher education institutions (HEIs).

This study is based on both literature studies and explorative empirical research conducted in Poland with the use of snowball sampling. It adopted a questionnaire authored by Parker and Hyett and covered 121 respondents.

Literature studies show that invisibility of work, low level of empowerment, increased stress, workload and expectations, reduced resources, high level of anxiety, fatigue and low level of vitality negatively impact the WB of HEIs’ administrative staff. The presented research provides insight into the internal structure of the administrative staff’s WB. Both the main construct (i.e. employees’ WB) and its subconstructs are on moderate level. Respondents’ age and tasks performed are correlated only with the subconstruct of WB in the form of intrusion of work into private life.

Although the research is not based on large sample, it provides both practical and theoretical implications.

Most of studies discuss the issue of WB of scholars. The paper fills the research gap in terms of examining female administrative employees who work on managerial positions at HEIs.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse physicochemical and sensory profiles of apple juices using multivariate methods and to predict the essential sensory properties by means of instrumental measurements.

The studied set included apple juices reconstituted from concentrate (clear and cloudy) and direct (pasteurised and freshly squeezed, not pasteurised). The physicochemical (colour, turbidity, total soluble solids, sucrose, D-glucose, D-fructose content, pH, total acidity, total phenolic, total flavonoid content and antioxidant capacity) and sensory profiles of juices were analysed by principal component analysis and partial least squares (PLS) regression.

An exploratory study of physicochemical and sensory profiles revealed dimensions differentiating apple juices. The first dimension was related to their physical properties (clarity, sediment and colour coordinates L*, C*, h°), whereas the second dimension referred to their flavour, being positively correlated with sourness and astringency, and negatively with sweetness. The PLS regression analysis revealed the quantitative relationship between sweet and sour flavours and the instrumental measurements. The physicochemical parameters of apple juices contributing positively or negatively to the key sensory attributes were determined based on the regression coefficients.

This study presents a possibility to predict the key sensory attributes of apple juice on the basis of selected physicochemical parameters. This approach could be a supporting tool for sensory analysis that could allow the quality characterisation on a large sample set and hence shorten the time necessary for routine quality control, product design and development.

As women’s position in the economy and society is often explained by cultural factors, this study aims to verify whether the observed changes in female empowerment in the region of Central and East European (CEE) countries of the European Union (EU) are associated with masculinity as a cultural trait.

The authors apply the k-means clustering method to group CEE countries into clusters with similar levels of female empowerment in two time points – 2013 and 2019. Next, the authors examine the clusters and cross-reference them with the national culture’s masculinity to explore the interrelations between female empowerment and cultural traits in the CEE countries and their development in time.

The analyses reveal that female empowerment is not uniform or stable across the CEE countries. The masculinity level is not strongly related to women’s position in these countries, and changes in female empowerment are not closely linked to masculinity.

Despite the tumultuous history of women’s empowerment in the CEE countries, the issues related to gender equality and cultural traits pertaining to the region are relatively understudied in the literature. By focusing on the CEE region, the authors fill the gap in examining the independencies between female empowerment and cultural masculinity.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a new group of chemical compounds as accelerators (1-imidazole derivatives – tertiary amines) for curing of isocyanate-epoxy resin matrix. During heating no reaction between epoxy group and active hydrogen in presence 1-substituted imidazole derivatives was reported.

The influence of accelerator type and content on curing process, thermal stability and chemical structure of hardened resin was determined using temperature modulated differential scanning calorimetry, dynamic mechanical analysis, heat deflection temperature, thermogravimetry (modulated and by activation energy – Ozawa method) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Additionally, the shear strength of epoxy compositions used as aluminium joints, at ambient and elevated temperature was determined.

With catalyst content increase the oxazolidone or isocyanurate rings content decreased, indicating enhanced density of cross-linking and thermal resistance. For all imidazole derivatives used (i.e. 1-methylimizadole, 1-ethylimidazole and 1-butylimidazole) accelerating of the curing process was observed (significant decrease of the curing start temperature was reported). The thermal resistance and shear strength was improved with accelerator content (increase of isocyanurate rings amount, and consequently oxazolidone ones).

Introducing of a new group of chemical compounds as new catalysts to isocyanate-epoxy resin material resulted in curing process acceleration, irrespectively of the imidazole derivative type.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the impact of public support through equity instruments on firm performance, as measured by growth in employment, turnover and innovative activities.

The paper draws on available academic literature and policy evaluation studies and using a mixed-method approach based on evaluation synthesis.

The key findings reflect positive, albeit quantifiably small, outcomes for this type of policy intervention for employment and turnover and no effect on innovation. There is some concentration of positive results, which is also dependent on the number and quality of the available target companies.

The evaluations used in this study vary considerably in their design, nature and the input and output variables used and, thus, limit a robust comparison of their outputs. Most of the evaluations examined in this paper did not control for multiple simultaneous treatment effects and/or subsequent funding rounds.

The evaluations are rarely designed to compare the treatment effects of alternative policy choices. Only seldom is an evaluation designed to assess the impact of the scheme in the context of the broader policy mix (with its framework conditions, etc.) which would provide more fine-grained policy implications.

The recent literature (Duruflé et al., 2017, Da Rin et al., 2011) highlights the dearth of studies exploring the role of government policies supporting venture and, more broadly, equity investments beyond comparisons of the efficiency of independent venture capital and government-backed venture capital. Most studies explore the impact in terms of exits, initial public offering and leverage effects whereas fewer studies look at output effects on companies such as turnover and employment growth. The paper aims to collect the existing evidence including less analysed policy evaluation studies and draw lessons for public policy.

This study examines how sustainable leadership influences organizational citizenship behavior toward the environment, directly and through a green organizational climate. This study also investigates the moderating effect of person-organization fit on the relationship between green organizational climate and employees' organizational citizenship behavior for the environment.

Data were collected from 241 employees of manufacturing firms in China with one month's lag. Statistical analyses were conducted with the use of PLS-SEM.

This study confirmed that sustainable leadership significantly influenced organizational citizenship behavior for the environment, both directly and indirectly through a green organizational climate. It also revealed that the relationship between green organizational climate and employees' organizational citizenship behavior for the environment was contingent on the person-organization fit.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to analyze how sustainable leadership reinforces employees' organizational citizenship behavior for the environment by providing insight into the mediating role of green organizational climate and person-organization fit as a moderator. Moreover, through a combination of three theoretical perspectives (social learning theory, social exchange theory and the theory of person-organization fit), this study advances the academic knowledge on how organizational citizenship behavior for the environment develops, thus providing a more complex explanation of the relationship between the examined variables.

Safe and Well visits are the primary preventative vehicle now used by all Fire and Rescue Services in England. The purpose of this paper is to examine their recent development to identify notable practice and potential improvements.

A literature review and archival document analysis have been supplemented by data and information from the evaluation of a case study at Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service.

There is considerable scope to improve Safe and Well visits, although individual services and the sector are not yet able to implement effective benchmarking across services or commission a more appropriate evaluation methodology such as a social return on investment.

The research is situationally bound to England, although there may be transferable lessons to other services and jurisdictions.

Potential future improvements are identified and recommended at local and national levels, both in the data and information available, and for policy, operationalisation and public assurance.

Although a small number of professional reviews have been undertaken, the authors are not aware of any academic evaluation of Safe and Well visits since they superseded the previous Home Fire Safety Checks.

This study aims to check whether the conclusions of measuring the firm life cycle by a model related to economics and finance (Dickinson model) are consistent with the model related to management (Greiner model).

We applied the technique of individual in-depth interviews to verify firm development stages in the case of the Greiner model (nonfinancial aspect). We implemented cash flow statements prepared by using the indirect method to identify stages of a company’s life cycle in the Dickinson model.

Dickinson’s model (2011) unanimously indicates a specific development stage for the companies studied. In contrast, it was impossible to assign companies to a strictly defined development stage using Greiner’s model (1972). However, the analysis of the results obtained with this model made it possible to distinguish development stages for different management areas in companies. These stages differ from each other.

The results of this research bring new knowledge to the analysis of the firm life cycle. It remains a relevant topic today. Many articles use models generally associated with one particular discipline (for instance, management or finance). This article proposes an interdisciplinary and area-based approach to company life analysis. To the best of our knowledge, no scholars have conducted such a study before.

This paper aims to examine the antecedents and performance outcomes of proactive and reactive knowledge-sharing behaviour. Specifically, it investigates from the employee’s perspective how human resource management, with the system of human resource (HR) practices and work climate, influences proactive and reactive knowledge-sharing behaviours via the employees’ interest-based motivation.

For the main hypotheses, a moderated mediation model was tested using survey-based data from 400 employees from Poland and structural equation modelling analyses. Next, the authors used data from 143 employee supervisor dyads (subsample data) to test the employee performance outcomes of knowledge sharing.

The results show that commitment-based HR practices are positively related to knowledge-sharing behaviour via autonomous motivation when employees perceive a cooperative climate in the workplace. Furthermore, there are motivational and outcome differences between sharing knowledge reactively and proactively. External motivation is detrimental to reactive knowledge sharing, while introjected motivation is positively related to proactive knowledge sharing. Next, while proactive knowledge-sharing is related to better performance, reactive knowledge-sharing has no performance implications for employees.

From the managerial perspective, this study suggests that to facilitate knowledge sharing, managers should align the implementation of commitment-based HR practices with a cooperative climate in the work environment.

By differentiating proactive and reactive knowledge-sharing behaviour and examining the contingent role of cooperative psychological climate, the study explains the mixed results of external and introjected motivation to share knowledge. This study also provides more specific results on the performance outcomes of knowledge givers, showing that performance effects should not be taken for granted.