Economic Assessment of Uniqueness of the Regions in the Context of the European Union

AbstractThis paper aims at analysing the uniqueness of the regions in the context of the European Union and providing a tool for economic assessment of uniqueness. Uniqueness of the regions can be used to increase regional economic resilience and economic advantage. Economic and social challenges in the European Union member states encourage finding new tools for regional development that would lead to implementation of the Europe, 2020 goals.Economic assessment by using the uniqueness index was developed for the assessment of the uniqueness as economic advantage of the region. The results revealed that regional uniqueness index can be used for identification of typologies of the regions within a country that can serve as a basis for creation regional support strategy. Results can be used for recommendations for the regional policy to define important insights for next programming period 2014–2020 in the EU

Challenges for agricultural policy in the service-driven economic system

During last decades the essential shift occurred in the structure of the economy from industrial product-driven to the post-industrial service-driven economic system. A growing number of manufacturing firms throughout the world are shifting from selling goods to offering more and more services alongside their products. This movement is termed the 'servitization'. The movement is pervading almost all industries but still is weak in agriculture. The aim of the paper is to draw an agricultural sector-specific picture of servitization and discuss the differences between the business models of product-driven and service-driven farms. Servitization of farming is a transformational process that requires rethinking all aspects of the business: production structure and methods, marketing, pricing, service delivery infrastructure and financial management. The aims and means of current agricultural policy should be transformed in accordance with the emerging new business vision of the post-industrial farmers' generation. The article analyses the needs and perspectives to develop agricultural policy in line with the success factors of the service-driven economic system and highlights the main new post-industrial rural policy trends, which corresponds to the needs of new farmers' generation oriented towards servitization of farming in the new programming period after 2020

Future drivers of rural prosperity in knowledge age: Lithuanian case

The knowledge age greatly shaped society's understanding of what goes beyond the agribusiness and sharply raised the question of farmers' responsibilities on the way they do farming in relation to the payments they receive as public support. Therefore the new rural prosperity drivers in knowledge age calls for the new principles of European Union support distribution for agriculture and rural development. The aim of this research is to explore future drivers of rural prosperity based on knowledge society measures. It is argued, that the upcoming European Union rural prosperity is guided by knowledge philosophy encompassing the nexus among 'innovating', 'networking' and 'giving back' to society. Original empirical data, collected in Lithuanian in 2017, explores farmers' attitudes towards listed knowledge society measures in relation to farm size and other relevant characteristics. Research findings suggest more promising directions for agriculture and rural development that contributes better for rural prosperity in knowledge age

Future drivers of rural prosperity in knowledge age: Lithuanian case

The knowledge age greatly shaped society's understanding of what goes beyond the agribusiness and sharply raised the question of farmers' responsibilities on the way they do farming in relation to the payments they receive as public support. Therefore the new rural prosperity drivers in knowledge age calls for the new principles of European Union support distribution for agriculture and rural development. The aim of this research is to explore future drivers of rural prosperity based on knowledge society measures. It is argued, that the upcoming European Union rural prosperity is guided by knowledge philosophy encompassing the nexus among 'innovating', 'networking' and 'giving back' to society. Original empirical data, collected in Lithuanian in 2017, explores farmers' attitudes towards listed knowledge society measures in relation to farm size and other relevant characteristics. Research findings suggest more promising directions for agriculture and rural development that contributes better for rural prosperity in knowledge age.Publishe

The role of social movements in transformative tourism development: Lessons learnt from a case study in Lithuania

This study responds to the need for theoretical and empirical research on value co-creation in tourism. Previous research has mainly adopted a perspective centred on the collaborative relationships between tourists and service providers, i.e., has been focused on a relationship called ‘one-to-one’. According to the emerging trends in value co-creation theory, value co-creation activities, however, are more complex. The research provides empirical support to previous general conceptualisations of value-creation and brings some new insights to value co-creation involving multiple actors from a perspective called ‘many-to-one’. The research is focused on the role of the most active stakeholder in transformative tourism that represents ‘many’ actors as a whole – the social movement. The paper describes a case on a transformative tourism initiative that is a particularly rich setting for expanding value-cocreation in a network of activities’ research for a more complex understanding of value networks in the tourism sector. The case study examines extensively the role of social movements in transformative tourism development through value co-creation. The findings develop a more complex value co-creation mechanism and enable the conceptualisation of the value co-creation process by identifying drivers of collaboration, value co-creation activities, and outcomes. The research demonstrates the potential of social movements for the development of transformative tourism in value co-creation and has implications for both entrepreneurs and policymakers seeking to develop transformative tourism and leaders of a new generation of social movements aiming to transform society

Servitization as A Tool to Increase Vitality of Ageing Rural Community

Recently, the EU policy measures have been widely applied to encourage early retirement from farming. Current age structure of society requires opposite approach. Key challenges for rural development policy aiming to increase quality of life of elder people are dealing not only with traditional help and support measures, but also with the involvement of elder generation into economic and social life. New EU agricultural policy measures should ensure that funding and institutional incentives support extending working and active social life of elder farmers. One of the possible ways to change the approach deals with servitization. However, despite implementation of service-driven business model in agriculture, which opened new possibilities to use knowledge and experience of old generation, the servitization movement is still weak in agriculture. Restricted adoption of service-driven business models in agriculture largely depends on the lack of research on this topic and guidelines for practitioners. The aim of this paper is to conceptualize the organizational model aiming to implement product-service system in agricultural business by joint efforts of elder farmers and beginning gardeners. Case study on innovative servitization initiative “Rent a piece of garden” in rural areas of Lithuania is used as an illustration of innovative business model in agriculture and territorial servitization with multifaceted impact on vitality of ageing rural community and as a source to gain new knowledge on how to organize similar projects

Challenges for farmers’ collaboration in the post-industrial economy

This article discusses the differences between incentives and forms of farmers’ collaboration in agrarian, industrial and post-industrial economies and introduces collaboration examples based on the concept of a two-sided network as a new phenomenon appropriate for the post-industrial era. During the last decade the concept of a two-sided network (market) has been utilised predominantly by ICT businesses, however, the authors believe it has potential to become a general theoretical background for the revision of cooperative movement goals and means relevant to a post-industrial economy