ECONOMIC DECISIONS OF LATVIAN RURAL ENTREPRENEURS: INTERPRETATION OF MODERN SOCIO-ECONOMIC DISCOURSES

The basic assumption of European social science tradition is a conclusion that every decision made by an individual or an organization is well-founded and rational. The uppermost thesis of classical economics is a desire of every economic entity to attain maximum income by applying minimum possible resources. Hereto, income is usually defined by fiscal indices. Modern economics theories confirm that economic decision making processes can be explained more precisely with concepts of behavioural economics. Agents who make economic decisions are “rationally bounded” and elements of social positioning possibly exceed values expressed in categories of economic utility. The objective of this article is to prove that economic decisions made by Latvian rural entrepreneurs can be explained with the help of modern theories of social science that complement classical thought with an interdisciplinary view on socio-economical processes

European Socio-cultural Change and Generational Diversity in the Post-Soviet Workforce.

In times of increased retirement age and senior employees staying in workforce longer, successfully managing generational differences in the workforce forms an increasingly important challenge for modern day management. In many ways, generations may vary in attitudes and approaches, reflecting deeper differences in their core values. This might be particularly true for the Post-Soviet countries, where earlier generations were educated and started their careers within a completely different socio-economic system. In this study we explore differences in approaches towards values and attitudes amongst four generations of retail sector employees – starting from those, who were still to great extent exposed to pre-Soviet values, continuing with employees, who started their careers during the Soviet times, and ending with those, who were educated and entered the workforce after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 208 Latvian service employees were surveyed to assess their personal values and likelihood of dishonest and unethical behavior from four generations currently active in the workforce - Post-War generation, Early Gen X, Transition generation and Millennials. We confirmed that despite dual morality and ambiguous ethics in the Soviet Union, older generations reported higher likelihood of honest behavior than younger generations. And Post-War and Early Generation X also rated honesty and responsibility higher as their personal values. We also found significant differences between Early Generation X and the Transition generation in a post-Soviet context