INTEGRATION, CATCHING-UP AND DEVELOPMENT CEILINGS: THE USABILITY AND EXPLANATORY CAPABILITY OF THE SEMI-PERIPHERY TERM IN THE ANALYSIS OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES’ DEVELOPMENT TRAJECTORIES

There seems to be a lack of clarity regarding the growth potential of the new member countries and the conditions for releasing it. This article attempts to introduce, in order to further study the development prospects of the CEE countries, the treatment used by E. Wallerstein about semi-periphery countries and semi-periphery economies, i.e. the countries and economies that are located between the core and the periphery, and possess the features of both groups (more about it later on).4 This is not a very unequivocal or operational concept, which certainly needs further elaboration before using, but the approach proposed by Wallerstein has several attractive qualities. First, it concentrates attention on the external relations and dependencies of a country’s economy, its position and role in the world economy. This approach is essentially structuralist, and postulates the existence of long-term dependencies. For these two reasons its emphasis is somewhat different than that of the middle-income trap concept, which has been quite widely used so far.5 Both address the situation where the countries that do not belong among the wealthiest or poorest ones tend to experience a standstill of growth in a certain stage of development primarily due to the increasing cost of production. Yet the concept of the middle-income trap concentrates more on the domestic factors of the economy of the country under observation, while the semi-periphery concept focuses more on outside factors and dependencies.6 Secondly, the concept of semi-periphery countries considers that the relation between the core and the peripheries occurs in a geographic space and are, as a rule, long-term. This permits the set of instruments of geo-economics and geopolitics to be used to analyse these relations. As a rule the cores are dominant in the geographically closer peripheries and semi-peripheries. Thirdly, the developments of the CEE economies have so far been predominantly treated “in their own juice”, the development of some CEE countries has been compared only with other CEE countries—which ones passed the transition better, showed the fastest growth, achieved better cooperation with the EU core countries, etc. Analysis in the context of semi-periphery countries permits the span of the analysis to be effectively doubled to a global dimension, comparing the development of the CEE countries and their prospects not only with Southern European semi-periphery countries but, if so desired, with semi-periphery countries in South America. Of course, this would attract greater interest if it should appear that there are sufficient common features among the semi-periphery countries’ parameters, economic behaviour and problems they face

Futures of European welfare models and policies – Seeking actual research questions, and new problem-solving arsenal for European welfare states

The key research question is to discuss and elaborate the potential value added that futures studies could provide for European citizens and political, social and economic institutions. In the article the problems of European welfare policy issues are theoretically described and analysed. In the article broader framework to understand key policy issues of European welfare policy challenges are defined. A general analysis and generic model for European welfare policy is presented. The Authors also present futures oriented methodological approach to analyse and solve new challenges of European welfare policy problems. Key contributions of this article are: (1) Analysis of theoretical basis for construction of welfare models in future environments, (2) the relationship between research questions and topics in welfare policy planning and management, (3) the analysis of the relationship between futures oriented research questions, methodological stages and outcomes in the field of European welfare policy and (4) the concrete methodological proposal how futures research methodology can help to solve future puzzles of European welfare policy.</p

Professor Üksvärava koolkond juhtimisteaduses: teke, toimimine ja mõjud majandusele

This article analyses one quite unique case of international knowledge transfer, which occurred in this time Soviet Estonia from 1960s onwards – the importing of modern US based organisational and management theories to Estonia and adapting and using new approaches and methods in the conditions of planned economy. This process was related to the activity of “founding father” of the Estonian school of thought in management and management development, professor Raoul Üksvärav (1928–2016). The author tries to describe this phenomenon and to explain how this transfer achieved certain results in Estonia. The analysis is partially based on the organisational emulation concept by the US researcher R. Vidmer. The question about impact of this knowledge transfer on the later transition of Estonia to market economy is also addressed in the pape

Introducing Living Lab's Method as Knowledge Transfer from one Socio-Institutional Context to another: Evidence from Helsinki-Tallinn Cross-Border Region

The present article aims to describe the Living Lab’s method as a method innovation in institutional activities and the problems of taking this innovation into use. Possibilities to transfer the Living Lab's method from one country, Finland, to other, Estonia, potential implementation fields and obstacles are studied. Considerations on the process of utilising the Living Lab's method in Tallinn are given. Living Lab's is a human-centric research and development approach in which new technologies are co-created, tested, and evaluated in the users’ own private context. This method is coming into use in several countries among which Finland is in the forefront but is not yet in use in Tallinn, Estonia. The empirical part of the research is based on the analyses of fourteen interviews conducted among Tallinn and Helsinki city officials, representatives of technology enterprises, experts of the fields that are internationally most wide-spread Living Labs' testing grounds, using structured interviews and discussions. The article concludes by discussing possibilities to use the Living Lab's method in enhancing Helsinki-Tallinn cross-border co-operation and thus metropolitan regional integration

Introducing Living Lab's Method as Knowledge Transfer from one Socio-Institutional Context to another: Evidence from Helsinki-Tallinn Cross-Border Region

The present article aims to describe the Living Lab’s method as a method innovation in institutional activities and the problems of taking this innovation into use. Possibilities to transfer the Living Lab's method from one country, Finland, to other, Estonia, potential implementation fields and obstacles are studied. Considerations on the process of utilising the Living Lab's method in Tallinn are given. Living Lab's is a human-centric research and development approach in which new technologies are co-created, tested, and evaluated in the users’ own private context. This method is coming into use in several countries among which Finland is in the forefront but is not yet in use in Tallinn, Estonia. The empirical part of the research is based on the analyses of fourteen interviews conducted among Tallinn and Helsinki city officials, representatives of technology enterprises, experts of the fields that are internationally most wide-spread Living Labs' testing grounds, using structured interviews and discussions. The article concludes by discussing possibilities to use the Living Lab's method in enhancing Helsinki-Tallinn cross-border co-operation and thus metropolitan regional integration