“We did something, but we did it differently…” Crisis, Resilience, and Innovation in Contemporary Hungarian Cheesemaking Practices

This paper uses a data set of over two hundred years of sovereign debt, banking and inflation crises to explore the question of how long it takes a country to "graduate" from the typical pattern of serial crisis that most emerging markets experience. We find that for default and inflation crises, twenty years is a significant market, but the distribution of recidivism has extremely fat tails. In the case of banking crises, it is unclear whether countries ever graduate. We also examine the more recent phenomenon of IMF programs, which sometimes result in "near misses" but sometimes end in default even after a program is instituted. The paper raises the important theoretical question of why countries experience serial default, and how they might graduate.

BackgroundExisting research on the relationship between economic recessions and suicides has almost completely concentrated on the most recent global financial crisis (2008). We provide the most comprehensive explanation to date...

The purpose of the article is caused by the emergence of new challenges for the national economy, and particularly for the agricultural sector as a result of the signing and ratification, in September 2014, of the Association Agreement EU-Ukraine. These challenges are systemic, comprehensive, extremely powerful and dangerous, so the preparation of adequate responses to them requires a transition to an innovative paradigm of businesses in the food complex in order to actively develop their innovative potential. The study used methods such as theoretical abstraction, generalization of the essential characteristics of modern paradigms of development, structural and comparative analysis and grouping, SWOT-analysis of the internal condition and environment of food-processing companies, the hierarchy of risks by source of origin, and organizing strategies for the development of structural components of the innovative potential. The authors justified theoretical and methodological foundations of economic transition to an innovative paradigm of development strategy of the food-processing industry. It is based on the assessment of the internal condition and existing potential for the whole enterprise and its components, the external economic environment and innovation and investment climate and, on this basis, the selection of innovative models of development. The strategy of increasing innovation potential of a business structure is based on the allocation of structural components and the use of different groups of sectoral strategies for development and to achieve balance. This will be an innovative and technological basis for the production of food products with innovative features (new or improved properties), and corresponding to the consumers customization by needs and tastes. The authors systematized the causes that provoked the appearance of existing or potential risks, revealed their impact on the companies' development strategy and elaborated tools whose introduction and use can neutralize and overcome the brake and centrifugal effects.

Societal challenges – such as climate change, sustainable production and consumption, demographic change, healthcare (European Commission 2017), and the ongoing digitization – lead companies more often to think about topics and technologies beyond their established research and innovation practices. These challenges not only require societal responsibility to tackle them, but also offer a high potential for transformative innovation. In order to develop such future perspectives and to unlock their potential for innovation, companies need to forsake established innovation routines. Cooperation beyond well-known innovation and value chain partners is required to anticipate and keep up with societal challenges and emerging technological opportunities and to develop transformative ideas and concepts.

Today, perhaps more than ever, humanitarian crises permeate the lives of millions, triggering increased human movement and repeatedly testing the international community's capacity to respond. Stakeholders within the international community have recognized that existing legal and institutional frameworks for protecting forced migrants are inadequate to address the diversity of movements and needs. This article examines the situation of noncitizens who are caught in violence, conflict, and disaster, and asserts that they are an at-risk population requiring tailored responses. Recent history has witnessed numerous humanitarian crises in which noncitizens have been among those most seriously affected. With more people than at any other point in history residing outside of their country of origin, the presence of new and sustained eruptions of violence and conflict, and the frequency and intensity of disasters predicted to increase, noncitizens will continue to be caught in countries experiencing crises. Destination countries, as well as origin countries whose citizens are caught in crisis situations abroad, must understand the challenges that noncitizens may encounter in accessing assistance and protection, and must formulate responses to ensure that their needs are adequately accommodated. While both citizens and noncitizens may encounter difficulties in any given humanitarian crisis, research on five recent crises—the Libyan uprising, the Tohoku earthquake, the tsunami and Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, flooding in Thailand, Hurricane Sandy in the United States, and the on-going conflict in Syria—demonstrates that a range of factors create particular challenges for noncitizens. Factors related to the underlying environment in the country undergoing a crisis and the responses of different actors may exacerbate the vulnerability of noncitizens. Moreover, different groups of noncitizens manifest distinct protection needs due to specific attributes. In a given context, the interaction of these factors leads to varying levels of vulnerability for different groups, and the experiences of noncitizens in crisis situations implicate a range of fundamental human rights. Promising practices which may reduce the vulnerabilities of noncitizens and their exposure to harm during crises include: limiting immigration enforcement activities in favor of dispensing life-saving assistance; communication of emergency and relief messages in multiple languages and modes; facilitating entry and re-entry; and providing targeted relief services. These practices are not limited to countries experiencing crises; origin countries have also displayed judicious actions, undertaking bi-lateral negotiations to address specific needs and seeking external assistance in order to protect their citizens who are caught in crisis situations. This article seeks to inform ways to mitigate the vulnerabilities and address unmet assistance and protection needs of noncitizens caught in countries experiencing crises. It focuses primarily on vulnerabilities experienced during crises, acknowledging the importance of preventative action that targets the potential vulnerabilities and needs of noncitizens. It also acknowledges that assistance and protection needs often persist beyond the abatement of crises and warrant ongoing intervention. The observations presented in this paper are drawn from desk research on a limited number of situations, and therefore, the article is an introductory attempt to call attention to the issues at play when a crisis occurs, rather than an in-depth study of the subject. Nonetheless, it offers recommendations for alleviating the exposure of noncitizens, which include actions aimed at: • addressing the underlying legal and policy landscape related to crises and relevant areas like immigration so as to account for the presence and needs of noncitizens; • ensuring that all categories of noncitizens are able to access, understand and navigate information regarding emergency and relief assistance and are able to utilize them; and • limiting the exposure of noncitizens to harm through targeted measures that address their particular needs and vulnerabilities.

Silence and tranquillity form an integral part of rural life and contribute to our understanding of rurality. Thus, it is generally held that time passes slowly in the countryside, far from the nervous city life. Therefore, it is not surprising that mobility and movement (which are associated with speed and being busy) are associated with urbanity and stillness with rurality. Peace and quiet and the absence of hustle are highlighted even by those who live in the countryside and spend long hours in the car commuting between work and home. Such an image affects people’s daily life decisions, movement patterns, local development and infrastructure, as well as national policy of shaping rural life. What is often overlooked is that rural areas are connected to cities in hybrid and extensive ways that affect the development of society as a whole. This article analyses the networks between the country and the city in two recent crises – the COVID-19 pandemic and Ukrainian refugee crisis. It is argued that these relational connections surface vividly in situations of crisis and show that urban-rural networks constitute a kind of hybrid socio-spatial form. Although the boundaries between them are blurred, the image of both rurality and urbanity is powerfully created in discourses and in everyday debates, justifying daily decisions, thus ignoring the intertwined character of these urban-rural relations. Both crises referred to the importance of motility – in both cases, who could move, where and with what timing was of critical importance. In the case of the pandemic, inequalities in mobility manifested themselves in different spheres – which urban dwellers could move to the countryside (owning a country home is a privilege), who could work remotely (mostly in middle-class jobs) or who could go to a place with limited access (mostly islands or popular domestic tourism areas). In the case of Ukrainians, the ability to move was also critical – it consisted in the very possibility of leaving Ukraine. Even after arriving in Estonia, the fate of the refugees largely depended on the location where they found themselves – either in a big city where it was easy to move with the help of public transport or on foot, or in rural areas where it was more difficult to get around due to the lack of public transportation. During the Ukrainian refugee crisis, the rural cosmopolitanism emerged in Estonia more clearly than before. On the one hand, the ethnic and cultural composition of small places changed almost overnight, and thus rural areas became more diverse. On the other hand, this unexpected challenge showed that the rural cosmopolitan community is in many ways vulnerable and precarious. It is noteworthy that strong cultural constructions of rural people (peaceful, safe) and urban people (dangerous invaders) surfaced in conflict situations. On the other hand, the tensions showed how closely the country and the city are connected through mobility. At the same time, mobilities also affected the daily life of people who did not move. One person’s movement could affect another’s staying put, as well as interpersonal relationships, political decisions, and life arrangements. It can be concluded that rural areas are becoming more hybrid for various reasons, and they are connected to the city through various forms of movement in ways that may go unnoticed at first glance, but which emerge precisely in crisis situations. Crises also highlight the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of these bonds, as well as their strengths. Rural populations and their modes of movement shape everyday practices and infrastructures, just as the image and discursive power of rural areas shapes people’s decisions – both big and small.

Introduction. Formation of the market relations during the years of Ukraine's independence has significantly affected the economic condition of the state. There have been radical changes in property relations, forms and methods of the state regulation, development priorities at both the state and regional levels. In general, this has led to instability in the internal and external economic environment and the emergence of new problems related to the further economic development of the country. The list of such problems includes ensuring of the economic security of the state and a particular region. The purpose of the paper is timely detection and neutralization of internal and external threats and dangers that affect the level of the economic security of the region will ensure its stable and most effective functioning at a certain time and high potential for development in future. Results. The use of the proposed algorithm for formation of the state of the economic security of Cherkasy region will not only identify and neutralize threats and risks but also ensure sustainable development of the region. Conclusion. Based on the conducted research, we have developed a mechanism for managing the economic security of the region, which has five stages and allows you to take into account all the requirements for solving the problem of the economic security of Cherkasy region. The main condition for ensuring sustainable development of the region and achieving positive results of financial and economic activity is the formation of an effective mechanism of economic security, which should be aimed at protecting the enterprise from internal and external threats and dangers. It is advisable to form an effective mechanism for ensuring the economic security of the region, which would fulfill a certain set of tasks. Therefore, the definition of the effectiveness of solving issues of economic security formation is proposed to be implemented on a comprehensive basis. It should be done by the evaluation of the effectiveness of the use of certain elements of the mechanism and functional components of economic security, the comprehensive assessment of the company compliance with the state of economic security and the assessment of the company effectiveness from the standpoint of sustainable development.

The nations are looking for ways to increase the capacity and potential of innovation at national and international level. In order for the nations to use the competitive advantages resulting from innovation practices, a country should predict its innovation potential and hence prepare its strategic plans accordingly. The traditional forecasting methods are usually insufficient where sudden and unexpected changes happen nationwide and/or worldwide and limited information is available. The aim of this study is to provide a forecasting approach to predict the future innovation potential. To forecast the innovation potential, the percentage of enterprises with innovative activities is used as the main indicator. In the case of predicting the Turkey’s innovation potential, there exist a few bi-yearly historical data where traditional forecasting methods are insufficient. Therefore, grey forecasting approach that can handle uncertain environments is used in this study. The results indicate that the grey forecasting approach achieved satisfactory results while constructing the grey model with a small sample. In the innovation potential of Turkey, the predicted percentage for organization and/or marketing innovator is found to be highest with 60% where the actual is approximately 51%, and the predicted percentage of enterprises with abandoned/suspended innovation is found to be lowest with 6.5% where the actual is 8%. These predictions of innovation potential can be used to evaluate the effects of national and international policies within the country. Moreover, according to these predictions, the national policies should be improved to enhance the country’s competitive advantage in terms of innovativeness.

Digital innovation and data practices are increasingly central to the humanitarian response to recent refugee and migration crises. In this article, I introduce the concept of technocolonialism to capture how the convergence of digital developments with humanitarian structures and market forces reinvigorates and reshapes colonial relationships of dependency. Technocolonialism shifts the attention to the constitutive role that data and digital innovation play in entrenching power asymmetries between refugees and aid agencies and ultimately inequalities in the global context. This occurs through a number of interconnected processes: by extracting value from refugee data and innovation practices for the benefit of various stakeholders; by materializing discrimination associated with colonial legacies; by contributing to the production of social orders that entrench the “coloniality of power”; and by justifying some of these practices under the context of “emergencies.” By reproducing the power asymmetries of humanitarianism, data and innovation practices become constitutive of humanitarian crises themselves.

Responsibilised Resilience? Reworking Neoliberal Social Policy Texts

Navigating crisis from the backseat? How top managers can support radical change initiatives by middle managers

There is a widening consensus around the fact that, in many developed countries, food production-consumption patterns are in recent years interested by a process of deep change towards diversification and re-localisation practices, as a counter-tendency to the trend to the increasing disconnection between farming and food, producers and consumers. The relevance of these initiatives doesn't certainly lie on their economic dimension, but rather in their intense diffusion and growth rate, their spontaneous and autonomous nature and, especially, their intrinsic innovative potential. These dynamics involve a wide range of actors around local food patterns, embedding short food supply chains initiatives within a more complex and wider process of rural development, based on principles of sustainability, multifunctionality and valorisation of endogenous resources. In this work we have been analysing these features through a multi-level perspective, with reference to the dynamics between niche and regime and the inherent characteristics of the innovation paths. We apply this approach, through a qualitative methodology, to the analysis of the experience of farmers’ markets and Solidarity-Based Consumers Groups (Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale) ongoing in Tuscany, seeking to highlight the dynamics that are affecting the establishment of this alternative food production-consumption model (and its related innovative potential) from within and from without. To verify if and in which conditions they can constitute a niche, a protected space where radical innovations can develop, we make reference to the three interrelated analytic dimensions of socio-technical systems: the actors (i.e. individuals. social groups, organisations), the rules and institutions system, and the artefacts (i.e. the material and immaterial contexts in which the actors move). Through it, we analyse the innovative potential of niches and the level of their structuration and , then, the mechanisms of system transition, focusing on the new dynamics within the niche and between the niche and the policy regime emerging after the growth of interest by mass-media and public institutions and their direct involvement in the initiatives. Following the development of these significant experiences, we explore more deeply social, economic, cultural, political and organisational factors affecting innovations in face-to-face interactions, underpinning the critical aspects (sharing of alternative values, coherence at individual choices level, frictions on organisational aspects, inclusion/exclusion, attitudes towards integration at territorial level), towards uncovering until to the emergence of tensions and the risks of opportunistic behaviours that might arise from their growth. Finally, a comparison with similar experiences abroad is drawn (specifically with Provence), in order to detect food for thought, potentially useful for leading regional initiativestowards transition path.

Inclusive diets within planetary boundaries

SummaryThe Covid‐19 pandemic has fundamentally reshaped our lives. Its effects on the sales and use of marketing channels of small‐scale Hungarian producers are addressed here. Based on the level of proximity, sales channels were classified into three types. Due to local regulations concerning restrictions on movement, it was only impersonal (online) channels that survived, or the opposite type, i.e. very personal ones involving the face‐to‐face meeting of producers and consumers in the private spaces (mostly homes) of one of the parties. Results from the survey of 136 producers reveal that 60 per cent suffered an economic loss due to loss of sales, while 10 per cent increased their sales. Successful producers were those lucky enough to be operating within the fresh fruit and vegetable sector, within which consumer demand increased significantly. The parallel use of several sales channels before the virus outbreak increased subsequent chances of success by increasing the probability that some of the channels would remain operational. Furthermore, successful producers had invested a lot of work pre‐Covid into maintaining private relationships with their customers; a situation that proved vital during times of restrictions. Also, the former moved fast, and were open enough to learn and make use of the opportunities modern technology offered them.

The challenges of meeting growing consumer demand for local food, especially from larger, institutional buyers, has sparked many to look beyond direct marketing to alternative models of produce aggregation and distribution. Value chains that incorporate conventional food system infrastructure are one such model for local food system development, but little research has studied their functioning and outcomes. Arrangements where conventional produce distributors handle local food can be viewed as "hybrid" food value chains, since they include both local and global resources, and combine conventional food system infrastructure with the more alternative goal of building local food systems. This qualitative study examines three hybrid food value chains that revolve around conventional, wholesale produce distributors located in rural, urban, and exurban regions of Pennsylvania. Theories of local and social embeddedness inform the analysis of how participants negotiate and coordinate their interactions through informal mechanisms, such as their social relationships, and formal mechanisms, such as contracts and labels. Case study findings reveal distinctions between the rural and exurban cases on the one hand, where participants combined both personal and market-based mechanisms to coordinate their relationships, and the urban case, where the sale of specialty products to a niche market both fostered and inhibited the use of more formal mechanisms of coordination. In all cases, commercial conventions tended to take precedence over social relationships, despite the role that personal trust may have played. These findings suggest that when value chains incorporate conventionally oriented businesses, they would benefit from more deliberate commitment to non-economic goals in order to establish successful mechanisms of interorganizational coordination.