Case Of Estonia Research Articles

Leadership in national level destination management: the case of Estonia

This empirically based paper addresses the knowledge gap on destination leadership practices in destination management in the context of strategy implementation. The research focuses on tourism management and strategy implementation as an upper level competence at the national level of destination management in Estonia. In-depth interviews with national level destination managers explore how destination leadership is conceptualised, operationalised, and executed. Findings demonstrate the central role of destination management organisations (DMOs) and the inherent requirement for leadership on their part; the crucial importance of communication and cooperation in stakeholder management within strategic destination development; and the importance of leadership skills in the selection and appointment of destination management practitioners at the national level.

Молодіжний ринок праці Естонії: безробіття та міграційні настрої студентської молоді

This article presents an analysis of current processes in the youth labour market in the context of their impact on the student youth migration sentiments with a focus on the case of Estonia. Nowadays, student migration takes new forms, which are determined by objective and subjective factors and need to be conceptualized. They are characterized by complicated socio-economic interactions and social relations, so the analysis is based not only on statistics but also on the results of a survey of student youth conducted in November-December 2019. The analysis of the youth labour market in Estonia revealed the relationship between unemployment and education levels and some trends in the unemployment dynamics. This made it possible to identify key processes, such as spread of circular and chain migration, an increasing intensity of migration flow, transition to positive values of net migration. The analysis confirmed that Estonia’s accession to the EU had a positive effect on the youth labour market, and the improvement of the socio-economic situation in the country was the main reason for growing migration flow of young people from abroad. The identification of migration sentiments of student youth is based on the analysis of factors that push them from the country of origin and pull to the countries of possible migration. Countries that are the most attractive for Estonian students in terms of education and employment have been identified, including ones with a positive image for immigration, high wage level and favourable working conditions. It is determined that the migration aspirations of the respondents are quite high. The migratory attitudes of student youth towards permanent migration are analysed in relation to the education of parents and the level of foreign language proficiency.

Os Desafios da Cibersegurança Russa: Algumas Considerações: The Challenges of Cybersecurity Russian: Some Considerations

In recent years, cyberspace consolidated itself as a new way of strategic dispute between States, which has been used with traditional forms of war, increasing the bellic potential of those who use it. Russia has been considered one of the pioneers states on the utilization of cyberwarfare, as seen by the cases of Estonia, Georgia and Ukraine.This article analyzes Russia’s ambition to gain control of its information networks, taking this position since the release of the new Doctrine of Information Security of the Russian Federation of 2016 and since, recently, the signture of the “Sovereign Internet” law in may of 2019, which guarantees the possibility to determine the isolation from the rest of the world for RuNet.

Mobile belonging in historical everyday letters: the case of Estonia in the 1950s

ABSTRACTThis study contributes to the micro-history during the structural reorganization of Estonia in the 1950s by examining everyday letter exchange between family members, consisting of a single mother and her two daughters. The study uses a mobilities approach toward the meaning of belonging while investigating everyday places and related practices, the mentalities of individual stages of life, and symbolical relations which are influenced by structural formation. The study indicates mobile characteristics of belonging in a family’s subjective attachment to a place.

Does the euro increase the complexity of exported goods? The case of Estonia

ABSTRACTThe goal of this article is to assess the impact of the euro’s adoption on the complexity of goods in Estonian exports. That policy decision may result in the specialization of production of either more or less sophisticated goods, depending on the country’s technological advancement and factor endowment. At the same time, intensified foreign direct investment (FDI) flows may enhance the engagement of a country in international production chains with ambiguous consequences for export complexity. We applied the Synthetic Control Method to compare the observed post-adoption levels of export complexity in Estonia with the counterfactual values of Estonia remaining outside of the Eurozone.

Internal and external perceptions of small state security: the case of Estonia

ABSTRACTThis article concerns small state security from a cognitive perspective and investigates Estonia as a security actor as perceived by all littoral Baltic Sea states. Drawing on unique elite survey and interview data, the article unpacks similarities and differences among internal (Estonian) and external perceptions of security, threats, and capabilities. The investigation is theoretically informed by research on perceptions, specifically image theory and role theory. Our analysis indicates that there are generally speaking quite similar perceptions among internal and external respondents regarding Estonia’s security situation, threat context, and the importance of EU and NATO membership. When it comes to capabilities in the security field, Estonian respondents have a somewhat more positive view than external respondents. Notably, Russian perceptions stand in stark contrast to those of others regarding most dimensions. Relating our results to previous research on national role conceptions, the perceptions we have explicated correspond to three distinct role conceptions – protectee/faithful ally, sub-system collaborator and regional leader.

A quantitative assessment of the contribution of small standing water bodies to the European waterscapes – case of Estonia and France

The abundance and properties of small standing water bodies (SSWB) is globally not well known for their ecological importance is undervalued and their detection suffers from technical limitations. In the current study, we used a combination of GIS-based methods (satellite, orthophoto, ground validation) to evaluate regional estimates of standing water body (SWB) inventories in two geographically different parts of Europe – France, and Estonia. In our study the SWBs surface area threshold limit was 0.00001 km2, exceeding the limits of previous studies (>0.002 km2). The total number of SWBs in Estonia is 111 552 (2.5 per km2) and in France 598 371 (1.1 per km2). Our estimates show that the median size of SWBs in Estonia and France is 0.0003 km2 and 0.0007 km2 respectively, meaning that most of the SSWBs are not included in the global inventories, and their number is therefore underestimated. SSWBs (area below 0.01 km2) form a significant share of the total shoreline length of SWBs, 70.3% in Estonia and 58.8% in France. As nearshore areas are often very productive with diverse habitats, the SSWBs hold a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity. Our results provide quantitative evidence that SSWBs are vital and abundant landscape elements, freshwater resources, and habitats that should not be ignored in global inventories.

Using Patent Development, Education Policy and Research and Development Expenditure Policy to Understand Differences Between Countries – The Case of Estonia and Germany

Summary Innovation is the key factor for economic growth. RDI policies pursued in a wholesome manner can have long term social significance. The true value of an invention depends upon factors such as its economic value, strategic value, cultural value and social value. Estonia and Germany share a long historical and legal connection. The German economy is strong and Germany has safeguarded it’s manufacturing, mining and construction sector through incremental innovation and focused state funding for RDI activities. Germany runs cost efficient entrepreneurship promotion programs. RDI in Estonia is dependent upon EU funding. Estonia lags behind Germany in respect of several global rankings related to technology and innovativeness. To make the Estonian economy knowledge-driven and technologically intensive, the state must focus on cultural, economic, social and strategic factors. Estonia should adopt RDI policies similar to Germany and also use the new UP regime to help its SMEs to acquire foreign patents.

A case report and follow-up of the first live birth after heterotopic transplantation of cryopreserved ovarian tissue in Eastern Europe

BackgroundOvarian insufficiency is a major concern for long-term cancer survivors. Although semen freezing is well established to preserve male fertility, the possibilities to secure post-cancer female fertility are mostly limited to oocyte or embryo freezing. These methods require time-consuming ovarian stimulation with or without in vitro fertilization (IVF) that evidently delays cancer therapy. Ovarian tissue cryopreservation and subsequent thawed tissue autotransplantation are considered the most promising alternative strategy for restoring the fertility of oncology patients, which has not yet received the full clinical acceptance. Therefore, all successful cases are needed to prove its reliability and safety.Case presentationHere we report a single case in Estonia, where a 28-year-old woman with malignant breast neoplasm had ovarian cortex cryopreserved before commencing gonadotoxic chemo- and radiotherapy. Two years after cancer therapy, the patient underwent heterotopic ovarian tissue transplantation into the lateral pelvic wall. The folliculogenesis was stimulated in the transplanted tissue by exogenous follicle-stimulating hormone and oocytes were collected under ultrasound guidance for IVF and embryo transfer. The healthy boy was born after full-term gestation in 2014, first in Eastern Europe.ConclusionDespite many countries have reported the first implementation of the ovarian tissue freezing and transplantation protocols, the data is still limited on the effectiveness of heterotopic ovarian transplant techniques. Thus, all case reports of heterotopic ovarian tissue transplantation and long-term follow-ups to describe the children’s health are valuable source of clinical experience.

The future of university–industry collaboration: scenario analysis based on case of Estonia

ABSTRACTRapidly evolving technological solutions and the demand for them are forcing industries to become more knowledge-intensive. Developed countries have mostly embraced this idea and are aiming to establish a knowledge-intensive economy (KIE). However, such a direction requires considerable accumulation of knowledge, which is why knowledge transfer and university–industry (U-I) collaboration is seen as a critical premise for success. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, to forecast the future of the KIE via scenario analysis, where U-I collaboration is a dominant practice. Second, to use this forecast as a basis for providing policy suggestions. The results imply that sustaining free-market competition is one of the crucial elements of the legislative framework that would support the development of a technology dependent society as is a sustainable knowledge transfer system via U-I collaboration.

The effects of majority requirements, selectorate composition and uncertainty in indirect presidential elections: the case of Estonia

ABSTRACTThis article assesses the effects of common features in the indirect election of presidents in parliamentary republics. In particular, it examines the influence of majority requirements, selectorate composition and uncertainty on party strategies, using Estonia (1996–2016) as a crucial case for analysis. The analysis demonstrates that the lack of a plurality run-off effectively eliminated incentives for inter-party cooperation and strategic voting. It furthermore shows that shifts in the partisan composition and control of the selectorate from parliament to electoral college provided considerable opportunities for agenda manipulation. Subsequently, results only rarely reflected the parliamentary balance of power. Last, although overall indicators suggest greater congruence between parliament and electoral college over time, this proliferated rather than reduced parties’ uncertainty over the electoral outcome as non-parliamentary electors voted based on local interests and acted independently from national party leaders.

Social Media and Participation in Different Socio-political Contexts: Cases of Estonia and Finland

Today’s young people are engaging in politicized activities and are more attuned to the concerns of their own generation, as opposed to issues more relevant to their parents. Youth political activism takes a less overt and more individualized approach, and young people today are enthusiastic about online participation and engaging in it in different ways. This article adds to the growing discussion that focuses on connections between social media use and non-institutional youth political participation. The article focuses on the meaning that young people attribute to their own social media participation in two countries—Estonia and Finland—taking into account the impact of the wider social context. The empirical part of the study relies on material collected within the framework of the large-scale European project MYPLACE. The in-depth micro-level analysis is primary based on interviews with young people from Estonia and Finland, contextualized by diverse survey data.

The ‘exceptional male teacher’ and the ‘vulnerable male student’: constructions of men and masculinities in vocational education and training in Estonia

ABSTRACTThis article takes a critical perspective on the construction of men and masculinities in vocational education and training (VET). We focus on ways in which key stakeholders in VET – teachers, heads of schools and VET experts – conceptualise men as educators and learners in VET, drawing on the case of Estonia. We identified two related discourses produced by the stakeholders which we labelled as ‘the exceptional male teacher’ and ‘the vulnerable male student’, which draw on and support the broader discourse of ‘feminisation of education’ prevalent in many Western societies. Treating men as exceptional, vulnerable and deserving special attention in VET leaves unchallenged and reproduces male privilege and endorses traditional ways of doing masculinity in this context. Such an institutional environment produced by the VET stakeholders may not be conducive to the emergence of more egalitarian masculinities in VET schools. More broadly, these two discourses on men in VET have important implications for gendered power relations and possibilities to advance gender equality in VET and in the labour market.

Why E-participation systems fail: The case of Estonia's Osale.ee

Despite the hopes that information and communication technology (ICT) would revolutionize democratic participation, evidence suggests that e-participation systems designed for consultation and dialogue between citizens and governments often fail to achieve the expected objectives and levels of take-up. E-participation research has identified a number of success and failure factors but lacks analytical frameworks explaining why and how failures occur. Such frameworks are available in information systems (IS) literature but lack an account of the particularities of e-participation. Combining insights from both domains, this paper proposes to conceptualize e-participation systems as innovation processes characterized by uncertainty and change, and to focus on studying systems' interactions with their context and stakeholders to understand why certain outcomes occur. Applying this approach to the case study of the Estonian e-participation portal Osale.ee, the paper concludes that e-participation systems face three-fold challenges: those typical to IS projects, those emerging from the public sector context, and specific challenges that emanate from the complex context of democratic participation. This complexity makes e-participation systems prone to fail and requires them to be managed as a process of learning and adaptation rather than a static technological product.

Sovereignty after Gender Trouble: Language, Reproduction, and Supranationalism in Estonia, 1980-2017.

This article argues that the recent rise of "anti-gender ideology," reproductive nationalism, and related discourses is best seen as an attempt to rework the boundaries of national sovereignty in a time of crisis. By focusing on the case of Estonia, the article shows how discourses which linked demographic decline to supranational, totalitarian, and utopian "experimentation" was articulated during the days of perestroika in 1980s Estonia, and how these ideas were later transposed onto the European Union, as a subsequent threat to national sovereignty.

Głosowanie za pośrednictwem Internetu w Estonii

Głosowanie za pośrednictwem Internetu w Estonii

Leaving the Senior Civil Service – public service bargain and beyond: The case of Estonia

The article explores why apolitical public sector managers decide to or are forced to leave the civil service in the example of the Estonian Senior Civil Service. The article shows that the concept of public service bargain can help to understand and systematise the causes of leaving the Senior Civil Service. It is particularly useful in distinguishing between voluntary and involuntary turnover and in linking the turnover with political–administrative relations and loyalty issues. Since public service bargain does not specifically focus on voluntary exit, other approaches known from management literature are relevant for the operationalisation of voluntary turnover and complementing the public service bargain-based model for researching turnover of top executives. The empirical study maps the people who left the Estonian Senior Civil Service in 2009–2013 and analyses and systematises various causes of their departure on the basis of semi-structured interviews (70% response rate). The empirical study shows that the turnover of top executives can be considerable even without much direct political influence. It is found that job insecurity combined with the domination of individual unwritten public service bargains tends to lead to ambiguity in the perception of the roles of top executives, which in turn causes conflicts and dissatisfaction, materialising in high voluntary turnover.

Land fragmentation and other determinants of agricultural farm productivity: The case of Estonia

The rising population of the world increases the need for raw materials and food. The more efficient production methods help to reduce the shortage of production and to mitigate climate change. This paper analyses the relationship between land fragmentation and farm productivity. The results show that land fragmentation measured using the Januszewski index has U-shape relationship to farm productivity: there are larger farms with many parcels which are productive, but their parcels are scattered and smaller farms, with few parcels that are also productive. We found an indicator which describes the differences in farms’ productivity based on their land use – the area-weighted mean size of the parcels of one farm. This indicator is a statistically significant determinant of farm productivity. Other significant variables that are related to higher productivity are farm owners’ education, farm size, farming system and production type. Agricultural land policies should consider multiple indicators and analyse different production types to intervene more effectively.

Distribution of Local Social Services and Territorial Justice: the Case of Estonia

AbstractDistribution of public resources has always been a central issue in public policy. The question of spatial variation in resource allocation as a reflection of differing local conditions is particularly important in decentralised countries with a large number of subunits. On the local level, studies have shown variations in distribution of local welfare but have usually focused on single social policy fields and/or target groups, and often ignored territorial structures. By taking Estonia as a case, this study investigates whether and how the distribution of a range of social services and the structure of disaggregated local social spending corresponds to local socio-demographic conditions. We identify municipal clusters and analyse service provision and social spending on vulnerable groups within them. We use a spatial perspective by taking into consideration the distinction of rural-urban and core-peripheral settings. We show that resource allocation in Estonian municipalities mirrors quite well local socio-demographic structures but the division of municipalities between towns and rural municipalities used in the common discourse of local social policy is too simplified.

(Un)justified expectations on nuclear deterrence of non-nuclear NATO members: the case of Estonia and Latvia?

ABSTRACTNuclear assets are one of the cornerstones of credible collective deterrence of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Paradoxically, the most endangered member states are the ones without nuclear capabilities, left with the hope and expectation that the owners of nuclear assets will defend them and that their potential enemies are deterred by these capabilities. However, the expectations from one side, practical commitment of allies from other side may not go in harmony and synchronisation. Is there a capability gap which needs to be fulfilled? If yes then, is the gap in the side of nuclear powers or is it on the side of those endangered states who need to understand what can or cannot realistically be expected? The current article focuses on the question of how the political and military elite of the Baltic states describes their expectations in terms of using Alliance's nuclear capabilities to deter Russia's regional ambitions.