This study uses an innovative tourism product development approach, based on co-creation or customer involvement, related to Lake Balaton, a mass tourism-based destination in Hungary, from the point of view of the market segment of active cycling tourists. The investigation of opportunities for the development of cycling tourism first of all relies on the new approach of attraction and product development around the destination, in which it is important to take into consideration the consumer preferences of the most important related group of tourists—active cycling tourists. The sustainable approach of tourism product development also provides an opportunity to decrease the spatial and temporal concentration of tourism, which is largely concentrated on the summertime season. The aim of this study is to explore aspects of the customers’ demand for tourism development in terms of cycling tourism with the help of primary data collection, in order to provide adequate directions for sustainable tourism development in the destination. Revealing the demand side of active cycling tourism related to Lake Balaton, the authors used both qualitative (focus group discussions and structured interviews) and quantitative questionnaire survey (computer-assisted data collection) research methods. The latter online surveys were carried out in November and December, 2019, and resulted with an appraisable sample of 809 questionnaires. As for the method, descriptive statistics and relationship analyses were applied. More than five thousand (5050) possible relationships were examined between the closed answers of the questionnaire by Kendall’s rank correlation coefficient (τ) and Cramer’s V, depending on whether they could be measured on a nominal or ordinal scale. The results show that the content analysis of the primary research provides well determined directions for the sustainable tourism development of cycling tourism at Lake Balaton, so customer involvement seems to be a win-win situation both for the customers (tourists) and the decision makers.

The research subject is the deposit-refund system of beverage packaging (PET, glass and aluminium) in Hungary, which is under development. For the success of the planned system, it is important to consider the population’s opinion. Therefore, data from a primary questionnaire survey were used for the analyses. This questionnaire was conducted in 2020 and resulted in an evaluable sample of 20,430 people. The study aims to answer the following research questions (Q). Q1. Does the reform of the beverage packaging deposit-refund system in Hungary have a raison d’être? Q2. What are the demographic characteristics (gender, type of residence, qualification) of those who would redeem beverage packaging in their households if the state paid for it? Q3. Do the demographic characteristics and/or the environmental attitudes of individuals significantly influence their perceptions of the planned new system, and how strong is the relationship between them? As for the method for answering the research questions, descriptive statistics and relationship analyses (Cramer’s V and Kendall’s tau) were applied to the closed answers. The results show that the analysis of the primary research provides well-determined directions for legislators and decision makers who develop the detailed operating rules of the new system.

In our digital age, the effects of digital transformation, the scope and speed of current changes, and the emergence of digital technologies have led to a radical transformation of workplaces, resulting in a reduction of demand for employees carrying out routine, manual tasks, while evokes a need for digitally-skilled employees emphasising the importance of digital and soft skills for business growth. Organisations need to equip their employees with different types of skills to achieve organisational goals in order to benefit from investments in digital technologies. While practitioners and academics are increasingly focusing on the importance of the human factor of digital transformation processes, there is limited knowledge about the impacts of digital transformation on the digital skills of the employee and how organisations can guide employees through the digital transformation journey, yet. This study provides an important insight into a specific country's context, which has not been sufficiently examined. This paper aims 1) to investigate how the digital transformation has changed the demand for human workforce (Q1a) and the challenge in the lack of digital skills (Q1b) and 2) to examine the importance of soft skills as an impact of digital transformation (Q2). The target group of the research is the managers and white collar workers of Hungarian manufacturing companies. The data collection was in spring 2021. Descriptive statistics and relationship analyses (Cramer's V and Kendall's Tau) were used to analyse the collected data (n=489). The research investigates an important social-digital phenomena determining how digital transformation arises significant demands on digital and soft skills. Results indicate that digital and soft skills such as critical thinking, complex problem solving, adaptability, resilience and creativity are essential to successfully exploit the digital transformation. The result can add value and stimulate new research on digital and soft skills and provide a useful benchmark for other countries.

This study investigated the attitude of young people (individuals aged 14–25 years old) towards environmental protection using the NEP scale. The research aims to understand how demographic characteristics may influence young people’s attitudes toward green issues. The study focuses on answering the following two research questions: Q1. How can the environmental attitudes of young individuals be systematically characterized and summarized? Q2. To what extent do demographic factors influence the environmental attitudes of young individuals? A computer-assisted data collection (CAPI) method was carried out in four European Capital of Culture cities from different countries (Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania) from April to June 2022. On the basis of this primary questionnaire survey, descriptive statistics and relationship analyses (Cramer’s V and Kendall’s tau) were used to analyze the collected data (n = 712). The results revealed that in most cases, demographic characteristics had little or no impact at all on green attitudes. Thus, most youth attitudes showed the concept that humanity must adapt to the limits of nature. Furthermore, there were three green attitude statements where moderate differences could be detected by the countries. The findings can provide guidance for decision-makers in the field of environmental education and marketing, and they can also serve as a benchmark for other countries. Additionally, it opens up new opportunities for further research on the role of formal and informal education, as well as to measure the impact of social media on youth environmental behavior and their proactivity towards green issues.

The role of higher education in social and spatial mobility has attracted considerable attention. However, there are very few countrywide databases that follow the career paths of graduates from their place of birth, through their enrollment in university, and ultimately to their workplace. However, in Hungary, there is an excellent source maintained by the government’s Education Authority containing information on career tracks, which allows one to follow all students from their place of birth, through their choice of higher education institution, to their workplace. With the combination of gravity-like economic models and the proposed mobility network, this paper examines the mediating and retaining role of institutions. This paper also proposes how to calculate the added value of location and institution in salaries and how to use these values to explain mobility between locations. The paper also shows how economic inequities influence revealed application preferences through the asymmetry of the mobility network.

University rankings can both orient and disorient potential students. In rankings, universities with very different characteristics are compared, which makes interpretation difficult. We propose the application of a clustering method, which creates groups of universities that are close to each other with respect to a subset of indicators, but the indicators also show homogeneity with respect to the universities in that group. We call such groups leagues. These leagues are defined by the data themselves and are not based on subjective criteria. We demonstrate our proposition using one member of the family of the two-way clustering method, namely, biclustering. The case we present is based on the Round University Ranking (RUR) 2020 dataset. The use of leagues could provide better guidance not only for potential applicants but also for university funding organizations and policy-makers. Our case study led to a somewhat surprising observation. In the top league (based on the RUR data and indicators), the three most important indicators measure reputation, not scientific or educational performance.