Research purpose. The research aimed to identify digital barriers in the digital transition and digital transformation in businesses and industries under the umbrella of human resource management. The topicality of the research relates to the need to identify digital barriers impeding digital transition and transformation that can be addressed through the prism of human resource management policies or that can be related to human resource management. Design / Methodology / Approach. The research method was the analysis of the keywords and keyword concordances, conducted on the sample of the created corpus of 50 recently published scientific papers, which were analysed using the text analysis instruments AntConc and Voyant Tools . Findings. Two digital barrier types were postulated - individual and organisational barriers, which were further spread across five digital barrier areas - human resource, technological, management, business development, and financial ones that were able to accommodate the following barriers: general human resource, staff resistance, psychological, staff digital competences, decision-makers digital competences, internal information exchange, external information exchange, data processing, technical, IT complexity, poor usability, cybersecurity, general management, business structure, business 4.0, industry 4.0, creativity, and costs. Originality / Value / Practical implications. The created structure of digital barriers provides human resource departments with a global picture of barriers that should be reviewed within their competence areas to ensure the recruitment of specialists capable of conducting specified digital operations and the continuous development of digital competencies of the entire labour force of the organisation. The suggested digital barrier structure can also be used to develop the organisational strategy for the digital transition and digital transformation.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools have been used across various sectors of the global economy. The use of AI has been associated with both benefits and drawbacks, which is why the goal of this research was to identify the attitudes of academic staff of higher education institutions (HEIs) towards using AI for both academic and research purposes. To attain the goal, there was designed a questionnaire, which was distributed to members of academic staff of different biological genders and ages from 10 European countries. Irrespective of biological gender, age, or country, responses were similar. First, academic staff emphasized the importance of having AI-related regulations at HEIs. Second, academic staff were positive about using AI for information searchers and preparation of teaching materials. Third, academic staff were concerned about AI-related plagiarism issues, which is why they were reluctant to approve the AI use for research and thesis writing. Fourth, slightly more than 40% of the respondents indicated the use of AI. This points to the lack of AI skills among academic staff, which was further supported by a set of basic purposes for which AI was claimed to have been used. One implication of this research relates to the organization of the study process. Managers of HEIs should introduce institutionalized training in AI for academic and research purposes for academic staff to promote digital equality. Another implication of the study relates to the areas of AI training for academic staff. It should cover the topics of AI for the design of teaching materials, formative and summative assessment, and plagiarism check.

The quality of higher education (HE) is dependent on many factors, including the quality of teaching. As any profession, teaching is based on internal values and motives of individuals. The goal of the research is to identify the most dominant career drivers of academic staff based on their career motives and values in order to provide HE managers with information relevant to academic staff engagement policies to enable shaping of sustainable education policies at higher education institutions (HEIs). The research goal is grounded in the purpose of human resource management that is designed to stimulate certain employee behavior so that employee actions and intentions could be aligned with corporate strategic goals. If there is a wide gap between the needs and interests of employees and their employer, employee productivity gradually declines, thus decreasing the competitiveness of an organization. The following research question has been formulated: Is there a discrepancy in values between academic staff and managers of HE, who create the work environment for the academic staff? To attain the goal of the research, university lecturers from Ukraine completed Schein’s questionnaire online in 2021, while in 2023 middle- and senior managers of universities from Ukraine, Latvia, and Lithuania were asked to prioritize career drivers for academic staff. Both groups ranked technical / professional competence and service / dedication to a cause as primary priorities. However, the value of security / stability was prioritized only by academic staff, while autonomy / independence and entrepreneurial creativity were selected by HE managers. The research outcomes indicate converging and diverging points in opinions on the career drivers of academic staff. Having this knowledge, HE managers are in a better position to modify the academic workplace to stimulate academic productivity, and enhance business models and quality assurance policies at their institutions on the path towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 “Quality Education”. The diversity of opinions both within and between the groups of academic staff and HE managers supports the need to design human resource management policies consistent with the theory of personalized human resource management for higher productivity. The findings of the study contribute to the global discussion of career drivers of teachers by providing evidence in support of the increasing importance of professional (technical) competences and creative abilities for quality education.

Sustainable economic development is driven by sustainable entrepreneurial activities, generated by the personal attitudes of entrepreneurs. The present and future of sustainable entrepreneurship are shaped by the youth, including students, which is why it is important to understand their attitudes towards this type of entrepreneurship. Therefore, the key goal of the research is to evaluate the attitudes and behaviours of the youth towards sustainability issues and sustainable entrepreneurship. The current article reflects the results of the second research stage and aims at evaluating attitudes towards sustainable entrepreneurship among Latvian and Lithuanian students. The results reveal that gender/age affect personal environmental attitudes, however gender/age has no effect on personal willingness to start a sustainable business. The analysis results of the personal attitudes to sustainable entrepreneurship differ by age and gender. Gender has no effect and age strongly affects personal attitudes to sustainable development.

In their annual and sustainability reports, many companies assert their adherence to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. The validity of such claims might be questioned if they are not substantiated with financial information and descriptions of value-creation projections. One framework that can show how SDGs are achieved is integrated reporting (). In contrast to traditional sustainability reports, encourages the integrated analysis of financial and non-financial information for six capital types within the company’s business model, which enables measuring the achievement of sustainability targets. Among many advantages of related to sustainability is also the analysis of value creation processes in the long term, which generates evidence-based projections of future performance, not merely a reflection on past activities. The aim of this research was to determine if Northeastern European airports apply the framework to their annual sustainability communications with stakeholders. The major research finding indicates that these airports do not use the framework in their annual sustainability reporting. However, given the inclusion of features in their reports and a recent tendency of other airports to adopt , this finding can be a sign of transition to for annual sustainability reporting. First published online 11 January 2024 Keyword : integrated reporting, sustainable development, value creation, Northeastern European airports

Purpose – the purpose of this research is to review the contents of Latvian teacher training and education programs in order to identify if the development of students’ e-competences is included into these programs as an important objective and value. The importance of the development of these competences has been stressed in various EU documents and scientific literature. The scientific importance of the paper lies in gathering evidence for the inclusion of e-competences into teacher training and education curricula and demonstrating that e-competences have not yet acquired a value status in teacher training and education programs. Research methodology – the methodology included the keyword in context and concordance analysis of self-assessment reports and program descriptions, which were run in the software AntConc. Findings – out of 190,000 word tokens, the KWIC analysis identified only 75 entries related to e-competences, most of which included basic skills of information and communication technologies. Other more advanced concepts, such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence, adaptive spaces, e-competences, e-education and e-learning, were hardly mentioned. Research limitations – one limitation of this research is the focus on Latvian teacher training and education programs without their comparison to similar European programs, which would allow for determining the competitiveness of such Latvian programs in Europe. Practical implications – the obtained results suggest that the development of e-competences has not been perceived as value in teacher training and education programs in Latvia, and in order to bridge this gap, programming and artificial intelligence courses should be introduced into the curricula of such programs. Originality/Value – the research has demonstrated that the EU aim of boosting the competitiveness of the European education through the development of e-competences is yet to be implemented into teacher training and education programs in Latvia.