The idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has attracted the interests of both practitioners and scientists, particularly since 1953, when H. R. Bowen published The Social Responsibilities of the Businessman. Over the years, the CSR concept evolved and became a managerial phenomenon; it was applied to different sectors with supposedly excellent effects. Unfortunately, there was discourse around the meaning of CSR. In the world of science, there is no agreement as to the semantic area of CSR. Academics face absolute, undisturbed freedom in the formulation of its elements and definitions. That abovementioned ambiguity determined the situation the recent CSR literature is vague and biased, and an extensive analysis of the latest contributions are lacking. To address this gap, there has been proposed a systematic literature review and bibliometrics of 119 articles published in 45 peer-reviewed, high-quality academic journals and 19 books, from January 1950 to July 2020. There are three objectives of this paper: to analyze the recent CSR definitions in the context of Carnegie’s principles, to identify trends in that field and evaluate the utility of the scientific efforts in the abovementioned context, and to indicate the future research paths in the context of corporate social responsibility.

The fact that personality traits play an important role when it comes to predicting people’s entrepreneurial behavior is currently indisputable. However, so far, the majority of subject literature has focused on employee characteristics in developed countries. To address this gap, research was conducted, including 188 entrepreneurs of small and medium enterprises (SME) and 21 highest-level employees in Poland—one of the countries with the most hostile and turbulent environment for entrepreneurial operations in the world. The five personality traits (Big Five) were evaluated using the 60-item scale. There were three objectives of this study: to identify the differences between entrepreneurs and the most effective, highest-level employees, in the context of personality trait intensities, to determine the level of specific trait(s) intensities (OCEAN) of an effective entrepreneur. Finally, to determine whether it is possible to construct a model based on BIG5 to estimate the probability of success as an entrepreneur. The research results imply there are significant differences between successful entrepreneurs and highly effective employees and their personality trait intensities, described in the BIG5 model. Moreover, it is possible to distinguish trait intensity ranges, determining the success as an entrepreneur. Finally, we constructed the empirically based model, which allows us to estimate the chances of an individual succeeding as an entrepreneur with only a 5% error rate. The main factor and common denominator of entrepreneurial effectiveness is the trait of extraversion. The findings of our study are particularly important for the renewable energy sector in Poland, as the last part of green energy implementing blockchain (e.g., the installation and maintenance of wind turbines and solar panels) is being undertaken, in vast majority, by independent contractors and SME owners (entrepreneurs).

Over the years, the idea of corporate social responsibility has attracted the interest both of practitioners and researchers. While a discourse has occurred in the context of the meaning of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), there is no extensive analysis of the latest contributions. To address this gap, three objectives have been formulated for the purpose of this paper: to analyse development trends in CSR definitions, to assess the applicability of scientific efforts in the above-mentioned area and to demonstrate future research opportunities and threats based on the state-of-the-art in CSR. An organized literature review and bibliometric methods have been proposed based on 55 articles published in the “Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management Journal”, the top ranked periodical with the highest Impact Factor, from its beginnings to January 2021. This research provides a clear overview of the recent CSR trends that are present in the literature, by pinpointing those works that refer to significant characteristics and indicate future trajectories of CSR in a managerial practical context, particularly important for the effectiveness of future CSR-oriented organizational activities. This paper summarises the existing CSR-related knowledge and constitutes the first attempt to investigate the process of the creation and development of the corporate social responsibility concept from its origins to its contemporary multidimensionality.

After 35 years of a free market in Poland, three life insurance companies have gained a dominant position in the market and developed certain procedural equilibrium in the area of training, allowing their status quo to be maintained. Yet, they do not take into account the opinions of agents and the possibility of using the latest IT developments, including artificial intelligence, which supports increasingly broad areas of activity in organisations with great success. As independent sales force training poses a challenge to any national or multinational company in a constantly changing global economy, the primary focus of this research was to analyse the opinions of the top 438 agents from dominant life insurance companies. A need was emphasised to reconfigure the existing training programmes with the potential for AI involvement to achieve a more effective educational trajectory. The research findings confirmed the necessity to reconstruct training programmes in relation to an agent’s age, education level, and seniority and offered grounds for discussing innovative AI concepts that can be relevant for future academic research in management sciences and improving organisational effectiveness, particularly in life insurance companies or other first-contact personnel-dependent institutions.