In the present article we examine a sub-segment of the locally integrated social group: rural small entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are especially interesting from the integration point of view since in the current academic discourse, entrepreneurship is considered as a contextual process, in which entrepreneurs depend on local information and resources, and base their activities on the needs of the local environment, therefore, rural entrepreneurs are commonly studied through the concepts of local embeddedness, social capital and trust. The aim of our paper is to contribute to the understanding of the those mechanisms: the impact of trust among entrepreneurs and their social networks resulting the local integration of this rural group. The study based on 25 semi-structured in-depth interviews, focuses on the role of values, attitudes, social capital and trust networks in local economic success in three Hungarian settlements of different size: a small village of 300, a small town of 3,000 and a medium-sized town of 30,000 inhabitants. Our conclusion is that in case of rural small entrepreneurship, community resources (values, attitudes, social capital and trust) are of chief role in the foundation and existence of a local entrepreneurial ecosystem, however, their efforts have to be accompanied by an institutional framework to make them sustainable in the long term.

Trust towards unknown others is a fundamental issue in trust research. Actually, it can be said that this problematization is a generative source for the whole scientific framing of trust, regardless of its specific perspective, whether it is a psychological, situational, institutional or structural-cultural interpretation. This means that the notion of ‘generalized trust’ is definitely a core concept and a reference point for all research agendas in the field of trust studies. However, this status of the notion is heavily criticized both from a theoretical and empirical point of view. The current paper tries to contribute to these academic discourses by proposing an extended reading of the concept of trust towards unknown others. By doing this, the paper suggests that the focus cannot be only on the aspect of how one perceives others’ trustworthiness, which is measured by the so-called ‘standard trust variable’; it should also be considered how the given agent relates herself/himself to other people’s otherness. Therefore, the argument simply claims that trusting people in general means being open to others’ otherness. If this link cannot be explored, then trust in unknown others is constrained and limited. Using data obtained from the last two rounds of the European Social Survey, the paper presents a 31-country-based comparative statistical analysis realized on both macro- and micro-levels in order to find out whether the above-described theoretical linkage is verifiable or not.

Climate change is one of, if not the most, important challenges facing the world today. Accordingly, it is important for climate policy at any level, and for the underlying decision-making process, that those responsible have an adequate picture and knowledge of the perceptions and attitudes of the relevant population towards the environment. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, sometimes due to a lack of professional information, and sometimes due to a failure to inform decision-makers. The national and international literature tries to identify and measure more or less pro-environmental beliefs, behaviours and typical practices, and to explore their relationship with other individual characteristics, such as sociodemography, political views, values and norms, ideological and moral concepts, and ways of thinking. These works are characterised by an attempt to make meaningful statements about the population under study as a whole, either in terms of environmental awareness or in terms of the factors influencing it. The present study offers a new perspective in that it uses data from a large-scale, representative national survey to investigate climate-aware action and the factors influencing it only among those who are concerned with climate change. The majority of respondents are concerned about and experience the negative impacts of climate change. However, according to one of the main findings of the analysis, even within the group considered climate-sensitive, only one-third of them act pro-environmentally. This certainly suggests a need to rethink domestic climate policy. Az éghajlatváltozás kérdése ma az egyik, ha nem a legfontosabb kihívás globálisan. Ennek megfelelően a bármilyen szintű klímapolitika, illetve a mögöttes döntéshozatali folyamat szempontjából kiemelt fontosságú, hogy az érintett lakossági kör természeti környezettel kapcsolatos percepcióiról és attitűdjeiről megalapozott képe, tudása legyen az illetékeseknek. Sajnos ez nem mindig van így, esetenként a szakmai információhiány, másszor a döntéshozók informálódással kapcsolatos mulasztása miatt. A hazai és a nemzetközi szakirodalom egyfelől azonosítani és mérni igyekszik a többé vagy kevésbé környezettudatos meggyőződéseket, viselkedésformákat és jellemző gyakorlatokat, másfelől kutatja ezek összefüggését más egyéni tulajdonságokkal, például szociodemográfiai jellemzőkkel, politikai nézetrendszerekkel, érték- és normaválasztásokkal, eszmei, morális felfogásokkal, gondolkodásmódokkal. Jellemzője e munkáknak, hogy a vizsgált populáció egészéről próbálnak, akár a környezettudatosság, akár az azt befolyásoló tényezők vonatkozásában érdemlegeset mondani. Jelen tanulmány e perspektívához képest újat kínál, amennyiben hazai, nagymintás, reprezentatív lekérdezés adatai alapján kizárólag azok körében vizsgálja a klímatudatos cselekvést, illetve az azt befolyásoló tényezőket, akik tartanak a klímaváltozástól. A válaszadók nagyobb része aggódik a klímaváltozás negatív hatásai miatt, tapasztalja is azokat. Ugyanakkor – az elemzés egyik fő megállapítása szerint – még a klímaaggódónak tekinthető csoporton belül is mindössze egyharmaduk cselekszik környezettudatosan. Ez mindenképpen felveti a hazai klímapolitika újragondolásának szükségességét.