Digitalisation plays a crucial role in enhancing the competitiveness of the global supply chain, primarily by improving trade openness and efficiency. The current study examined the impact of digital transformation on supply chains by analysing key digital and logistical factors over three Eastern European countries: Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania. Using multifactorial linear regression on data collected from 2013 to 2022, the present research paper evaluated and highlights the influence of broadband penetration, ICT graduates, and transport infrastructure over trade openness. The findings revealed a differentiated impact between the three analysed countries, such as a significant enhancement provided by broadband in Poland and Romania, ICT graduates having a low influence in Bulgaria, and air and rail transport not exhibiting a strong relationship with trade openness in all three countries. These results highlight the need for stronger policies that integrate the adoption of digital technologies, workforce development, and investment in infrastructure to enhance supply chain efficiency. Nevertheless, the present study contributes to the on-growing research trends over digitalisation’s role in trade and supply chain management while providing valuable insights for policymakers and business leaders in the current digital economy.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has often been cast as a straightforward engine of growth, yet its record across Central and Eastern Europe tells a more tangled story where outcomes hinge on the interplay of education, governance, and the timing of external shocks. This study embeds fixed effects panel econometrics within a systems framework, treating FDI as a subsystem of socio-economic dynamics. Using a long-run panel of eleven economies from 2000 to 2023, the analysis models path dependence and regime shifts through interaction terms and period-specific dummies set against a systems-thinking backdrop. The analysis shows that for the average CEE economy, FDI’s contribution has waxed and waned: it dragged on growth during the early transition years (2000–2007), settled into a neutral role after the global financial crisis, and proved unpredictable in the pandemic era. Romania stands out, however, with a marked “FDI premium” quantified as approximately 0.7 pp of growth per pp of FDI that seems to stem from reinforcing loops between rising tertiary enrolment and productivity spillovers. Mapping these feedbacks brings to light virtuous circles where human capital and resilience make or break the benefits of foreign capital. The policy message is plain: nurture the positive loops through investment in skills and firm linkages, keep institutions nimble enough to adapt, and watch for early warning signs of systemic strain.

Digitalisation is reshaping commercial systems in Europe, yet the joint evolution of national digital capabilities, e-commerce and macroeconomic performance remains imperfectly understood. This article develops a parsimonious Digital Maturity Index for the EU-27 over 2015–2023 and examines its association with the share of enterprise turnover generated through e-commerce using a systems-oriented econometric design. Two-way fixed-effects and dynamic panel models show that e-commerce turnover is strongly persistent within countries and systematically higher in more trade-open economies and in labour markets with slightly higher unemployment, after controlling for income and unobserved heterogeneity. The marginal effect of digital maturity on e-commerce intensity is small and statistically fragile, suggesting that digital capabilities act more as a slow-moving state variable than as a direct short-run driver of online sales. The marginal within-country effect of digital maturity on e-commerce intensity is small and statistically fragile once unobserved heterogeneity is controlled for, whereas trade openness and labour-market conditions remain robust correlates. The PVAR results suggest a stable system with strong persistence in e-commerce and digital maturity, limited spillovers to growth and a pronounced temporary contraction in output during the COVID-19 shock.

This paper assesses whether national level digitalization is associated with lower greenhouse gas emissions intensity, and under which conditions the association holds, using an unbalanced panel for twenty-seven European countries from 2014 to 2022. Digitalization is measured through a principal component index constructed from enterprise information technology adoption and fixed broadband subscriptions per capita. The outcome is the logarithm of emissions per unit of gross domestic product. Identification is implemented with two-way fixed effects and Driscoll–Kraay standard errors to exploit within country variation, and dynamic bias and potential endogeneity are probed through parsimonious difference GMM designs. Robustness is assessed through alternative outcomes, country specific linear trends, clustered inference, and leave one out checks. Evidence for an unconditional reduction in emissions intensity associated with digitalization is not found. It is predicted that the relationship between digitalization and e-commerce will be positive and statistically significant, thus meaning that at the median and the upper quartile of e-commerce a one standard deviation increase in digitalization relates to increases in intensity of about 2.4% and 3.3%, respectively. More renewable energy shares come with lower intensity and mitigate the digitalization effect. The contribution here attempts to quantify such conditional associations within a multi-country setting and thereby infer design and energy contexts wherein environmental gains from digital expansion would most likely take place.

Amid growing concern about labour market resilience in an era of digital and green transitions, this study carries out an investigation on how academic innovation and industrial transformation jointly shape sustainable employment outcomes across EU-27 member states. We frame this inquiry within the emerging concept of the “employment trilemma”, which posits inherent tension between competitiveness, innovation, and social inclusiveness in modern economies. Drawing on a dynamic panel dataset (2005–2023) and employing System SMM estimations, we test the hypothesis that the alignment of academic innovation systems and industrial transformation strategies enhances long-term employment sustainability. Our results reveal a nuanced relationship: academic innovation significantly supports employment in countries with high knowledge absorption capacity, whereas industrial transformation contributes positively only when embedded in cohesive, inclusive economic frameworks. Thus, these findings provide valuable insights for international business due to their emphasis on the importance of cross-sectoral collaboration, policy synchronisation, and investment in human capital for firms navigating increasingly volatile labour markets. Likewise, the study offers actionable insights for business leaders, policymakers, and universities striving to balance innovation with equitable labour market outcomes in an integrated European economy.

Digital technology has been incorporated into economies in such a way that transforms the very dynamics of labor markets. The most unprecedented forms that influence employment have been broadband expansion supported by wide-spread belief. Even with expansiveness in broadband, the potential effect of secure internet infrastructures on labor market outcomes is not fully understood. This paper tries to analyze the relationship between broadband penetration, secure online infrastructure, and employment in Central and Eastern Europe focusing on Hungary, Poland, and Romania. Existing research directly links digitalization with increased connectivity plus innovation-driven employment. More poorly analyzed aspects see secure digital environments as advancing labor markets by enabling digital entrepreneurship through higher trust levels in online transactions plus support for knowledge-intensive industry responding to its needs. This study attempts to further the understanding of digital transformation by analyzing to what extent secure online systems and general internet availability facilitate employment transformation. It is attempted in this paper to demonstrate the relationship between broad usage, secure digital systems, and employment trends over a decade with an econometric method using a multi-factor regression model. Country-level variations are where this paper estimates the magnitude factors of digitization for different labor changes; thus, this study contributes to the discussion on digital transformation by indicating how connectivity and security requirements together constitute one approach in predicting impacts and making their adjustments in labor markets. The findings therein give an appropriate direction for policymakers and business leaders who want to ensure that labor market dynamics remain buoyant while ushering in the new digital economy.