This study addresses the types of innovation activity of SMEs (Small and medium-sized enterprises) in the European Union and its association with financing decisions. The main objective is to capture the cross-country differences in the types of innovation in SMEs and then investigate the relationship between the types of innovations and relevance of a given type of funding. In the empirical examinations, we use the non-parametric methods, due to the nature of the data. We have found out that there are differences in the types of innovation activity of SMEs in the cross-country dimension. We have also confirmed the contingencies between the types of innovations undertaken by SMEs in each cluster of the European countries, which suggests that various types of innovations co-exist. However, we have not found any unified pattern of correlations between the relevance of a given source of financing and a given type of innovation. Our study contributes to the ongoing debate on the different intensity of innovation activity of SMEs, as linked to the problem of the SMEs financing gap as one of the fundamental drivers of innovation.

Ongoing climate change and increasing energy consumption are becoming a serious threat to international development efforts. To ensure a secure and sustainable future, local, national and regional authorities, as well as energy companies, need to be involved in improving energy efficiency and promoting rational energy use. The consumer is always at the centre of interest of policy and energy reduction strategies makers. It is their behaviour, motives and beliefs that can lead to optimised and economical energy management. This paper responds to the need to identify the individual preferences of energy consumers. The presented research fills an existing gap in the literature by analysing the strength of the influence of different types of instruments and external stimuli shaping pro-environmental attitudes of consumers of different behavioural types. The analysis presented in this paper is the result of the next stage of the authors’ research on energy consumers modelling, their segmentation and comprehensive characteristics. The analysis was conducted on a representative sample of N = 4332 respondents from 8 European countries (Czech Republic, France, Greece, Spain, Germany, Poland, Romania, and the United Kingdom). The study used multivariate statistical methods, such as: Correspondence Analysis, Factor Analysis and Kruskal-Wallis test. These methods are adequate to the assumptions of the research procedure and allowed for the identification of 4 latent factors that link the incentives into groups, where the motivation to save energy is based on: information (“Information and Knowledge”), social norms (“Social Influence”), investment funding (“Investments”) and energy price changes (“Energy Price”). In addition, the level of effectiveness of the studied incentives and motivators depends on the behavioural type of energy consumers and increases with rising levels of their intrinsic pro-environmental motivation.

Scarcity of resources and their waste, as well as deteriorating quality of life and the environment, are pressing problems of modern civilisations. Rational and efficient energy consumption is one of the possibilities for preventing harmful practices and the degradation of ecosystems. Understanding the consumer’s way of thinking and acting by identifying his needs and preferences are essential for effective efforts for smart, sustainable, and inclusive economic growth. Therefore, the aim of this article was a comprehensive socioeconomic analysis of particular behavioural types of energy consumers, as a continuation of the authors’ previous research. The paper uses statistical methods (chi-square test and correspondence analysis) dedicated to non-metric variables for an effective analysis of the data obtained from the questionnaires. The identification of socioeconomic factors was carried out on a representative sample of n = 4506 respondents from eight European countries (the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Spain, Germany, Poland, Romania, and the United Kingdom). This allowed for distinguishing a typical representative of five consumer segments (EI; AE; DS; O; I), developed on the basis of motivation to save energy. The authors succeeded in combining behavioural segmentation with the socioeconomic characteristics of the created classes. The results indicated that 10 out of 12 examined factors were significantly correlated with the behavioural type. These are (in order of significance): attitude towards saving energy; age; employment status; home country; the ownership status of the premises; the number of people in a household; average monthly income per person in a household; education; gender and place of residence.

Energy consumption impacts the environment, humans’ well-being, comfort and quality of life. The article aimed to develop the original model of energy consumer segmentation, based on behavioural variables, which influence consumer decisions and motivations regardless of demographic, geographic and socio-cultural differences. The innovative contribution is the segmentation procedure, which fills the existing research gap and can be treated as a universal tool serving various groups of stakeholders for creating and implementing sustainable development policies. The methodology used for the segmentation is based on the original algorithm and involves classifying a consumer into the most appropriate group based on the measurement of the distance between the ideal class representative and a particular respondent. Several distance measures (e.g., Sokal–Michener, Goodall, Lin) were used, while the similarity of those classifications was verified using the adjusted Rand index. The segmentation involved adopting—a priori—five basic classes of consumers, varying in terms of motivation to save energy. The validation performed on a sample of 1606 respondents, carried out as part of the eco-bot project, verified both the classification approach adopted in the study and the accuracy of the assumptions. The application of the distance measures chosen for the study allowed for the assignment of 96.1% of the respondents to the appropriate classes, which yielded the following distribution: EI (33.9% of the respondents); DS (33.1%), AE (17.2%), O (7%) and I (4.9%).

The issue of energy behaviour among Polish consumers, and especially the motives and attitudes they manifest, is relatively under-researched. This article attempts to identify individual attitudes and beliefs of energy consumers using the example of the residents of the province of Silesia (Poland). The authors conducted the expert segmentation of respondents in terms of their motivation for saving energy, based on the results of their proprietary survey. The second stage of the study involved using a classification model that allowed for the characterisation of the obtained groups. Psychological and financial factors were of greatest significance, which is confirmed by the results of other studies. Nonetheless, the obtained results explicitly indicate the specificity of the region, which requires transformation towards a low-emission economy. Despite the initial stage of changes both in the awareness of the consumers and the public interventions of the authorities, it should be emphasized that a majority of the respondents—at least to a basic extent—declared taking energy-saving measures. Financial motives are predominant among the respondents, although pro-environmental motives can also be noticed, which might translate into increased involvement and concern for the environment and climate.

This paper contributes to the academic debate on the pecking order theory and SMEs equity financing, in this equity financing gap. In order to address this problem, this study relies on the empirical design that is driven by the premises of the pecking order theory and distinguishes between the relevance of internal funds vs. external equity. The main aim of this study is to investigate whether the relevance of equity financing for European SMEs is driven by the country-specifics (captured by the clusters of the EU countries) and whether there are any other factors that may potentially explain the relevance of internal funds or external equity, with respect to SMEs performance and characteristics. For that purposes the SAFE survey data were used to run non-parametric and correlations analysis. The results have clearly indicated that there are statistically significant differences between the clusters of the EU countries (if we differentiate between core and peripheral EU countries in particular). It was also found that there is no unified pattern of the associations between the relevance of equity financing and SMEs performance and characteristics, thus these associations seem to be influenced by the country-specifics as well.