Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

Bearing in mind the instant innovations in renewables and the pressures to adopt ecological behaviors, companies are pushed to make changes in the energy field as well. Especially companies in the automotive sector have begun to implement sustainable production practices. The Czech Republic is not an exception, suggesting that sustainable actions have begun to be more significant at the local level as well. This article addresses the state of the art of using sustainable energy actions, concentrating on the renewable energy in the automotive supplier network within a selected region in the Czech Republic. Analyzing a broad context of renewable energy utilization at the regional level, the researched company sample shows that it is not yet a common practice. The results confirm that renewable energy sourcing needs to find its economic viability or justification in environmental legislation. Only then it can further spread along the automotive supply chain.

In the modern world it is hard to imagine any field that would not depend to some extent on electric energy resources; however, the use of electricity is not always legal and general information shows that criminal offences in electricity networks are widespread in the world. Instability in the electricity market is a serious threat to energy supply security in every country and it influences economical, social and political welfare. In order to determine solutions to prevent the above mentioned cases, it is useful to study the experience of legal systems and case-law close to Latvia in relation to the above mentioned criminal offences, as well as to examine the existing problems and particularities of the situation. Taking into account foreign experience in developing legislative acts on prevention of criminal offences related to unlawful use of electricity and their application in practice, this research provides an insight into national legislation and caselaw in this field in several countries – the Russian Federation, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Republic of Poland, and the Republic of Lithuania. Analysing the results of the research and the real situation, conclusions on the peculiarities of electricity thefts, foreign practice and possible solutions to improve the situation in Latvia can be drawn.

In accordance with the rise and rapid growth in e-commerce in the past few decades, the use of payment cards for online purchases has significantly increased in the payment cards market. This situation has led to an explosion in payment card fraud and it is costing billions of euros and dollars in losses in the card payment industry. The understanding of security has therefore undergone a significant development. Due to the inaccurate evaluation of their personal security status, people tend to underestimate the safety features related to the protection of their financial data on the internet. This claim is supported by the high level of interest that cyber attackers show in persons operating in the public and economic spheres. The collection and data analysis carried out suggests that the target sample group has not had experience with cyber-attacks, predominantly because this group was made up of ‘ordinary’ people, presumably outside of the cyber attackers’ sphere of interest. It is therefore important to further investigate the opinion and consumer approach to security and payment card fraud. As a result of rising losses, financial institutions and card issuers are constantly searching for new technologies and innovations in payment card fraud detection and prevention. This article provides several views on personal safety and quality of security to payment cars and cyber- attacks.The data collection and analysis was carried out in Slovakia via electronic sample surveys. With sample surveys the data is collected from a base sample unit, which in this case consisted of a sample of residents of the Slovak Republic. The research sample for this investigation consisted of 287 respondents, out of which there were 164 men (57,14%) and 123 women (42,86%). For the purposes of the analysis, the respondents were divided into categories, based on their age, level of education and occupation. The study results can help the issuers of payment cards and banks as well as clients using payment cards, especially in order to improve the prevention against fraud and the unauthorised use of payment cards.

The use of social responsibility as a business management strategy was defined, from a theoretical point of view, was studied to determine its utility to the change of the productive matrix for Ecuador sustainability. A descriptive correlational research was carried out in four companies in the Pichincha province, demonstrating that there are significant differences in the integral performance of Corporate Social Responsibility regarding the change of the productive matrix; that the eight indicators that influence the most these differences were found. There was a positive correlation with the two indicators related to the change in the productive matrix, which provided empirical evidence that the companies that perform better in Social Responsibility have better conditions to develop the required production transformation.

Network capital is a little explored phenomenon, but it is difficult to imagine the existence of man and society without networking effect. Network capital is a special type of social capital, its new branch in the e-society, the result of scientific and technical progress, in particular, the development of information and communication technologies (ICT). Network capital has a huge impact on the formation of modern society, accelerating and facilitating the development of globalization process and processes of global resource sharing and redistribution. Due to this positive influence, it blurs boundaries between global and local problems, creating new opportunities beyond the limitations of space or time, contributing to the economic development of enterprises at the local, regional and global level. Thereby becomes topical the necessity for a more efficient management of network capital, as well as the need to develop methods of its measurement and analysis. In the first part of the paper, authors examined the relevance of network capital phenomenon and generalized examples of its use in the modern e-society. In the second part of the article authors identified place of network capital in the context of aggregate capital, conducted a literature review, summarizing the main principles and concepts of network capital theory. The literature review showed that the role and possibilities of network capital development are poorly understood, a very small number of researches have been carried out on the subject and they do not present enough empirical analysis. The differences in terminology and interpretation of the phenomenon was revealed as well. In the third part of the article, authors analysed dynamics of the main ICT infrastructure indicators and indicators, which effect the development of network capital. The research helped to identify the main trends in network capital infrastructure changes over the past 10 years, as well as to ascertain the main problems and imbalances in its development. The analysis showed that between network capital and economic development of the country presents a very strong logarithmic dependence. At the end of the article authors presented conclusions on the work done. The paper is a preparatory base for further research in the field of network capital.

The Part II is the continuation of the discussions begun in the last issue of Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues 6(3) in area of ensuring public security in the fight against crime and focuses in particular on the importance of creating models for control and prevention of new crime acts. Also, the problems of prevention and control of some conditionally distinguished criminal processes – shadow economy, corruption, fight against human trafficking and domestic violence – are scrutinized. In consideration of the limited scope of the work and striving for the concentration of the research, analysis of these criminal processes is conducted just to the extent it is important in order to distinguish the main topical issues pertaining to the modernization of coordination for ensuring public security.

The phenomenon of globalization is wide, changeable and versatile. Therefore, there are a lot of different and contradictory opionins about its historical nature, driving motives and assessment of its influence on the various spheres of the social life. As it is widely known, globalization is the integrity of the processes having place in the world, inspiring people to acquire the common quality and character and draw near each other. The problem of its influence especially on the small countries doesn’t lose its topicality even today. Facts, when after the global integration a country with a small and open economics improves its economic conditions and becomes active on the international stage, due to the development of the communication and education systems, is a reflection of the fact, that globalization has a positive impact on such countries and helps them not to lag behind the world progress.

This study was performed to evaluate and examine financial literacy and retirement planning in sector employment in Vietnam in the context of financial safety during lifecycle. In order to collect primary data, a questionnaire was designed and distributed to 257 employees in the public and private sectors in Ho Chi Minh City. The results of descriptive analysis indicated that those who work in the public sector have a higher percentage of correct answers to questions about financial literacy and knowledge of social insurance than that of employees in the private sector. The results of a linear probability model (LPM) and two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression show that financial knowledge and regular saving are significant factors that enhance retirement planning, whereas sector employment is insignificant to retirement planning. These findings should improve the knowledge of financial literacy, pensions and social insurance disseminated through retirement seminars and education programs for workers. More research, however, should be conducted on these topics in Vietnam.

In last two decades, several authors have already proven the existence of positive relationship between generalized trust and macroeconomic growth and this paper queues up providing the evidence based on more recent data. An analysis of sustainability of the macroeconomic growth is also very important for prediction of economic development. However, the main aim of the paper is to analyse how the impact of trust on macroeconomic growth changes upon time, trying to find the answer how fast can changes in trust and other determinants be visible in changes in economic growth of countries. For this purpose, we introduced the dynamic aspect into the “Barro-type” regression growth models used by our predecessors. We can conclude, that trust is the most dynamic growth determinant, with the impact visible after 5 years. The paper also confirmed that the higher the initial level of GDP per capita (in terms of constancy of other variables in the model), the greater the decline in the growth rate. The high level of trust also allows better implementation of effective organizational innovation and knowledge transfer within the organization, since trust is also active through the channel of building the common good.

Despite the great popularity of employer branding among practitioners, research in the field still poses a number of critical questions and issues for management scholars. Given an implicit but undeveloped employer branding theory and its conceptual ambiguity, this paper reviews terminology of the phenomenon, clarifying the essence of employer branding from both marketing and management perspectives. Employer branding process is investigated through comparative analysis of available employer branding frameworks and, overcoming their limitations, an integrative conceptual employer branding model is developed and an analytical three-step process for employer brand development is suggested as a means towards sustainable organization.