From the perspective of commercial and non-commercial organizations, this monograph with contemporary organizational and management problems, focus on four thematic areas. Traditionally, the first one is concentrating the reader’s attention on the internal aspects of the organization’s functioning as an object of research. In this regard, articles related to the concept of corporate social responsibility in two ways: organizational research and bibliometric analysis. The authors used an analogical (bibliometric) approach to examine trends in publishing for the concept of learning organizations. In this part of the discussion, the social aspect has been strongly displayed, also thanks to the social capital and enterprise. Another topic in this section is the role of the workers’ knowledge in creating innovative solutions, emphasizing the role of trust and culture-rich collaboration between employees, employees’ participation in creating projects, and organizational change. In addition, it discusses the role of information and knowledge networks and sharing knowledge among employees, which does remain without influence on the shaping of individual employees’ careers. Slightly different from the other articles, though set in this section, there is an article referring to the organizational pathology. These considerations are much more valuable, usually because of the difficult access to negative information. The next section presents articles in the context of the modern tools used in the management of commercial and non-commercial organizations. This part of the discussion starts an article about forecasting methods and modern models of business management. In opposition to these considerations, the problem of unused, modern management methods in the local government sector, remains valid. Also, it refers to social media as a source of customer knowledge and management control, which should be considered as a strong and innovative determinant influencing the development of contemporary management methods of a modern enterprise. Interesting considerations are included in the article on the process management, with emphasis on the dynamic management of business processes and IT systems that go with it. The other articles present the concepts of the risk management model in a technology project, business model used in franchising, and the concept of accountability in conjunction with the development of innovation thanks to negotiating the role of intellectual capital. The modern market economy forces organizations to develop their ability to adapt to the conditions by improving their organization continually. It shows how modern-day commercial and non-commercial organizations are competing in a competitive market. This section opens the article, referring to the social competences of students developed during their studies and the competences of the future, which were studied and compared in two universities. The integral part of the organization’s functioning of the organization in the environment is their broadly understood cooperation for the implementation of the objectives and achieving a competitive advantage in the market. This trend covers articles referring to the participation of county in networking, modeling synergistic interrelations within the business association, or the conditions that should be met between enterprises and institutions supporting the technological development of the organization. Other considerations concern customer preferences concerning their choice of commercial banks, the factors that determine the choice of financial instruments by small and medium enterprises, or the demands of sustainable family business development. The final part of the articles is related to a broader perspective, and so the functioning of the organization from a sectoral perspective and across industries. A distinctive feature is a sectoral approach to knowledge-based business services, the determinants of knowledge-based products in the pharmaceutical industry, and the behavior of competing companies in the chocolate and confectionery industry. A separate topic in this section is the concept of capturing value or the value in a sectoral approach. The issues related to the protection of personal data in the healthcare sector, patent activity of enterprises in the technology park, as well as the management of resources in the cluster. The prepared monograph is an interdisciplinary compendium of knowledge on the functioning of both commercial and non-commercial organizations in the context of three perspectives: micro, meso, and macro. The advantage of this type of studies is modern and up-to-date look at the problems of management, organization behavior, or the functioning of the organizations in the sector.

The inspiration for this monograph is the progress in information and IT technologies observed over several decades and the accompanying development of digital competences. The collected results of the research work are grouped into three distinct chapters, which, at the same time, have a common denominator in research perspectives. Network-based economy, innovation-based economy, and competence-based economy are primarily analyzed in relation to technological changes in the ICT area. Each of these perspectives ultimately leads towards Economy 4.0 due to the progressing digital revolution, called the fourth industrial revolution. The contemporary importance of networks, innovations and managerial competences in the economy is analyzed primarily in connection with technological progress. The issue of networks in economic life has been developing for over 30 years. The role of the network in achieving a competitive advantage is unquestioned, while research issues are still being developed. This technological perspective is the most important context for network research today. Contemporary business models are developed based on a skillfully built inter-organizational network and a consciously used intra-organizational network. This applies to both commercial organizations and public entities. These issues are reflected in articles contained in this monograph, in particular in the first chapter. Various research conducted in organizations proves the increasing awareness of the importance of social life by managers and leaders, as well as the increase in the ability to build networks using information and ICT. Research on networks, which allows an understanding of the phenomenon of network formation, leads to the creation of methods and tools supporting network management. Modern network researchers, especially in the field of management sciences, point out that understanding the nature of the network and the possibilities of interacting with the network will determine the competitive position of the organization. This awareness and the complexity of the network are a constant motivation to develop knowledge and use its application character. The concept of an innovation-based economy is included in the second chapter and is also related to technological progress in the field of communication. The studies presented relate to the degree of innovation, skillful differentiation of innovation and imitation, the effectiveness of project financing, and the implementation of innovation. An important contribution to building knowledge on innovation comes from research conducted in individual sectors or regions, where a new, important perspective is gained, and specific, sometimes unique determinants of creating innovation are pointed out. References to regional and sectoral conditions can be found in individual subchapters. The research conclusions drawn have a cognitive and practical value for both researchers and management practitioners. In the third chapter of the monograph, studies that make an important contribution to building or verifying knowledge about the competence-based economy are grouped together. The research refers to the most important management problems and barriers to the development of organizations related to employees’ competences. Reference was made to many research currents in management, e.g. to empower employees, build the image of the employer, and the concept of sustainable development. Due to their long history of development, they would seem to be running out, while researchers prove that in contemporary commercial and non-commercial organizations deficits in managerial competencies are still identified. This applies to both human management and technical competences, especially digital. Therefore, research indicating the reasons for a lack of competence, in an era of strong popularization of these issues, seems to be interesting. The purpose of this monograph was to present current research results and their importance in developing knowledge about the economy based on networks, innovations, and competences. A lot of research was conducted from the perspective of changes in technological progress and the challenges of Economy 4.0. The new possibilities brought by the digital revolution in the field of building and managing networks and developing network-based business models cannot be underestimated. It should be expected that future innovations will be developed mainly thanks to digital progress and will be determined by the digital competences of managers and leaders. Modern research also shows that new generations of employees will compete primarily in the use of modern technological solutions such as data acquisition and processing, analyzes and simulations on large data sets (big data, science data), automation and robotization of production processes, software integration, cloud solutions, and especially the increasingly comprehensive use of the Internet. The importance of scientific research for learning about future phenomena, understanding and taming the future is invaluable. The authors and editors of the book express the hope that the research results presented in it will become an inspiration for new scientific explorations and the implementation of changes in organizations and economics.

This paper studies the macroeconomic effect and underlying firm-level transmission channels of a reduction in business entry costs. We provide novel evidence on the response of firms' entry, exit, and employment decisions. To do so, we use as a natural experiment a reform in Portugal that reduced entry time and costs. Using the staggered implementation of the policy across the Portuguese municipalities, we find that the reform increased local entry and employment by, respectively, 25% and 4.8% per year in its first four years of implementation. Moreover, around 60% of the increase in employment came from incumbent firms expanding their size, with most of the rise occurring among the most productive firms. Standard models of firm dynamics, which assume a constant elasticity of substitution, are inconsistent with the expansionary and heterogeneous response across incumbent firms. We show that in a model with heterogeneous firms and variable markups the most productive firms face a lower demand elasticity and expand their employment in response to increased entry.

These proceedings represent the work of researchers participating in the 17th European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies (ECRM) which is being hosted this year by Università Roma TRE, Rome, Italy on 12-13 July 2018.

The structure of the work – as indicated earlier – is based on solving the research problem posed. It results from the adopted goals and formulated research hypotheses. The need to analyse the above issues related to the research area was included in the structure of the thesis, divided into four chapters. The first chapter is devoted to the issues of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. It presents key definitions and classifications based on the existing legal framework in Poland. A statistical review of SMEs was conducted and the role of this sector of enterprises in the national economy was shown. Moreover, the European Union's policy towards micro, small and mediumsized enterprises was also reviewed and the main determinants of their development were presented in the light of the quoted research. The second chapter concerns the issue of business environment institutions. It reviews the most important concepts, presents the division of business environment institutions by form of support; analyses the organizational and legal aspects related to the functioning of BEI, also the spatial distribution of the discussed institutions indicating what role they play and the directions of their further development. The third chapter analyses the activities of business environment institutions in the area of financial support for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. The analysis included the activities of loan funds, guarantee funds, business angel networks and private equity/venture capital funds on the Polish market. The fourth chapter of the paper concerns the analysis of the functioning of business environment institutions in the field of financing support on the basis of research conducted among micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in Poland. It presents the methodology of the research, characterizes the research sample and analyses the results obtained. The results of the study were also the final conclusions along with the evaluation of the functioning of financial BEIs and the author's recommendations for future activities for the analysed institutions. The literature in the form of scientific monographs and articles in peerreviewed scientific journals was used to write the study. In addition, legal acts, reports and analyses, internet sources and the author's own research and analysis were also used.