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The article discusses political leadership in local government. Change from traditional local government to local governance requires also institutional changes and new roles played by local leaders. The notion of political leader is limited to persons having democratic legitimacy for their role played in local politics. It excludes people, who might be influential but remain outside formal democratic institutions of local government. The article distinguishes between type (which depends on formal institutional settings) and style (more dependent on personal characteristics) of leadership. The article discusses selected theoretical concepts of type and style of leadership and tries to refer them to Polish local governments. Recent Polish reforms have brought a change from the type which was close to a collective model to one closer to a strong mayor form. Analysis of four initiative in 2 Polish cities (Poznan and Ostrow Wielkopolski) allows to formulate some conclusions on citizens’ perception of actual styles of local political leadership. The largest proportion of citizens in analysed cities prefers a style which is close to consensus facilitator. But in a real behaviour of leaders, citizens see more of city boss style, which might be characterized by the implementation of an own vision with internal resources existing within local government structures. Comparison of citizens’ preferences with the perception of actual behaviour of leaders allows to compute an Expectation Gap Index. The gap is usually quite narrow in initiatives focused on the construction of broad development programmes, but it becomes wider if we turn to more concretely focused projects.

The purpose of the article is to provide political analysis of European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC), which are being currently established on the Polish-Slovak borderland. First, the author presents the essence and legal basis of this new instrument of the European Union, and describes the origin of the first EGTCs. Second, in the main body of the text, he discusses two Polish-Slovak EGTCs, i.e. Tatra and TRITIA, focusing in particular on their documents of incorporation, internal organization and the planned scope of activities. The article is supplemented with a comparative analysis of previously active euroregions. In the summary, the author offers some conclusions and recommendations regarding further formalization of Polish-Slovak trans-frontier cooperation.

This article reveals the geographical distribution, structures, and problematic aspects of business migration to the oblasts of the Carpathian region of Ukraine and abroad. In the context of the Russian–Ukrainian war, the article assesses the risks and threats that internal and international business migration pose to the Ukrainian economic system, economies of the Carpathian region, the internal consumer market, and business entities. Measures to mitigate the threats of business migration to the Carpathian region are offered. The implementation of certain measures will eliminate the identified threats to relocated businesses and minimise the risks to the social and economic development of the Carpathian region and Ukraine as a whole.

For many decades, temporary labour migrations from the Opole region have had a significant impact on the social, economic, and demographic situation. They are particularly important for the villages in the region, for most of the migrants are recruited there. What is the situation in farmers’ families? Are their members labour migration participants too? What is migration’s role in the income of farmers’ families? The paper characterizes migration from rural farmers’ families of the region. It is based on the results of an analysis carried out in July 2012 in the Opole province in 383 individual farms the size of 2–30 ha.

The article addresses the nature of offshoring, a phenomenon which names the migration of jobs, but not the people who perform them, from rich countries to the poor ones. Due to fast development of technology, information flow around the globe is getting cheaper and easier. Thus, the group of tradable goods and services is constantly growing. This change will become as meaningful in its consequences as two Industrial Revolutions. The development of offshoring will become a massive challenge bringing wrenching social changes. Moreover, rich countries will have to modify their systems of education or social security net in order to adjust. themselves to new reality, and they have not done much yet. The conclusion presents the possible directions of these changes.

The article presents intraregional convergence processes in different types of European metropolitan macro-regions in the years 1995–2004. The typology is based on factor analysis using principal components methods as well as cluster analysis using the Ward method. The results of the analysis indicate the presence of a specific situation in particular types of macro-regions. On the one hand, a clear internal divide of capital city regions of Central and Eastern European Countries was observed, as well as large interregional differences in the level of development in other peripheral macro-regions. On the other hand, Northern Italian and Southern German macro-regions, dependent on modern industry, were internally quite coherent regarding their level of development. The situation was similar also in some regions that experience problems and undergo restructurisation processes. Capital city regions of smaller European countries, especially from the former EU15 (but not constituting any particular type), were the most differentiated group of macro-regions.

The goal of this article was to estimate the regional rates of return of investment in higher education as well as potential benefits of migration of educated people between Polish regions. The results show that the benefits of higher education in Poland are higher for women than for men. Also, wage benefits of education grow with age and work experience, but they are characterized by decreasing marginal value. Internal returns of investment in education, calculated for every region assuming no migration of workers, are weakly correlated with the expected salaries of university graduates. In turn, the returns of interregional migration for people with higher education indicate that the most attractive destination in Mazowieckie, and the least attractive – Podlaskie. A particularly strong motivation for migration is faced by educated women of Podlasie. The research demonstrated also that in some regions (Lodzkie, Lubuskie), the expected earnings of graduates are largely influenced by the opportunity to work in neighbouring regions, offering more attractive salaries.

This paper addresses the changes in the demographic development of Ukraine in the last 125 years in quantitative parameters of demographic sustainability: alterations in population size, its gender and age structure, and natural and migration movement. Demographic sustainability is considered to be the capacity of a country’s or a region’s demography to preserve a consistent population size with optimal proportions between its age categories. Eight historical-demographic stages related to specific military-political and socio-economic events are outlined and analysed. Demographic catastrophes and crises in Ukraine were directly related to the aggression of totalitarian regimes. They occurred at the initial stages of demographic transition, so Ukraine was capable of restoring the population size, albeit with deeply disturbed demographic structures. The large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine increases the risk of the occurrence of a modern demographic catastrophe. Nowadays, the demographic sustainability of Ukraine cannot be achieved autonomously without the positive impact of external factors – the respective governmental demographic and socio-economic policies.

The article was published in Polish in "Studia Regionalne i Lokalne", 3/2004

The notion of replacement migration is frequently used in recent literature on migration policy and demographic forecasts. Such migration streams could theoretically compensate for the natural decrease and population ageing, observed in most of developed countries. In the long run, however, international migration can only slow down, rather than reverse these processes. In this respect, the situation in Poland is unique as its migration balance will most likely remain negative until around 2020. Nevertheless, the population outflow abroad could to some extent be offset by the population inflow. This would require, among other conditions, a reformulation of Poland`s migration policy, with an increase of provisions enabling selective legal immigration, preventing at the same time the so-called irregular immigration. Such provisions are already being implemented in some EU countries (including Germany), and in the future will probably form the basis of EU migration policy.

The aim of this paper was to analyse the role of borders and types of borderlands in cross-border cooperation. Almost 600 projects from seven Interreg IIIA Programmes, in which Polish border regions participated in the years 2004–2006, were examined. The authors paid special attention to the question whether the structure of co-operation fields is uniform or diversified along all borders. Although many similarities did exist, there were also important differences. It turned out that the common legal framework of Interreg Programmes did not guarantee exactly the same realisation of trans-border cooperation. The so called ‘integrating factor’ also played an important role. The type of border and neighbouring country, as well as different local conditions also had an impact on the programmes’ implementation. Therefore, the effectiveness of trans-border programmes depends on their adjustment to specific regional conditions.

The article examines the labour migration of Ukrainians to the Warmia-Masuria province. Such research methods as systematic, comparative, behavioural, statistical data analysis, document analysis, focused interviews and case study helped to identify current trends and key challenges presented by migration flows of Ukrainians to the province. The main factors affecting Ukrainian labour migration to the province are analysed, with particular emphasis placed on quantitative descriptions of the features of Ukrainian employment in the region. It is concluded that there are prospects for further labour migration of Ukrainian workers to Warmia-Masuria.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether it is feasible to ensure neo-endogenous sustainable development of valuable natural areas of the Lublin voivodship. In order to do that, the author analyzed the literature and documents on local development strategies, and the results of research carried out in 2013 in the Lublin voivodship, in 30 communes with the greatest natural value. As part of the study, she conducted a survey among 383 councillors – 86% of the total. The author shows that due to accumulation of many serious problems of sustainable development, such as deficiencies in environmental infrastructure, or underutilized (economic) potential of protected areas, it is difficult to implement neo-endogenous development – only 13% of the councillors said opportunities for development depended on a favourable arrangement of external and internal conditions.

Multiculturalism is a kind of social policy that depends on cultural neutrality of the state. Huge communities of immigrants of non-European cultures arose in Western Europe. In response to this phenomenon, European states initiated a multicultural social policy. In effect, many behaviours of immigrants turned out to be at variance with human rights, but consistent with multiculturalism. Great cultural distance between European societies and immigrants caused more serious problems with integration than had been expected. Nowadays, we can observe a contestation, but not abandonment, of the multicultural policy, accompanied by anti-immigrant sentiments. A new social policy ought to facilitate the adaptation of immigrants in economic and politic institutions, and to respect human rights as a key value.

The paper explores the application of the gravity model, namely the delineation of the urban predominant influence areas via the generation of the multiplicatively weighted Voronoi diagram, to the socio-economic regionalisation and administrative territorial division of Ukraine, including the existing state of affairs and several proposals on their improvement. The research uses quantitative statistical data on interregional migration and rail passenger traffic within the country, processed via the Statistica analytics software, and a subsequent spatial analysis conducted by GIS. The findings suggest that the gravity model can serve as a tool for optimisation the administrative territorial division, as well as for the delineation of the planning regions and urban hinterlands. At the same time, it has certain limitations and should not be treated as a panacea for regional planning and development.

Evaluation is an important element of the public policy cycle, providing information for improving the effectiveness of implemented policies and designing future ones. In Poland, the need for the diffusion of this practice from the field of structural funds to other public policy fields has been discussed for at least 15 years. Although one such obvious direction of diffusion is local government, very little is known about evaluation at this level, and in studies summarising the general evaluation practice in Poland, this strand is omitted. The aim of this study was to assess the extent and characteristics of evaluation practices in the period 2010–2021 in cities with county [Pol. powiat] status. The analysis was based on the information on evaluation studies provided by city halls. Out of the 55 cities that were included in the analysis, 62% carried out evaluations and they completed a total of 469 studies. A systematic increase in the number of studies and the number of cities carrying them out was also observed. The dominant thematic areas were civic budgeting, social policy, and development strategy. The shares of studies carried out internally and those commissioned from external companies turned out to be similar. In contrast, studies of intervention implementation processes dominate over evaluations of intervention effects. This research can serve as a starting point for further, more detailed analyses of the organisation of the evaluation process and its use in local government.

This study examines the characteristics of cross-border migration in the border communities of Ogun State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select 331 cross-border migrants in the study area. The analysis revealed that few employment opportunities, bad economic conditions, poverty, wage differentials, soil infertility, natural disasters, and drought were the underlying push factors predicting the need to earn better income among the migrants, whereas more job opportunities, better economic conditions, less environmental degradation, good access to land, commerce, marriage, the chance to join other family members, better income, good harvest, and soil productivity were the underlying pull factors predicting the choice of destination in Nigeria. Therefore, the study concluded that economic and environmental considerations were the push factors predicting the need to earn better income, whereas environmental, economic, and social considerations were the pull factors predicting the choice of destination in Nigeria.

In the context of the war in Ukraine, the author defines the cross-border model of sustainable development of regions as an effective one, which can be used to adopt the EU’s progressive experience in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, adapt it, and timely transfer it to the internal regions in the post-war recovery of our country. According to the conceptual approach, the ER-cross-border model of sustainable development of regions is developed based on the analysis of the subject area of sustainable regional development, cross-border cooperation of regions for sustainable development, and cross-border cooperation of regions for sustainable development in times of war.

The article addresses the issue of urban citizenship discussed in the context of Ukrainian migration to Poland, which is important in the process of migrant integration. The scale and dominance of migration from Ukraine in Poland make this theme particularly important. The concept of urban citizenship presupposes certain conditions to be met for its implementation. They allow us to take into account the component of practices, social relations and local identity. We associate the latter with the sense of being a city dweller (identification with the local community). Referring to the results of the qualitative research (FGI) carried out in 2022 with the inhabitants of Wrocław who have Polish and Ukrainian state citizenship, we have presented the conditions (necessary) for being a citizen of the city – the initial values that should be fulfilled by the citizens of Wrocław (irrespective of their ethnic origin and state citizenship held). By comparing the criteria for Poles with those for Ukrainians, we were able to identify a battery of objective and subjective, inclusive and exclusive indicators, as well as those that are more or less important for representatives of a given national category due to their realizing in the local community (and thanks to it) autotelic and instrumental needs.

Local communities worldwide rely on cultural values, and Indigenous institutions to recover from social conflict; however, the process by which social awareness is constructed as a peacebuilding mechanism remains insufficiently theorised, particularly in post-colonial island societies. This study examines how social awareness is constructed and mobilised in resolving recurring social conflicts in the Kei Islands, Maluku, Indonesia. Employing a qualitative phenomenological approach, data were collected through in-depth interviews and observations involving community leaders, customary elders, religious figures, and local residents. The findings reveal six interrelated forms of social awareness – sense of brotherhood, participation in joint activities, social interaction, problem-solving through deliberation, the ability to listen and communicate, and tolerance – which collectively shape everyday peace practices in the community. Drawing on Berger and Luckmann’s theory of social construction, this study demonstrates that while processes of internalisation and externalisation are increasingly challenged by modernisation and social pressures, objectification through strong customary institutions functions as the primary stabilising anchor in conflict resolution. The study extends social construction theory by proposing a communal–institutional variation, in which collective institutions play a corrective role in sustaining social cohesion. These findings underscore the importance of strengthening Indigenous institutions and culturally embedded practices in locally grounded peacebuilding initiatives.

The aim of the research was the evaluation of the regional disparities in the economic efficiency of private companies in Poland. An attempt to answer the following question was taken: Do the regional disparities in the economic efficiency of private companies in Poland are increasing or decreasing? On the basis of the research results one can obtain some important conclusions. Regional disparities in the economic efficiency of private companies in Poland during years 1999-2008 have slightly decreased, and still remain at the average level. It was caused by the different dynamics of economic processes occurring in voivodships and also by the processes of the internal convergence and divergence of voivodships.

The aim of this article is to gain a better understanding of the patterns of human capital mobility in transition economies. It exploits a unique dataset from a Polish social networking website to develop a typology of skilled migration. Determinants of human capital flows are further elaborated using an empirical model of student and graduate migration. It is found that spatial mobility of human capital in Poland is low, and the distance between the home region and potential destination plays the most significant role in migration decisions. Migrations of skilled individuals favour metropolitan areas, which experience a net gain of human capital, while all other regions are subject to brain drain.

The language question are phenomena resulting from contacts of two or more languages on the same territory or in the same community. It consists in co-existence and/or conflicts of languages and in language policies carried out by national and regional governments, and by ethnic movements aiming at maintaining or changing the language situation on a given territory. The main issues linked to the language question in the contemporary world are the following: 1) domination of the English language as an international language, supported by the globalisation and facilitating the globalisation. The domination of English puts on unequal footing people of the world and causes dissatisfaction of some parts of non-English native speakers; 2) extinction of languages as a result of assimilation of small ethno-linguistic groups. This phenomenon generates alarm of some groups of scientists and public opinion; 3) language barrier hampering development of education, economy and democracy in many parts of the world, especially in the post-colonial countries; 4) international migrations. These put migrants themselves and societies and governments of recipient countries in front of the question of the attitude towards maintaining of the cultural and linguistic identity of the migrants, this question being solved in different ways in different countries and historical periods.

The main aim of this article is to apply the concept of “identity” to the analysis of phenomena and processes associated with the formation and functioning of clusters and cluster initiatives. Cluster structure is a kind of social group, and therefore should be subject to the same trends as other social groups. One of its most important characteristics (directly related to identity), observed particularly in groups whose aim is to survive for a long time, is their willingness to create mechanisms that distinguish the group and its members, and that build internal coherence and a sense of belonging of its members to the structure as a whole, and their attachment to each other.

Migration management is one of the key tasks faced by regional authorities in Poland, which experience deepening processes of shrinking and ageing of population. The aim of the article is to determine whether policy makers are aware of the role of migration processes and migration policy, to show their presence in demographic development strategies, and to describe the activities undertaken at the regional level in response to the ongoing demographic processes. The analysis is based on the example of the Łódzkie, Opolskie, and West Pomeranian voivodships. The article proposes an analytical model assuming a gradual process of decision-makers’ reaction to demographic changes. An analysis of documents and interviews with people responsible for regional demographic policy confirms they are aware of ongoing population processes and their consequences, at the same time, however, there is a lack of actions aimed at stimulating inflows of foreigners. The initiatives aimed at stopping the population from emigrating are more important.

The paper aims to discuss the major trends in changes of regional differences of economic wellbeing and the resulting spatial mobility of population as well as some regional consequences of these processes. The research is based on an empirical methodology, and visual analysis of mapped data is the main research method. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, fast decrease of employment in industry and agriculture has damaged, first of all, peripheral regions and, later, resulted in mass emigration, which is still evident in most Lithuanian municipalities. The decrease of the number of jobs in these sectors and its increase in those located in different places meant that most residents of non-metropolitan regions had to find new jobs outside the localities in which they resided. This resulted in growing mobility of the population, expressed by growing foreign emigration, inner migrations, and commuting, which continue to shape the social structure of the country to the present day, as spatial structures change more slowly than modes of production. Differences in wellbeing, which appeared at the end of the 20th century, played a role in accelerating emigration processes, which are still damaging local labour supply and economic development in many regions.

Europe has no language which would be its symbol of identity, which would emotionally integrate its citizens. According to the official stance of the European Union the linguistic symbol of its identity is its multilingualism, which is confirmed by the fact that it has 23 official languages. The official multilingualism causes some problems connected with translation and interpretation. (For simultaneous translation from all 23 to all other 23 official languages theoretically as many as 506 interpreters are needed). There are techniques reducing this number, but at the expense of time and quality of interpretation). For pragmatic reasons EU institutions increasingly use English alone in their internal activity and in their contacts with member states and other institutions, thus de facto promoting English as the contact language of the EU. English, however, is not a specifically European lingua franca. The role of English as lingua franca in Europe is growing, but as English is the global lingua franca and the spread of English is a sign of globalisation, English cannot at the same time unite Europe and separate it from the rest of the world. Even more so that there is political opposition to the growing role of English in Europe. Therefore the link between language and identity in Europe consists not in possessing a single language (or languages) as its symbol of identity and centre of loyalty and as an instrument of internal communication and external separation. It consists in the fact that the use of English and other contact languages and the mechanism of interpretation and translation in the EU enable circulation of information and ideas which eventually may contribute to the creation (strengthening?) of the sense of European identity.

The article aims to present and assess educational migration as a driver of human capital redistribution across regions. The unique research on academic careers of 8.5 thousand secondary school-leavers in Lublin (Poland) allowed to gather microdata on the mobility of young people along with the school-leaving examination results being a proxy of human capital. The results indicate that the ratio of youth out-migration from their home region amounts to roughly 20%, which seems a low figure against comparative studies. However, the distribution of migration rate along with the logit regression proved high propensity of the most talented youth to move out. Hence, strong positive migration selectivity is regarded as an important driver of human capital redistribution across regions, which might negatively affect human capital accumulation in the sending area.

The war initiated by the Russian Federation against Ukraine in 2022 can be seen as a drastic shock event with unpredictable long-term socio-political consequences at the national, regional and global levels. This study aims to identify the impact of war-related disturbances on the dynamics of social cleavages in Ukraine, in particular the possibility of deepening or diminishing such cleavages or promoting the occurrence of new ones. For decades, the internal partition of Ukraine into East and West has been attributed to national self-identification, linguistic and religious peculiarities and the geopolitical preferences of residents of different regions. Shortly before and after the outbreak of the Russian invasion, fundamental changes in Ukrainian society and domestic politics became evident, some of which can be interpreted as signs of the mitigation of social cleavages. Our findings revealed at least two significant shifts in these ‘old’, traditional cleavages: one occurred after the Revolution of Dignity and the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, and the second one is emerging now, due to the full-scale war on Ukrainian territory against the Ukrainian people. More broadly, this research aims to assess the resilience of social cleavages in the face of a shock event.

The article seeks to identify socio-economic conditions that affect the demand of individual consumers for cars and to analyze spatial differences in these conditions. To achieve this objective, econometric modelling is conducted. The analysis was conducted in all poviats in Poland and covered the years 2010-2015. The findings show that the demand for new cars is stimulated by incomes of potential consumers and by a net in-migration, while the level of unemployment together with prices of complementary goods (especially petrol prices) negatively affect the demand for cars. Moreover, geographically weighted regression shows that the identified conditions differ across the country, which may explain the noticeable differences in the level of motorization between poviats.

The article addresses the structural–temporal changes in the characteristics of the labour market in the oblasts of the Carpathian region of Ukraine (Lvivska, Zakarpatska, Ivano-Frankivska and Chernivetska) due to the large-scale Russian military invasion of Ukraine. Regional, sectoral and market condition–related changes in the labour market and employment in the region during the war are identified. The article defines the threats to the functioning of the regional labour market, which are related to growing unemployment, increasing pressure on social infrastructure and the domestic labour market, reduction in human resources and the growing trend of relocation of business and skilled workers from the western oblasts of Ukraine to other countries. The policy for social-labour stabilisation of the oblasts in the Carpathian region of Ukraine in conditions of war and post-war recovery is substantiated.

The notion of replacement migration is frequently used in the recent literature on migration policy and demographic forecasts. Such migration streams could theoretically compensate for the natural decrease and population ageing, as observed in most of developed countries today. In the long run, however, international migration can only slow down, rather than reverse these processes. The situation of Poland in this respect is specific, as its migration balance will most likely remain negative until around the year 2020. Nevertheless, the population outflow abroad could to some extent be matched by the population inflow. This would require, among other conditions, a reformulation of Poland`s migration policy an increase of provisions for legal, selective immigration.

Along with time-related changes in the migration of Poles to Germany, the invisibility that has been ascribed to them has also evolved: from intentional hiding to deliberate merging into local social and spatial structures. The city of Berlin, perceived as an open, modern and multicultural metropolis, is an exceptional laboratory of transformations and diversity of social behaviours shown by Polish migrants. It attracts new citizens who not only want to make a living here, but also – and more frequently – to achieve self-fulfilment. While the invisibility of the economic migrants is mainly a result of their alienation in a new country, the representatives of lifestyle migration deliberately merge into the culturally diverse society of Berlin and they try to identify with other social groups. The aim of this article is to identify the existence and forms of every-day functioning of Polish migrants in Berlin in the context of invisibility.

The present paper focuses on creative clusters in Poland. Its main goal is to determine the factors behind the establishment of creative clusters and the factors limiting their activity. The study is based on data provided by cluster facilitators, and the CATI and CAWI methods are used for analysis. The study shows that the most important factors contributing to the creation of clusters are internal: the willingness to cooperate, especially between knowledgeable entities, and to strengthen market position and the range of influence. The barriers are: reluctance to share knowledge, the advantage of rivalry over cooperation, poorly perceived flow of employees in clusters (internal factors), as well as dependence on external financing and lack of interest on the part of local government units (external factors).

The goal of this article is to investigate the spatial allocation of human capital investment at the local level in Poland. In particular, this analysis refers to the funds within the Human Capital Operational Programme (POKL 2007–2013). The study is divided into the following parts: extrapolation of the algorithm for allocating the POKL funds between regions to the local level; comparison of the allocation based on the data from the period before the programme with the hypothetical allocation of the same funds based on the measurement done after the end of the programme (the „before-after” method); and a comparison of the intentional allocation of POKL funds with the observed actual absorption of funds at the local level in 2007–2015. The analysis carried out in this article proves that the final effect of POKL allocation at the local level is not a simple extension of the government’s plan of division expressed by an algorithm. The absorption of funds per capita differed between municipalities within individual voivodships, but more funds did not necessarily go to the areas that were particularly structurally burdened (according to the governmental algorithm). The „before-after” analysis leads to the conclusion that, in the period under study, development disparities increased, and development gap between eastern and western Poland deepened. The situation is particularly difficult in the territories of the so-called internal peripherals.

This article examines the potential risks of permanent population loss in Ukraine on account of Russian military actions dating back to 2014, which has hindered the ability of the stronghold territorial communities to recover. It outlines the context of displacement in Ukraine over the past eight years, assesses displaced people’s direct needs and considers both national and local policies to meet them. Finally, it forecasts factors that will impact the reluctance of displaced persons to return to the stronghold territories and details the necessary national and local responses.

The article contains a regional analysis of the Ukrainian labour market risks and its minimisation recommendations in the war period. The war’s consequences were the forced migration spread, the labour force reduction, the unemployment increase, and the decline in real incomes. The analysis of regional disproportions of labour market risks during the war showed that jobs declined, wages decreased, labour supply-demand imbalance and labour competition increased in the regions with the most consequences of military actions. The migration, unemployment, and wages trend became a base for developing the labour markets advantages matrix for Ukraine’s regions.

The paper discusses research results concerning company relocation processes in five major metropolitan areas in Poland in the period 2001–2013. Key characteristics of relocation processes are analyzed mostly from the perspective of the nature of relocating companies, including time since company establishment and type of business. The study covers more than 500 companies employing at least 50 workers each. More than one third of the studied companies were found to have relocated, which confirms the rather widespread occurrence of company relocation. The results obtained in this study confirm most research findings produced in relocation studies in Western Europe and the United States that have been used to help formulate the incubator theory.

Cross-border economic relations are analysed by many researchers. However, the concepts of cross-border cooperation illustrated in the literature of regional studies do not present the EU market as a factor of cross-border economic relations. In consequence, it is necessary to carry out an in-depth analysis of the literature on cross-border cooperation and economic integration in order to capture the impact of the single market on cross-border relations. The aim of this study is to describe cross-border cooperation in the Polish-German border area, taking into account the economics of the single market.

The author of this article describes residential segregation of foreigners in Barcelona. She presents some theoretical considerations, makes statistical calculations pertaining to the problem, and defines causal factors of residential segregation. What is important, residential segregation in Barcelona may be far deeper than in other cities because of the relatively strong separatism in Catalonia and the required knowledge of the Catalan language. These factors make full access to local labour market very difficult for immigrants and lead to their marginalization. In the statistical calculations a measure of residential segregation (Duncan, Duncan 1955) is used which allows a comparison of the situation in Barcelona and in other cities, as well as an analysis of changes in Barcelona in recent years.

Identification and delimitation of metropolitan areas, as well as measuring their actual metropolitan potential, are complex research problems. They become even more complicated in the case of a metropolis shaped around a polycentric core, consisting of cities which rank similarly in the national or transnational urban network. The paper is an attempt to identify and analyze the crucial problems of internal integration within the Tri-City metropolitan area which significantly hamper the metropolitan discourse and undermine the cooperation indispensible for metropolitan development.

The authors have suggested analytical tools to evaluate levels of internal social responsibility by developing an aggregate set of indicators. The reference indicators values were substantiated on the basis of average industry ones, which provided an opportunity to determine the multiple coefficients. The suggested tools provide the opportunity to define enterprises’ tendency for change in the level of responsibility level by years. This research can have important practical impacts due to its quantitative assessment having been based on published financial statements. The study creates additional opportunities for stakeholders to evaluate current internal corporate social responsibility levels and predict their own development direction.

This article examines the influence of external factors on air passenger transportation, a key component of tourism. Factors such as military conflicts, epidemics and large-scale international events can both stimulate growth in passenger traffic and cause sharp declines. Methodologically, the study is based on the analysis of statistical data for 2012–2024 on the volume of passenger air transportation, with further spatial aggregation of data and the construction of trend models for 2022–2025 for airports in countries bordering Ukraine. The results indicate a transformation of air services associated with the displacement of logistical, evacuation, and migration routes. The forecast models suggest that high activity will persist at these regional airports in the short to medium term, even if the security situation partially stabilises. The study highlights both negative and positive changes in the spatial restructuring of aviation infrastructure in Central and Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on the role of peripheral airports under new conditions of population mobility.