Prosperitas Best Article Award: 2023 winner
The winner of Prosperitas Best Article Award in 2023 is the following paper: Chen, R. (2022). SMEs through Tough Times of the Covid-19 Pandemic in China. Prosperitas, 9(1), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.31570/prosp_2022_0014
Call for papers for Prosperitas’ Special Issue entitled “Futures in Entrepreneurial Behaviour“
Budapest Business University’s journal Prosperitas is inviting papers for its special issue entitled “Futures in Entrepreneurial Behaviour” to be published in 2024. The journal is inviting contributions by both junior and well-established researchers from all over the world.
Aim
The special issue collects and compares case studies on how the notion of future appears in business decision-making, what skills are related to such decision-making, and how future skills are related to business performance. In the case studies to be submitted, the stories and analyses of entrepreneurs and companies should trace what futures these entrepreneurs and companies used, how they used them and what success stories or failures they have experienced.
Rationale
The umbrella concept of the studies to be published in this special issue is soft skills, such as resilience, responsibility, persuasion, teamwork, analysis, empathy, and not at last anticipation. As Gascóna and Gallifab (2022) define, soft skills psychologically describe the learning, thinking and acting characteristics of people. Among many effects, these features help people anticipate professional futures and career orientation. These skills, however, are not easy to acquire, measure or develop, and the education system is short of offering opportunities of developing these skills.
Future consciousness and future orientation are immanent and specific features of the human species. Thomas Lombardo dedicated a voluminous book to discovering the nature and historical development of the human capacity to think about the future (Lombardo, 2008). Loveridge (2009) also gives examples of how foresight was used in the main cultural eras of humankind’s history and concludes that “foresight is not new, only newly rediscovered after one of its periodic sojourns in the intellectual and political wilderness” (ibid, p.8.).
However, recent decades have been facing the crisis and transition of the global world, which is depicted as volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (Johansen-Euchner, 2013; Sombala, 2019). Technological, economic and social networks are transforming into highly complex systems that perform inconstant futures. In this world, one fixed point is the ability to navigate in the waves of change through possessing futures consciousness, a foresight framework and appropriate techniques.
Being aware of what future we use and how we use it in thinking and in decision-making is called futures literacy (Miller, 2019). Unconsciously we regularly use futures in planning or forming expectations, but the navigating power in these scenarios derives from the conscious distinction between aims, types and methods of futures, which ideally is coupled with knowing how the proper aims, types and methods fit together. Our age demolishes the past boundaries of time, opens the plausible scope of the future and enables people to shape their own lives through purposive activities and continuous reflections. Both the ability of permanent adaptation and shaping the future are evolutionary advantages in our global world.
Developing futures literacy and adapting foresight are fundamental challenges for the entrepreneurial field. Corporate foresight mainly denotes the field of futures activities in business. Rohrbeck and Kum (2018) find that corporate foresight is used with the expectation that it will help firms break away from path dependency, help decision-makers define superior courses of action, and ultimately enable superior firm performance.
When paying attention to success, Hines (2016) found four specific challenges or barriers to integrating foresight in organisations: (1) foresight competes for attention, (2) foresight is perceived as threatening, (3) foresight is viewed as intangible, and (4) foresight capacity is lacking. As Rohrbeck and Kum (2018) experienced, even if we are witnessing the rising adoption of corporate foresight within firms, its application – on average – seems to still lack comprehensiveness, continuity and institutionalization.
Future in business – both as corporate foresight and soft skills – boasts extensive literature. Many conceptual papers, methodological discussions and statistical conclusions of big sample analyses exist. The special issue we are now inviting papers for aims to contribute with some specific case studies to the exploration of successful and failed uses of futures skills.
Process
- Abstract submission due date: 30 November 2023 by e-mail to gaspar.tamas@uni-bge.hu. Reflection and discussion on the concepts promptly follow submissions.
- Full paper submission due date: 1 February 2024. The submissions follow the Journal’s review process.
- Revised version due date: 1 May, 2024
- International Conference (hybrid) organised by Budapest Business University to present the papers and make comparisons with the others’ experiences, as well as a focus group discussion on results: May 2024.
- Special issue published: 2nd half of 2024. Please, note that finalised and accepted papers will be published earlier in the form of early access articles.
Please, visit Prosperitas’ website for further information about manuscript submission at https://uni-bge.hu/en/prosperitas
Guest Editor: Dr. Tamás Gáspár, Associate Professor, Budapest Business University, Hungary. E-mail: gaspar.tamas@uni-bge.hu
References
Gascóna, Á. E.- Gallifab. J. (2022). How to measure soft skills in the educational context: psychometric properties of the SKILLS-in-ONE questionnaire, Studies in Educational Evaluation, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2022.101155
Hines, A. (2016) Let’s Talk about Success: A Proposed Foresight Outcomes Framework for Organizational Futurists. Journal of Futures Studies, June 2016, 20(4): 1–20.
Johansen B, Euchner J (2013) Navigating the VUCA World, Research-Technology Management 56(1):10-15.
Lombardo, Th. (2008) The evolution of future consciousness. Author House.
Loveridge, D. (2009) Foresight. The art and science of anticipating the future. Routledge.
Miller, R. (ed.) (2019) Transforming the future. Anticipation in the 21st century. Routledge
Rohrbeck, R., Kum, E. (2018) Corporate foresight and its impact on firm performance: A longitudinal analysis. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 129: 105-116.
Sombala N (2019) The VUCA Learner: Future-proof Your Relevance. South Asian Journal of Management 26(3): 193-198.
Changes in Manuscript Submission
As of 2nd December 2022, Prosperitas is introducing a handful of changes that are envisaged to contribute to increased quality and better user experience for our readers, authors and reviewers. On the one hand, Clarivate® ScholarOne™ Manuscript Support (ManuscriptCentral) has been introduced to manage submissions in a more professional way.
In addition, and also due to the specificities of the manuscript management system, Prosperitas’ former practice of applying a single blind review process will be replaced by a double blind review process.
At the same time, the instructions for authors have also been modified thereby helping our contributors in submitting their manuscripts. You will find more information about this in the section ‘For Authors’ below.
Should you have any questions or should you experience any difficulty concerning manuscript submission through our Clarivate® ScholarOne™ Manuscript Support system, feel free to contact our Editorial Office at krajcsak.zoltan@uni-bge.hu.
Call for papers for Prosperitas’ Special Issue entitled “Economic, diplomatic and cultural challenges“
Budapest Business University’s journal Prosperitas is inviting papers for its special issue entitled “Economic, diplomatic and cultural challenges” to be published foreseeably in 2023.
The Covid-19 pandemic and the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine have posed serious economic challenges for the European and global economy. While economic crises are not new to researchers, the emergence and impact of the Covid19 crisis was a new event in economic history. In Europe, many countries are currently struggling with the energy crisis caused by the Ukraine war and a high inflationary environment. In addition, people are also facing the long-standing challenges of climate change and migration crisis. All these factors affect our lives. It is fair to say that global or regional organisations have not been able to deliver tangible results in the fight against global risk factors. It is therefore important to learn about good practices that different countries have adopted to tackle the Covid-19 epidemic and other global risks, and to learn about their experiences related to sustainable development.
The World Bank has carried out a number of studies on economic, diplomatic and cultural challenges that have a significant impact on both developing and developed countries. The key economic challenge is constant change in the current global economic system, which is often unpredictable and unstable. Among diplomatic challenges, the biggest is the management and resolution of international conflicts. Conflicts have a negative impact on economy and development (World Bank, 2023).
According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report, the biggest economic challenges facing the world are a debt crisis, a weakening economic environment and the limits to globalization (WEF, 2023).
The current situation in the world has shown that the coronavirus and its global spread are already causing a widespread economic crisis (Papava & Charaia, 2020).
The COVID-19 crisis and the conflict situation between Russia and Ukraine are seriously affecting world economy. Emerging economies and developing countries in Europe are affected by the crisis, with inflation rates reaching 27 percent and economic growth in the region registering negative 2.9 percent. Short-term risks to economies include rising interest rates, exchange rate volatility, the risk of stagflation and rising energy prices, the issue of sustainable development goals and green considerations, the risk of hyperinflation, and long-term strategic challenges for economies (Desalegn et al., 2022).
Globalisation and countries’ economic performance in international relations are leading to the emergence of different models of diplomacy in an attempt to respond appropriately to challenges and threats (Bokhan & Zalizniuk, 2022). As a result of globalisation, international economy has become a scene of direct and indirect conflicts of interest between different actors. In addition, international economy has provided states with a new tool for their foreign policy and economic diplomacy (Safronova, 2021).
Prosperitas’ special issue entitled “Economic, diplomatic and cultural challenges” is keen to present young and well-established researchers’ studies from all over the world – and including the Visegrad Group countries – about on current developments and challenges in diverse fields of multi- and interdisciplinary science, as well as in diplomatic and business practice.
In line with its title, the special issue is intended to provide an internationally contextualised overview of the processes and phenomena currently affecting countries, facilitating international scientific discourse and supporting policy decisions.
The special issue will publish research papers, conceptual papers and viewpoints. Please, visit Prosperitas’ website for further information about manuscript submission: https://uni-bge.hu/en/prosperitas
Deadline: submit your article at https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/prosperitas by 15th September 2023 the latest. When submitting your contribution, in Step 1 of the uploading process, from the drop-down menu please choose the following type of manuscript: Original Article for Special Issue 2023.
Guest Editor: Dr. Petronella Molnár, Budapest Business University, Hungary
References
Bokhan, A. & Zalizniuk V. (2022): Economic Diplomacy in New Projections of Activation, Baltic Journal of Economic Studies 8(4):19-25.
Desalegn, G., Tangl, A., Fekete-Farkas, M. (2022). From Short-Term Risk to Long-Term Strategic Challenges: Reviewing the Consequences of Geopolitics and COVID-19 on Economic Performance, SUSTAINABILITY 14: 21 Paper: 14455.
Papava, V. & Charaia, V. (2020). The Coronomic Crisis and Some Challenges for the Georgian Economy, GFSIS, Expert Opinion, No. 136.
Safronova E.I. (2021). Chinese Economic Diplomacy before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Moscow University Bulletin of World Politics. 13(3):151-189. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.48015/2076-7404-2021-13-3-151-189
World Economic Forum (2023). The Global Risks Report 2023, https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risks_Report_2023.pdf (downloaded 24 03 2023)
World Bank (2023). Global Economic Prospects, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/254aba87-dfeb-5b5c-b00a-727d04ade275/content (downloaded 24 03 2023)