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Martin Assa
Civil Society - the Only Barrier to the Ever Increasing Economic Power of Corporations
Summary:
The article is about understanding the basics of a modern society crisis. That is why the latest conceptions of what a civil society is (regional, national and global) and what a corporation is (national and transnational) are introduced. Later, the article examines the relationship between civil society, political power and corporations in the last 20-30 years.
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Hrabrin Bashev
Why and How to Evaluate the "New" Governance Sustainability of Agriculture
Summary:
In Bulgaria, like in many other countries, there is practicaly no studies on the governance sustainability of agriculture and its importance for overall agricultural development. This study tries to fill the gap and suggesrs a holistic framework for understanding and assessing the governance sustainability of Bulgarian agriculture. The new approach is “tested” in a large-scale study to assess the governance sustainability of Bulgarian agriculture at national, sectoral, regional, ecosystem and farm levels.
It is proved that it is important to include the "missing" Governance Pillar in the assessment of the integral sustainability of agriculture and the sustainability of agricultural systems of different types. The multi-principal, multi-criteria and multi-indicator assessment of the governance sustainability of Bulgarian agriculture found out that the overall sustainability is at a “good” but close to the “satisfactory” level. In addition, there is a significant differentiation of the levels of integral governance sustainability of the different types of agro-systems in the country. Moreover, the individual indicators with the highest and lowest sustainability values determine the “critical” factors enhancing and deteriorating the particular and integral governance sustainability of the evaluated agro-system.
Given the importance of holistic assessments of this type for improving agricultural sustainability in general, and the governance sustainability of agriculture in particular, they should be expanded and their accuracy and representativeness improved. The later requires increasing precision by increasing the surveyed farms and stakeholders, and using more "objective" data from surveys, statistics, professional experts in the field, etc.
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Milena Beneva
Implementation of Environmental Factor in Pension Investments
Summary:
Modern financial markets create a new criterion for evaluating the investment performance of companies - a multidimensional approach that combines the financial, social and environmental aspects together. A sustainable and responsible investment approach is perceived as a long-term driver of value and many institutional investors around the world, incl. pension funds, integrate it into their traditional investment process. At the same time, Bulgarian private pension funds either neglect (underestimate) the issues of sustainable development, or changå their investment policy too timidly and uncertainly.
After an in-depth analysis of the sustainable and responsible investment practices imposed by the ecological leaders among the pension funds, the current research paper offers an adapted model for integrating the "green" investment trend, consistent with the organization and development of voluntary private pension funds in Bulgaria.
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Maya Lambovska
Utility Function (by von Neumann-Morgenstern) – an Instrument for Solution under Uncertainty and Crises
Summary:
This paper presents the possibility of using Von Neumann–Morgenstern utility function as a tool for choosing an alternative way for dealing with crisis in organizations operating in uncertain environment.
