Issue #2 (Volume 18 2020)

The Indonesian leather industry has low competitiveness among ASEAN Countries. The government, entrepreneurs, and researchers are trying to find solutions to improve competitiveness. However, there are differences in understanding the dimensions of competitiveness. This research aims to con¬struct and validate the competitiveness model in the manufacturing industry. In general, the concept of competitiveness is more oriented to the final result than to the process dimension. To improve competitiveness, this study using a manufacturing strategy approach based on process capability. The design of the competitiveness model contains the relationship between exogenous and endogenous variables with formative patterns. Exogenous variables are dimensions that makeup competitiveness, consisting of resources, operational processes, and performance. The data were obtained from 42 leather tanning factories in Indonesia, which was analyzed using Partial Least Square. This study reveals that industrial competitiveness is influenced by the dimensions of resources, operational pro¬cesses, and performance, where the dimensions of operational processes have a greater influence. This research confirms that the government and entrepreneurs must prioritize process capabilities to improve their competitiveness.

This paper considers the factors influencing the innovative development of energy service enterprises. The study aims to establish the relationship between the regulatory policy in the field of energy, the willingness of the population to use energy efficiency measures and the innovative potential of energy service companies. The generalization of scientific work on energy and environmental security has shown the relevance of developing mechanisms to reform the energy service market, taking into account the level of innovative development and management at the level of the energy service company. Accordingly, five energy companies from the western region of Ukraine (OJSC Ternopiloblenergo, PJSC Lvivoblenergo, JSC Chernivtsioblenergo, PJSC Rivneoblenergo, PJSC Volynoblenergo) were selected as objects for the study. Methodological research tools were the methods of focus group, personal interview, variations, statistical observation, induction, deduction, and generalization. The study presents external and internal factors influencing the innovative development of energy service enterprises. It is noted that the level of innovative development of personnel in the energy sector is low. The importance of strengthening cooperation of energy service enterprises with united territorial communities to implement the approved legal norms of energy market reform in Ukraine is taken into account. Among the measures to strengthen the motivation of the population to use energy-saving technologies, the intensification of media and information activities was noted. The results of the study can be useful for managers of energy service companies, heads of joint territorial communities and joint co-owners of apartment buildings, researchers working on energy efficiency projects.

In the context of the sectoral policy of Ukraine’s economic development, experts identify the IT sector as one of the drivers of economic growth. The sector is characterized by higher than the global aver¬age economic growth rates, growth rates of tax deductions to local and state budgets, and growing growth rates in the share of exports in the overall structure of Ukraine’s exports. It was revealed that, along with positive trends, the development model of the IT sector in Ukraine remains extremely vulnerable to external “shocks”, since about 98% of orders are generated from the external market. In addition, outsourcing rather than product specialization is inherent in the IT sector of Ukraine. And in this case, the level of operational and financial efficiency, as shown by global statistics, is the lowest. This model of development of the IT sector is due to the low level of competitiveness of IT companies, a decrease in competitiveness in the global market, which necessitates the development of adequate mechanisms for managing the competitiveness of companies in the Ukrainian IT sector. The mechanism of forming an adaptive strategy in cognitive management of IT companies’ competitiveness is offered. This mechanism, in contrast to the existing ones, takes into account the contour of anticipation (warning), which allows determining the stability of competitive positions of companies in Ukraine’s IT sector and developing a proactive adaptive strategy aimed at maintaining a high level of competitiveness of IT companies in both local and global markets, increasing their business value. The blocks structure of the mechanism, the range of problems of each block and methods of their solution are determined.

Since the end of the twentieth century, a new, relevant, and promising trend in economic science has been actively developing – the economy of happiness that arose at the junction of psychology and economics. Understanding the essence and content of social well-being is associated with such a development of a society where the social and spiritual needs of people are met, the resources and benefits of society are used as effectively as possible and favorable conditions for a full-fledged life and comprehensive development of each person are created. If earlier the main task and priority of any national policy was considered an intensive GDP growth, now the GNH – Gross National Happiness is increasingly considered as a priority, that is, the level of satisfaction with the life of the population, as evidenced even in the resolution of the UN General Assembly. However, the methodological ap¬proaches to assessing the economy of happiness are not perfect, first of all because this area is new in economic science. The study aims to summarize and further develop the principles and approach¬es to assessing the economy of happiness. The article analyzes existing practical approaches to the economy of happiness. A test was developed to assess the level of happiness of citizens from different countries; a survey was conducted based on this test from 2017 to 2018. Methodical approaches to assessing the economy of happiness have been improved based on obtaining correlation-regression models that show the dependence of happiness level on creativity, level of health, level of prosperity, level of satisfaction of needs, which enables to define creativity as the main factor affecting the level of happiness; and, unlike the known ones, it allows regulating the level of happiness as a final economic indicator.

The paper deals with the assessment of the socio-economic development of Ukrainian regions using Data Science methods and multidimensional analysis, including taxonomy, n-dimensional classification, and ensemble decision trees methods. The methodological bases of economic regions devel¬opment by the economic and mathematical modeling methods were investigated. The necessity of improving and further developing estimation models of the regional economic development using business analytics tools and multidimensional scaling methods was investigated.
The ensemble decision trees methods was applied for the classification model of economic development of the Ukrainian regions according to the conceptual base of the research on regional econom¬ic development. It will increase the quality level of administrative decisions making on regional de¬velopment asymmetry equalization. It is determined that in Ukraine, there is a significant imbalance of regions clusters with high and low economic level. Here was investigated the relationship between the two groups of economic development indicators – the indicators of the economic development regional performance and the group of economic potential. The results of the classification model allow identifying the set of indicators that have significant impact on the overall economic development. The developed ensemble model allows carrying out qualitative recognition and prediction of the state probability of economic development. It will improve the quality of decision making pro¬cesses on equalization of regional development asymmetry.
The further research gives the possibility to develop the system of levers directions of regional development imbalance equalization, to determine priority vectors of sustainable development of both the regions and the country.