Transformations  in
Business & Economics

JEL classification: Y20.

Transformations in Business & Economics (TIBE) journal continues in providing a focused outlet for high quality research in the ever-expanding area of Development Economics in the field of Social Sciences and related disciplines. The field research should not be limited by any narrow conceptualisation of development economics, but embraces interdisciplinary and multi-facet approaches to economic theory, business management, marketing, as well as general transformations in the economic, social-cultural, ecological, technological, competitive, demographic and political-legal environment.

Therefore, we expect original and authentic manuscripts, never published before in any format and not submitted to any other publishing institution, which are based on fact-centred research to establish economic and business management regularities, where the theory is motivated by substantiated empirical findings, where disciplined application of economic principles is used to explain and predict the real-world behaviour of organisations, markets and industries. We will continue to seek for:

• empirical studies, which provide convincing and significant findings of fact. Careful establishment of an interesting or puzzling empirical regularity is of value to the field if the author has a convincing explanation for the phenomenon;
• theoretical studies, which stress relatively robust ideas, and combine theory with a sense of empirical magnitudes, presenting fresh viewpoints and theoretical perspectives, new literature overviews and concept classifications, where a systems' approach is a central focus of the research;
• explanatory research studies about a firm, an industry, or a business practice according to economic principles. Such a case study must go well beyond the purely descriptive by illuminating the ways in which industry practice and institutions can be understood in terms of economic principles. Factors that resist economic explanation also should be identified.

The current issue of TIBE presents guest and special editorials'surveys, presenting new approach to internationalization process, which opens up new opportunities for business, on the other hand internationalization of cultural events management is an inevitable process too. The guest editorial - B. Balboni (Italy), G. Bortoluzzi (Italy) and D. Vianelli (Italy) - are studding internationalization process of industrial subcontractors and concentrated on subcontractors' capability of linking to the local hubs of internationalized networks and using them as gates to international markets.

The special editorial - M. Balciunas (Lithuania), E. Jasinskas (Lithuania) and E. Koisova (Slovakia) - analysed EuroBasket 2011, which was the 37^th men's European Basketball Championship held by FIBA Europe, and it was the largest event of sport in the history of the Baltic states. They focused on assessment of the economic contribution of the sport event, because the expenses when the event was organized were felt before it and during the event, and economic contribution and legacy of the sport event may occur after it was over.

The current issue of journal presents articles by groups of scholars from the Slovenia, Spain, Croatia, Ukraine, Romania and Lithuania.

The group of scholars had focused on financial and economic transformation based on good practice in different countries. The researchers from Croatia (G.M. Caporale and S. Skare) are analysing the linkages between output growth, inflation and employment growth for 119 countries over the period 1970-2008 using a panel VAR approach. Their findings should be interesting for policy makers. As IT applications are useful for corporate competitiveness A. Raudys et al. suggested a novel simulation scheme for a multi-agent automated trading system, which deals with self-excited oscillations and high dimensionality small sample size problems, which appear in the financial markets. The study of A. Slavec and I. Prodan (Slovenia) provides insights into determinants of small firm financing and innovativeness and answer to the question about benefits of external financing of small firms in terms of Slovenia innovation activities. Lithuanian scientists (R. Krusinskas et al.) investigated a various bankruptcy prediction models, characterizing the situation of a company and allowing to predict probability of its bankruptcy and assessed the reliability of the bankruptcy prediction models in Lithuanian companies.

Sustainable development phenomenon was investigated by scientist from Slovenia and Lithuania. M. Lahovnik and L. Breznik analysed how combinations of capabilities and resources can be developed, deployed and protected to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in the global industry. The concept of a sustainable energy policy is analyzed by D. Streimikiene and L. Balezentiene. At this time they assess biomass technologies in district heating. As clean energy technologies have experienced significant increase in the past several years over the world Lithuanian scholars A. Pozeraite et al. have formulated directions for the clean energy technologies support schemes in Lithuania.

The last group of researchers are analysing problems faced by management challenges. The main areas are: theory of routines, which is useful for transformation of routines in the context of planned change by M. Vilkas (Lithuania); the consequences of introducing certain policies in consulting firms, from the point of maintaining intellectual capital, by devising a simulation tool to aid decision-making by N. Calvo and R. Garcia (Spain); the causes of conflicts and the dynamics of their development by T. Mostenska and O. Ralko (Ukraine); various models and concepts of heritage management and the best practice by M. Radzevicius and V. Jureniene (Lithuania).

Prof. Dr. (HP) Dalia Streimikienė
Editor-in-Chief