Green spaces provide people with countless intangible benefits, particularly important during crises. Restrictions imposed in many countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic forced people to maintain social distance, limit travels, and even refrain from visiting green spaces and stay at home at a certain point. The survey in one of the largest cities in Poland, Kraków, was intended to help understand the impact of the pandemic on the importance of urban green spaces to the public. The study focused on the first three stages of the pandemic in Poland, from March to November 2020. Nine weeks of the survey yielded over 1,250 responses. Responses to spatial questions were analysed with GIS tools and geoprocessing algorithms. The number of visitors to green spaces during the pandemic fell to 78.9% of the population, which is down 13.1% compared to before the pandemic. At the same time, the percentage of people refraining from the visits fell with each phase of the crisis. According to the study, residents believed green spaces to be important for their mental and physical health. Over 75% of the participants considered visits to green spaces as having a very big or big impact on stress level reduction. The work provides empirical proof of the importance of green spaces to residents, particularly during a crisis. The results can affect urban spatial policies and management of green spaces and can potentially be applied in other cities.

The objective of the paper is to diagnose organisational culture of selected universities and analyse its impact on the innovation processes within them. The subject matter of the study was organisational culture and innovation at universities. The subjects were four selected universities in Poland, Austria, Germany, and Ukraine. The paper provided a definition of organisational culture and its typology. It further discussed the organisational culture of universities and the relationships between organisational culture and innovativeness. The literature review provided foundations for building a model for the formation of a type of organisational culture at universities that is innovation-friendly, which is the added value of the paper. It offers actions worth taking to shape innovation-friendly culture at universities. It is particularly important during difficult time of changing labour market, when universities greatly impact the attitudes of young people. The knowledge of how to shape innovation-friendly organisational culture at universities is necessary for academia to profile future employees in times of continuous changes. To investigate the relationship between organisational culture and the innovativeness of universities, we designed an original survey questionnaire [S1 File]. Organisational culture was diagnosed with the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument by K.S. Cameron and R.E. Quinn. The analyses were conducted in Dell Statistica v. 13.1 (StatSoft Polska). We normalised data from the Likert rating scale using Kaufman’s and Rousseeuw’s formula. We used Spearman’s correlation coefficient and Kendall’s W to calculate correlations. The research shows that the investigated Polish and Austrian universities are dominated by hierarchy and market cultures. On the other hand, the German and Ukrainian universities host all cultures, but clan and adhocracy dominate there. Moreover, the analyses demonstrated that although the adhocracy culture was the least visible in the investigated organisations, it contributes to university innovativeness the most. The conclusions were used to build a model for promoting innovation-friendly organisational culture at universities. The model contains answers to the research questions. In addition, it offers guidelines for shaping organisational culture to bolster innovation at universities. The research identified relationships between organisational culture and university innovativeness and components that create innovation opportunities at universities as its contribution to management theory. When applied in practice, the guidelines can help form the university’s organisational culture bottom-up.

SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) has spread all over the world, significantly affecting our everyday lives. People changed their habits during the pandemic and made use of urban green spaces (UGS). Our Web of Science and Scopus queries confirm a knowledge gap in green space planning and public space management studies in the field of UGS availability during COVID-19. Therefore, the purpose of our research was to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban green spaces management, identify the needs of the residents in terms of urban green spaces furniture, and assess the accessibility of urban green spaces to propose recommendations for the institution charged with managing urban green spaces in the City (Krakow). To this end, we used an expert interview, spatial analyses, and survey research among residents of Krak ow, one of the largest cities in Poland. The survey involved 1350 respondents. The spatial analyses employed geoprocessing algorithms and GIS tools.The results showed that 96% of Krak ow citizens have access to urban green spaces within 300 m from their homes. Therefore, UGS are an important part of the City's identity, making their reasonable management vital, especially during crises. The respondents indicated that the existing UGS needed more lighting, rubbish bins, and benches as places of respite. Results of the expert interview showed that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected urban green spaces management. The results may influence urban green spaces management, and the research is an innovative combination of spatial analysis, a qualitative approach (expert interview), and a quantitative method (a survey) proposing new procedures for analysing UGS.

The purpose of the article is to define the material, institutional, and intellectual infrastructure of a region and identify the innovative processes that determine its creation. Our main research hypothesis is that the processes that influence the creation of a region's infrastructure determine a region's competitiveness as well. To verify these premises, we conducted a study among the residents and employees of a municipality. The research employed deductive and inductive methods and a qualitative analysis was performed. Pearson's linear correlation coefficient and factor analysis (inference based on the modal and median values) were used in the study. The research verified the hypothesis that innovative processes influence the creation of a region's infrastructure and that innovative processes in the studied region exhibit low dynamics, which is caused by financial and psychosocial barriers. The important role of social leaders in municipalities was identified as well, above all as regards building civic society and social activity. The added value of the article is threefold: the developed model of infrastructure construction in the material, institutional, and intellectual dimensions of a region; recommendations for the investigated municipality; and a structured questionnaire that, together with the model, can be used for research in municipalities. Keywords: regional development, regional competitiveness, material infrastructure, institutional infrastructure, intellectual infrastructure, entrepreneurship behavior, municipal management, model of infrastructure construction. JEL Classification: R50, O31.

Cities play a fundamental role in the economic development of the country. The vast majority of jobs, innovations and services are concentrated in the cities, thereby determining the country's economy. Currently, the Smart City is the key concept of sustainable urban development throughout the world. It covers a broad spectrum of issues related to effective, sustainable city management. Today, Kraków faces important challenges in the field of socioeconomic and functional development. For years, the city's authorities have been undertaking activities aimed at making Kraków a smart and modern metropolis, based on scientific potential, while maintaining the unique historical and cultural heritage. The aim of the present work is to analyse the effectiveness of implementing the Smart City concept in Kraków. To achieve that goal, the most important resources, challenges and development aspirations of Kraków have been examined. The strategic objectives set out in the Kraków Development Strategy and the degree of development of selected elements and systems of the city were also analysed. An important element of the work is a questionnaire-based survey carried out among the residents of Kraków. The results of the analyses do not fully confirm the effectiveness of the measures implemented. A city that aspires to become a strong European metropolis should improve solutions to its current development problems, the most important of which include air quality and transport nuisance.