In the knowledge-based economy, knowledge is regarded as a strategic resource that helps entities to become market leaders. This strategy has been successfully used for years by companies operating in various sectors of the economy. The exception, however, is agriculture, which has been seen for years as a sector with low knowledge intensity and is one that is skeptical about the possibility of using knowledge. This is important especially in that the use of it is, for many managers, still unconscious, and, therefore, this factor remains unused in practice. This paper describes the Intellectual Sources of Value Added (ISVA), an alternative method for analyzing the productivity of tangible and intangible inputs affecting the value-adding process in agricultural holdings. The reasons for developing the concept of that indicator were the imperfections found in the Value-Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC™), a widely adopted method authored by A. Pulić. However, the index of efficiency of intellectual capital (VAIC), recognized as suitable for research purposes, demonstrates certain methodological imperfections, including the simultaneous use of resource- and flow-based values. In addition to certain relevant reservations, the above has other consequences, including the declining trend followed by the efficiency of working capital calculated using this formula. In a situation where working capital is observed to grow, this would mean that funds are irrationally invested in assets with a decreasing capacity to add value. This results in drawing a false picture of economic realities of agricultural holdings which, by nature, demonstrate a high share of physical asset consumption in total production costs. As another consequence, the calculated value of the indicator becomes unacceptable in the long run. The use of the ISVA indicator allowed the author to obtain homogeneous results in terms of methodology and confirming the regularities observed in practice. In addition, the research confirmed not only the fact that agricultural enterprises have intellectual capital resources, but also the high efficiency of their use, exceeding the efficiency of use of traditional ones. It also indicates the desirability of continuing research using measures that will enable the monitoring of intellectual capital and their use in agricultural enterprises.

The article is a continuation of the authors' research on the relationship between the level of education and perception of agribusiness as an area of ideal employment and career development. The aim of this research part is to analyse the changes in the students' opinions depending on the level of education they have achieved (fist-cycle studies and second-cycle studies). A detailed analysis included 29 descriptors defining ideal work, as well as the perception of work in the agribusiness sector as the target workplace. The factographic material was collected by means of an auditorium survey, which proved effective in the course of earlier studies. The data that was collected underwent factual verification and statistical analysis. Based on the study, it was concluded that in the students' opinion, the qualities of ideal work should include the following: congruity with one's interests, feeling proud to do this work and achieving economic satisfaction. A welcome feature of ideal work is also friendly atmosphere at the workplace and the possibility to use the knowledge gained over the school period. The research indicated a change of career plans related to the agribusiness sector, i.e. a stronger tendency towards perceiving it as a stage in developing further career.

The aim of writing the article was to present a concept of constructing a synthetic measure which defines the attractiveness of rural areas as a place to live, work and run business activities. The proposed measure was also empirically verified in the context of time and space. Material comprised data concerning 2,172 rural and urban-rural municipalities, in 2013, 2014 and 2017, following the territorial division of Poland into voivodeships. The data was obtained from the Local Data Bank at the Central Statistical Office (GUS). In the course of the study, for the purpose of constructing the measure, the author used 15 diagnostic variables, describing various functions of rural areas. The variables underwent normalization in order to make them comparable. The author originally chose five methods of normalization and one for further analysis, which caused the smallest dispersion of results. To select it, a variance analysis was conducted. The resulting synthetic measure of rural area attractiveness was verified empirically, in the context of time and space, which confirmed its diagnostic usability and indicated the temporally changeable diversity of Poland’s territory, as a system of voivodeships with regard to their attractiveness as places to live, work and run business activities.

Agribusiness is both a complex social process and a market structure, consisting of many independent economic entities that generate demand for labour in the sector. The role of people whose activity is directly or indirectly related to the production of food products, the acquisition of resources, and the processing and production of ready food was considered. The way gender affects people’s decision to work in this sector and university graduates’ perception of agribusiness being an ideal job were also analysed. A total of 485 students, from four fields of study, from the Poznań University of Life Sciences were surveyed between 2016 and 2019. In the case of undergraduate students, it was determined that while they perceive that working in agribusiness is an interesting career stage, they are also convinced that they could easily find a job outside of this sector. Additionally, from a gender perspective, men and women view working in agribusiness differently. Women see it as an opportunity for self-development and building good social relations as well as acting for the benefit of the environment. For men, job-related prestige and economic benefits are much more important. Men were found to have higher aspirations for pursuing their own businesses, whereas women were more likely to pursue further education. The attitudes towards working in agribusiness represented by the respondents are a good predictor of meeting its knowledge needs.

This research is aimed at determining the characteristics of the current level of entrepreneurial potential of the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) countries, the ability to overcome the consequences of extraordinary events, such as COVID-19 and prospects for the return to an accelerated development once the destabiliser of the economic system, the coronavirus pandemic, has ceased. Eurostat, World Bank and the World Economic Forum data for 2015–2019 were used for the purpose of the research. The research was divided into three stages, i.e. assessment of economic development on the basis of a synthetic ratio of economic anchor development, for which a relative benchmark method based on spatial median (so-called L1 median or Weber point) was used, identification of conditions for the development of entrepreneurial capacity and statistical analysis showing the correlation between economic anchor measures and selected factors of the 3SI countries economic development. Our study found that the entrepreneurial capacity of the 3SI countries in 2015–2019 was determined by nine characteristics, belonging to six areas, i.e. local economy, demographic situation, social situation, trade exchange, innovation and tourism economy. The entrepreneurial potential of the 3SI countries was spatially diversified, and its development was determined, among others, by the entrepreneurial activity of residents (entrepreneurship index) and the conditions for running a business.