ABSTRACT. The article surveys the recent research on the idea of the creative society and the development of creative industries. Special attention is paid to the conceptual and factual developments that take place in regions of Central and Eastern Europe. Researchers evaluate the regions' situation in the context of global developments, suggest novel approaches to society and research practice and provide their recommendations. The relation between individual and communal aspects of creation emerges as a major problem. The tendency is to move from individualistic and elitist strategies of creation toward market-based practices and communal approaches based on the concepts of creative environment and networks of creation. Authors recommend that heads of institutions and researchers give up the overly romantic attitude toward creative activity, transcend the limits of individual perspective and move towards a cooperation among different fields of creativity.

Nowadays women often lead teams, hold high positions in top management, plan and make important strategic decisions in firms or groups. However, little attention in scientific literature has been paid to gender difference in implementing CSR practices of firms. Implementing CSR practices successfully in many cases depends on the gender difference of top management. The object of this study is the importance of ‘feminine gaze’ with respect to gender difference in implementing CSR in firms. This study aims at supplementing feminist ethical – and in part, epistemological – concerns with empirical studies considering the role of women in the top management of firms, then the impact of gender on implementation of CSR initiatives was analysed, and the main drivers linked to gender for the implementation of CSR initiatives were assessed in this study based on the comprehensive literature review. The study confirmed the positive impact of woman representation on the development of CSR initiatives in the firm. The number of women in BOD and employee positions from all stakeholders including customers’ perspectives have positive impacts on the penetration of CSR initiatives, and can be considered as an important driver of CSR in the firms.

This study aims to combine the philosophical perspective and the practical ethics of ecology in the everyday with a more pragmatic concept of corporate social responsibility. The importance of the latter is shown to be based in the abandonment of the distinction of subject and object and the development of personal as well as cultural ecological consciousness embedded in the notion of unity between man and nature. This philosophical shift in the consciousness is also reflected in terms of utility. Hence, the study examines whether the relationship between corporate social responsibility and firm’s sales growth is mediated by competitive advantage, and whether employees’ individual perception in the everyday and beliefs of social responsibility can play a moderating role on CSR-sales growth relationship. The analysis revealed that there is the link between CSR and sales growth and that there is a positive effect of CSR on sales growth which is positively moderated by employees’ individual beliefs of social responsibility which has been implied by the ecological consciousness.

The article discusses creativity as an ontological principle as it is presented in scientific-philosophical attitudes of a Nobel Prize winner for chemistry Ilya Prigogine and Werner Heisenberg’s pupil and a former director of the Max Planck Institute for Physics Hans-Peter Dürr. These attitudes are assessed in the light of Heideggerian notions of Being, subiectum, ousia and time and thus they themselves shed light on the potentiality of Heideggerian mode of thinking on the conception of the creative in the postmodern society and science. Bergsonian notion of creativity is also invoked. It is presented as a philosophical basis of the postmodern techno-scientific creativity and is discussed in terms of Heideggerian ecstatic temporality. The juxtaposition of the notions presented by Henri Bergson and Martin Heidegger provides the clue to compare and assess the science-based attitudes of Prigogine and Dürr.

The aim of the present paper is to reconcile a philosophical reflection on the role of the family as a communitarian entity in the business environment based on the individualistic principle and practical research aimed at identifying young people’s attitudes towards their involvement in family business. Respondents of the research were students of the final years of secondary schools, tertiary professional schools and vocational schools in the Liberec Region. The family is treated from the ethical point of view as well as in terms of political and economic philosophy as a suitable environment to shape economic attitudes in young people that are not restricted to a merely ‘economist’ form of rationality and as able to play an important part in a properly working state economy. The practical research shows that a young person’s intention to work in the family business depends on whether they are involved in it already during their studies.