The paper proposes an approach to the integrated assessment of the social responsibility of EU countries with a combination of data from three international indices most relevant to the monitor-ing of social responsibility at the macroeconomic level: the Global Sustainable Competitiveness Index, the Sustainable Development Goals Index and the Social Progress Index. Applying the method of taxonomic analysis on the example of index values for EU countries, we assessed the differences and leaders in ensuring social responsibility. The authors do not consider country-level social responsibility only as a consequence of the development of responsible practices at all levels. Taking into account that social responsibility should be a prerequisite for expanding opportunities in all spheres, in particular, in business, the authors conducted a correlational analysis of the relationship between the taxonomic indicator of social responsibility and the development of innovative business. As a result, we confirmed significant connections with “Business sophistication” indicators (as part of the Global Innovation Index) and the share of innovative firms of total SMEs (according to OESD statistics). The obtained results strengthen the grounds for considering social responsibility not only as an important socially oriented concept, but also as a reliable basis for the development of innovative business due to the created comfortable institutional environment of business development.

The links between the migration of highly skilled workers and economic growth (in terms of GNI per capita) and the competitiveness of countries have been studied. The study is based on statistics from developed countries and using correlation-regression analysis and modelling, as well as cluster analysis using the package of processing and analysis of statistical information STATISTICA. The analysis found that the immigration of workers with higher education has a significant impact on strengthening the competitiveness and economic development of countries – this is confirmed by the impact of talent migration, which is assessed by the values of case studies (‘The Human Flight and Brain Drain’ sub-index Fragile States Index and ‘Brain gain’ sub-index’ in the Global Talent Competitiveness Index and ‘Highly educated workers’ sub-index in the OECD indicators of talent attractiveness). Their impact on macroeconomic indicators is higher compared to the links with social development indicators. Of course, this does not mean that such links should not be seen as important in public economic development management, as they illustrate the level of efficiency achieved in creating favourable conditions for realizing the potential of highly skilled workers, including pull-factors for their immigration. But in the macroeconomic management of a competitive economy, according to our research, actions aimed at attracting highly skilled migrants have the most significant and obvious impact. Other links can be taken into account and used in modelling for the development of institutional support for proactive migration policy for highly qualified workers.

Forced migration of Ukraine’s population, caused by the war initiated by the russian federation, is a subject of national governance in demographic processes. In a country at war – rapidly losing human potential due to casualties among military and civil populations, as well as forced relocations – the social relations between internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities are of critical importance. The aim of this paper is to assess the perceptions of IDPs in host communities and to identify factors contributing to potential social tension. The research is based on a nationally representative sociological survey conducted in June–July 2024 in Ukraine, involving 514 IDPs and 850 residents of host communities. The findings reveal that social tension is generally low, with most ratings no higher than 3 out of 5. Notably, one-third of host community residents and two-thirds of IDPs did not observe any tension in social interactions at all. IDPs tended to be more optimistic in their evaluations compared to host community members: their perception was significantly lower, with only 7.3% reporting high levels of strain (4-5 out of 5). In contrast, the host population’s evaluations were more critical, particularly among young people and residents of regional centers, who expressed the most negative views. Key factors contributing to tension included negative changes in the housing market (44.8% of host community respondents), increased pressure on healthcare institutions (29.3%), and greater demand for administrative services (26.2%). The results highlighted the need for regular monitoring, which should complement traditional social management practices.

The study aims to study the role of leadership in innovative development, including opportunities arising from the attractiveness of countries for intellectual migrants. The novelty of the research is in justifying the authors’ approach to assessing leadership development at the macroeconomic level and its use for defining the peculiarities of leadership development in the EU and assessing the links with of innovative development and attraction of countries for intellectual migrants. Considering leadership as an important feature of the macroeconomic environment for countries’ development, the correlation analysis was used to test hypotheses about the positive impact of leadership on (a) the attractiveness of countries for intellectual migrants; (b) the innovative development of countries. The resulting pairwise correlation coefficients for the EU show a strong relationship between the level of leadership and a country’s ability to attract (0.776) and retain talent (0.846), attract highly educated workers (0.757) and foreign entrepreneurs (0.780). A positive impact of leadership on innovative development is confirmed by the links with the overall value of the Global Innovation Index (0.825), the Growth of innovative companies (0.768) and the Entrepreneurial employee activity rate (0.599). The obtained findings prove the importance of leadership development as an important driver of talent attraction and the generation of innovative ideas.

The migration of highly skilled workers and its impact on productivity, competitiveness, and innovative development is becoming an increasingly relevant area of scientific research in the context of rapid digitalization of the economy. In this regard, the article aims to explore the relationship between the migration of highly skilled workers and digital economy development (using the example of EU countries). The study was conducted using correlation analysis and parametric data analysis methods, based on EU countries’ statistics on the migration of highly skilled workers, macroeconomic digitalization indicators, and the adoption of digital technologies at the business level. The results confirm that highly skilled migrants positively affect aggregate indicators of economic digitalization: correlation coefficients with the Global Digitalization Index and the DiGiX Digital Index are 0.735 and 0.692, respectively, and are statistically significant. At the company level, a significant influence of highly skilled migrants on the use of specific digital technologies in EU companies was confirmed. In particular, there is a strong correlation between the “Foreign Highly Skilled Personnel” indicator from the IMD World Talent Ranking 2024 and digital intensity indicators (level of application of key business-related digital technologies), as well as business activity in using big data analytics technologies: the correlation coefficients are 0.770 and 0.689, respectively, and are statistically significant. The proposed approach to analyzing the relationship between highly skilled worker migration and the digital development outcomes of companies and host countries can be used to develop and adjust knowledge and human resource productivity management strategies at both the micro- and macroeconomic levels.