Analysis of macroeconomic data carried out by the authors indicated that the employment rate among women and older people in Scandinavian countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Norway is much higher than in other EU countries Eurostat, 2012]. Thus the idea was born to identify and transfer of best practices from the Northern European countries to selected countries of the Baltic Sea Region (Poland Germany, Lithuania and Latvia). The first part of the book is devoted to the description of the criteria that helped the authors select best practices and make characteristics of chosen practices. The second part of the book deals with conditions of the best practices transfer. In the last part of book the transfers of best practices to the four BSR countries are presented. The authors from the Gdańsk University of Technology focused on the one hand on the complex, and on the other hand, on a practical approach to analyse the problem of low activity of women and older people on EU labour market.

Since the mid-twentieth century, the environment in which we operate is in fact described as turbulent, i.e. characterised by an unprecedented amount, rate, intensity and complexity of changes. In such a volatile environment the survival of an enterprise, and the more so its development and maintenance of high competitive position, seem to be extremely difficult. On the one hand, changes can create opportunities and provide the enterprises with chances for the development, on the other restrict or even block the possibility of their functioning in the market. In the monograph an attempt was made at classifying the civilization changes the modern entrepreneurs have to face in the fight for maintaining high competitiveness of their enterprises. Good practices are presented, for example the economic activation of seniors for companies. This book is a scientific publication for the purpose of its drafting, a review of most recent scientific literature on enterprise competitiveness and innovation and the direction and pace of socio-economic changes, with a particular focus on demographic changes, was conducted. This publication was developed as part of the flagship project of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region "Innovative SMEs by Gender and Age (QUICK-IGA)."

This publication relates to the subject of shaping and maintaining high competitiveness and innovation by businesses, with particular emphasis on the SME sector in the Baltic Sea Region. It is divided into three parts. The first part includes the discussion of women's economic activity and their participation in the creation and strengthening of the competitive position of companies. The second part is devoted to problems related to the ageing of population in the Baltic Sea Region countries and the potential socio-economic impact of this fast growing process. The deliberations contained in the second part refer also to the possibilities and conditions for realizing the potential of seniors in the development of competitiveness and innovation of enterprises. The third part is a fragmentary overview of achievements related to the factors of competitiveness and innovation of modern enterprises. The papers, that were presented at a international conference 2013 at the Gdansk University of Technology, are printed in English.