Číslo 3
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Browsing Číslo 3 by Issue Date
Now showing 1 - 13 of 13
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- ItemAttributes contributing to perceived customer value in the Czech clothing on-line shopping(Technická Univerzita v Liberci, 2016-09-23) Simová, Jozefína; Cinkánová, Ľubica; Ekonomická fakultaThis paper, based on the literature study, presents findings of the research focused on the concept of customer value in on-line shopping for clothes. It examines and identifies attributes of perceived customer value in terms of benefits and sacrifices by applying a multi-attribute model. Customer value concept used in the research was defined and measured in terms of functional and affective dimensions. The perception of selected customer value attributes was measured as customer satisfaction, i.e. as a result of a congruence between the perceived and evaluated reality (benefits and sacrifices offered by on-line shopping), and customer expectations. The attributes evaluated the best were those that contributed to customer satisfaction the most and thus represented important attributes of customer value dimensions. In total, 25 attributes considered to be important for on-line shopping were selected for the questionnaire and explored further in the primary research. A principal components analysis and orthogonal Varimax rotation were used in the analysis to obtain factors that respondents considered to be attributes of the perceived customer value for shopping clothes on-line. The factor analysis identified six dimensions of perceived customer value toward shopping clothes on-line: three factors (web site appearance, shipping and product presentation) are functional and can be attributed to the benefits that customers expect to get when shopping clothes on-line, the other three extracted factors (annoyance, assurance and trust) are affective and risk related ones, and can be labelled as attributes of sacrifice. The number of identified customer value attributes perceived differently by on-line shoppers according to their gender, age, education and shopping behaviour was very low. This means that clothing online market is rather homogenous. The future research will show whether the identified differences will form the base for customer segmentation of the Czech clothing on-line market.
- ItemInstitutional analysis of the contemporary regional labour market in the Czech Republic(Technická Univerzita v Liberci, 2016-09-23) Novák, Václav; Vokoun, Marek; Stellner, František; Vochozka, Marek; Ekonomická fakultaPublic institutions are key players in the regional labour markets in the Czech Republic. Their activities are constrained by economic policies, which are aimed at increasing employment and the efficiency of the labour markets. Our analysis uses a questionnaire to collect data from the institutions and evaluate their perception of the regional labour market. The results suggest that active employment policy instruments and passive policy instruments are perceived as inefficient and inappropriate. The unemployed usually have no previous job experience, completed only primary education and are not willing to travel to work. The pressing problem is the quality of education and the generous social benefits that makes employment policy inefficient for the least skilled unemployed. Despite substantial regional socio-economic differences in both analysed regions (the Ústecký Region and the Jihočeský Region), there are no significant differences in the poor evaluation of all the traditional active employment policy instruments. In the more problematic Ústecký Region the emphasis is put on basic issues such as the lack of education and experience of the unemployed. The local labour market issues are dictated by long-term factors such as the lack of job vacancies. In the Jihočeský Region the situation is better. The issue is more one of mobility. The market issues here are more related to the appropriateness of secondary and tertiary education and labour costs. To increase the efficiency of employment policies we recommend improvements to the institutional infrastructure in higher education, which should be oriented towards investment in the quality of human capital.
- ItemLong-term infrastructure investment: a new approach to the economics of location(Technická Univerzita v Liberci, 2016-09-23) Dlask, Petr; Beran, Václav; Ekonomická fakultaContemporary modern development of a region (RD) is associated with some conception of economic volatility and technological knowledge. The RD is triggered by the existence of an infrastructure as a threshold. Only then can we expect the long-term economic and regional effects. From the long-term view, the development of most regions is also associated with a surprising diversity. The reasons for growth or stagnation are very often indistinct, and in some cases they are even unidentifiable.Existing development is a materialized foot print of earlier economic activities and there is more about that, for example, in Quality of life in cities, (European Commission, 2013). We should understand the economics of RD as an account; an account of either poor or successful regional management. In other words, regional economics and management (E&M) is at its causal roots a proof of the right or wrong decision rules and their implementation. This article argues that the state of municipalities and of regions is only partly a hostage of the regional investment economy and that a non-negligible way to success is paved by decision making processes especially through the use of certain decision criteria.The paper aims to demonstrate that:a) an elementary decision rule determines the decision space determining both time and conceivable actions, (timing of innovations, use and functions of areas, implementation of particular investments, localization of research directions, market expansion, etc.);b) dispersion effects are around and outside the primary investment that generates the growth;c) the burnout effect of the initial investment exists and begins to act after a certain time period; d) fixing the time of the initial investment burnout is identifiable and can be calculated.Point c) and d) represent triggers for any need of new investments, usually called innovation, modernization, reconstruction etc.
- ItemThe cooperation between enterprises: significant part of the innovation process – a case study of the Czech machinery industry(Technická Univerzita v Liberci, 2016-09-23) Stejskal, Jan; Mikušová Meričková, Beáta; Prokop, Viktor; Ekonomická fakultaIn recent years, we have been able to see the growing importance of knowledge in the context of the emerging knowledge-based global economy. It is commonly accepted that (i) innovations are brought forward through an interactive process of knowledge generation, diffusion, and application; (ii) innovations are increasingly seen as fundamental to the competitiveness of enterprises and economies; and (iii) knowledge is critical to the process of innovation. The relative importance of cooperation on innovative activity varies and depends upon a number of factors, i.e., the number of cooperative ties and the context in which network relations exist. The determinants of R&D cooperation differ depending on the types of cooperation: (i) the positive impact of enterprise size, R&D intensity, and incoming source-specific spillovers is weaker for competitor cooperation, reflecting greater concerns about appropriability and (ii) institutional spillovers are more generic in nature and positively impact all types of cooperation. The question is the effectiveness of different types and subjects of cooperation. This article aims to analyze the impact of (i) the cooperation and participation in the group of enterprises; (ii) cooperation with universities; (iii) the provision of state aid; on overall enterprises' performance. Analysis was performed on data from Community Innovation Survey (CIS) carried out in the Czech Republic between the period 2010-2012 by using own multiple linear regression models. The results confirm the importance of cooperation between enterprises and the positive impact of participation of enterprises in the enterprise groups. Cooperation with universities and research organizations also has a positive impact on the performance of enterprises in the machinery industry in the Czech Republic. We also show that there were inefficient provisions of public aid in machinery industry in the Czech Republic.
- ItemOn the gravity equation of trade: a case of Germany(Technická Univerzita v Liberci, 2016-09-23) Mazurek, Jiří; Ekonomická fakultaGravity models (equations) of trade belong among the most successful empirical tools in the modern economics since their first economic applications in the yearly 1960s. They assume that bilateral trade is directly proportional to “economic sizes” (usually described in terms of GDP or income) of both trading partners and inversely proportional to their distance. The aim of this study was to examine Germany’s latest (2012) yearly aggregate exports to its major international partners by a gravity equation without and with selected trade frictions including a geographical adjacency (the so called border effect), an influence of the same or different currency (Euro), and a location in the Schengen Area, the zone of a free movement of persons. Gravity models both without and with selected trade frictions fitted the data well, while the model with frictions performed significantly better. The adjacency was found the most important single trade friction, the location in the Schengen Area appeared to be the least important friction (but it was still statistically significant). Other feasible trade frictions, such as border length, a location in Europe or democracy index were examined too, but their effect on the trade was rather negligible. A possible explanation of the border effect, based on information deficiency, is included in the study as well. Furthermore, it was observed that yearly Germany’s exports data are susceptible to large year-to-year fluctuations especially for countries with low imports. Therefore, using averaged data over five or ten years long periods might be more appropriate.
- ItemSupplier involvement in new product development: a case study from the semiconductor industry(Technická Univerzita v Liberci, 2016-09-23) Vayvay, Özalp; Cruz-Cunha, Maria Manuela; Ekonomická fakultaThe global competition requires that the companies adapt themselves to technological changes rapidly, develop new products, reduce the cost, shorten the time to market, and increase the quality. In this context, supplier involvement in New Product Development (NPD) is determinant for a company to respond to the requirements of the increasingly dynamic markets. The main purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the importance of supplier involvement in NPD, buyer-supplier relationships and their effects on buyer’s NPD process, highlighting the benefits of supplier involvement, the barriers, the strategic aspects and industry aspects. These issues are addressed with a case study from the semiconductor industry. Besides helping to understand NPD in the semiconductor industry, the contribution and findings of this work are clear: the results achieved confirm the findings of studies referred in the literature review, and confirm that the semiconductor industry sector requires a closer and more complex relationship structure with suppliers, given the specificities and challenges of the sector, such as rapid technological changes, permanent innovation, global competition, reduction of cost and time-to-market cycle, increased capacity, among other. The main contribution of the paper to the scientific literature and to managers is the better understanding of the buyer-supplier relationships in NPD in the semiconductor industry.
- ItemThe impact of social expenditure on public debt in the Czech Republic and Slovakia(Technická Univerzita v Liberci, 2016-09-23) Raisová, Manuela; Pavliková, Ľudmila; Semančíková, Jozefína; Ekonomická fakultaEurope is facing the problem of growing consumption and increasing volume of public expenditure too for years. Financing of public expenditure (as a sum of short-term, medium or long term projects) is a complicated issue. Regarding the financial perspective, the primary result is the creation of budget deficits. Countries are currently not able to deal with them, and thus this problem leads to the creation of new deficits. Therefore, an economy creates public debt – through the accumulation of deficits. The aim of our paper is to examine the effect of social expenditure on public debt. We have focused on the examination of only two countries – the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Our findings confirm that social expenditure represents a significant proportion of public expenditure. Moreover, public expenditure and social expenditure as well have increased in volume in the previous years. Governments use them to fulfil their social role in the economy. From this perspective, financing of social expenditure also contributes to the deficit, and in the long term to the creation of public debt. For that reason, another objective of our paper is to verify the effect of social expenditure on public debt. We examine the primary hypothesis on the significant correlation between public expenditure and public debt. As a result, we created an econometric model to test our hypothesis that the variable of public expenditure is more significantly correlated with public debt than other selected economic variables. Moreover, we modified the model, and we tested the hypothesis that social expenditure is more significantly correlated with public debt than other selected economic variables. We found that hypothesis concerning public expenditure had been confirmed for both countries. Hypothesis about social expenditure was confirmed for the Czech Republic. However, in the case of Slovakia, this hypothesis could not be verified.
- ItemFactors of tourism's competitiveness in European union countries(Technická Univerzita v Liberci, 2016-09-23) Maráková, Vanda; Dyr, Tadeusz; Wolak-Tuzimek, Anna; Ekonomická fakultaTourism is one of the most rapidly blossoming sectors of economy and its economic and social significance is expressed both in numbers (share in GNP, employment) and in a range of as important uncountable characteristics like expansion of a region, more intense development, building the spirit of local communities, actions preventing social exclusion or education of future generations for state progress. A number of countries, provinces and regions have achieved well-rounded social and economic growth by developing tourist economies and a range of necessary supporting measures, including complementary infrastructure, active and well-educated society by organising adequate living standards and fulfilling basic social requirements, etc. It is therefore important to determine factors that improve competitiveness of tourism to maximum extent. The objective of this paper is to evaluate dependences between competitiveness of the European Union member states and selected factors determining competitiveness of tourism in these states. A set of factors determining competitiveness of tourism is introduced, that is, capacity of tourist accommodation establishments, arrivals at tourist accommodation establishments, average expenditure of tourism trips (1 night or over) – domestic trips, average expenditure of tourism trips (1 night or over) – outbound trips, tourism domestic trips (1 night or over), tourism outbound trips (1 night or over) and their impact on levels of competitiveness is determined. Considerable geographical variation of availability of accommodation establishments in the European Union member states and high, statistically significance correlations between availability of accommodation establishments and numbers of tourists arriving in a given states and between competitiveness of the EU states and tourism expenditure are identified.
- ItemDiagnostics of management culture in order to implement the concept of a socially responsible company: the case of a concern(Technická Univerzita v Liberci, 2016-09-23) Vveinhardt, Jolita; Andriukaitiene, Regina; Ekonomická fakultaWhile implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) in practice, it is necessary to evaluate the management culture of the organization, which is the instrument and the indicator of the initial position of implementation the CSR. The article substantiates the level of the management culture and corporate social responsibility problems explored in the works of authors. The relatively great lack of scientific literature on the topic of management culture, therefore, this article presents the authors analysing the components of management culture. Theoretical and empirical research involves relatively different contexts of corporate social responsibility topics from managerial transformations to corporate social responsibility approach in the aspect of national traditions and international influences. The aim of this article is to determine the level of management culture in order to implement the conception of a socially responsible company in the case of manufacturing companies’ group. So in order to implement the set aim the survey was carried out in 2013. The authors’ formed the questionnaire ‘Determination of management culture level for the implementation of the conception of a socially responsible company’ and used it for the survey. The empirical study was carried out in one of the Eastern Europe manufacturing concerns registered in Lithuania. The concern wished to remain anonymous; and 885 employees worked in it during the investigation period, i.e. 91 percent of all employees. When presenting the results, the demographic characteristics of the respondents are detailed according to: company’s group divisions, currently occupied positions, work experience, age, gender, education. The results of the empirical research show that management culture is related to the level of social responsibility perception within the organization. The reaction of the organization employees towards the management culture shows the directions of its changes.
- ItemRegional economic effects of the european capital of culture project: the use of input-output analysis(Technická Univerzita v Liberci, 2016-09-23) Nosková, Marta; Ekonomická fakultaThe topic of economic effects of culture has become very popular recently. Particularly in connection with the European Capital of Culture, various studies examining economic impacts or methodologies for their monitoring are annually processed and the results are often part of evaluation reports related to the individual European Capital of Culture projects. Given the fact that in 2015 the European Capital of Culture is Plzen in the Czech Republic, it has been appropriate to determine what multiplier effects can be expected in connection with this event. Therefore, the focus was not only on the sector called “Arts, entertainment and recreation,” but also on the other related industries that can be affected by the increase of tourists (i.e. “Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles”, “Transportation and storage” and “Accommodation and food service activities”). Therefore, the regional input-output model has been calculated and then multipliers of production, gross value added, income and employment have been derived for the sectors related to culture, wholesale and retail, transport, accommodation and food. The results have showed that these industries have the potential to affect the economy of the region and it can therefore be assumed that the aforementioned events, which take place within the Pilsen European Capital of Culture 2015, will bring considerable financial resources to the region, mainly through attracting foreign tourists and tourists from other regions of the country. The derived multipliers are computed from data for 2010 (more recent are not available) and, of course, they can also be used to determine economic effects of other events.
- ItemThe strategic location of regional headquarters for multinationals in Africa: south Africa as a host country(Technická Univerzita v Liberci, 2016-09-23) Luiz, John M.; Radebe, Busi; Ekonomická fakultaMultinationals enterprises are aiming to strike a balance between local responsiveness and global integration. The establishment of regional offices allows multinational companies to have a local insight of the market, competition landscape and customer preferences. With such detailed insight, multinational companies are then able to formulate effective and responsive regional strategies. The importance and value of regional headquarters in the academic literature has generally focused on them in industrialized countries. The result is that we do not yet fully possess an overall framework for understanding how value and decisions are devolved, how location decisions are made and how their structures and strategies are evolving to accommodate the growth in emerging markets. The study examines the dominant criteria used by multinational enterprises to choose their locations for regional headquarters in Africa by examining South Africa as a host country for the continent. We find that the main criteria are linked to the advantages of agglomeration and the accompanying economies of scale, and a sound institutional framework which provides a predictable economic climate. In emerging markets which often suffer from institutional voids and thus higher country risk profiles, multinationals choose to locate in the environment which is most familiar to its home rules and use it as a springboard to do business in more ‘hostile’ milieus. The implications for managers looking to do business in Africa is to recognize that this is a continent still consolidating its transition to a sounder institutional environment. Given the unique business environment it will be a difficult region to manage successfully from centralized headquarters and thus using regional headquarters with local knowledge has real advantages.
- ItemResearch on the demand for parking lots of shopping centres(Technická Univerzita v Liberci, 2016-09-23) Palevičius, Vytautas; Burinskienė, Marija; Podvezko, Valentinas; Paliulis, Gražvydas Mykolas; Šarkienė, Edita; Šaparauskas, Jonas; Ekonomická fakultaOver the last decade, in the cities of Lithuania the number of shopping centres has been increasingly growing, they were provided with large parking lots. The development of shopping centres has formed a new structural and very concentrated urban element the result of activity of which has not been widely studied from the transportation point of view. When implementing a sustainable urban development the authors of the article aimed at ensuring the effective use of the parking lots of shopping centres during twenty four hours. For this purpose, an empirical research was carried out which resulted in a comprehensive analysis of the parking lots of 49 shopping centres in Vilnius City. The research used observation method to determine a design capacity of the parking lots of shopping centres, their occupancy, to additionally define the number of residents living in the closest proximity to the parking lot, the number of flats, the value of flats, the number of working population, the demand for parking spaces, occupancy of the parking lots with cars, etc. The expert method was used to select the main criteria characterizing interaction of the parking lots of shopping centres with the multi-storey housing area. With the help of expert questionnaire the weights and significances of criteria were determined. Using the multiple-criteria methods a priority use of the parking lots of shopping centres for parking of passenger cars was calculated and assessed. The article gives development priorities and outlines the strategy of implementing the given recommendations. This is one of the first attempts to use the parking lots of shopping centres to park passenger cars at night. If the suggested system is put into practice it would help to reduce up to 20% the demand for parking spaces in the urbanized multi-storey housing areas.
- ItemTreatment costs of Parkinson’s disease in Central Europe(Technická Univerzita v Liberci, 2016-09-23) Marešová, Petra; Klímová, Blanka; Vališ, Martin; Kuča, Kamil; Mohelská, Hana; Ekonomická fakultaThe aim of the study is to describe current values of direct costs of Parkinson’s disease in western and central Europe in comparison with other available data in order to illustrate the development of the treatment costs of Parkinson’s disease (PD) on the public sector. In this research study Drummond’s methodology is used for the specification of costs. The costs are divided into two categories. The first category consists of the costs of creation and running of health care program and these costs are perceived as the used sources. The costs are calculated on the basis of the reviews of the studies from the European countries, but also on the basis of authors’ own survey in the University Hospital of Hradec Kralove conducted among 510 patients in the period of 2011-to the third quarter of 2015. Within this study the direct costs among 510 patients at the University Hospital of Hradec Kralove were explored in the period of 2011- to the third quarter of 2015. These costs included neurological examination, CT screening, blood collection, hospitalization, and drugs. The total direct costs of patient per year reached 2,032 €. The survey showed that the underpinning of patients with PD was beneficial from the costs point of view because the costs on the outpatient care were much lower in comparison with the inpatient care. In addition, patients released from the hospital are usually transferred to the establishments with subsequent care, for example into hospices, because family care due to its complexity is impossible.