Many kinds of research has suggested that innovation is positively linked to business performance and that it acts as an intermediary between organizational variables and financial performance measured by earnings achieved. Researchers worldwide have paid great attention to identifying and exploiting the main drivers of innovation management, which has led to many research articles that have adopted different approaches and identified several factors that are related to innovation. Nevertheless, there is some ambiguity about the critical behavioral factors for innovation. Therefore, this study aims to identify behavioral incentives, or key factors, that impact business innovation and financial stability, mainly in the field of strategic management, and to reveal the latest trend in corporate innovation policy by using bibliographic mapping. The purpose is to precisely define specific incentives that can influence the overall productivity and profitability of a business, and this list of innovation factors can be of benefit to a strategic manager in introducing or supporting innovative activities. The analysis is preceded by an in-depth study of publications from the Web of Science and Scopus databases and based on the VOS Viewer method (which is a mapping and clustering program for network data), the available keywords are analyzed, and then a list of incentives in strategic innovation is compiled.

In innovation management, it is crucial to know the incentives or factors that, in many cases, provide the fundamental drivers of earnings, competitive advantage and the sustainable growth of businesses while also measuring their effectiveness. The study deals with the evaluation of the efficiency of investments in innovations utilizing constant returns to scale models of small- and medium-sized industrial enterprises in Slovakia. It is industrial production that includes enterprises that are the creators of new products, the appliers of the latest knowledge of science, and the creators of innovations. The main objective of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of invested finances in the innovation of small- and medium-sized production enterprises in Slovakia, as it is a very demanding and neglected role in management. The method to assess the efficacy that was used is called Data Envelopment Analysis. CCR-I also CCR-O models were run, where it was essential to determine the inputs and outputs. The indicators R&D expenditures and employee training costs were selected based on a detailed analysis of articles with similar issues. The final sample contained 132 manufacturing enterprises within industrial production that were classified according to the official Slovak categorization because of their relevance. We assessed the effectiveness of food producers, beverage manufacturers, textile and clothing manufacturers, manufacturers of rubber plastic products, metal manufacturers, PC, electronic and optical equipment manufacturers, machine and equipment manufacturers, and furniture manufacturers to identify the enterprises that own earnings drivers caused by innovation. It was detected that the most efficient units in the industrial production are the rubber plastic products manufacturers. The least effective units were found in beverage and furniture manufacturers.

No abstract

Research background: The Covid-19 pandemic affects all areas of operation in almost every country, except for Slovakia. In Slovakia, radical measures were taken in the first phase of March, and the state of emergency required the closure of gastronomic establishments, service operations, restrictions on shops, stricter hygiene measures and restrictions on free cross-border as well as a national movement. The second phase is foreseen in the autumn, which should be much more demanding, and it will also be a great challenge for companies to be able to adapt their activities to the new standards. An important question for companies is how this will affect their financial results. Some companies were not affected by the disease; others had to be closed, did not generate any profit, eventually went bankrupt. Purpose of the article: The purpose of this article is primarily to examine the impact of coronavirus on earnings management and how it will affect further decision-making within the company. In our study, we focused on the impact that Covid-19 has or will have on the management of companies in Slovakia. A total of 172 companies in Slovakia operating in various sectors were interviewed Methods: The methodology used standard questionnaire survey procedures with scale answers. We addressed companies, despite the sector in which they operate. The overall return was 20%, and we obtained 172 responses. Findings & Value added: Because the consequences of the Covid-19 disease are not yet evident, managers within earning management will also count on reserves in the form of savings accounts more than before.

The paper aimed to identify the awareness and behavior of the population of Slovakia concerning the circular economy. Awareness of the circular economy is a vital factor in effective public participation. The quality of the environment also depends on the level of environmental awareness in society. The circular economy is a very complex issue which requires involvement of all actors in society. The circular economy is currently an actively discussed topic, and therefore we focused on examining the level of awareness of this issue. In general, it is perceived mainly as an economic model that takes the environment into account and prioritizes active waste management. The conducted survey focused on the level of awareness in Slovak respondents. The questionnaire was designed to include all principles of circular economy. We focused on determining the rate of recycling, reusing, reducing, and also the new concept of refusing. Consequently, several hypotheses were analyzed to identify the degree of involvement of the population. At the same time, the survey was intended to introduce the respondents to the idea that they too can participate more actively in the principles of circular economy. In the introduction, we defined the theoretical basis and principles of the circular economy. Subsequently, in the Methodology section, we identified the techniques used to process the questionnaire survey. The Research section describes the outputs and analyzes the established hypotheses. In the discussion, we summarized the results from the Research section and mentioned some of the authors who had handled the same issue in the past. The Conclusion section summarizes the research paper.