Creative regions contribute to a higher standard of living, are attractive to start-ups, create new jobs, reduce brain drain and attract applicants for university education. The paper aims to compare selected indicators of implementation of start-ups and creative potential in the regions of Slovakia at NUTS 3 level and to quantify their mutual relationship. Benchmarking of 8 Slovak NUTS 3 level regions is based on 2 comparisons, namely: 6 indicators of start-ups implementation (frequency of start-ups, creation of radical innovations, employment in fast-growing companies, venture capital awareness, crowdfunding awareness and possibilities of counselling in the implementation of start-ups) and 6 indicators of creative potential (openness and diversity, human capital, cultural environment, technologies, institutional environment and creative outputs). Numerical values of these indicators are obtained from secondary research studies – e. g. modified Slovak Creative Index, Regional Innovation Scoreboard, Slovak Start-up Report and websites of innovation incubators and crowdfunding platforms. To obtain the true values of these criteria, the analysis of secondary data – desk research and the method of pairwise comparison with 91 respondents (students of Slovak universities of economic orientation with Slovak or Ukrainian nationality) was used to determine the real significance (weights) of the criteria. According to pairwise comparison, the most important indicator of start-up implementation is possibilities of counselling and the most important indicator of creative potential is creative outputs. Consequently, the relationship between the two comparisons is quantified. The global benchmark based on the implementation of start-ups is the Bratislava region, as well as in the case with creative potential. There is a strong correlation (85.5 %) between the scores of the compared regions. The final ranking of the 5 regions out of 8 in both comparisons is also the same. The theoretical contribution is extending of the issue of benchmarking from traditional understanding (products, services, processes) to spatial understanding (region). The main practical contribution of the paper is to identify the weaknesses of each of the compared regions through benchmarking. Its implementation can be the basis for the development of regional strategies and the introduction of new study programs at universities. Keywords: benchmarking, creative potential, region, Slovak Republic, Start-UP.
The purpose of this study was to emphasize that the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method is an important benchmarking tool which provides necessary information for improving business performance. To fulfil the abovementioned goal, we used a sample of 48 Slovak companies involved in the field of heat supply. As their position in the economic and social environment of the country is essential, considerable attention should be paid to improving their performance. In addition to the DEA method, we applied the Best Value Method (BVM). We found that DEA is a highly important benchmarking tool, as it provides benchmarks for units that have problems with performance and helps us to reveal risk performance factors. The DEA method also allows us to determine target values of indicators. The originality of this paper is in its comparison of the results of the BVM and the DEA methods.
The visitor, as the bearer of the demand for tourism services, is primarily a person with his natural desires. For many, a family business is a guarantee of a more helpful approach to meeting clients’ expectations. The paper aims to analyze the dependence between selected parameters of customer satisfaction in two groups of tourist trade establishment or tourism companies. The first group consists of family businesses, which have long shown a higher level of satisfaction compared to traditional tourism companies. The second group is classic tourism companies. In both cases, the research interest is the impact of a change in the assessment of staff and a change in the evaluation of the price/quality ratio on the change in the overall evaluation of these two groups of companies. Authors assumed that satisfaction with the staff in family businesses has a more significant impact on overall satisfaction. The research sample consists of 44 non-family and 18 family businesses. The research includes: assessment of the staff, evaluation of the price/quality ratio and overall evaluation for 2018 and 2020 based on secondary data, calculation of changes (indices) of the parameters as the ratio of values in 2020 to 2018, partial correlation analyzes for individual years and compilation of final correlation matrix, in which is examined the correlation between the change in the overall assessment in family and non-family businesses and the correlation between the change in the price/quality ratio in family and non-family businesses. The basic methods include analysis, synthesis, induction, analogy, comparison, empiricism and Pearson’s correlation coefficient from mathematical-statistical methods. The basic heuristic approach consists of professional literature on the subject matter and secondary sources obtained from the most important accommodation portal booking.com. In the synthesis of knowledge, there are used empirical experience resulting from doing long-term business in the field of tourism of authors. As part of the compilation of the resulting correlation matrix, authors state that in non-family businesses both correlation coefficients are higher than in family ones. In contrast, in evaluating the relationship between the change of personnel, the value of Pearson’s correlation coefficient is higher than 0.7, so it is a strong dependence. Non-family businesses should pay more attention to the human factor. The barrier to fulfillment can be impersonal leadership and inflexible organizational structures. In family businesses, on the other hand, the selection of employees is based on mutual trust. The benefit of the paper is the distinction between family and non-family businesses from the customer’s point of view, which is often a marginalized topic in theory and practice Keywords: competitiveness, correlation, customers´ satisfaction, family business, non-family business, tourism.
Currently is necessary to identify own way of cognition and information processing, so called the cognitive style, which is connected with learning style. Contribution contains theoretical information about many typologies of learning styles (e.g.. according to brain hemispheres dominance, intelligence, learning motivation, etc.) and research is focused on typlogy of D. A. Kolb (divergator, assimilator, convergator and accomodator). Aim of the research is to analyze preference of learning styles of future managers, to identify correlations between learning styles preference and chosen features of future managers, advantages and disadvantages. of distance education and to suggest some possibilities of learning styles development by methods of creativity development. In contribution is used interrogative method by standardized Kolb's questionnaire, mathematical-statistical methods (descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, χ2test) and comparative method. The research sample is composed of 296 future managers, the dominant learning style is accomodator in number of 109 (36,82 %). Contribution contains 3 hypotheses. Statistically significant correlation was explored between learning style and perception of distance education disadvantages, between learning style and professional orientation and between learning style and self-evaluation of future managers. Benefit of the contribution are suggestions for creativity development methods application for these learning styles.
The development of tourism in the region can be managed and guided by an appropriate regional policy that has realistic objectives. The paper focuses on the area of regional development in the context of tourism within the local government in the municipality of Besenova (situated in Slovakia, belongs to the natural region Liptov and to the administrative region Zilina at the level NUTS 3), taking into account the economic, social and ecological aspects of the region and shows the impact of tourism on the lives of local residents, the operation of the local economy, the overall attractiveness and appearance of the municipality. It focuses on both the positive and negative impacts of the tourism industry on the locality, with the intensity of their impact depending mainly on the volume and structure of visitors who come to this popular destination not only from Slovakia but also from abroad. Literature review contains information about regional and local development, new trends in this area (e. g. triple, quadruple and quintuple helix model) and pros and cons of tourism. In the theoretical part of contribution are used books, internal materials and articles indexed in WOS or Scopus. In the contribution are used these methods: analysis and study of internal materials of village, mathematical-statistical methods (e.g. extrapolation of future values, trend analysis, absolute and relative number), analysis of secondary data & desk research, synthesis of results and suggestions for further development of tourism in the village Besenova. The results of the survey point to the importance of planned integrated tourism development, which will allow to exploit the tourism potential of the region, which has a sufficiently attractive natural and anthropogenic potential. Further regional and local development has potential not only for tourism, but also for employment, business, study and whole quality of life of inhabitants. It also could improve some macroeconomic indicators and increase competitiveness of region.
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