Transforming Former State Enterprises in the Czech Republic

1995 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ed Clark ◽  
Anna Soulsby

The study of organizational transformation has emerged from the foundations established by contingency theory and research. While institutional approaches to organizational analysis have preferred to focus on the tendency towards organizational continuity and inertia, recent developments have begun to con sider institutional pressures leading to change, and to provide clues about how contingency and institutional theories might complement each other in improv ing our understanding of organizational change. The evidence presented in this paper, drawn from a study of organizational transformation in the Czech Republic, allows exploration of the relationship between transforming state enterprises and the wider processes of social, economic and institutional change. The values, motives and actions of the key enterprise managers are shown to be essential factors in explaining both the process of transformation in state enterprises, and the role of institutional factors in that process.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 102-120
Author(s):  
Ondrej Zizlavsky ◽  
Nikola Janickova

This article builds on existing family business research conducted worldwide and embeds the research results in the Czech context to portray the Czech Republic as a critically important context for extending our knowledge on important family firms’ topics. In this article, we present a systematic review and integration of 69 articles published in peer-reviewed journals by Elsevier, Emerald, Wiley and others from 2015 to 2021 in order to answer two research questions: what is the role of innovation in SME family firms and what drives the innovation in family firms? Specifically, the content of the article discusses the new definition of family firm in the Czech Republic; the relationship between innovation and family firm growth; and some contextual factors that might affect the innovations in the Czech SME family firms: ability and willingness paradox, socioemotional wealth, and familiness. The insights of this review are used to develop suggestions for future research in setting the value of family firm where innovation can play an essential role as one of the core value drivers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (6) ◽  
pp. 833-848
Author(s):  
Radka Redlichová ◽  
Gabriela Chmelíková ◽  
Ivana Blažková ◽  
Vojtěch Tamáš

The aim of this paper is to investigate socio-economic development drivers of NUTS 3 regions in the Czech Republic. The aim is fulfilled by examination of the relationship between one of the regional development factors – the companies’ size structure and the development of the region from both socio and economic views. We derive from the theory of diversification and prior empirical findings, and empirically test the role of companies’ size in regional development. We use a balanced dataset of 14 regions covering the years 2000 – 2016 that provides the information about regions’ socio-economic performance in terms of GDP and unemployment rate. We hypothesise that unemployment rate in the regions with higher share of small firms is less sensitive to the general trend of the whole economy. However, the higher share of small firms leads to improved regional GDP. Our findings confirm that small firms accelerate economic growth while playing a role of a social stabiliser in Czech regions. Our conclusions could help in designing the regional policy in the Czech Republic.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147490412199325
Author(s):  
Jitka Wirthová

This paper examines how different meanings of knowledge (transnational, comparative, statistical, local, and personal) relationally stabilise the agential position for the legitimation of educational reform across state and non-state actors. Analysing the materiality and systems of reason of proposals to reform education in the pre-election debates in the Czech Republic, the focus is placed on different patterns of legitimate and legitimating actorship, assembled from global and local relations. Through an ecological conceptualisation the research identifies the problematisation and decomposition of actorship into contradictory assemblages of both traditional actors (teachers and politicians) and relatively new ones (NGOs). The relationship of the civil sector and the state structures allowed the emergence of new non-state, non-professional actors (NGOs) who aggregate their expertise from transnational data and legitimate both their position as experts and the particular educational change. This has consequences for non-experts as politicians and teachers. The transnational and European context penetrated into the Czech educational sphere not through an elite class of system actors but through the representatives of NGOs. Rhetorically saving education from degradation, NGOs engage in spreading the transnational data and externalise the legitimation of educational reform and thus become the bearers (although agentially limited) of the European space.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 80-91
Author(s):  
S. V. Kudryashov

The article deals with complex and controversial issues related to the uprising and liberation of Prague in May 1945. Interpretation of the events became acute and caused lively discussions in connection with the demolition of the monument to Marshal I. V. Konev on April 3, 2020 by the order of the local municipality. The Czech Republic is also discussing the idea of «perpetuating the role of other liberators» of the capital – soldiers of the ROA division, which for two days (May 6-7) provided assistance to the rebels. Using new documents from the Central archive of the Ministry of defense of the Russian Federation, the author draws a conclusion about the limited influence of the Vlasov units. They, indeed, brought confusion to the German ranks, but early in the morning of May 8, they themselves left Prague on a rapid march. After that, fighting and negotiations between the rebels and the German command continued. The article emphasizes that the main goal of the Soviet military operation from 6 to 11 May 1945 was the defeat of the German Army Group Center. The liberation of Prague was only part of a powerful offensive by three Soviet fronts. Heavy battles for Prague did not happen, but the entry of Soviet tanks into the Czech capital and the subsequent jubilation of local residents became a symbol of the end of the war in Europe. The author concludes that the demolition of monuments to Soviet soldiers and commanders is a manifestation of internal political struggle in the countries where it occurs, and the Czech Republic is only one of these examples.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Monika Sidor ◽  
Dina Abdelhafez

Recently, the role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Poland and the Czech Republic has increased, which has translated into a growing tendency to change the procedures for social assistance provision. However, the relationships between public administration and non-governmental organisations differ in both countries. The Najam Four-C’s Model is used in this paper to describe how NGOs and public administration approach the problem of homelessness in the Czech Republic and Poland. To explore this issue, the authors conducted interviews with public servants and NGOs’ mangers in both countries. The findings show that, as far as homelessness is concerned, NGOs and state authorities function on the basis of complementarity in Poland as well as in the Czech Republic.


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 215824402110095
Author(s):  
Jakub Dostál

The economic value of volunteering is an increasingly important part of volunteering management. It has become part of public policies. Some requests for proposals (RFP) enable nonprofits to include the value of volunteer time in compulsory co-financing. These RFP include the European Economic Area (EEA) Grants and Norway Grants. This article addresses the relationship in the value of volunteering, also called in-kind volunteering contributions. The research includes two case studies of finances from EEA and Norway Grants in the Czech Republic: the Czech NGO Programme, responsible for allocating grants between 2009 and 2014, and the Active Citizens Fund, responsible for allocating grants between 2014 and 2021. They share elements through the EEA and Norway Grants rules. However, they use different types of specialist replacement wages. The article summarizes the arguments for including in-kind volunteering contributions. It presents the possible values of these contributions in the selected cases, including the relationship between the type of volunteering and the number of hours necessary to achieve these values. The article defines the theoretical basis for calculating the value of in-kind volunteer contributions and illustrates this with real examples of allocations from EEA and Norway Grants.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Dino Numerato ◽  
Arnošt Svoboda

This paper examines the role of collective memory in the protection of “traditional” sociocultural and symbolic aspects of football vis-à-vis the processes of commodification and globalization. Empirical evidence that underpins the analysis is drawn from a multisite ethnographic study of football fan activism in the Czech Republic, Italy, and England, as well as at the European level. The authors argue that collective memory represents a significant component of the supporters’ mobilization and is related to the protection of specific football sites of memory, including club names, logos, colors, places, heroes, tragedies, and histories. The authors further explain that collective memory operates through three interconnected dimensions: embedded collective memory, transcendent collective memory, and the collective memory of contentious politics.


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