Faculty of Business Management

Progress in the field of information and communication technology is a source of advantage that improves quality of business services; increases productivity levels and brings competitive advantage to enterprises and organisations related to agricultural production. However, the use of information and communication technology (ICT) is connected with information security risks that threaten business continuity and information assets. The ICT in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and agricultural enterprises is the source of several advantages as well as the risks resulting from information security violation and security incidents. This paper aims at the current situation of information security in SME and agricultural enterprises. Furthermore, the paper provides results of a survey focusing on identification and evaluation of the effects of internal and external factors affecting existence of risks in information security in Slovak SME and agricultural enterprises. Until now, there had not been a similar survey carried out.

Enterprises trading on the electronic markets are exposed to security risks due to the active use of ICT in several transformation process activities. Realized risks cause particular damage to the enterprises that lack ISMS (information security management systems) or a basic process approach to IS management. In this article, the authors identify similarities and differences in information security management models from various aspects. The scientific article compares the presented models, their essence, goal, focus, and starting points. Based on advantages and disadvantages, the authors evaluate the possibilities of applying models in electronic business, which determines which models can be applied to all processes or only to specific processes of e-business. The representative data set was obtained from a sample of e-commerce enterprises using the Slovak electronic market. Research hypotheses based on scientific assumptions and statistical analysis are verified. The research co...

Bachelor's thesis deals with the application of project management techniques within project planning in a selected company. It describes the tools of project management theory and network analysis in managing a project and implements them to real environment for a specific project. The thesis contains suggestions that improve project implementation in terms of minimising execution time, costs and use of resources

During the last fifteen years there is a visibly pr ofound publication boom related to the topic of leadership in scientific journals. It seem s that the traditional tasks of a manager are limited, and they do not satisfy modern needs. Call ing for leaders does not appear only at the top management level (where leadership is automatically expected), but also at the middle and lower management levels. There is an increased demand for leaders or managers with excellent leadership skills. This situation has bee n developed by the changes in the environment in the area where managers perform. The dynamics and complexity of the external environment have increased greatly. The ex ternal environment creates many new situations which need fast and intuitive reactions. Excellent managers have to find effective solutions in this complicated environment. The corp orate internal environment has changed as well, and companies employ more educated and skilled employees with higher levels of self-...

The term business model has been used in practice for few years, but companies create, define and innovate their models subconsciously from the start of business. Our paper is aimed to clear the theory about business model, hence definition and all the components that form each business. In the second part, we create an analytical tool and analyze the real business models in Slovakia and define the characteristics of each part of business model, i.e., customers, distribution, value, resources, activities, cost and revenue. In the last part of our paper, we discuss the most used characteristics, extremes, discrepancies and the most important facts which were detected in our research.

The business model is a conceptual image of the operational part of the company. Methods of visualization are used for its formal description. The actual models are arranged into a typological concept that creates the prerequisites for the evaluation and examination of their potential for innovation. The innovation space of the business models has been studied based on an extensive sample of enterprises. The nature of the innovations of the business models, the limits of their innovation space and the tendencies of the development of the innovation space has been identified.

Business models attracted the attention of practicians and academics at the beginning of the 90 s , mostly during the dot.com era. New breakthrough technologies required a different way of making value for a customer and for a company than in the preceding era. It sparked an interest in this topic retrospectively in traditional branches of business too. The article compares an array of business model concepts picturing a company and business in various ranges of detail and through various methodologies. The purpose of business models comparisons and their ways of visualisation, is to give a true picture of main attributes of individual models, to know their functioning more deeply, divide them on the basis of similar parameters into relevant groups, to study a purpose and functionality of their visualisation, to classify ways of visualisation and by this way to contribute to a deeper knowledge of this relatively new theme of business economics and management.

A Slovak contemporary business environment mainly enables an uprise of a short range sustainable competitive advantage. Bigger chances to acquire a competitive advantage have small firms, therefore they could respond to quickly changing and developing environments. The Slovak companies are unable to create total competitive advantage to succeed in greater amount in international scope. From selected industries the chemical and partly engineering ones have the most qualitative competitive advantage, the construction and trade businesses are the least competitive. Exeptional competencies are spread into the various firms and industries. Non-concentrated and non-integrated competitive advantage has subsequently a low value only. Non-total competitive advantage is accomplished to a full picture by stronger foreign competitors, which insert enterprises of this domain in their supply chains.

A business model and a business strategy are the basic conditions of a company existence. A business model describes and explains how a company works and makes money. A business strategy describes and explains how, where and for what purpose and goal a business model will be used. The research seeks to ascertain whether there is any measurable relationship between a strategy and a model. An identification of this relationship will deepen knowledge of strategic management of the company and it is a reason for further research on the nature of relationship between a model and a strategy.

Start-ups are an appealing business form that gives space for self-realisation to enthusiastic, brave and creative people. The start-up progress is conditioned by the development of the business model. Other conditions for start-up viability include monetisation of business effort, effective leadership and teamwork, business strategy and external business support. A survey conducted on a sample of 76, 72 and 53 start-ups in three stages in 2015, 2016 and 2017 examined the development of those beginning and imperfect micro-enterprises in Slovakia. The research results are as follows. Start-ups are relatively closed, and their business model is inadequately connected to the environment. Start-ups know their customers well, but they do not know how to get them. They do not create partnerships in a sufficient range and quality. The monetisation of the examined start-ups is a little sophisticated, too traditional and without experimentation. Just less than a third of start-ups sell their basic product or service for free and generate money by selling premium services only. The most developed blocks are still customer value proposition and customer relationships; the least developed blocks are distribution channels and revenue streams. Startuppers rely on the simple assumption that a working business model will provide a lucrative earning directly. The founders of the studied start-ups are capable visionaries, but less competent managers. Start-up teams have demonstrated a high degree of internal cohesiveness and support in unpleasant and unpredictable situations, but they lack a greater formalisation of work in a routine operation. Business strategies of start-ups are ambitious and international, but little verified in a competitive battle. The competitive advantage of start-ups is based on differentiation rather than on low cost. Start-ups do not trust the state support for business; they cooperate with large companies just a little, but prefer to work with the start-up scene and private investors. Start-ups must mature entrepreneurially, enthusiasts must become entrepreneurs and managers, and they have to learn how to monetise their business effort. Start-ups will be most aided by the cultural and civilisation development of a society that recognises entrepreneurship as a natural, useful and honourable resource for the development of the national economy.

Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence.

A start-up already at its origin has to solve the crucial existential condition that is a viable business model. The purpose of the research is to deepen and expand the knowledge about the structure of the start-up business model and its impact on entrepreneurial performance. Field research was carried out in three stages over one and a half years. The source of knowledge about the studied start-ups has been the personal experience recorded in the questionnaire. Start-ups are small closed communities that do not sufficiently shape external partnerships, cannot reach the customers, although they can identify them well enough, try to improve the business model blocks but they do not pay attention to their coordination and perceive the monetization in a simplified way. The impact of the business model on start-up performance has been confirmed but the internal blocks affect business performance unambiguously over the three stages of the research. The best conversion of users to custome...

Start-ups are an attractive topic for research because they are a relatively new and very dynamic business form. They carry out original business ideas, provide a space for self-realization of independent personalities, bring extra earnings, but most of them fail. The aim of the research was to examine whether the business model and start-up team like two basic assumptions are really some reasons of the viability and later potential start-up success. The result of the research is a knowledge on the structure and functionality of the start-up business model and start-up team. The viability of the start-up had been measured in shape of its business performance. An intensity and structure of the relationships between performance of start-up and its business model and team should confirm its capability to survive and thrive. These relationships are modelled on the base of regression analysis. The research has largely confirmed the existence of desired relationships to a certain extent, but the effect of the studied preconditions is internally considerably differentiated.

A start-up is a very small but dynamic enterprise in its early stage, and therefore the strategies involved are different from the strategies of mature enterprises. The aim of this research was to deepen and broaden the knowledge of the strategies regarding the launch of micro enterprises and thus improve their competitiveness and viability. Our two-phase field research identified a spectrum of business strategies using factor analysis. The strategies selected will help to better understand the activities of start-ups in a competitive environment. Half of the spectrum of the identified strategies explain start-ups as an ambitious action in the international space with an emphasis on defining a unique quality or an active action that is an expression of the viability and perception of the business environment. The other half of the spectrum consists of strategies that are unclear and non-conceptual, i.e. limited by no central idea. In the second phase of research, the share of rational and action strategies increased slightly. Nevertheless, the identified strategies, which are considered to be the natural approaches of start-ups, have shown little impact on performance that would confirm their rationale and efficiency. Of the generic strategies considered to be standard for any company, only the typology of a strategy clock, based on price along with value added criteria, showed an impact on start-up performance.

Start-up is an emerging micro-enterprise that has different characteristics to a larger and mature enterprise. Its viability depends mainly on a functioning business model. The purpose of the research study is to identify the basic types of business model regardless of the specific industry, and thus to penetrate deeper into the more general cognition of start-up business making. The research sample contains 106 start-ups, the business models of which are described using fourteen criteria, which are derived from the visualization of canvas. The research sample is divided by cluster analysis (Ward’s hierarchical agglomeration method) into nine clusters, hence types of business models. For a better understanding, the clusters were aggregated into four groups with similar business models. Grouping A is characterized by the model with a small range of processes, mostly with higher product differentiation, scarce resources and satisfying the common basic and higher needs. Grouping B is c...

Start-up is a young and very small enterprise which staffing and human relationships are different from the internal environment of larger enterprises. Research has therefore focused on founders/leaders of start-ups and relationships inside start-up teams. The result of the research is the basic personal characteristics of the leading people (age, education, reasons for entering the business and others), the quality of their leadership and the quality of teamwork. Since a start-up is developing vigorously, leadership and teamsmanship are monitored on the base of business idea development and investment cycle. Start-up founders are better leaders than managers, teams are better at handling extraordinary situations than standard operation, quality of leadership is situationally conditioned to a certain extent by start-up development phase. Start-ups contain contradictions with significant asymmetry, which are the expression of their limited strengths and considerable weaknesses. The l...

Start-up is a modern entrepreneurship form designed to realize original business ideas, mostly based on new technologies and the Internet. It evolves in the development cycle, which is determined by the business idea development cycle and the financing cycle. The purpose of the paper is to describe and analyse the business idea. The business idea is characterized by its content, circumstances of its origin, degree of originality and evidence of this originality. Start-ups are dominated by business ideas based on the application of information and communication technologies, the business idea is most often created by combining professional and business experience, but its originality is from the international point of view only average and the level of legal protection is quite rare.

Business model and business strategy fundamentally characterize and predetermine the essence of a company and its action. Research has already brought a fairly extensive knowledge of the model and strategy too. There is also emerging evidence that describes the relationship between model and strategy, but it is not verified by empirical research. The research confirmed the existence of a real relation between model and strategy using quantitative methods. Business model impacts significantly on the market position of the company, has got implications for competitive advantage, originality/uniqueness of the company action and of its passivity/activity. The acquired knowledge can be used to purposeful alignment of model and strategy. A higher degree of intensity of this relationship improves the market position of the company and may be a potential source of higher company performance. Keywords: business model, business strategy, model-strategy-relation, market position.

Start-ups are an attractive business phenomenon because they offer opportunities for personal self-realization and extraordinary business growth. The survival and sustainability of start-ups depends mainly on the quality and development of their business model. However, this assumption must be confirmed by the field research. Field research dealt with the personnel background of the business, the business idea, the structure of the business model, the impact of quality and development degree of business model on start-up performance. Each start-up was individually examined on the basis of a structured questionnaire and a personal interview with the founder. Start-up founders are relatively young and educated, but without relevant business experience. The originality of business ideas is approaching the European level, but the evidence about it is superficial and the degree of protection of ideas is low. The level of quality and development of business model blocks is unbalanced. The most developed block is the customer value proposition/product, the least developed block is the revenue streams. The business model affects the performance of the start-up, but in a small intensity and efficiency only. The examined start-ups are slow in their development and fail to sufficiently monetize the results of their efforts. Research has revealed new and original insights into the structure of the business model of start-ups, the links between the quality of blocks and their stage of development, the impact of the business model on start-up performance or sustainability, and identified some weaknesses of startups. Faster development of business model and purposeful selection of partners and effective cooperation with them would probably eliminate at least some of the shortcomings of the start-ups under investigation.

Managing change is getting to the focus od managerial job. In contemporary enterprise a change is a part of daily working program rather than sustaining a status quo. Capability of observing and accomplishing the attractive changes is unnecessary condition for survival and success in business. Change management dealt with multidimensional and multilayer theme. The paper concentrates on searching the causes of resistence to the change, the possibilities of its reduction and the methods of its overcoming.