M10 - Business Administration: GeneralReturn

The 21st-century business environment requires permanent crisis management. Nowadays, managers seek to deal with a potential crisis effectively, with minimum losses or to avert the potential crisis in the best case. It can be noted that crisis managers must react proactively. Crisis management (CM) can be generally characterised as sets of approaches, measures and methods used in situations where managerial skills are no longer sufficient. The goal is obvious: minimise the impact of the crisis or avoid a potential crisis. The purpose of this paper is a literature review of crisis management approaches and, based on its summarisation, to propose a conceptual model respecting the proactive features and variables of the crisis management process. The paper highlights various definitions of CM approaches by various academic researchers and some empirical studies. A total of 98 literature sources have been reviewed for the research contribution. Particular attention is given to proactive models, which were described by many authors. All these models and approaches are analysed. The paper`s findings discuss crisis management process features and proactive aspects in a proposed Proactive Crisis Management Process (PCMP) model.

This research compares customer-centric strategies against product-centric strategies as different dimensions of competition, from a need for a more purposeful and clear concept of customer centricity (CC). It aims to contribute to a general roadmap for CC, as one strategic management direction and to prevail over the key managerial challenges to achieve it. The goal of the paper is to examine current maturity in adopting CC to scrutinise business process management (BPM) - a key dimension of transformation in the CC roadmap. This paper uses deductive analysis to constitute an analytic theory and structure for evaluation then uses 18 case studies as an evaluation of the analytic theory. Evidence of movement on the customer-centric roadmap is found. BPM in European telecommunications, banking, utility, and retail sectors support the roadmap for CC from the process view, the process alignment and the process optimisation. However, the movement is partial and not flawless, as BPM has not been examined in terms of supporting many of the customer-centric dimensions. Companies have a need for clarity, feedback, and the tools to succeed in an increasingly competitive and demanding world which, in the years to come, may demand a customer-centric approach in order to compete. In parallel, the work theoretically contributes to the importance of the relationship between CC and BPM and provides the first data analysis of its intersection.

The need for this research stems from the dynamic development that the brewing industry has undergone since the Velvet Revolution when the market was split between seventy-one regional breweries. In the 1990s, customers began to prefer the larger nationwide breweries, a trend that led to the bankruptcy of some regional breweries thereby creating a market niche that was quickly filled by microbreweries. By 2015, there were 44 industrial breweries and around 300 microbreweries. By then, the beer market had diversified, and since the brewing industry had been highly dynamic, managers had to change strategy regarding customer requirements. Strategic change has since been reflected in the pricing and quality of the beer, marketing communication, and merchandising. Knowledge of developments in the industry and adapting strategies to meet these changes have been key factors in determining future survival. The purpose of this study is to describe the development of the brewing industry and the resulting strategic changes of different breweries. Historical knowledge is required for future research into the perception of the brewery managers' strategic thinking. This paper is the first step in longitudinal research focused on strategy formulation at the business level in the brewing industry and brewery performance. The study is based on qualitative approaches and a two-step research design: the first phase is historical research, where the data was obtained from contemporary newspapers, professional and scientific journals, and annual reports from breweries. The second phase is composed of interviews conducted at four breweries, which are representative of the population. The results of this study help to clarify industry behaviour and are intended as a source of knowledge that practitioners can use in their strategic decision-making process. The study reflects previous industry behaviour and describes current trends in customer requirements that can be used when forming a business level strategy and identifying an appropriate generic strategy.

Family business is becoming a promising area of research in post-socialist countries, including the Czech Republic. Stability belongs to frequently cited properties of family firms. The goal of this article is to test the hypothesis whether family firms tend to have a lower rate of failure than their non-family counterparts. Using a sample of 1148 family and 5972 non-family firms in the Czech Republic, we find that there is no significant relationship between family involvement and rate of failure. A possible greater stability of family businesses is not necessarily linked with a lower rate of bankruptcy. We also discuss possible reasons and policy implications.

This paper deals with a set of problems related to tourism policy implementation. It emphasises the importance of stakeholder involvement in implementation of tourism policy in tourism destinations. The research is focused on evaluation of tourism policy strategic priorities from the point of view of destination stakeholders in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. Its objective is to identify key regional stakeholders in the tourism sector and describe their attitudes to co-operation with the South Bohemian Tourism Authority (SBTA) on implementation of the priorities which are described in the tourism development plan. The research uses three-step stakeholder analysis that is based on a three-attribute methodology, and a mix of qualitative and quantitative data gathering techniques. The findings are transformed into a comprehensive graphical output designated for the SBTA and a resulting set of managerial recommendations for better stakeholder involvement in the process of tourism development in the South Bohemian Region. The recommendations point both at involvement of various stakeholder groups by building the relationships between them and the SBTA based on more intensive communication and exchange of information and experience, and engagement of primary stakeholders as intermediaries in a newly established stakeholder network.

This paper deals with the new strategies in management of innovations, particularly the strategy of differentiated complexity of innovations. It explains how to manage and apply rationalization innovations, incremental innovations and radical innovations. It is always necessary to apply proper methods, tools and processes of these different types of innovations. The strategies of origin of product and process innovations are described. The primary incentives for product innovation are the needs of outside customers and firms as market subjects. The primary incentives for process innovation are the needs of inside customers, firms as producing subjects, and some stakeholders. Finally, the paper discusses harmonization of product and process innovations.

The aim of this article is to inform about the application of modern approaches into management, mainly management of change. Modern approaches involve the application of some ideas of system theory, some ideas of biology, cybernetics and entropy.