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Catalonia's growing calls for independence have stunned the international press. Current conventional wisdom sees the issue of secession as something caused by the disastrous development of the Spanish economy in the last years. However, there is more to this than purely economic arguments. In this article I argue that, although economic factors also play a role, Catalan political demands for independence are a product of a recent critical juncture. In particular, I show that throughout history Catalanist political actors have pursued three goals: a democratic system, a more modern economy and the implementation of a plurinational state. The third demand is still vivid and has pushed Catalans to diverge from the traditional path: instead of seeking a new path towards accommodation within Spain, Catalans have decided to take the secessionist route.
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After the failure of the European constitutional process, the question of creating the European identity has become in the center of attention of the academic public again. According to the scientific literature about Europe it is mostly discussed as the set of institutional solutions, but not as the collective cultural space, the dominant paradigm discussing the European identity is the one that sees it as entirely political, indeed. The goal of this work is to show that insisting on creating of purely political European identity has its basic neither in theory nor in practice. In order to document the claim, in this work the author critically investigates different theoretical approaches studying the European identity and analyzing the results of available empirical researches tries to determine a role of cultural, civil and instrumental components in its creation.
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The text analyses presence and participation of national minorities in the work of the Southeast European countries' parliaments. National minorities are presented as a significant, but also an inevitable factor in social and political life of these countries. The author analyses relation between political parties and national minorities, paying special attention to the capability of minorities to form their own political parties. By parallel analysis of legal solutions and parliament practise of these countries, a review of factors influencing the presence of minorities in the parliament can be made, as well as of the modalities used to increase the presence of minorities. Having recognized the need of emphasizing various models, the author did not want to single out any of them as a universal solution. It is beyond dispute that all the analyzed models represent some of the potential solutions only, therefore they may be considered neither unique nor final.
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The text shows that the Serbian newspaper industry is facing a crisis. Although the trends on the Serbian print market coincide with global trends, it is argued that the crisis of domestic newspapers is caused by specific characteristics of the Serbian media sector. Basing on business data of 12 daily newspaper publishers in 2009, 2010 and 2011, the text identifies main obstacles for economic sustainability of print media, which is fundamental for their editorial independence and content diversity. The structural causes of the crises are found in the lack of capital, non-regulated, non-transparent and non-functional market (unknown owners and financiers of the media, lack of industry data, significant role of the state as the market actor, unregulated distribution market), inadequate resources of news publishers for market operations and inadequate media policy of the government.
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Over the past few years there have been many discussions about deep conflicts that separate political identity of Serbian society. If in one political community can exist only one type of belonging and patriotism, how is it possible to overcome conflict between divided Serbian political identity. In this paper I assume that this division have its root in two separate ways of dealing with the past. The aim of this work is to understand current implications of the traumatic past for the political identity of Serbia, as well as to show the ways for overcoming subversive dynamics of collective memory.
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The author analyses theoretical concepts of group identities and their role in social, political, and, particularly, inter-ethnic relations. Facing the variety of different approaches, he is searching for the appropriate eclectic definition of the national identity, primarily concentrating on the role of the Other. Subsequently he draws conclusions about the role of the Turks (Ottomans), Muslims (Bosniaks) and Albanians in the formation of Serbian national identity (and its incorporation in the framework of European identity), seeking thereby to contribute to a better understanding of the causes of Yugoslav civil wars.
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Dynamics of changes in the demographic structure of Polish society and the extension of professional activity of employees, force the employers to face the challenges related to professional education of people with long seniority as well as the very young. In order to satisfy the developmental expectations of these two groups the employer should take actions related to the implementation of diversity management concept in the context of staff age. The main aim of the paper is to discuss the significant differences in educational needs of these two employees’ generations. Moreover, the necessity to take into account these diversities for assurance of high quality of educational services realized by the employer as well as the education firms has been described.
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Polish franchise market grows dynamically and it is mainly visible in services sector. However, franchising is not a popular business concept among professional services firms. Therefore, basic differences between franchise and professional service businesses will be highlighted in the paper. These differences are due to marketing orientation, knowledge management, forms of promotion and quality management implications.
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This article presents solutions for the integration of quality management system and management control system used in Gdynia Maritime University. It discusses the requirements for the quality management system according to ISO 9001:2008 standard and the requirements for the management control system arising from legal provisions concerning public finances. Then the paper presents the quality management system implemented in Gdynia Maritime University and the process of its integration into management control system. Next it shows the various areas of integration of both systems. Finally it points out the benefits that Gdynia Maritime University achieved as a result of the integration of these two systems.
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The key responsibility of an academic teacher − a master of education, is to work on qualifications to educate students. The teacher becomes a professional working on professional qualifications. In the contact with students a teacher becomes a manager who sets the objectives of the working classes, organizes the work, motivates, informs, assesses the work and develops people. The teacher can have strong influence on students. The aim of the article is to assess the effects of education/learning outcomes during the implementation of teaching Marketing Research subject. In this paper theoretical considerations were supplemented by information from secondary sources and primary source – a description of individua lteacher’s work with students during teaching Marketing Research subject. The article also indicated both the necessity of in-depth academic work of a teacher individually with a student and the importance of sharing the effects of individual work with others in the group for the improved quality of classes.
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The article is devoted to issues related to the formation of value for hotel clients within the context of loyalty relationships. The main purpose of the article was to study the significance of relationships in the process of forming customer value. The considerations presented in the article were governed by the model of the influence of relationships on customer value. It is based on the assumption that the value provided to the customer is the decisive factor influencing customer satisfaction resulting from their contact with the enterprise. In the long-term perspective, a satisfied customer becomes a loyal client with whom the enterprise is able to build long-term relationships. These relationships, in turn, influence the assessment of the value received by the client. Moreover, a loyal client greatly appreciates the value offered by the service provider, which reinforces relationships between the two parties. This way we encounter a specific kind of feedback. On the basis of the studies, an attempt was made to show how the relations with hotel guests influenced the value perceived by the customer. The studies were conducted in three-star hotels of the Orbis Hotel Group.
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The article discusses the themes of loyalty and its impact on the profitability of the company. Starting from the definition of loyalty and profitability, the article introduces the theme of loyalty impact on the profitability of the company. The loyalty ladder is defined showing the evolution of the customer contacts with the company. The article briefly describes different levels of loyalty by Dick and Basu. Loyalty is described also because of the competition in the industry, the availability of substitutes, the availability of different offers for the customer and the willingness of customers to overcome some difficulties. Customer satisfaction is defined as an integral element of loyalty and satisfaction-profit chain. The main purpose of this article is to indicate the benefits of having loyal customers, and their impact on the profitability of the company.
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In this study, the authors made an attempt to identify key areas of the quality determinants of educational services from the point of view of classical model of operational management. Selected determinants of input area, operations and output elements facilitate further research in the detailed assessment of the quality of educational services. The studies are the first stage of the research conducted by the authors on the quality of education at universities and technical universities in Poland.
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The article concentrates on the issue of the improvement of effectiveness of small service entities by initiating and developing partnership relations with suppliers. It turns out that even such organizations may benefit from this kind of cooperation. Small service organizations, characterized by modest personnel potential, must take steps to create a culture of engaging employees in building such relations. The author has proposed a certain minimal set of directives necessary for forming a collective system (activating the whole personnel of a service organization) of participating in creating beneficial relations with suppliers. The article takes advantage of information from secondary sources from the fallowing fields of knowledge: services sector, building up relations and supplies management.
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The new management concepts in the public sphere are connected with adopting a relational approach to citizens. Interactive governance can be implemented with the help of e-government tools. The paper presents how CRM systems’ implementation influences the co-production of public services. The analysis is based on the current literature and examples of cities in Germany, the UK and the USA. The implementation of ICT tools to manage relations with citizens does not guarantee more sophisticated forms of co-production of services or participation in the decision-making. A wider citizen co-production could probably be achieved through a changed approach of the local government to the coordination of local society activity.
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The author discusses following four kinds of sevice design: 1) service industrial design, 2) service marketer’s design, 3) customer dominated service product design, 4) formation of service product as a co-creation.
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The goal of the article is to contribute to the answer to a question: how students of university perceive teaching effects and features of didactic activities that lead to their creation. The authors performed qualitative research in which, based on the statement of the students of the last but one semester of management tried to find repeated patterns of the relationship between teaching effects and their causes. Four replicable patterns were found. The authors presented their own interpretation of the research results, managerial implications and hints for future research of the problem.
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Technological “dynamic changes”, which include product innovations, the deepest penetrate services that belong to a technical infrastructure subsystem. However, they do not represent the whole field of services. The major part of the market belongs to services that do not require advanced technology and specialized knowledge and skills. Intense changes and modifications of products affect, among others, the time of awaiting for service, the number of clients being attended to and the costs of maintaining the business establishment. The goal of the article is to define the importance of Polish enterprises introducing product innovations in service business through the means of analysis and synthesis. While synthesizing the analyzed data, one easily notices that the Polish service enterprises are, most of the time, willing to base their innovation activity on changes of organizational nature thus underestimating the introduction of the product innovations.
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Quality is an important factor in organizational performance, including educational institutions. It should be a subject of systematic measurement, aimed at determining the degree of satisfaction from products. There are many methods for measuring the quality of services. This article presents an attempt to identify the characteristics of the quality of educational services provided at the Faculty of Management at the University of Gdansk, with the use of one of such methods, so-called the Kano method. The survey was conducted in November 2013. The results also included the impact of individual characteristics on the level of the total satisfaction and dissatisfaction from the offered service.
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