Problems of Management in the 21st Century

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Authors: Editorial Board

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94-105

Authors: Luca Bussotti

Risk management and risk communication affect everybody’s daily life. Local authorities have the duty to manage public structures, to inform civilians of the risks coming from these structures, to implement prophylaxis procedures. Military storage sites are fully included in this category. This article presents – through a qualitative methodology based on risk analysis – how risk management and communication in weapons and ammunition warehouses is managed in a “partially free” country, using as a case-study, the Malhazine depot in Mozambique, which resulted in more than 100 deaths. In 2007, an extraordinary accident related to the management of obsolete conventional weapons occurred at the Malazhine warehouse. In this circumstance, the Mozambican Government adopted a policy of classifying the information “highly confidential”. This policy aimed at obscuring facts and responsibilities by hiding the causes of such a huge tragedy. This article concludes with the consideration that a high level of confidentiality in treating issues of public interest, such as the one kept in regard to Malhazine, does not help public authorities to effectively manage and prevent similar risks from occurring again, with resulting negative impacts on local populations.

122-135

Authors: Diāna Līduma, Ilze Grospiņa, Zane Gusta

Due to changes in tourism habits when planning development of tourism industry both on national and regional scale, the significance of recreation is highlighted. As a result, in tourism products made by guest accommodation enterprises the recreation offer is included more and more often. Within the research it has been found out that in guest accommodation enterprises in Kurzeme, in addition to accommodation opportunities, the offer of catering dominates, but regarding recreation activities- walking and relaxation in nature. The offer of bath-house treatment and cycling are more popular than SPA procedure and water attractions. The tendency of relaxation and entertainment event organization also increases in the companies. One realized imperfection of the offer is the tendency that in half of the regional accommodation enterprises the arrangement of relaxation activities has to be provided by the clients themselves. The aim of the research is to find out the offer of the current recreation in guest accommodation enterprises in Kurzeme Region and the necessary employees’ competences for its further development. Within the research a survey of 32 managers of guest accommodation enterprises in Kurzeme Region was carried out. The outcomes of the research reveal that additional services to accommodation are offered by 55% guest accommodation enterprises of Kurzeme. However, in 53.1% cases the clients, staying at a guest accommodation enterprise in Kurzeme Region, have to provide arrangement of relaxation activities themselves. Only one fifth (21.9%) of the companies provide it involving a specialist working for the company. Complex recreation programmes are offered by 9.7%, but separate recreation activities by 29% guest accommodation enterprises. Managers of guest accommodation enterprises in Kurzeme are aware of the potential in sports recreation events and relaxation activity organization. The outcomes of the research showed that the main competences necessary for the employees of guest accommodation enterprises, according to the managers of the companies, are language skills and the ability to make decisions and solve problem-situations. In 15.6% of the enterprises a manager for relaxation arrangements would be needed right now.

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4-6

Authors: Nikhil Chandra Shil

The awakening call of the twenty first century is to bring discipline in corporate behavior and attitude. The global financial crisis that gallops the whole economic system posits an unbeatable challenge before the society and demands a careful revisit of corporate routine to revamp trust and confidence on corporate affairs. Capitalism has accepted its inability to drag down the voluminous attitude of people who live in professional edge and isolate themselves from the mass on the ground of their superiority in terms of power, skill, and trust. Then the president of US had acknowledged that this was the biggest crisis that US economy faced after the 1929 stock market debacle. That crisis resulted stringent regulations to control Wall Street which is the Securities Act 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act 1934. This crisis also results Sarbanes Oxley Act 2002. Both of these two events have good similarities, sanctioning too much freedom and independence, capsizing the market gaps, destroying the whole system and confidence, and finally facing the rude destiny.

20-38

Authors: Siw Lundqvist, Leif Marcusson, John Jeansson

Today’s commonly carried out channel expansions of commerce could be both costly and problematic to manage. Especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that often suffer from a lack of digital competence, time and monetary resources in generally. Still, these transitions would be necessary to carry out because of customer demands and expectations concerning 24/7 availability, and access to digital commerce alternatives. Scarce resources are important reasons to search for how to carry out channel expansions with minimized problems. Activity theory (AT) focuses on the whole in order to detect problems that hinder successful outcomes. Hence, this theory was applied to prior findings, from a project about SME’s channel expansions, highlighting several problems that could appear during these activities. Implications for research foremost involve issues connected to the use of AT; implications for practice particularly concern if and how AT could be used to support channel broadening activities.

54-68

Authors: Štefan Slávik, Robert Hanák

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.

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