The job satisfaction of nurses is reflected in almost all organizational outputs of medical facilities. First-line nurse managers (FLNMs), who are directly related to subordinate nurses, have a great influence on this satisfaction. The aim of our paper is to examine the connection between communication skills and the transformation style of FLNMs management with the job satisfaction of nurses and to verify the influence of three moderators on the strength of this relationship. The chosen moderators—the practice of managing FLNMs, the degree of control (span of control) and psychosocial work—follow from theoretical studies. The moderating effect of the variable management practice is also significant from the point of view of Slovak legislation. The sample consisted of 132 FLNMs from five university hospitals in Slovakia. Data collection took place in the form of a questionnaire. All data were processed using the SPSS 24 software package. A series of regression analyzes were used to identify the proposed hypotheses. ANOVA analysis was used to analyze multiple dependencies. We worked at a 5% level of significance. The findings point to the strong direct effects of communication skills and the transformational leadership style of FLNMs on nurses’ job satisfaction. Moderation effects are mild, but significant in the case of management and span of control practices. The lower values of both variables reinforce the positive relationships among the two predictors and the job satisfaction of nurses. The third moderator, psychosocial work factors, also have a significant moderating effect, which is negative, and the higher value of this moderator mitigates both positive direct effects.

The aim of our paper is to examine whether the support of innovative work behavior by management is positively related to business performance and at the same time, whether this relationship is mediated by the teamwork climate and cognitive diversity of teams. Cognitive diversity is defined as differences in knowledge and perspective, which arise from professional diversity and account for its positive effects. A teamwork climate represents staff perceptions of collaboration between personnel. Business performance is defined by the level of sales. Our sample consisted of 211 managers of companies operating in Slovakia, and data collection took place in the form of a questionnaire. The main tool for examining the mechanism of operation of the investigated relationships is mediation using regression analysis and the Sobel test to determine the significance of the indirect effect of mediation variables. The findings point to a significant direct relationship between the innovative work behavior of company employees and business performance. The intensity of this relationship can be partly influenced by promoting cognitive diversity, especially in the area of knowledge and ways of thinking. The significant role of a teamwork climate was not demonstrated in the examined model.

The European Union (European Parliament) understands industry 4.0 as a term for an environment of fast transformations of production systems and products. The basic characteristic of the change in the methods of creating added value in the conditions of the fourth industrial revolution is digitalization. Digitalization changes people management in two stages. The first stage is the adaptation of systems to the integration of physical inputs into digital systems, and the second stage is the redefinition of values for the internal and external customer. The purpose of this paper is to examine the content of the first digitalization stage and its impact on the transformation of values of corporate people management in the second stage of digitalization. The study published in this paper points out the level of digitalization applied towards the internal and external customer. The research results verify relations in the portfolio of corporate value and prove their present implementation of digitalization and its and importance for the future sustainability of the business. The study confirmed the independence of the levels of corporate digitalization and companies’ value portfolios. Furthermore, the study proved the universal nature of corporate value orientation, irrespective of the size, business focus or performance of the people management system. Meaningfulness, communication and cooperation dominate in terms of importance for business sustainability. The results of the study in Slovakia support the opinions of published foreign research, which emphasize the importance of introducing technological innovations aimed at employees to a much greater extent.

Purpose: The fast and shocking onset of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus created the need for a complete crisis management of healthcare facilities to manage the current stage of the crisis. The purpose of our research is to examine the relations between the competences of crisis management in healthcare facilities and the performance of employees, measured during the acute stage of the crisis by their feeling of satisfaction, safety and creation of conditions for work, whereby we assume that these variables are mutually interlinked by the sharing of information, teamwork and cognitive diversity of the work teams. Materials and Methods: A questionnaire survey was created and used based on a sample of 216 mid-level managers of health care facilities in Slovakia, which took place during the first month after the outbreak of the crisis (during the month of March/April 2020). The Baron and Kenny mediator model has been used for research purposes and the Freedman–Schatzkin test has been used to test the mediator effect. Regression analysis has been used to verify the hypotheses. The control variables were the size of the healthcare facility based on the number of employees, gender and age of the manager, his position in the management hierarchy and the duration of practice in a management position. The ANOVA analysis of variance was used to analyze multiple dependencies. The level of significance was 5%. The research sample consisted of 216 managers at different types of healthcare facilities. Results: The hypothesis for the dependency between the crisis competences of management and performance of teams during the acute stage of the crisis, facilitated by sharing information, teamwork and cognitive diversity of crisis management was confirmed. It is a multilateral incomplete mediation, where almost two thirds of the total effect are facilitated by mediators, of which the sharing of information has the greatest effect (35%). Conclusion: Based on our mediation model, healthcare facilities, which strive to implement crisis management during the acute stage of the crisis, should place emphasis especially on reliable background information and the fast sharing of information, supporting the performance of healthcare teams. The strategies for achieving these goals should also include education focused on the development of managerial competences.

The level of leadership skills of healthcare team leaders has long been the subject of interest and many discussions. Several studies have pointed to their inadequacy, which is becoming a serious problem during the global crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic. There is a direct link between the leadership in the healthcare system and its performance, conditioned by the level of decisions of leaders of medical teams. It is they who determine the performance of healthcare delivery. The study published in this article contains the results from the examination of the dependence between crisis leadership and team performance in healthcare providers. The subject of the research is the impact of cognitive diversity and the quality of crisis-leadership decision-making on the performance of medical teams in the acute crisis phase. The study was conducted on a research sample of 216 healthcare providers after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Slovakia (April 2020). The respondents to the research sample involved team leaders in healthcare providers, who have been involved in managing the crisis. The study has justified the positive association between crisis leadership and team performance, which is mediated by cognitive diversity, supporting the quality of decision-making in crisis leadership. The results of the research have proven that the performance of the medical team in the acute crisis phase can be positively influenced through qualified decision-making in crisis leadership amplified by the usage of cognitive diversity.

Motivational factors and job satisfaction of employees in agriculture in the context of performance of agricultural companies in Slovakia | Nadežda Jankelová, Zuzana Joniaková, Anita Romanová, Katarína Remeňová | Agricultural Journals