The scientific periodical journal (indexed on Web of Science) published by the Tomas Bata University in Zlin offers results of basic and applied economic research in the English language.

Influence of Demographic Factors on Employee Satisfaction and Motivation: Nowadays, human resource management and development is becoming more significant due to the fact that a man has gained a new place and a new role in all social processes and in their management. The sheer employees' characteristics, i.e., demographic factors, besides the organisational factors, have a certain influence in this area. By adequate understanding of both demographic factors and their influence, it is possible to apply measures to make the employees satisfied and motivated. This paper points out such influences on the employees' satisfaction and motivation. Also, the interaction of certain demographic factors is presented, such as the professional qualification, years of working experience and age, onto employees perceiving satisfaction and motivation and onto respective consequences. In order to determine the employee satisfaction and motivation, the responses from the employees to questions divided into six groups (material conditions, security, acceptance and social component, respect and status, self-confirmation and loyalty), were used. The research was done on a set of 328 employees in the telecommunications sector in Serbia.

The process of evaluation and selection of personnel is characterized by defining a specific set of criteria. The process of defining and determining the weights of the criteria is a significant, because the evaluation and the final selection of personnel are carried out on the basis of the defined set of criteria. Therefore, this manuscript is aimed at creating a set of the sales managers’ evaluation criteria as well as defining the weights of such criteria. The survey sample was 79 domain experts in the field of the recruitment and selection of personnel. The proposed approach based on the integration of the Delphi technique and the adapted SWARA methods was successfully applied for the purpose of defining the weights of the criteria and completely responded to the requirements in terms of defining the criteria and determining the weights of the criteria.

The concept of total quality management (TQM) emphasises continuous improvement which requires the participation of every individual in the company. Although much has already been said about people being the primary resource in an organisation practicing TQM, this area has been neglected by companies implementing TQM. The aim of this study was to determine critical factors of TQM practice that would positively impact employee satisfaction. Data for this study were obtained from three manufacturing companies, which have accepted TQM philosophy. Using structural equation modeling, the relationships between structural determinants of job satisfaction and employee loyalty were investigated. The results suggest that five, out of six, determinants are positively related to job satisfaction.

Rural development is one of the most important elements of the overall economic development. The level of entrepreneurship development, which is closely related to the available human capital of a certain area, has a particularly great impact on the speed and structure of the rural economic growth, along with outdoor amenities of rural areas. The paper provides an overview of foreign and domestic academic literature which deals with the issue of rural development and indicates the necessity and importance of achieving a stronger connection between rural outdoor amenities and the socio-economic development of rural areas. The paper also presents the results of the research aimed at the formulation of the relevant models of economic growth of rural areas in the 21st century. The aim of this paper is to point out the importance and possibility of implementing successful models of rural economic growth in Serbia.