Due to the combination of vast technology trends brought by Industry 4.0, present-day consumers need and stiff global competition and require businesses from across many industries to constantly innovate. Clients request multifaceted support from manufacturers and service providers while the transition towards new symbiotic ecosystems disrupts traditionally established processes in some sectors. This is largely happening in the global automotive industry where in-car and around-the-car services with asset-sharing concepts are taking a dominant role rather than plain vehicles sales and car ownership. In our paper, we investigate the possibilities of new and improved business collaborations between a car retailer operating in several European countries and its SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) customers across various sectors currently owning car fleets of at least five vehicles. We test several hypotheses and conduct a systematic statistical analysis of the proposed business model’s aspects on the sample of almost 200 SMEs from five countries in Southeast Europe. By using the χ² test and a one-tailed t-test we tested both frequency data and the continuous variables. Research indicates that SMEs look for new ways to organize their fleet management strategy more efficiently and thus more precisely plan associated costs. Regardless of the country of origin, SMEs want to explore a business model with more introduced to their fleet management and are ready to accept new technologies for fleet management operations.

Background: Polish healthcare providers already struggle with a deficiency concerning human resources, especially with regard to doctors and nurses. Because of this, effective HRM interventions should be taken in order to attract and retain medical personnel. Employer branding is one such intervention because it not only results in improving the organization's reputation as an employer but also improving HRM practices. However, to create an effective employer branding strategy, a contextual approach should be taken. Because of this, the aim of the study is to assess the importance of various factors influencing medical personnel’s perception of a hospital’s attractiveness as an employer. Methods: The study was performed among 285 hospitals in Poland assuming a confidence level of 0.95. In each hospital, five respondents took part in the survey. The first cohort of respondents named ‘Directors’ consisted of hospital directors or employees authorized by them, mostly HR specialists. The other four groups were: ‘Hybrid Doctors Managers’ (individuals who had the roles of both doctor and manager); ‘Hybrid Nurses Managers’ (having the roles of both manager and nurse); ‘Physicians’; ‘Nurses’. Due to the ordinal nature of the data, the chi-square test of independence was used and the V-Cramer coefficient was determined. To indicate significant discrepancies between the responses of the respondents’ cohorts, the Kruskal–Wallis rank test was conducted. Results and discussion: Various groups of respondents perceive hospital attractiveness as an employer differently. While the opinions of medical personnel are more or less homogeneous, the cohort of employees responsible for HRM are less consistent with regard to their perception of hospital attractiveness. Additionally, ‘Directors’ highlight tangible factors determining hospital desirability. Moreover, their hierarchy of the top five factors influencing EB clearly exposes their quantitative orientation towards hospital performance management. Medical personnel hierarchies of the determinants expose qualitative orientation. Excluding country-dependent factors, such as regularity of remuneration payment, the professionals value such determinants as a nice work atmosphere, cooperation with colleagues (specialists), good working conditions and, most importantly, employment stability. The last determinant results from generational and gender tendencies (feminization), and yet it stands in contradiction with a tendency of flexible employment implemented in most developed countries due to a lack of medical personnel. Conclusions: The results showed the importance of adapting employer branding strategies to the medical professional groups (doctors and nurses). This is because their perception of employers’ attractiveness differ. In addition, elements of the profession genotypes play an important role in how the physicians and nurses value various factors creating the employers’ attractiveness. The research also revealed the fact that top managers or HR specialists can wrongly identify the hospitals attractiveness since they are more quantitatively than qualitatively oriented. For this reason, they may implement inefficient EB strategies.

Innovation is one of the successful and competitive advantage factors for SMEs in the dynamically changing environment of the RES industry. For SMEs, innovation is driven by a number of factors, such as the size of the enterprise, the scope of activity, innovation capability, strategy, and environmental conditions. Organizations’ commitment to innovation is another important factor. This is especially true for SMEs with strong social bonds, meaning that every employee of the company is, to some extent, involved in the innovation process and influences the organization’s opinion. The goal of the paper is to assess the impact of organizational determinants of commitment to innovation on innovative behavior in SMEs in the RES industry. The paper is both theoretical and empirical. The theoretical part explains the relevance of organizational determinants of commitment to innovation and how they translate to innovative behavior in SMEs. The empirical part presents an analysis of the results of a quantitative diagnostic survey that involved a questionnaire comprised mostly of closed-ended questions. The survey lasted from September 2020 to February 2021 on a sample of 186 companies from the RES industry. Production workers participated in the survey. The survey was conducted in Poland. The research problem is expressed in the following questions: (1) Do organizational determinants of commitment to innovation influence innovative behaviors undertaken and implemented in SMEs in the RES industry? (2) What are the key predictors of organizational commitment to innovation in SMEs in the RES industry? (3) Which predictors of organizational commitment to innovation have the most influence on innovative behaviors undertaken and implemented in SMEs in the RES industry? The research hypothesis was as follows: The organizational factors of commitment to innovation have a positive impact on the innovative behaviors of employees. In the course of the survey, all the research assumptions were confirmed. The statistical tests were used to verify the research hypotheses. The article includes an introduction, literature review, analysis of research results, conclusions, and a bibliography.

Innovation plays a critical role in keeping companies on the market. In a dynamically changing environment, small and midsized businesses must engage in innovative activities to succeed. This chapter presents an assessment of innovation management in small and medium-sized enterprises. Aside from several case studies, it describes research conducted in the sector of MSP in selected CEE countries aimed to assess the management of innovation in a number of firms.

Cel pracy: Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie problematyki kapitału kariery menedżerskiej kobiet w małych i średnich przedsiębiorstwach.Materiał i metody: Kapitał kariery menedżerskiej kobiet przedstawiony został w kontekście małych i średnich przedsiębiorstw. Sformułowano następujące pytania badawcze: 1. Jakie rodzaje kapitału kariery mają znaczenie dla rozwoju kariery menedżerskiej kobiet?, 2. Jakie czynniki wpływają na osiąganie sukcesów w pracy zawodowej kobiecej kadry menedżerskiej? 3. Jakie są kluczowe kompetencje kobiet pełniących funkcje menedżerskie? Badanie zostało zrealizowane metodą sondażu diagnostycznego, techniką ankiety w środowisku kobiet zatrudnionych na stanowiskach menedżerskich w polskich MŚP. Próba badawcza stanowiła N=742 respondentów. Artykuł oparty jest na studiach literaturowych, zarówno krajowych, jak i międzynarodowych. Systematyczny przegląd literatury służył doprecyzowaniu luki poznawczej. Następnie przeprowadzono badanie własne z wykorzystaniem metody sondażu diagnostycznego.Wyniki: Sukces zawodowy dla badanych kobiet łączy się z podnoszeniem kwalifikacji, równowagą pomiędzy wszystkimi sferami życia, uznaniem w grupie zawodowej, samorealizacją i skutecznością w działaniu. Jest on trudniejszy do osiągnięcia w przypadku kobiet niż mężczyzn, co jest wynikiem braku równych szans rozwoju zawodowego i takich samych perspektyw awansu w przypadku kobiet i mężczyzn na stanowiskach menedżerskich.Wnioski: W wyniku krytycznej analizy literatury krajowej i międzynarodowej oraz badań własnych sformułowano następujące wnioski: kobiety są świadome, że kapitał edukacyjny, który determinował dotychczasową karierę zawodową nie gwarantuje dalszego sukcesu ich kariery menedżerskiej i należy go ciągle gromadzić i odnawiać, podobnie jak pozostałe formy kapitału kariery.

Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego