Purpose: Crowdfunding as a form of alternative financing has become a widespread and successful form of financing new ideas. In this paper, we investigate crowdfunding in CEE countries, Slovakia and Czech Republic, with a strong focus on reward-based crowdfunding. The aim of this paper is to describe the current situation of crowdfunding in the Czech and Slovak Republic.Methodology/Approach: We have analysed the Czech and Slovak market and compared it to the global platform Kickstarter in an attempt to find variables affecting the success of projects using linear and logistic regression.Findings: The distribution of types of crowdfunding is similar to the global situation, but the low levels of awareness and conservatism are slowing down the speed of development of crowdfunding in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. We have also observed a higher degree of uncertainty and randomness in modelling of crowdfunding.Research Limitation/implication: In this paper, not all crowdfunding portals have been included because of data unavailability.Originality/Value of paper: The originality of this paper is guaranteed by its focus on the crowdfunding industry in the Czech and Slovak Republic.

Considering internationally accepted voluntary standards of an environmental management system (EMS) as tools that can help businesses meet the agenda for sustainable development and environmental wellbeing, this study aims to examine selected firm characteristics and financial performance that are potentially related to decisions of business entities in the matter of voluntary EMS implementation. We conduct empirical research based on logistic regression to study Slovak firms that are or are not certified according to ISO 14001 and EMAS standards. Our results suggest that there are several factors potentially determining the positive company choice to adopt voluntary EMS. We have confirmed the positive effect of firm size and research and development, however, we were not able to confirm the effects of foreign ownership and profitability effects. In the case of indebtedness, we have found a stronger negative effect of long-term debt. Our results also suggest a positive effect of owning a website, where companies can share information about their certificates. On the other side, especially younger companies tend to be interested in voluntary EMS.

In recent years, the transportation landscape has seen a notable shift towards shared mobility, driven by its advantages over traditional systems fraught with inefficiencies. This shift has ushered in demand-responsive transport (DRT) systems, enabled by mobile technology. DRT offers a promising solution for the sustainability of public transport, also for rural Slovakia; however, higher individual journey costs and the necessity for online booking create adoption barriers for this new form. This paper conducts a thorough willingness-to-pay analysis in seven rural Slovak settlements, with the goal of understanding variations and comparing the findings with the existing research. Location, household size, age, car and train usage, and previous experiences with bus transport significantly impact the willingness to pay. Consequently, tailored DRT strategies are necessary for different target groups. To maximize the efficiency of this service, integrating DRT into the regional or national public transportation network is recommended. Insights from this study hold significant implications for policymakers tasked with transforming regional transportation, particularly by integrating DRT into fixed-route bus systems.

Purpose: Main objective of the paper is to assess whether the auctions issuers have changed their preferences regarding the auction transparency described through the visibility settings, and to asses which and to what extent had the other auction parameters impact on the auction transparency and also to assess the effect of the transparency onto the achieved auction savings.Methodology/Approach: The paper analyses sample records of 5,000 electronic auctions of SR and CR auction issuers on the time frame of 2009-2016, using methods of higher statistics. An composite index for transparency analysis has been developed and assessed. Two standalone regression models were applied to analyse the papers hypotheses regarding the transparency and auctions’ savings.Findings: The size of the auction described does not have a significant effect on the transparency settings, but the auction complexity does. The most saving generating visibility settings is the visible order of the participants and the visibility of the other measurements settings for the auctions. Increasing the auction complexity can decrease the generated saving by an average 9.3%.Research Limitation/implication: Research was based on real secondary data from one electronic auction provider. The results are limited to the features enabled on this electronic platform. Results show that the application of visibility setting in auctions can generate additional benefits like savings, but also has to be applied carefully when assessing the transparency.Originality/Value of paper: The analysis and results based on real secondary data are scare in the current research area, therefore is this article a valued contribution.