M21 - Business EconomicsReturn

The current situation of slower economic growth is leading to a more difficult access to funds and unpredictable payment behaviour of customers, which predetermines growing importance of working capital management. The aim of the present article is to examine the effects of working capital investment and its components (inventories, accounts receivable, accounts payable and cash) on the firm's performance in the case of non-cyclical and cyclical industries in the Czech Republic. The underlying dataset comprises corporate data of 293 firms from 2010 to 2018. The calculations reveal that both industries applied over the period a very similar conservative working capital management strategy consisting in increasing working capital investment accompanied by simultaneous development of all its components. The results also indicate dissimilarities in the importance of working capital components with respect to the firm's performance. Cash seems to be the most important component, contrary to inventories, which are insignificant jointly for both industries. Accounts receivable and accounts payable are significant only for cyclical industry firms.

The article contributes to the knowledge of customer lifetime value (CLV) models, where extensive empirical analyses on large datasets from online stores are missing. Based on this knowledge, practitioners can decide about the deployment of a particular model in their business and academics can design or enhance CLV models. The article presents predictive performance of selected CLV models: the extended Pareto/NBD model, the Markov chain model, the vector autoregressive model and the status quo model. Six large datasets of medium and large‑sized online stores in the Czech Republic and Slovakia are used for a comparison of the predictive performance of the models. Online stores have annual revenues in the order of tens of millions of euros and more than one million customers. The comparison of CLV models is based on selected evaluation metrics. The results of some of the models which use additional non‑financial data on customer behaviour - the Markov chain model and the vector autoregressive model - do not justify the effort which is needed to collect such data. The advantages and disadvantages of the selected CLV models are discussed in the context of their deployment.

The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the importance of intellectual capital (IC) undisclosed on the assets side on the balance sheet of knowledge enterprises. This capital is very relevant, and mana-gers need to have information about it in order to facilitate effective IC management process. The issue of IC performance measurement has been a matter of growing importance in both academic community and managerial practices for the past two decades. Based on the previous ideas put forward in the literature of knowledge management and IC management, this paper suggests a new methodological framework for overcoming the problem of IC performance measurement in knowledge enterprises. Efficiency of Intellectual Capital (EIC) methodological framework offers practical solutions for measuring the efficiency of total enterprises' IC, as well as the efficiency in the use of all IC components. The EIC framework connects financial accounting valuation and market valuation.

By increasing inventories, retailers attempt to raise service levels, and thus increase sale. However, in addition to a positive impact on product availability and sale, higher inventory levels may cause problems in performing in-store activities. As poor backroom-to-shelf replenishment process emerges as one of the most common causes of stock-out situations, this article compares store and on-shelf FMCG product availability at SKU level in different stores of a single retailer. In relation to this, besides direct, we have also investigated the indirect effect of inventory level on sale, by using store and shelf out-of-stocks as mediators. The results of the research showing much higher level of shelf- compared to store stock-out rate confirmed the existence of the problem in the realization of internal product flows within retail stores. However, despite the occurrence of this problem, besides direct positive effect of inventory level on sale, its indirect effect was positive as well. Therefore, these results were analysed in the context of other similar studies. In addition to empirical research, the article also discusses certain implications of more efficient organisation of in-store activities.

The paper highlights the results of the survey of potential retail customers. The survey emphasizes the relationship between their responses to the chosen marketing pricing strategies and the perception of the introduction of the euro and the crisis. The multi-dimensional techniques were used to implement input data concerning perceptions of the euro introduction and the crisis in order to create a segmentation of respondents dividing them into: optimists, pessimists, crisispessimists, euro-pessimists, profiteers. It was subsequently proven that the responses of the members of these segments to the chosen pricing strategies EDLP (Every Day Low Pricing), Hi-Lo (High Low Pricing) and PMG (Price Matching Guarantees) differ significantly. Furthermore, the relation between the found segmentation and the subjective perception and assignment to the social group from the point of financial security is shown. Moreover, further segmentation of respondents according to their subjective anxiety about their future was carried out. Finally, the emphasis is put on the relation between the perception of the euro introduction in the country during the current influence of the world economic crisis on potential retail customers in the East Slovak Region and their subjective anxiety about their future.

The UEFA approved the Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulation in 2010, which governs the requirements on transparency and financial conditions of football clubs participating at the European cups. The paper focuses on the specifics of Czech professional football clubs. The research is carried out in two ways. Firstly, the compliance with information duties set up by Czech commercial law is analysed. According to the performed empirical survey, a significant number of Czech football clubs submit their financial statements to the Business Register with a delay or they do not submit the statements at all despite the submission is mandatory. This unsatisfactory state of affairs boosts the risk of bankruptcy of football clubs rapidly taking into account an overall poor financial health of Czech football clubs, which is evidenced by the second part of empirical study.