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Changes in ownership structure in a period of economic transformation
ISBN: 978-80-224-0775-5
Vydavateľstvo: VEDA
Rok vydania: 2006
Počet strán: 671
Väzba: Tvrdá
Formát: 225x304mm
Hmotnosť: 3 060 g
Šéfredaktor: Emil Borčin
Redakčné spracovanie: Mgr. Marta Drličková
Slovo vydavateľa: Dr.h.c. mult. prof. Ing. Štefan Luby, DrSc.
Predhovor: prof. Ing. Ján Košturiak, PhD.
Vedúci vedecký redaktor: prof. Ing. Ján Košturiak, PhD.
Vedeckí redaktori: doc. RNDr. Jozef Trnovec, CSc.
RNDr. Milan Neštický, CSc.
Vedúci projektu: RNDr. Milan Neštický, CSc.
Jazyková úprava: Mária Krkošková
Grafický dizajn: Ing. arch. Patrik Paul
Katarína Ondrušová – Juraj Dusík
Správa databázy textov: Juraj Dusík – Ing. Pavol Vojtek
Príprava textov: Ing. Eliška Benešová
PROFESSIONAL CONSULTATIONS AND ASSESSMENTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL PARTS :
Part 1 / Entrepreneurship, Leaders and Managers
Dr.h.c. prof. Ing. Ján Buda, DrSc.
prof. Ing. August.n Marián Húska, DrSc.
prof. Ing. Ján Košturiak, PhD.
Ing. Eduard Šarmír, DrSc.
doc. RNDr. Jozef Trnovec, CSc.
Part 2 / Strategy and Strategic Management
Dr.h.c. Prof. Ing. Ján Buda, DrSc.
Ing. Luboš Hrnčír
prof. Dr.hab inž. József Matuszek
RNDr. Milan Neštický, CSc.
doc. RNDr. Jozef Trnovec, CSc.
Part 3 / Organisational Structures
doc. Ing. František Lipták, DrSc.
prof. Dr.hab inž. József Matuszek
RNDr. Milan Neštický, CSc.
doc. RNDr. Jozef Trnovec, CSc.
Ing. Pavol Vojtek
Explanation
I see ethics as a competitive advantage. I am committed to correctness and sensitivity in business.
Before I try to describe my visions in detail I try to clarify some of the basic principles, drawing on the rich contributions of my colleagues. I write them down in the form of a working hypothesis and when I am satisfied with the formulation I ask other experts to identify its weaknesses. After consideration of their comments I decide on a more specific formulation, which should become binding for the enterprise in the future. In the modern business, the advancement of the individual and the enterprise is not measured only by the ability to generate a “financial package” but above all the ability to achieve socially recognised values. The driving force and the source of new inventions is solving problems. In an enterprise there are no end of problems to solve. First I do research and look for correlates. I sketch a possible approach to the problem. Ideas often come to me spontaneously without me deliberately looking for them. Nevertheless, if a person is responsible for a large enterprise and must ensure that it is profitable and that people are satisfied and have work, that it makes progress and holds its own against fierce competition, they cannot rely on their own ideas. They need to find ways to prevent problems that may arise in the future. They must draw from the well of ideas that academic literature offers in a number of forms. This knowledge must be filtered through team work to achieve a form that they can use in their own enterprise. I write articles and books detailing new ideas that I find useful and the results of my own experience in order to help anyone who is looking for a solution to a professional problem.
Dr.h.c. prof. PhDr. Ing. Štefan Kassay, DrSc.
“I once attended a lecture given by Prof. Richard Ernst, the winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, at which he presented critical but optimistic vision of the future. He argued that the current faith in the free market, more deep than it is shallow, is associated with increasing production, increasing consumption and rising piles of garbage.”
It also leads to great social inquality, the separation of people from their roots and ultimately the growth of terrorism, which draws even intelligent people under its influence.
It is time we spoke about a responsible market economy. One whose blood vessels are not tied, and which moves in the right direction. We thus come to a theory of economic management and enterprises that defines the processes and relationships that should be applied in practice. That last sentence at least is not taken from Ernst. I drew it from the synopsis of Štefan Kassay’s book – The Enterprise and Entrepreneurship. It confirms the well known saying that when the time is right, concepts are born (mutatis mutandis) independently and spontaneously. The alternative, which Kassay warns us against, is the disintegration of society and the environment. Leadership, management, the practice of professional managers are important topics primarily for large, hierarchically stratified companies with different models of management and psychological systems of cooperation. A high price has already been paid many times over for the empirical lessons learned from the enthusiasms and opportunities after 1989. In our case it is necessary to start even deeper – with the creation and unification of terminology. The author has found his own space in this broad spectrum of themes. What is worth emphasising here is that he is happy in the role of a personality and is not afraid to speak of leaders and the principle of leadership (though in practice the leaders refer to themselves as chairmen and managers in order to emphasise that the principle of leadership is relative and subject to democratic feedback).
The fate of businesses naturally also depends on state policy, which cannot be permanently expansive or restrictive. It must always be fair though, providing an impartial economic and legal framework. There has amassed a great deal of experience in the sphere of business management in Slovakia in the last 12–13 years that needs to be captured. It also touches on areas such as the setting of priorities, the life cycles of structures, business ethics and external investments. Štefan Kassay has therefore been able to engage with an extremely complex theme and he has produced a thorough treatment of it.
I am glad that in this foreword I have managed to avoid the clichéd reference to filling a gap in the book market. But if anyone feels that that is what I have been talking about, they would not be too far from the truth.
Dr.h.c. mult. prof. Ing. Štefan Luby, DrSc.
Foreword
„There are no ready and proven solutions; there are only wise people who tenaciously seek for answers where others have failed in the past.”
Štefan Kassay is a person who is obsessed with the idea of changing himself and the world around him. His tenacity and ambition can sometimes make those around him nervous, but results speak for everything. He was trained as a lathe operator and even today he is able to surprise a lot of people with his manual skills. While he was working as a reporter for Czechoslovak Television in Budapest he shocked a whole party by taking off his jacket and turning a component on a lathe in front of them. This machine operator and post graduate student in the sciences then went on to study in the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts in Prague, acquiring a doctorate in philosophy. His stubbornness and intensity never left him – as associate professor, professor and doctor of sciences at the Slovak Academy of Sciences. Those who know the ways of academia and the segregation of disciplines (What can a doctor of philosophy want with engineers? What can a businessman be doing amongst professors? What can a mechanical engineer look for among philosophers?) will know what I am talking about.
Štefan Kassay also became a successful businessman. It is rare for the owner of a successful company to resist the temptation to keep the reins of the business in his own hands. Štefan managed it – he delegated his powers to the company managers and established a workplace that paid attention to the development and systematic organisation of knowledge and its application in the business activities of IDC. He travels, reads books, compares different approaches, experiments and evaluates and discusses new topics resulting from current trends in business. All the “eternal truths” that managers learned at university in the past are abandoned. The only certainty is uncertainty and the need to constantly seek out answers to the new questions that our world throws at us.
At the end of the twentieth century telecommunications and air travel have transformed our world into a global village. Once upon a time technology was strongly controlled by culture and lifestyle. Today it has become the factor leading social development throughout the world. For many people the speed with which new technologies penetrate all areas of life is horrifying. In the past change processes could last several generations. Nowadays revolutionary changes in our living conditions can happen in just a few years. The spiral of new knowledge, new products and methods is turning ever faster. Many people are unable to keep up with the pace of change – including business organisations, international organisations and the education system. The result is a growing divide between the pioneers of progress and the majority of the population.
One of the ways we can look at the history of civilisation is as an accelerating cycle of innovations driven by the desire of human beings to do things better, more simply and at less cost. Innovation should not be limited to the technical sphere though. It is also a social process. The market for innovations is determined by the needs and values of people. This applied to the innovations of the early nineteenth century like the steam engine, railways, electrification and the automobile and it applies to the current revolutionary innovations in quantum physics, information technology and molecular biology. Quantum theory has revealed the hidden building blocks of matter, new information and communication technologies have brought about a revolution in the processing and transmission of information and molecular biology is gradually decoding the secret of life. Such progress has been made possible by increase in computing power; micro systems can be found in all products and new materials and production technologies will bring about other revolutionary changes in coming decades.
Those who know the ways of academia and the segregation of disciplines (What can a doctor of philosophy want with engineers? What can a businessman be doing amongst professors? What can a mechanical engineer look for among philosophers?) will know what I am talking about.
In these times of change, a paradigm shift is taking place. Because new paradigms usually emerge from the grey areas between scientific disciplines, narrow specialisation can act as a brake on progress. Specialist will need to be more communicative in the future and get used to working in interdisciplinary teams. Similar changes are taking place in industry where Taylorism, with its perfect division of work into tasks, is on the way out. In place of compartmentalised work and petrified hierarchies there is team work and flat and flexible structures.
I think that Štefan Kassay decided to write this large and interdisciplinary work precisely in order to overcome the separatism and isolationism that he has often encountered in his life and also because he is aware of how “all things are connected”. It is easier to run 1000 metres on the athletic track all your life than to train for a triathlon or decathlon. In his book Štefan Kassay has attempted something like this. It is clear that there is room for critics and faultless specialists to shout “Mind your own business.” On the other hand, we must appreciate his courage and tenacity in seeking out contexts and new approaches for interaction between disciplines. There is in fact no other option – though not everyone has the courage to face this. Yet this is what Štefan Kassay’s life has been all about. I wish you great inspiration and stimulus from reading this book. There are no ready and proven solutions; there are only wise people who tenaciously seek for answers where others have failed in the past. If I could criticise the author for anything it is for putting the work ahead of his comfort and time with his wife and family. On the other hand, many good things have already come into being out of such “selfishness”.
prof. Ing. Ján Košturiak, PhD.
Publisher’s
Foreword
