Search

Controllers of healthcare organizations have become 'joker actors' in the decision-making of the organization due to service regular and ad hoc reports. Some senior executives even involve them in the decision-making process when there is a relationship of trust. However, we cannot identify controllers as business partners. Hybrid controllers from the medical field are scarce in Hungary. The medical profession and the 'administration' rarely fit together; moreover, those with the appropriate skills and abilities can enter a leadership position or use his/her knowledge in the private healthcare sector. The function and standardization of healthcare controllers was examined based on longitudinal data collected in individual (managerial, expert and maintainer) and focus group interviews, highlighting negative changes and possible developments. Patterns were identified with the most essential elements of the interviews, and in summary, the current international literature and domestic experience were also compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supplier, producer and buyer companies make up a supply chain. In an optimal case the companies are integrated, partnership rests on trust which results in common strategic decisions leading to competitiveness. Each supply chain has a key company with dominant power position. The objective of the research is to analyse how the company with power affects competitiveness of partner firms and the supply chain as a whole. Based on theories hypothesis assumes a link between competitiveness and power position and its influence. Methodology of the analysis is based on primary research; the authors used SPSS statistical analysis to evaluate the answers of questionnaire. Findings include that partner firms' competitiveness rely on competitiveness of the company with dominant power position. Significant connections prove that the hypothesis is true. Results show that competitiveness is being moved up to supply chain level. Global supply chains compete with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapidly changing market demands, the critical role of supply chain management in meeting these demands, and the potential advantages provided by integrated supply chains are such factors that companies cannot ignore today. At the same time these advantages can only be realised if supply chain members collaborate closely enough. Forming supply chain partnerships among SC members is however significantly affected by power influences within the supply chain. The article deals with power relations in FMCG/Food supply chains focusing on how power relations influence the operation and the supply chain partnerships of small and medium-sized companies. The authors conducted a questionnaire survey among SMEs from the Hungarian food industry. Based on the results the paper tries to reveal the correspondence between dependence and profitability, and shows the controversial relationship between some other supply chain characteristics (such as tightness, durability of cooperation, willingness for informations ha ring etc.) and power relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on the assumption that trust promotes commitment between partners in the supply chain and improves the chances of return on supply chain success. In contrast, a lack of trust between them often increases transaction costs and results in inefficiency. The results of this research, based on multi-country surveys with 729 returns from France, Hungary, Korea, Tunisia and the United States on supply chain professionals, reveals a strong affect of transaction cost constructs (TCC) (asset specificity and behavioral uncertainty) and social exchange constructs (SEC) (replaceability, perceived satisfaction, partner reputation, and perceived conflict) on trust-commitment variables in partnership based supply chain relationships. This paper employed a structural equation model to extract information from the survey data. Among the findings, the research indicates that a firm's trustcommitment in dealing with their supply chain partnership is highly associated with not only transaction cost, but more so with social exchange variables. This study may open a new research avenue in that there is another construct, SEC, beside TSC that influences the degree of trust and commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public-Private Partnership (PPP) has quickly become a well-known phenomenon in Hungary. Despite its proliferation in various areas of activities, and the fact that most of these projects are still running, interest for starting new PPP projects has ceased, and even the cancellation of the project has become an issue. My research objective was to understand better how the concept of PPP has been interpreted by the wider public, through the assessment of the projects appearance in the main economic newspapers. The analysis shows that what has been implemented as PPP projects in Hungary are conceptually different from what PPP as an economically justified concept substantiates. PPP seems to be a phenomenon grossly misunderstood in Hungary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the network perspective companies are not isolated organizations. Networks and partnerships mean a significant support for SMEs in growth, learning and innovation. The author examines the role of networks and partnerships during the crisis, in a qualitative research. An important result of the paper is that not only the opportunities in networks but also the decomposition of prior secure relationships can induce innovation during the crisis. Moreover in case of safety and slack resources the reaction is slower, change and innovation come to the front less. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents strategic alliances between competitors in the development process. The liability for successful global competition is now increasingly encouraged the competing firms to multiple business areas (business, functional strand) develop long-term cooperation. The types of strategic alliances many cases on the basis of that may be realized in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development trends in information services related to intellectual property are dnven by the innovation policies of the economically most developed countries and the European Union. Therefore, information service providers are fostering closer partnerships with the industrial sector and with various players of the innovation process. Over the past decade, support to innovation based on information services related to industrial property has gained increasing importance in the innovation policies of international intellectual property rights organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few decades, the Hungarian Patent Office (HPO) has gained extensive experiences in the field of patent search. The office staff - who have strong technical background - have obtained deep and up-to-date knowledge and expertise of applying various research procedures and carrying out patentability examination reports. In accordance with its responsibility of promoting intellectual property rights protection, but beyond the scope of its official tasks related to industrial property, the HPO offers various patent search services to business partners on a contractual basis. These services help business ventures as well as individuals find valuable information necessary to make patent-related decisions or in order to avoid patent-infringement risks and unnecessary costs. Through offering such services, HPO contributes to the objectives of the European Network of Patent Organisations. Since summer 2007, the range of services has included novelty search as well as novelty search with preliminary patentability report, preliminary patentability report, validity search and Freedom to Operate (FTO) search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new Hungarian database HUMANUS (Studies and Articles in the Humanities), a service of the National Széchényi Library was introduced to the profession in February 2008. The study overviews the creation of the database and describes its development concept relating to the recording of publications on book and library history as well as library and information science. It is the aim of HUMANUS to register articles, studies and book reviews from journals and books published electronically or in a printed form. The bibliographic exchange format used is HUNMARC. Recording is at the article level, with the records containing data of the part, an element for linking, data of the source document and where the part is located within the source document. The study describes the method of classification and the search possibilities as well. The database HUMANUS operates as a consortium of co-operating partners. It has proved difficult to connect the well-functioning databases earlier used by the partners. It would be an important feature of the database to enable the uploading and downloading of large quantities of records, and the filtering out of duplicate items. HUMANUS is one of the union catalogue databases (the so-called Article-MOKKA) that include three large databases of the National Széchényi Library using the MicroISIS software, to be soon converted into HUMANUS (the repertory of articles, Hungarica publications, articles on LIS), as well as the databases of co-operating partners (the database of university publications from Szeged, the database of Hungarian social science literature in Romania). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Széchényi Library established formal contact with the Italian Ministry of Culture in 1999 and collaborative projects of a wide spectrum have been developing since that date. The delegation of the Italian ministry visited the library in summer 2004 and on this occasion, they donated the library a special edition of Carafa's "De institutione vivendi" based on the digital version of the work. This was followed by an agreement of the two partners on the foundation of the European Book History Collection. Out of the national libraries of the region, the Hungarian one has the richest collection of book history literature. As the first step of the cooperation, the Italian partner donates various books to the collection. The value of the donation has been up to 5000 euros in 2005. The collection will comprise documents and journals related to book history, primarily from the collection of the National Széchényi Library, but also as donations by international partners. The collection will be catalogued in a virtual shared catalogue. The official opening ceremony of the new collection is scheduled to October 2006. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]