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Business confidence can be a very important predictor of future development and sustainability in a selected industry. It is one of the economic sentiment indicators belonging to the most important indicators of the health of the economy. This paper examines the relationships between the Business Confidence Indicator (BCI) of the manufacturing sector and the production, production prices, and interest rates of two neighbouring countries, the Slovak Republic and Hungary. These relationships are examined within the manufacturing sector because it has long been the driving force of sustainable economic development and has significant spill-over effects on the other sectors of the economy. A cluster analysis is performed with the aim of positioning the selected countries into clusters within the OECD countries in relation to the examined variables. Multiple regression models were used to verify the mentioned relationships between variables, separately for each of the two analysed countries. The coefficients of determination are not too high (Slovakia 0.5 and Hungary 0.38), but in the case of sentiment, they reach higher values than in comparable research. Data from the freely available OECD database was used. It can be concluded that the results show positive relationships between the BCI and the production and long-term interest rates, and negative relationships between the BCI and the Producer Prices Index (PPI) and short-term interest rates. The relationship with the short-term interest rates cannot be confirmed in the case of Hungary. Other differences are also shown in that a higher PPI can negatively affect the BCI more intensively in Hungary (regression coefficient 0.18), and that in the case of the Slovak Republic, it appears that the level of influence of the long-term interest rates on the BCI is higher than that in Hungary (the difference between the regression coefficients is 0.27). Practical implications are stated for relevant institutions in the country in three areas: (1) in support of increasing production; (2) in the regulation and subsidization of input production costs; (3) in the stabilization of the lending behaviour of financial institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy consumption has gained growing importance in the world energy consumption portfolio over recent years. One of the reasons is the increasingly negative development of climate change. The research carried out in this paper aims to discern whether the examined economic indicator (GDP per capita) and the environmental indicator (CO2 emissions per capita) affect the renewable energy consumption in the region of the Visegrad Group (V4 - Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovak Republic) countries, and to draw implications for public administration in the given issue. The fixed effects panel regression model was used to verify the mentioned relationships between variables from 1990-2020. The results show that the level of the share of renewable energy consumption on the total energy consumption in the region of the V4 countries can be affected by the GDP per capita (positive relationship validated) and the CO2 emissions per capita (negative relationship validated). These results are mostly in line with the findings of other researchers conducted on different samples of countries, although some differences can be noted, especially regarding the direction of the relationship. The implications of the research results are presented on three levels: practical implications for the business sector, emphasis placed on political implications for public administration, and theoretical implications that lay the foundation for further research. The main limitation of the research results comes from the sample used in V4 countries and, thus, from the limited possibilities of generalizing the results. The direction of further research in the addressed issue will include a larger number of countries in the research and the use of various quantitative and qualitative research methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the use of new technologies and innovations in marketing. The aim is to evaluate the consumer behaviour of children in relation to the time spent on the Internet and age, and that in the context of children's wellbeing and quality of life. Questionnaires were distributed to the parents of children aged 6 to 13. They were approached in toy stores. Regression models were used to test the hypotheses. Based on the results, it was possible to prove a statistically significant relationship between the time spent on the Internet by children and the number of online purchases of parents based on their children's request. Also, it was possible to confirm an existing relationship between the growing age of children and the growing preference for digital toys over traditional and mechanical toys. Research limitations are mainly associated with the research sample and the formulation of questions in the questionnaire. The implications of the study show that companies should consider the age of childdren in their marketing communication, as their consumer preferences change very quickly. In the context of new technologies and innovations in marketing communication parents should monitor not only how much time their children spend on the Internet, but also the content they watch, and should guide them accordingly. The paper contributes to the evaluation of innovations in marketing in our digital age and their effect on the consumer behaviour of children and their quality of life. It opens up new questions and possible research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, companies are trying to optimize production, even more so as the economic situation is gradually deteriorating in many countries around the world, which is currently caused mainly by the COVID 19 pandemic. A specific type of production is that on production lines, which are individual workplaces where various production and assembly operations take place. The aim of the article is to analyze the impact of the choice of the control method for the production process on the optimization of costs and the process. The subject of the research is the production of fire-fighting throttles on a production line that has three workplaces. The problem of waste on the production line was identified by direct measurements of time consumption at the individual workplaces and by using images of the working day schedule. The article compares three approaches to production line management and waste reduction. The first approach was based on counting the number of finished products on the production line. The second approach analyzed in detail the duration of the individual operations into which the workplaces were divided. In the third approach, a method of balancing workplaces was used, which brought time and cost savings. The achieved results, using different methods of production management, are analyzed in detail, and the conclusions evaluated. The article contributes a comparison of the achieved results of cost optimization through the course of production of fire dampers. The research results were applied in practice. The research used methods of industrial engineering in the field of ergonomics, technical and economic analysis, and production management. Visualization of hourly performances, downtimes and failures, execution of work procedures, Shop Floor Management and many others, are recommended as ways to implement waste elimination when using the methods of industrial engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]