Editorial

Dear colleagues,
 
the second issue of Ekonomická revue – Central European Review of Economic Issues in 2012 contains papers written solely in English. Each article of this issue can be described as high-quality contribution based on established methodology providing interesting conclusions supported by empirical analysis. Particular papers are focused on sector economy, business economy and personal management, macroeconomics and public economics.

The authors of the first article, Mirosław Szewczyk and Krzysztof Łobos, presents their results of comparison analysis of TOP 100 largest companies in the Czech Republic and Poland. In the paper, they examine and analyze the structure of companies active in production and trading and service sector. They compare efficiency of particular companies according to sales and financial performance and profitability. Moreover, six groups of companies are created applying cluster analysis to company performance and similarities are identified. Results presented in the paper show us both analogies and differences in both economies.

In the article written by Hana Urbancová and Lucie Linhartová, the conditions of knowledge sharing and its continuity are searched and the causalities of undesirable turnover of employees in a company are analyzed. This topic of business management is intensively studied by many papers and reports. The authors of the paper present results of surveys obtained with help of management of selected companies in the Czech Republic. In order to identify statistical dependency among particular factors and analyze 13 statistical hypotheses the authors use Pearson χ2 test. Subsequent discussion about the results of the study points out particular organizational activities and their impact on employee turnover.

Next, Magdaléna Drastichová deals with the economy convergence issue. Such topic is regularly analyzed and lies in the center of interest of the relevant community. In this particular paper its author determines the impact of economic and price convergence in the European Union on joining the Eurozone. Results, obtained via application of -convergence and -convergence, are critically discussed.

In the final article, Beáta Mikušová Meričková deals with the benchmarking issue at the level of local governments in Slovakia. The author decided to study a topic that is targeted by many studies, since it is important for everyday life of virtually each person. The author initially examines particular features of the benchmarking approach and next, particular results of the survey and possible implications are stated.

It can be concluded, that results of each paper are interesting and can be regarded as very useful, whenever future research activities in relevant fields are considered.

Zdeněk Zmeškal, Editorial Board, Faculty of Economics, VŠB-TU Ostrava