Mirko Markič

Teamwork and defining group structures

Purpose – The paper is based on the presumption that sustainable organisational performance cannot be achieved without continuous organisational development as well as continuous development of the employees. The paper is of the opinion that, in a company or any other organisation, creating the conditions for knowledge development is of utmost importance. These conditions should enhance innovation processes fostered by employees. The paper aims to investigate this premise.Design/methodology/approach – The basic idea for the research in the paper arose from the findings that proved that organisational structures do substantially facilitate creativity processes. The main part of the paper focuses on researching team cohesion and obtaining information on interpersonal relationships as a starting‐point for new knowledge to emerge.Findings – The main finding of the qualitative case study, conducted on 172 employees of a certain manufacturing company, are that interpersonal relationships in smaller groups of pe...

Managerial competencies and organizational structures

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine whether there is a relationship among leadership, action, social, and personal competencies of managers in modern organizational structure types and whether a relationship exists between a companys organizational structure and performance. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire was carried out among top managers in Slovene mid- and large-sized companies. The relationship among managerial competencies, the choice of organizational structure type and the company effectiveness were measured with a value-added approach. The method of structural models was used for establishing the affect among individual variables. Findings – The results support the hypothesized effect of managerial competencies on a companys organizational structure type. The effect of a modern, horizontal organizational structure on a companys performance and growth on the market facilitates the achievement of higher value added as well as has a direct impact of managerial competencies on a companys performance. Research limitations/implications – The study was limited to mid- and large-sized companies in Slovenia. Only top managers were included in the study as they are the ones that are responsible and have the largest influence in creating a companys organizational structure. Practical implications – The paper includes implications to those organizations in the process of restructuring and for those companies that are prepared to modify traditional principles of management participation. Originality/value – To the authors knowledge no research studies were found that examined the affect and relation of top management competencies with respect to different organizational structures.

The advantage of the EFQM excellence model in business management and leadership

Recently, more and more enterprises recognise the importance of the quality of products and services and business excellence. By gaining new markets and new customers in the world market, the enterprises meet numerous challenges, confrontations, new legislation and technology. Taking into account the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model, our research defines the endeavours of the enterprises that strive for better structure, behaviour and communication paths to reach the final customers, with emphasis on improved quality, higher competitiveness and customer satisfaction. In our research, we compare the enterprises holding a business excellence certificate with those that do not hold it. We establish that they differ in some characteristics of their management, which are defined by nine criteria. For years, several Slovene enterprises have been successfully selling their products to the industrially developed countries in Europe and to the USA. They are the first to develop and achieve high growth in their enterprises and, in turn, their own business excellence.

EXPERIENCING STRESS AND STRESS SYMPTOMS AMONG SLOVENE MANAGERS

The aim of this study is to identify experiencing stress level at work, the stress symptoms frequency among Slovene managers, and to establish gender differences in terms of the intensity of experiencing stress symptoms. 85 middle level managers from Slovene companies of random choice participated in this study. The obtained data have been processed with SPSS 16.0 and the descriptive statistics, using frequency distribution and t-test data processing statistic methods to analyze them. The results of the study have shown that there are gender differences in terms of all the above mentioned factors, namely a statistically higher level of stress in women. In terms of stress symptoms occurrence, there are gender differences in some stress symptoms as well as in the intensity of experiencing stress symptoms.

The process of leadership, innovation and decision making through the influence of values

Slovene enterprises involved in the process of ownership transformation represent an important management challenge to organisations and their management concepts. The enterprise business strategy considers various business resources, the existing enterprises culture and values, the changes in the distribution of work and informational structure. To achieve good results in enterprise management as well as good economic results, knowing the elements of organisational culture is of utmost importance. Values form an integral part of organisational culture and they influence the management of an enterprise. This study aims at establishing whether there are differences in the values held by managers or executives and those held by other employees; moreover, it aims at establishing whether there are differences in values among enterprises, considering their sphere of activity and their size. For the enterprise to be able to act innovatively and not to cling to its old habits and customs, it is necessary that all the workers in the enterprise and above all its management (top, middle and lower) act innovatively, using the knowledge and considering the values of the internal and external environment of the enterprise. We performed enquiries in 150 enterprises in the Republic of Slovenia in the central region of Slovenia. These inquiries showed that the values of managers and those of other employees represented a significant contribution to a successful transition.

The impact of socially responsible management standards on the business success of an organisation

The purpose of this article is to outline the results of the study concerned with the importance of the standards on socially responsible management and the examination of their impact on the business performance as well as the sustainable development of organisations and the broader social environment in the selected population of medium and large organisations (above 50 employees) in the field of market services in the Republic of Slovenia. The results of the research have confirmed a direct link of understanding the socially responsible management standards in organisations with a larger number of employees (p = .002) and the achieved higher income from operations (p = .006). Participants in the study are most familiar with the requirements of the Quality Management System Standard ISO 9001 and the Environmental Management System Standard ISO 14001, which is particularly significant for older business executives (p = .009) with many years of work experience in the company they run (p = .002). Also, the hypothesis was confirmed that the implementation of the principles of social responsibility defined in the guidelines of ISO 26000 has a positive impact on the selected financial indicators of the organisation – higher profits, business growth, productivity and cost-effectiveness in operations.

Influence of professional drivers’ personality traits on road traffic safety: case study

The purpose of this paper is to present basic elements of the research directed at identifying and determining the personality traits of professional drivers that affect safe, secure and enjoyable ride on public roads. A quantitative method has been used here, whereas data were acquired from a questionnaire based on a sample of 59 professional drivers. Determining personality traits of professional drivers that are in correlation with a safe and pleasant ride on the roads has been enabled by applying the five-factor model of personality (‘Big Five’) and the Personality Inventory NEO-PI. From these results it was concluded that safe operation of the vehicle in traffic involves the successful ‘conduct’ of oneself, which recognises the importance of certain personality traits of professional drivers for traffic safety and the need for appropriate professional selection in the case of employment of professional drivers. Research results implicate development of educational programmes aimed at achieving harmony of psychological, physical and sensory health, that is, programmes for permanent informing, educating and training professional drivers for defensive driving. The research opens the way for new research tasks that should help in creating a specific structure of curricula that can be used in a variety of transportation companies and enterprises to improve general and public safety.

Revealing interpersonal relationships in working groups

Organisations are systems designed to serve customers. To excel at meeting customer needs, an organisation must constantly improve processes. This paper aims to explore a potential problem of the size of groups or teams, which is presumably too large, therefore, preventing teamwork or collective learning, and to a certain extent neglecting the relationships among group members (attraction or propensity, repulsion and indifference). We established that there are deviations in terms of interpersonal relationships between the production and service sectors in the studied enterprise. The results showed that the interpersonal relationships in smaller groups were better, which in turn means that there are greater opportunities to acquire new knowledge. We proposed a model which helped to improve teamwork in the studied enterprise and provided suggestions in terms of improving staff management, which is closely related to a continuous improvement of the quality of operations.

Training on Sustainable Use of Water in the Processing Industry / Usposabljanje o trajnostni rabi vode v predelovalni industriji

Abstract The aim of this article is to present research results on the influence of factors of sustainable water use training (management support of training, co-worker support of training, incentives for using skills acquired during training) and the influence of this training on technical efficiency and employee efficiency. The article is based on an empirical study of 328 medium and large companies in the Slovene processing industry. The findings show that the training factors have a statistically significant and positive effect on sustainable water use training and that training has a positive effect on technical efficiency. They also offer new theoretical knowledge as well as practical guidelines for anyone working in the sustainable development management of natural resources. Izvleček Namen prispevka je predstaviti izide iz raziskave o vplivih dejavnikov usposabljanja o trajnostni rabi vode (o podpori usposabljanju, ki jo kažejo nadrejeni in sodelavci, spodbudah za uporabo znanj in veščin, pridobljenih med usposabljanjem) in vplivu usposabljanja na tehnično in delovno učinkovitost zaposlenih. Empirično raziskavo smo opravili na vzorcu 328 srednje velikih in velikih podjetij v slovenski predelovalni dejavnosti. Ugotovili smo, da podpora usposabljanju, ki jo kažejo nadrejeni in sodelavci, ter spodbude za uporabo znanj in veščin, pridobljenih med usposabljanjem, statistično značilno in pozitivno vplivajo na uposabljanje o trajnostni rabi vode, uposabljanje o trajnostni rabi vode pa statistično značilno in pozitivno vpliva na tehnično učinkovitost. Izidi iz raziskave prinašajo nova teoretična spoznanja in praktične usmeritve za vse, ki se ukvarjajo z menedžementom trajnostnega razvoja z vidika ohranjanja naravnih virov.

The Impact of Socially Responsible Reporting on Successful Corporate Operations

The aim of our research was to study the impact and purpose of the reporting on socially responsible conduct on the success of corporate operations. The data and information were gathered with the quantitative research method, whereas the instrument for gathering them was a questionnaire that was distributed among 759 large and medium sized organisations from the field of market services in the Republic of Slovenia. We have established that activities aimed at socially responsible conduct are directly connected with the success of corporate operations, especially the revenue (p = 0.001), the profit of a company (p = 0.000), operational growth (p = 0.007) and operational economy (p = 0.002), and are typical for organizations with a larger number of employees (p = 0.032). In this regard, the real estate and construction market activities received the lowest scores. Research results provide theoretical as well as practical benefits for everyone dealing with the planning, implementation and control of sustainable development, as well as socially responsible conduct within the organization.