The master´s thesis focuses on the evaluation of the performance of a selected company using the Balanced Scorecard method. The work is divided into four parts, namely the objectives of the work, methods and procedures of processing, theoretical background, analytical and design part. The theoretical part focuses on measuring the performance of the company and theoretical knowledge gained from the literature, which will then be used in other parts of the work. Through the analytical part of the work, a selected company is introduced and both financial and strategic analysis of the company is performed. The last part of the work is devoted to the creation of the Balanced scorecard model in order to improve the company's performance.

This Master‘s thesis deals with a performance evaluation of a selected business. The first part of the thesis is focused on basic terms and theoretical introduction related to the tools for measuring and evaluating company performance. The next part contains an introduction of the company, a current state assessment and a practical application of theoretical findings. The final part of the thesis includes suggestions for performance and current situation improvement.

This thesis deals with the topic of work engagement. Firstly, various concepts of work engagement and approaches to measuring this concept are presented. Moreover, the context of engagement and its relations to important aspects of working life are being discussed. Lastly, links between work engagement and important organizational indicators of success are being outlined. The research project aims to determine relationships between selected work resources, work engagement and business performance, turnover and client satisfaction within the branch network of a Czech banking company. Research results showed a significant relationship between work engagement and all measured work resources. Part of the relationship between work resources and work engagement has been shown to be mediated through perceived meaningfulness of work. Furthermore, the significance of work engagement as a predictor of business performance was successfully verified. No significant correlations were found between work engagement, turnover and client satisfaction. Keywords work engagement, employee engagement, predictors, work resources, business performance, turnover, client satisfaction, meaningfulness of work

Business leaders in Nigeria are concerned about the high rates of business failure and economic loss from security incidents and may not understand strategies for reducing the effects of information security threats on business performance. Guided by general systems theory and transformational leadership theory, the focus of this exploratory multiple case study was to explore the strategies small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) leaders use to minimize the effects of information security threats on business performance. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 5 SME leaders who worked in SME firms that support oil and gas industry sector in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, had a minimum of 2 years experience in a leadership role, and had demonstrable strategies for minimizing the effects of information security threats in a SME. The thematic analysis of the interview transcripts revealed 10 strategies for reducing the effects of information security threats: network security, physical security, strong password policy, antivirus protection and software update, information security policy, security education training and awareness, network security monitoring and audit, intrusion detection, data backup, and people management. The findings may contribute to social change by providing SME leaders with more insight about strategies to minimize the effects of information security threats on business performance. The improved business performance can increase the flow of funds into the local economy and allow community leaders to provide social services to residents.

D. Tech (Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / Globalisation is creating profound and substantial changes for businesses and industries throughout the world. These changes have forced businesses to re-evaluate their organisational philosophy and strategic approaches to become more competitive. Businesses in general have to deal with internal and external challenges. To address these challenges, there is a significant amount of written consensus internationally, which denotes that established businesses should encourage entrepreneurial activity throughout their operations to compete successfully on a continuous basis. Therefore, businesses should identify and implement entrepreneurial actions such as developing new products and ideas or adapt their internal processes to new situations. Corporate level entrepreneurship plays an indispensable role in improving productivity and promoting economic growth. Entrepreneurial activities can result from individual creativity or pursuit of self-interest and some of these activities could eventually receive the business’s formal recognition and thus become an integral part of the business concept. Entrepreneurial activities are often initiated by individuals within an organisation. Therefore, one way in which organisations can remain competitive in today’s rapidly changing environment is to address the issue of achieving productivity through their employees. Human resources can either hinder or encourage corporate entrepreneurship. This study addresses the relationship between human resource management practices, corporate entrepreneurship and business performance in medium and large businesses. Four hypotheses were put forward for testing. A quantitative, formal and cross-sectional approach was used. Data were collected using a survey and self-administered questionnaires were emailed to 744 human resource managers in medium and large businesses in Gauteng. A response rate of 47.6 percent was achieved as 351 usable questionnaires were received. Items in the questionnaire were adapted from previous studies. Factor analysis was conducted to test the validity and reliability of the research instrument. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to test the hypotheses. The empirical evidence indicated that corporate entrepreneurship is stimulated by better employee relations, selection practices, compensation, high levels of employee development and skills training. Selection and staffing are the most significant drivers of corporate entrepreneurship. The evidence further shows that human resource management practices influence business performance as well as that a positive relationship exists between innovation intensity and risk propensity, and business performance. The results also show that corporate entrepreneurship is a mediator between human resource management practices and business performance. As this was the first formal study conducted, which aimed to determine the influence of human resource management practices on corporate entrepreneurship and how it affects businesses performance, it can serve as a guideline for businesses in South Africa to assess their entrepreneurial intensity and corporate entrepreneurial climate.

Byly provedeny dva empirické výzkumy: kvalitativní a kvantitativní. Výsledkem kvalitativního výzkumu jako pilotní studie bylo porozumění současné situaci a vytvoření koncepčního rámce rodinného podnikání v odvětví vína v České republice s ohledem na výsledky výzkumu literatury. V důsledku kvantitativního výzkumu byly navíc zkoumány vztahy mezi hlavními konkurenčními taktiky a výkonnosti rodinného podniku, a to s ohledem na generační fázi rodinných firem. Otevřené kódování bylo použito v prvním výzkumu. Použití testu Mann-Whitney U umožnilo určit významný rozdíl mezi využitím konkurenční taktiky vybranými rodinnými firmami s ohledem na generační fázi. Aplikací korelační a regresní analýzy výzkum pomohli zjistit vztahy mezi konkurenčními taktiky a výkonnosti rodinného podnikání obecně a taky vzhledem ke generační fáze vybraných vinařských rodinných firem v České republice.

This thesis is an intra-organizational case study which investigates the concept of organizational learning and its relationship with business performance. Furthermore, factors affecting organizational learning are explored. A mixed method approach is used, combining quantitative data from a survey instrument called the Strategic Learning Assessment Map (SLAM) with qualitative data from interviews and observations. This thesis shows that at the studied organization the organizational level knowledge stock has the highest association with business performance, followed by the group level knowledge stock. The individual level knowledge stock and misalignment does not achieve reasonable significance. When it comes to factors affecting organizational learning, Organizational culture and information processing capacity were identified as main barriers. Furthermore, individuals at the targeted organization acquire knowledge in informal ways and they learn routines over heuristics which also were identified as main factors affecting business performance. / Detta är en fallstudie med fokus på att undersöka konceptet organisatoriskt lärande och dess relation till företagets resultat. Faktorer som påverkar organisatoriskt lärande är även undersökt. En kombinerad kvalitativ och kvantitativ metod är använd i rapporten. Kvantitativ data är insamlad genom frågeformuläret Strategic Learning Assessment Map (SLAM) och kvalitativ data är insamlad genom intervjuer och observationer. Resultatet från studien är att den organisatoriska kunskapsnivån har störst påverkan på företagets resultat följt av gruppnivån som även har en betydande påverkan på företagets resultat. Den individuella kunskapsnivån och ojämnheter i det organisatoriska lärandet uppnår inte en tillräckligt hög nivå av signifikans. Företagskultur och informationskapacitet är identifierade som de två största barriärerna till organisatoriskt lärande. Individer på organisationen lär sig informellt och i större utsträckning rutiner över regler.

Most organizations today understand the valuable contribution employees as people (rather than simply bodies) provide to their overall performance. Although efforts are made to make the most of the human in organizations, there is still much room for improvement. Focus in the reduction of employee injuries such as cumulative trauma disorders rose in the 80 s. Attempts at increasing performance by addressing employee satisfaction through various methods have also been ongoing for several years now. Knowledge Management is one of the most recent attempts at controlling and making the best use of employees knowledge. All of these efforts and more towards that same goal of making the most of people s performance at work are encompassed within the domain of the Human Factors Engineering/Ergonomics field. HFE/E provides still untapped potential for organizational performance as the human and its optimal performance are the reason for this discipline s being. Although Human Factors programs have been generated and implemented, there is still the need for a method to help organizations fully integrate this discipline into the enterprise as a whole. The purpose of this research is to develop a method to help organizations integrate HFE/E into it business processes. This research begun with a review of the ways in which the HFE/E discipline is currently used by organizations. The need and desire to integrate HFE/E into organizations was identified, and a method to accomplish this integration was conceptualized. This method consisted on the generation of two domain-specific ontologies (a Human Factors Engineering/Ergonomics ontology, and a Business ontology), and mapping the two creating a concept map that can be used to integrate HFE/E into businesses. The HFE/E ontology was built by generating two concept maps that were merged and then joined with a HFE/E discipline taxonomy. A total of four concept maps, two ontologies and a taxonomy were created, all of which are contributions to the HFE/E, and the business- and management-related fields.

M. Tech. (Department of Logistics Management, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / The primary objective of this study was to investigate the influence of reverse logistics practices on environmental sustainability and business performance in manufacturing firms in the Vaal Triangle Region. The study employed a quantitative research method that used a survey questionnaire to gather data from supply chain professionals operating in the manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector. The survey was self-administered to 350 randomly selected respondents who were mainly supply chain professionals drawn from various manufacturing firms in the Vaal Triangle region. Despite the large number of respondents, only 201 questionnaires were usable, which represented a response rate of 57 per cent. Data obtained were analysed using SPSS 25.0 in which descriptive statistics were analysed to assess the demographic characteristics of the respondents. An analysis of mean scores was performed to establish the perceptions of supply chain professionals toward the levels of the constructs in manufacturing firms. Besides, the study made use of correlation and regression analyses to examine the causal relationships between reverse logistics practices on environmental sustainability and business performance. The results of the study show that the identified reserve logistics practices (repairs, remanufacturing, recycle, recondition and disposal) were insignificantly correlated to environmental sustainability. However, environmental sustainability was significantly correlated to the two sub-dimensions of business performance, namely, sales and profit. Likewise, in the regression analysis, all reverse logistics components were statistically insignificant, whereas environmental sustainability significantly influenced both profits and sales. The study thus offered a contrasting perspective from the general findings that have found reverse logistics to be a significant contributor to sustainability initiatives. However, the study confirms the importance of environmental sustainability as a predictor of business performance in manufacturing firms.

PhD. (Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / State owned enterprises (SOEs) form one of the largest sectors within the economy in many countries and are important contributors to national development. They globally make up a greater part of the national gross domestic product (GDP). However, the performance of most SOEs in developing countries, such as South Africa, is substandard, prompting practitioners and researchers to continue searching for lasting solutions. The aim of this study was to investigate the contribution of innovation capabilities to market and business performance in SOEs in South Africa. The study followed a quantitative survey research method. A self-completion questionnaire was distributed to a purposive sample of 278 professional employees and managers in a selected South African SOE who were based in three provinces, namely, Gauteng, North-West and the Free State provinces. The collected data were analysed using the Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (SPSS version 25.0) and Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS version 25.0). The techniques used to analyse the data include descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and structural equation modelling to test the hypotheses. Out of the seven hypotheses tested in this study, six were accepted. Innovative strategy, market innovation and technological innovation all significantly predicted market competitiveness. Market competitiveness significantly predicted three business performance dimensions, namely, environmental, financial, and operational. The study proposes a unique model for managing the contribution of innovation capabilities to business performance in SOEs in South Africa. Theoretically, the study contributes to the existing body of knowledge since it is an addition to the available literature on innovation capabilities and performance of SOEs. Practically, in the study for the optimisation of market competitiveness and business performance, in SOEs, emphasis should be placed on understanding and considering the appropriate innovation capabilities as input factors.