Romania, as other Central and Eastern European countries, was after 1989 in the position to make the choice regarding its future development. Economists have added a new word to their vocabulary -- the economic transformation. The work focuses on the process of economic transformation in Romania after 1989. The first part deals with the main theoretical approaches to the process of transformation. The theoretical part is followed by the analysis of the most important economical indicators and other features of the Romanian economic transformation. The accession of Romania to the European Union is also stressed out. The conclusion of the work summarises the successes and failures of the transformation process in Romania.

V práci jsou analyzovány kořeny, vývoj, současné postavení, hrozby a výzvy think-tanků v České a Slovenské republice. Srovnání s jejich tradicí ve Spojených státech zkoumá přenositelnost amerického "modelu" think-tanků do střední a východní Evropy. Tento přenos je značně omezený a krátkodobě nerealizovatelný vzhledem k rozdílným legislativním podmínkám a nerozvinuté filantropii. Zvláštní pozornost je věnována motivům k vytváření regionálních i mezinárodních sítí think-tanků. Práce vychází jednak z dosavadní literatury na toto téma, jednak z dotazníkového šetření.

While it cannot be questioned that we live in an era of unprecedented, often conflicting and turbulent changes, which, alongside their outcomes, are commonly referred to as “globalisation”, some processes of economic globalisation still remain largely under-researched both in sectoral and geographical terms. Conducted from the perspective of economic geography, this thesis addresses two significant research lacunae in economic geography – one sectoral (the hotel industry) and one geographical (Central and Eastern Europe). The paucity of research on services in general and tourism and the hotel sector in particular (the sectoral gap) is especially pronounced with regard to the CEE region (the geographical gap). Meanwhile, the globalisation of the service sector which, further to the collapse of the communist system in 1989, has also embraced CEE is seen to have a growing impact on the (re)integration of the CEE countries into the global economy. Concurrently, the importance of the CEE market in the globalisation of services is also constantly increasing. Thus, as the first systematic study of the international hotel sector in the CEE region, the thesis makes an important contribution to the understanding of the globalisation of the hotel industry (and the globalisation of the service sector) both in theoretical and empirical terms. The thesis focuses on the spatial expansion of international hotel groups into Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) after 1989 and its main objective is to describe and explain the interactions between different forms of corporate development of international hotel groups and the processes of regional growth in different institutional contexts in CEE. The thesis is mainly qualitative. It is based on two intersecting comparative case studies – one organisational (all hotel groups from the world’s Top 50 that are present in CEE, i.e. 23 groups) and one territorial (three CEE countries – Poland, Estonia and Bulgaria). Grounded in the global production networks (GPN) perspective (Henderson et al 2002), the thesis investigates what can be called two “dimensions” of globalisation of the hotel industry (Coe and Ward 2007). Thus, apart from exploring the geographical expansion of international hotel groups into CEE (the horizontal dimension) the thesis also focuses upon the embeddedness of hotel groups in the variety of socio-political and institutional contexts currently emerging in CEE in place of state socialism (the vertical dimension). With regard to the horizontal dimension, the thesis argues that the spatial distribution of international hotels in CEE is shaped by two sets of factors – hotel groups’ strategies of expansion and the varying opportunities for the hotel sector development that different markets in CEE can offer. With regard to the vertical dimension, in turn, it is contended that the degree to which each economic, political or social characteristic of a given post-communist context influences the expansion of hotel groups hinges upon the business model preferred by the hotel group. By the same token, the degree to which the group can foster regional growth in a given territory hinges upon the level of embeddedness of the group in that territory which, in turn, is reflective of the business model employed by the hotel group with regard to a given hotel.

This thesis focuses on the opportunities for Turkish companies in the Central and Eastern European countries namely Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovak Republic and Austria. The thesis aims to provide a sound grasp of the economic situation of each country with an insight to the macroeconomic indicators, foreign direct investment and foreign trade figures for the country in question. Each country section included a separate focus on the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities that a Turkish investor who may wish to invest in the country in question may benefit from or confront with. In order to be able to do so, a detailed literature review has been conducted using mainly the update primary data available. The findings derived are summarized in the conclusion section of the thesis.

Multinational banks dominate the banking sectors in Central- and Eastern European countries and are an important partner for the domestic real economies. The aim of this paper is to examine the risk-return variations of these financial institutions in different macroeconomic stages in and around the global financial and economic crisis. The capital adequacy ratio (CAR) is used as a representation of the overall risk a bank is exposed to. The question is if a change in GDP growth implies a reciprocal change in CAR of a bank and if a change in CAR leads to a reciprocal change in net income. In addition, it will be tried to assess the consistency of the risk strategies of different subsidiaries of the same banking group. To conduct the research CAR is firstly derived as a suitable holistic risk measure in the theoretical part of this paper. Then, in the empirical part a case study is carried out that comprises the Czech and Slovak subsidiaries of four multinational banking groups and that is designed for the time horizon from 2008 to 2010. Qualitative as well as quantitative methods are applied.

The main goal of the thesis is to analyze the development of the automotive industry on both the global and the European level from the strategic perspective and to assess the impact of the identified trends on the position of the automotive suppliers within one of the emerging centers of the industry on the European continent. The auxiliary aims of the thesis include the identification of the main reasons, which have led to the current position of the automotive industry within the Central and Eastern European region, and the forecast of the expected future development. The thesis attempts to fill the gap in the existing literature both in the Czech Republic and abroad by presenting new findings in all of the above mentioned fields.

In several modern countries, media have to operate in "disabling environments" with limited journalistic freedom and judicial independence. Central and Eastern European states represent such settings to various extent, as the takeover of media regulatory organisations and decreasing media pluralism have become characteristic for this region, indicating a systemic shift. Nevertheless, the high- profile cases of Poland and Hungary could have contributed to overgeneralised conclusions regarding the nature of such transformations, attributing them to, inter alia, the rise of right-wing populism. Using the method of paired comparison, this thesis examines Poland and the Czech Republic to determine the exact mechanisms of change behind media capture in these countries. I contend that different manifestations of neo-authoritarianism in the region are responsible for manifold attacks on media independence, including sophisticated strategies of using SLAPPs, strategic lawsuits against public participation, and increasing concentration of media ownership combined with potential conflicts of interest. I conclude by suggesting directions for further research and policy-making to address media freedom on both national and European levels.

The paper provides a theoretical account of the terms peripheralization and polarization, which are used as conceptual contexts. The authors examine whether spatial development in Central and Eastern Europe can be described as a process of polarization and whether this can be seen as the result of current regional and national spatial policies. Empirically, the paper explores ongoing research projects in Ljubljana, Slovenia and Poznan´ , Poland in relation to the less dynamic parts of these countries in order to identify further research needs. Viewing spatial development in Slovenia and in the Poznan´ region from the viewpoint of polarization and peripheralization has opened alternative viewpoints on spatial development. A process-based and dynamic approach to investigating disparities should reflect views on the periphery and the center and their specific interrelationships. The perspective of seeing the processes of centralization and peripheralization as related and the combination of structural and socio-political aspects in the constitution of peripheral and central spaces will advance the current state-of-the-art research on spatial development issues in Central and Eastern Europe.

Entrepreneurship is viewed by scholars and policy makers as an important factor contributing to increased levels of economic performance. New businesses are conduits of innovation, connecting resources and ideas within the economy and fostering competition. Central and Eastern Europe is a special case regarding entrepreneurship, due to its communist legacy. The surge in entrepreneurial activities caused by the process of market liberalization ultimately affected economic development in the area. This thesis acknowledges the importance of studying entrepreneurship in Central and Eastern Europe, and aims to analyse the impact of new business formation on economic performance in the region. To do so, the thesis creates a comprehensive guide of theoretical frameworks linking entrepreneurship to measures of economic performance and applies them to the Central and Eastern European area. The thesis also develops an empirical study using regression analysis with regional Eurostat data, which shows that new business formation has a significant, positive impact on GDP levels in Central and Eastern Europe. The results also indicate that entrepreneurial activity should be regarded by policy makers as an important factor that leads to increased economic performance, in addition to measures of research and...

China's emergence as one of the largest FDI source country has attracted global attention. There are many researches on the determinants and characteristics of China's outward FDI, but there are only few researches about China's outward FDI in CEE countries. Based on the dataset, which comprises data of 11 CEE EU member states over the period 2003-2014, this thesis investigates the determinants and patterns of China's outward FDI in CEE-11 countries by using a panel data technique. The regression results reveal that for the whole sample period, culture proximity and existing trade relation have significantly positive impacts and China's FDI in CEE-11 is negatively associated with the institution environment of host country. And the results also demonstrate that determinants of China's FDI in CEE-11 change over time. Besides, political relation is also an important influential factor and policy makers should put more effort to strengthen the bilateral cooperation.