The aim of this thesis is to assess Chinese automotive industry in the context of Chinese and world economy. Above all, it is focused on competitiveness of Chinese car makers with their counterparts from developed economies. Thesis has three parts. First chapter looks into the current position of both Chinese economy and automotive industry in the development pattern of the Word economy. Second part deals with automotive sector in China, its development and biggest car makers; also analyses results of Chinese customers' survey conducted. The goal of the last part is to examine current trends in the industry and competitiveness of Chinese car makers abroad.

Competitiveness in recent years is a very discussed topic and it gets into the forefront of states and international organizations due to the current globalization trends. The aim of this thesis is to determine the effects of the economic crisis and the transition to the euro on the competitiveness of Estonia on the basis of a analysis of cost competitiveness indicators and qualitative indicators of competitiveness in comparison with the Czech Republic.

Thesis deals with the use of Competitive Intelligence methods for selected IT company. The main objective of this work is the use of competitive intelligence analysis within the company and the characteristics of the company's competitive environment. Another goal is to identify appropriate information sources to obtain information about the external business environment and tools for monitoring them. The theoretical part of this work comes from the professional literature and focuses on the characteristics of competitive intelligence, and the intelligence cycle, including a description of its phases. Furthermore is mentioned the categorization of information sources and described the tools for collecting and analyzing information on the Internet. Part of theoretical part is a chapter devoted to CI in small and medium-sized companies. The practical part of this thesis deals with designing a system of competitive intelligence for a particular company. The first part includes the evaluation of the current situation in the ICT sector. Next chapter contains useful information sources to track and monitor information. Part of the proposed solution is a proposal profile person responsible for the conduct of CI. Thesis contribution in general involves a practical demonstration of using the CI methods possibilities in small business. From the practical side is the benefit mainly evaluating various analyzes, the conclusions and recommendations drawn from them.

The thesis focuses on multicriterial concept of competitiveness at the international level in relation with European Union. The final value of the EU competitiveness is measured on the basis of competitiveness methodology and research of World Economic Forum by using the European economic and social models. The aim is to analyze the value and then compare it with the current economically important global players. The output of the analysis is to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the EU competitiveness in the international context.

Main goal of this master thesis is analysis of success factors of companies applied to the company Gumotex a.s. The analysis of success factors will be based on INFA methodology. With this methodology I will identify main factors influencing performance of the company Gumotex. I will continue with finding main competitiveness drivers of this company, which influence above mentioned factors influencing company performance. Next step of my analysis will be prediction of these competitiveness drivers and calculation of their impact on company´s future performance. Results of my analysis will be summed up in the conclusion - what are the most important success factors and competitiveness ´drivers of the company Gumotex, and results of prediction of future performance done by prediction of its competitiveness drivers and knowledge of influence of these drivers.

This diploma thesis analyses the position of Chile in international tourism. The main purpose is to evaluate Chile´s status in international tourism based on the competitiveness of the country. At the begining of the thesis, the theory is defined. Then, the economy and political backgroud of Chile is specified, followed by the description of the preconditions for tourism development and its competitiveness in the tourism industry. Moreover, inbound, outbound and domestic tourism are analysed and followed by tourism impact on the economy of the country. Last chapter predicts future development of international arrivals to the country based on the regression analysis.

Accompanying the globalisation of the world economy and the internationalisation of Chinese CBs, the research in terms of the international competitiveness of the CBI and Chinese CBs has become urgent and significant. The motivations and targets of this research are to understand the status quo of international competitiveness of the CBI and Chinese CBs; to recognise the actual gap in the aspects of international competitiveness between Chinese CBs and the Western advanced CBs; to find out the issues and main causes that existed in and determined the international competitiveness of Chinese CBs; and to work out the approaches to solve the issues and boost the international competitiveness of the CBI and Chinese CBs. According to the analyses of the international background, domestic context and specific situation, and the review of previous relevant literatures in terms of the international competitiveness and international competitiveness of CB, the general framework of this research is based on the fundamental theory – New Institutional Economics (NIE), especially the Institutional Change Theory (ICT), and applied four key factors – Business Scale, Profitability, Asset Quality and Overseas Business Margin, as well as some necessary macro and micro -specific determinants, to multi-dimensionally examine and comprehensivelyevaluate the real level of international competitiveness of the CBI and some Chinese CBs during the last three decades, in particular during the last decade since 2003. This basic framework established the theoretical foundation for this research; it is the general framework that is jointly consisted of the constitution, determinants and evaluation sub-frameworks of international competitiveness of CB. In this research, the international competitiveness of CB mainly includes: Business Scale International Competitiveness, Profitability International Competitiveness, Soundness International Competitiveness and Overseas Business International Competitiveness. These four aspects of international competitiveness of CB can be all measured by relative indicators that can be calculated through relative financial data; thus, the international competitiveness of CB could be then synthetically, directly andexternally evaluated and reflected. Basically, the determined framework of international competitiveness of CB is referred to reveal how the international competiveness of CB is determined. According to the value theory of dialectical-materialism, object development is decided by its internal and external causes; therefore, in this research, the scale, management, technology and international administration are considered as the major internal factors to determine the international competitiveness of CB, while the governmental functions, horizontal industrial competition, market supply and demands, and industrial trend at home and abroad are suggested as themajor external factors to reflect the international competitiveness of CB. Based on the determined framework and the internal-external cause theory, as well as considering the cross-border competition as the mainstream of the international competition for CBs, it can be seen that the deciding model and evaluation model are combined together to set up the overall models for evaluating and reflecting the international competitiveness of China’s CBs. According to the results calculated by the models, the separate and joint evaluations are made to jointly estimate the real level of international competitiveness of Chinese CBs; then the internal and external critical analyses are taken into consideration to reveal how the internal and external major factors reflect and influence the international competitiveness of CBI. Finally, a set of approaches in terms of how to further improve and boost the internationalcompetitiveness of the CBI and Chinese CBs are accordingly suggested. The findings of this research present that the historical evolution of China’s banking is fundamentally driven by the institutional changes and the shifts of administrative ideologies of the CCP; and intrinsically influenced by the dominant culture of Confucianism in China. The international competitiveness of the CBI has been increasingly improving, in particular since 2003; the development of the CBI has been actually always adhering to the reform and opening-up guideline in terms of “Crossing the River by Touching the Stones”, and the internationalisation of the CBI has been mostly suggested to insist on a strategy of “Incremental Approach”, which also represents the Way of the Golden Mean (Zhong Yong Zhi Dao) of Confucian ideology and acting philosophy. According to the evaluation results, Chinese CBs hold a very strong IC on the Business Scale and Home-base Profitability; their Soundness IC has bee also hugely improved; however, if comparing with their foreign advanced peers, such like HSBC and JP Morgan etc., their overseas business IC has been relatively much weaker; this means that the internationalisation of CBI and Chinese CB still has a long way to go to strategically catch up and explore. Additionally, other sense of the banking industry is also highly recognised. The real essence of China’s banking reform has been eventually designed by the elites and ultimately influenced by the special interest groups. The fundamental issues of the banking sector have been not completely handled; the financial ecology of the banking business has been one of the greatest factors for the banking performance; the international competitiveness of Chinese CBs has been mostly country-specific and home-based; and the whole banking system has been seemingly-seriously captured by the housing market and the municipal platform debts; hence, these huge potential operating risks have been seriously concerned. Conclusively, the international competitiveness of Chinese CBs would have been significantly damaged if the banking industry could not be further improve the regulatory regime, optimise the business environment, reform the corporate governance structure, consummate the operational system; and work out the deep and ingenerate issues such as lending mechanism, profitability model, risk management, technological innovation, political intervention, internationalising strategy, etc. Even though this researcher has taken great efforts to make his own contributions in this project, the findings and conclusions are still thought to be not sophisticate and significant enough; hence, further research of this specific theme will be more deepening and focusing, in particular on the improvement of the research methodology, the data collection and the financial ecology of the CBI.

This study is performed by conducting a rhetoric and semiotics analysis on the ‘About Us’-section of the webpages of General Motors, Hyundai and Volkswagen with the aim of finding how the companies used environmental values in their marketing communication. The interest in the topic is a consequence of the challenge that the car industry is facing, to increase their environmental activities in order to please the public as well as the costumers.   The analysis is performed using semiotics, brand mythology and the rhetorical tools of metaphor, personification, presupposition and business rhetoric. The key theoretical concepts are corporate social responsibility, marketing communication, corporate identity and competitiveness paradox.   The results show that environmental values are not a central topic in the companies marketing communication. The majority of the pictures have connotations towards traditional market values such as design and high technology. There is also a big presence of rhetorical tools in the texts showing that the companies attempt to persuade and affect the visitors of the webpage.   One issue faced in performing the study was the vastness of the material. The webpages provided a lot of content that was not up for analysis in this case but that would have been of great interest to study.

This final thesis addresses the issue of influence of energy policy on competitiveness of the Czech Republic. First part analyzes possible risks entailed by movements of prices of energy commodities on global markets. Subsequently, it offers specification of local resources, production and demand for such commodities and possible measures at disposal of the governmental bodies, which could be used to mitigate any negative impacts of adverse development on the market. Secondly, field of power engineering in the Czech Republic is focused on. Main local characteristics are offered and predictions based on respective strategic documents are evaluated with regard to final price of electricity. Lastly, issue of energy security is covered.

The aim of the diploma thesis is the analysis of enhancing the competitiveness of small-sized enterprise applied to a particular company. The theoretical part specifies the basic characteristics of "small and medium-sized enterprises" and the factors of competitiveness, which are divided into four basic areas of business management -- management, marketing, human resource management and financial management. The practical part is related to theoretical piece of knowledge applied to the company "FCC Industrial Systems Ltd.". The result of the company analysis is suggesting of recommendations aimed for enhancing the competetiveness.