Foreign companies were the main drivers of economic development in the Czech Republic in last two decades. Today the Czech market is already saturated with large number of foreign investment and future development of the Czech economy depends on a shift towards a knowledge-based economic development. Thesis attempts to evaluate different position of domestic and foreign companies from the Pardubice Region in global production networks. This position will have different influence on focus of companies on research, development and knowledge-based activities. The work is based on 34 directed interviews with the directors of domestic and foreign companies from the Pardubice Region. First aim is to indicate different position of domestic and foreign firms in global production networks. Second aim is to find a different meaning of research and development activities for companies. Development activities are the main article of shift towards the production of knowledge-intensive products with higher added value. Last aim of thesis is to evaluate different intensity of collaboration of domestic and foreign companies on the research and development activities with other firms and institutions.

The objective of this work is to present an investigation which aims to identify the procedures used in the customer relationship management at the three major companies in Cearà awarded with âDelmiro Gouveia Prizeâ in 2003. A qualitative research was done in order to achieve this goal with three case studies using the method of depth intervew to specify the procedures of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in these companies based on the theories related to the matter. The results of the qualitative local research were, then, compared to the quantitative research done in Brazil in 2003 by the american consulting, Peppers and Rogers Group. To sum up, the conclusions drawn from these investigations show that the major companies in Cearà know the concepts of the customer relationship management only superficially and although they believe that CRM is a way of being different from their competitors, they do not have a systematic program of CRM but only isolated actions of customer relationship. / Neste trabalho à apresentada uma investigaÃÃo que visa identificar quais as prÃticas que estÃo sendo utilizadas na gestÃo do relacionamento com o cliente nas trÃs maiores empresas do Cearà agraciadas com o PrÃmio Delmiro Gouveia de 2003. Para tanto, foi feita uma pesquisa qualitativa, com 3 estudos de caso, utilizando o mÃtodo de entrevista em profundidade, a fim de detalhar as prÃticas de GestÃo do Relacionamento com o Cliente (CRM) nessas empresas, tendo como base teorias que abordam a temÃtica em questÃo. Os resultados da pesquisa qualitativa local foram, entÃo, comparados com os resultados quantitativos de uma pesquisa realizada no Brasil, em 2003 pela consultoria americana, Peppers and Rogers Group. Em sÃntese, as conclusÃes extraÃdas dessas investigaÃÃes mostram que as maiores empresas do Cearà conhecem os conceitos de gestÃo do relacionamento com o cliente de uma forma superficial, e, embora acreditem que o CRM seja uma forma de se diferenciar da concorrÃncia, nÃo possuem um programa de CRM sistematizado, mas aÃÃes isoladas de relacionamento com o cliente.