MSc, Development Planning, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, 1996

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The aim of this master’s paper is to identify the optimal joint stock company “Zokniai” development alternative with orientation to European regional development fund‘s (ERDF) support for small and medium size business. Two scientific approaches towards SME‘s support were identified in the final paper. ERDF requirements for SME‘s and their projects are analysed. Three alternatives of enterprise activity are analysed using financial and economical indicators. The need for ERDF‘s support for JSC „Zokniai“ is grounded by the comparative analysis of investments alternatives. It is recommended to use described and practically used methods and indicators in order to ground ERDF‘s support for JSC „Zokniai“ and other small and medium size enterprises.

At the beginning of the 21st century it becomes more obvious that the established free market economics systems, even nowadays perceived as universal models, collide with the ecological boundaries imposed by the Earth’s biosphere. Protection of the living environment is also the topic of this thesis. This doctoral thesis presents the research results of investments made to protect the natural environment. The work focuses on the Czech Republic-based manufacturing industry. The doctoral thesis covers the following objectives: • Czech legislation and related information of the living environment protection are processed, confronted and evaluated in the analytical part of the work. This part also features a description of used Macro-economical approaches followed by an evaluation of externality quantification. The work even describes new trends in the implementation of Environmental Managerial Systems. This part presents basic procedures to assess the manufacturers’ environment protection investments. Strong and weak aspects of specific approaches are emphasized. • The environmental investments evaluation methods for the selected manufacturing companies are identified in the practical part of the doctoral thesis based on the primary data sources supported qualified research. Suitable criteria-meeting rating methods are selected, based on the statistical evaluation of multi factorial analysis. Furthermore, the work evaluates the influence and significance of environment protecting investments on the corporate goals. The final part of the work features a critical review of the discovered facts with suggested advanced procedures for the environmental protection investments evaluation.

The aim of this research was to discover the issues influencing the adoption of e-commerce by small and medium business enterprises (SMEs) in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The demand aspect of the theory of diffusion of innovation enabled the formulation of a number of research propositions which formed the focus for this research. Seventy-five randomly-selected SMEs within the ACT were interviewed. Of these seventy five, fifty had adopted e-commerce and twenty-five had not. Findings complemented results from other studies, but also added to them. Factors from the demand aspect of the theory of time, resources (personnel, financial, technological), business organisation, size, return on investment, push by outside agencies or clients, and communication channels were found to be of little importance. Of greater importance were characteristics of the SME operators themselves (such as their innovativeness, their relative youth and educational level), the size of their business, the number of years it had been operating, and marketing issues. A prime consideration was that of attaining and maintaining a competitive edge over their competitors. Security and privacy issues were of little consideration prior to the adoption process, but became of much greater importance once SMEs had adopted e-commerce. Some things discovered by this research that have not appeared in the reporting of other studies included: � The importance of tertiary education for the primary decision-makers in the organisation; � The role banks played in the adoption process; � The high cost and difficulty of compliance with government regulations, especially regarding the employment of staff; and � The lack of use of specifically established communication channels, set up by government bodies or associated industry organisations to educate and inform SMEs about the potential and process of e-commerce. Results of this research have implications for a large number of associated stakeholders � government, educational institutions, and trade, industry and professional associations � and as such deserve to be widely disseminated.

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This thesis focuses on the development of commercial opportunities and public services in the town of Strakonice. The main aim was to carry out marketing research of people and businesses of the city, leading the interviews with the mayor and city project manager. The last part was a SWOT analysis and then selected the circumstances and opportunities in selected areas of development.

Presented thesis aims at possibilities of implementation of the ITIL best practice at small and medium businesses. The main target is to prove that this methodology can be used not only in big companies, but also in small and medium business sector. First part defines the conception of small and medium business and its specificity. It is concerned with basic definitions, which are used in the main text, such as a service, process, best practice etc. It also demostrates the need of managing IT and some ways how to do it. The second part dwell on ITIL itself, it describes its characteristics, history, it also discusses purpose and content of each ITIL book with emphasis on service operation books. The third part is about deployment of ITIL in SMB, conditions and process of implementation and it proposes some essential processes for small and medium business IT. Also it defines benefits of deployment of ITIL, its limitations and barriers. The final part is concerned about Incident Management implementation in a particular company, it describes the state before and after the implementation. It describes software support tool for this process, its possibilities and costs. At the end of this part an employee survey demonstrates the benefits of the Incident Management process and the SW support tool. It shows resulting improvement of IT support perception among the management and employees of the company.

The aim of this master's thesis is to created a business plan for a new project in area of retro furnishings. The thesis consists of two sections. The first being a theoretical part contains general principles and recommendations for compiling a business plan, deals with its structure and analyzes the individual points.In the practical part is created a business plan for the project. The structure and concent is based on the theoretical part. Among other things, the plan is focused mainly on the target market, marketing stratégy and financial plan. Main user of the business plan is the author of the thesis, which it will use for the project.

Diploma thesis aim small and medium business and how to improve real small business. Theoretical part investigates SME´s unique characters and specially influence SME in economic system, developement of business plan.Second part analyse small business and aspects of carry on stagnation small business.