Population aging in terms of generational cohorts in the context of labor productivity in the Slovak Republic

This paper seeks to examine the role of factors originated from outside (economic, political, competitive environment and relationships) and within (entrepreneur’s attitude) the organization on the business risk perceived by entrepreneurs. To test the hypothetical relationships, an ordinal regression with two link functions was applied on an original dataset of 641 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Slovakia and Czech Republic. The analysis revealed that not only economic factors can predict business risk, but along with them are political and competitive environments, relationship with supply chain actors and entrepreneur’s attitude. Consistent with prior research, it is found that an unstable economic environment leads the business to expose themselves to business risk. Also, a friendly regulation framework and quality education contribute significantly to reducing the level of risk. The research triggers the interest of policymakers who design policies aimed at improving the business environment by reducing the level of risk that firms face in doing business. Also, this paper is useful for managerial perspective, since entrepreneur attitude was found to be a predictor of business risk.

In recent years, numerous researches and studies confirm differences between Generations in their values, attitudes, or characteristics. However, the challenge is to get to know the Generation Z, whose individuals are currently entering the labor market for research and practical application. The presented paper aims to expand the knowledge of Generations Y and Z in the field of individualism and self-reliance. This issue is examined concerning independence regarding housing and financial independence to parental help. The aim of the study is an empirical verification of possible similarities and differences between Generations Y and Z. The study is based on an online questionnaire survey. Data were obtained from more than 1,500 respondents of these Generations (born in 1982–2005) in 5 European countries (Czech Republic, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland, and Slovakia). Data are examined using a two-tailed t-test, Mann-Whitney U test, and regression analysis. The overall findings of the study indicate intergenerational differences in the issue of independence, with Generation Z, unlike Millennials, becoming more self-sufficient at a younger age. Research has also found that women leave the parental household earlier than men. The paper presents the possible influence of the outputs on the working environment and work motivation of the Generations Y and Z.

Acknowledgment
The paper was created with the support of the project SGS-2020-015 “Research in selected areas of management and marketing of organisations in the context of demographic and technological changes.”

Do good corporate governance practices affect the amount of intermediated debt used by corporations and their dividend payout decisions? This study addresses the direct effects of corporate governance practices on both the indebtedness and the dividend pay-outs in corporations listed on the Bratislava Stock Exchange in 2015–2017 in Slovakia. Because of the relatively weakly developed stock market, the hypothesis is set only to found whenever there is a correlation between those variables. For analyzing the data, Spearman’s rank correlation was used because of the absence of normal distribution. Furthermore, authors adjusted the data set specifically in both cases to reflect more precisely the situation and increase the significance of the models. The most important result of this paper is the finding that the application of the corporate governance principles affects financial decisions of companies. There is a correlation between the responsible application of corporate governance principles and the total debt of companies. Also, there is a correlation between the responsible application of corporate governance principles and the amount of dividends paid to shareholders.