Associate professor,
PhD in Systematic philosophy
College of International Business ISM Slovakia in Prešov
1 Duchnovičovo námestie
Prešov 080 01, Slovak Republic
ŠTEFAN KASSAY : PODNIK A PODNIKANIE.
PRVÝ ZVÄZOK – PODNIKATEĽSKÉ PROSTREDIE
Štefan Kassay starts his first part of pentalogy with a monograph in which he deals with the business environment. At the beginning of the book, he tries to define business as well as legal forms of business. It lists the traditional forms of business as well as the various forms of business it seeks to describe. They are a well-known general partnership, limited partnership, limited liability company, and joint stock company. The author characterizes them. It also describes the various possible changes of ownership that arise under different circumstances, for example historically. Kassay seeks to describe the different types of change of ownership that depend on different indicators. The book also discusses the relationship between owners and managers, the distribution of profits in the company. The author discusses business management. He points out the structure of this management, compares methods of business management from the USA, Japan, Germany, describes two basic models of management theory (internal and external model). He also deals with models of control theory in the conditions of Slovakia. The book discusses the various levels of corporate governance, shareholders, as well as the supervisory board. Kassay also considers the practice of corporate governance.
The author’s field of interest is also the area of company relations. The author deals with the social environment and changes in the company within it. It also illustrates this very nicely with diagrams, graphic schemes, which try to show a map of the market environment. Social factors influencing companies are analyzed by Kassay within different levels of social space. This is the level of economic resources, production opportunities, economic cycles, labor market, etc. The author also writes about the market system, where he discusses the holistic approach, the monetarist concept. Analyzes market components. It also touches on various options for economic reform. It briefly characterizes various processes, such as support for economic development or restrictive measures, as well as privatization. It deals with the problem of evaluating the principles of economic development. In a very interesting excursion, Kassay considers evaluating and identifying the various causes of inflation. Since the book, as well as the entire pentalogy, is a textbook, the author shows the calculation of the unemployment rate. It also discusses possible indicators that may affect market processes. The book also introduces the reader to the laws of the world economy. Kassay is successfully trying to explain the changes in the global economy. It deals with price movements since 1972, production, the relationship between production and sales. It explains the phenomenon of increasing economic globalization, as well as the emergence of various economic blocs in the world. The book also reflects on the impact of social transformation of companies.
The author’s plan is also to provide a meaningful introduction to business management. It fulfills this in the fourth chapter. The book presents various approaches to understanding business management, systematic, mathematical, socio – economic, behavioral, etc. It puts more emphasis on analyzing the pragmatic approach as well as the operational approach. The pages of the monograph explain many aspects of business. Kassay shows a variety of management methods, introduces some of the most common management methods, including Japanese. He really explains the essence of strategic, tactical, creative and conceptual management. The introduction of the essence and the role of the leader, leadership and leadership is the content of the next chapter. Kassay realizes that defining a manager’s tasks as management and control is definitely not enough. Here he tries to explain what the highest management position is, as well as how to get excellent work results with the help of management. It has to do with education, with knowledges, with different ways of thinking. The author also outlines various theories of leadership personality. It represents different styles of business management: autocratic, democratic, liberal. The book outlines various managerial theories and concepts, such as orientation management, grid theory, situational theories of managerial behavior. These situational theories are different, Kassay introduced the contingency theory, the goal setting theory, the boss theory and the tree-dimensional theory. He did not miss the phenomenon of group behavior. At the given place, the monograph also presents the necessary abilities of leader, which are conditio sine qua non. It is the ability to influence, character, self-control, certainty, communication skills and other important qualities. The author also deals with the field of management practice. It considers the essence of objective and subjective performance, personality as well as the various dimensions of the relationship between performance and personality. It highlights the importance of changing the way of thinking in the aspect of leadership. The textbook with the aspiration to present all aspects of business and entrepreneurship also offers various characteristics of roles and functions of management. Kassay writes about transaction managers, how management should create value. Attention is also paid to top management, women in management positions. He notes that „historical facts confirm that woman initially oriented on services and the rearing of children and during the world wars partially substituted for men“ (Kassay 2006, p. 194). He states that the situation has changed considerably and at present we can talk about complete emancipation even in top management positions. The textbook also brings a multicultural aspect of management. It acquaints the reader with the international business culture. The curious reader can also learn a lot about the different requirements of management, the number of external influences, the impact on employee privacy and much else related to the topic. The next chapter is the area of potential threats to business development. The author analyzes the trends of the future development of the company, the tendencies of the free market versus globalization, influencing through the European Union, also describes the indicators of the business environment. Kassay does not deny the empirically experienced author with rich experience and writes about the whole range of new changes, to open and enlarge new markets, to optimize the enterprise processes, to create conditions to eliminate the negative consequences of fallacious publicity, to increase the competitive advantages and many others, lists several dozen. It calculates risk indicators of the business environment, pays special attention to uncertainties in the business environment in Slovakia. He lists several dozen of them, for all of them at least an insufficiently developer infrastructure, especially at the loved level, and also undercapitalised enterprises and permanently lasting seocondary financial insolvency (Kassay 2006, p. 218). Kassay emphasizes the need to adapt to external indicators due to globalization, the location of the company, as well as the need to participate in and win various competitions. He considers the company’s level of management, optimal risk management, rapid detection of danger and timely changes that should eliminate it as internal indicators of the company’s survival. The company’s strategy needs to be modified over time to react flexibly to any changes. Kassay emphasizes the need to know the customer, his needs. The author also describes the attributes of a successful company from his own experience. It is a company that strives to avoid mistakes, harmonizes external and internal indicators, implements the involvement of various strategies, innovates technology and invests considerable funds in the distant future. The author completes the monograph with an overview of the history of management theories with a brief excursion. The next part of the book is about the basics of business strategy. Kassay tries to specify the term. As an aid, he presents grasping the concept using 5 sub-aspects: the plan, the ploy, the pattern, the position and the perspective. The author presents the definition of competitive advantages within business. It is, in particular, identifying competition, choosing the market, creating the conditions to maintain these advantages and much more. Related to this are the principles of strategic thinking, the monograph describes the principles of variability, permanence, global system access, creative approach, interdisciplinarity, resorces concentration and work with time. The monograph acquaints and with the topic of strategic visions of the company. A bad or impractical vision will bring society to ruin (Kassay 2006, p. 285). The detailed elaboration of this vision must, above all, respect the wishes and expectations of customers. Careful consideration should be given to which products or services should stabilize the business. In the first part of his five-volume monograph, Kassay also opened the topic of company mission. It describes the creation of such a mission, which depends on resources, preferences, history, market environment and competences. This process of creation is complex, the author introduces its nuances. Strategic goals are also linked to this. The company’s management enters into interactions with various interest groups. These are various groups, such as shareholders as well as the investors. The cultural cackround and the business ethics are also significant influencing factors. The author pays great attention to shareholters. It also discusses the issue of influencing the company by these interest groups. Strategic development is also an important part of the company. The book also presents a prerequisite for the implementation of the strategy. This also applies to influences through culture and politics. The monograph presents the topics of organizational culture and its relationship to building a business. Of course, it can also be a negative influence. The monograph seeks to address the problem by offering options that can make a barrier to such attempts to influence. The textbook – complex character of the monograph is supplemented by a description of relations outside the company, limitations and possibilities of building a company in terms of the business environment. The issue of strategic analysis is related to the topic. Here, the author addresses the issues of influencing the external environment towards the company. The book also presents an analysis of the external environment, and offers various scenarios for the implementation of certain expected scenarios of business development. Kassay describes the business environment from different angles. It also provides guidance on how to determine a company’s position vis-à-vis competitors. This includes identification of various variables, strategic group, market diversification, analysis of competitors, etc. Accordingly, the text on the evaluation of the company’s ability to create strategies, including obtaining a true picture of resources, represents the expected costs. The monograph also writes about the stratification of the interests of investors and shareholders. In a joint stock company, these can be really diverse movements. The next chapter deals with the choice of strategy. In it, the author writes gradually about the formulation of business strategy, about the basics of Strategic Business Unit. The monograph has the ambition to be a good summary of corporate governance in the first place, and thus represents the basic types of corporate strategies. These are various strategies, such as price-oriented strategy, hybrid strategy, strategy of differentiation, strategy of cost leadership, strategy of differentiation and orientationturnaroud strategy in crisis, strategy of competition in emering line of business etc. Since the strategy selection slide is wide, it is important to control the strategy selection, to which the author devotes enough space. It describes the conditions of market penetration, again talks about the diversification of business development. The author provides an analysis of merging companies into larger units, which became popular in the 80s of the last century. Continuation follows in the form of a chapter on managing strategic change. In it, Kassay writes about changes in companies, companies, flexible response and resistance to change. It gives the character of various changes, those over which the company has control, forced changes, transformational changes. It seeks to diagnose the needs for strategic change. It also describes the processes of strategic change, including the methods of its control, the impacts of the mentioned strategic changes. The chapter is supplemented by a case study, which presents decisions in terms of strategy within a world-class company I. D. C. Holding. As an experienced leader who has built a large world-famous company, Kassay shares his experience in this study. The third part of the first part concerns the organization and organizational structure. The author introduces the chapter with a historical excursion into the history of opinions on the ideal building of the organizational structure. The monograph also introduces the principles of creating structures. It is actually an introduction to the theory of organization. This is also related to the creation of patterns within the organization, which is discussed in the book in terms of business life cycles. The author also pays attention to the essence of the organizational structure. It considers the relationship between structure and strategy, elements of internal structure, length of overview in structures, solutions for building organizational structure, etc. The author also writes about the configuration of the organization and the decision-making structure within it. It seeks to capture the classification of this structure. It differentiates between different types of structure, e.g. between a modified and flexible organizational structure, lists others. Kassay also presents various possibilities of chaining companies within the concentration into larger units. He pays attention to the holding structure. The conclusion of the monograph is devoted to the practical output of the achieved theoretical conclusions. The first part of pentalology by the prominent management theorist Štefan Kassay represents a significant contribution to the description of the business environment. The author successfully tried a comprehensive description of the issue. Our author strives to approach the business environment in terms of ownership, business strategy, as well as the structure of the company. The first part of pedology brings a sum of knowledges that can be used in practice. It is important that the important entrepreneur Štefan Kassay put into his monograph, in addition to theory, also his experience, his practice, a piece of his personality. That is why his book acquires the character of a timeless synthesis, which will bring a summary of knowledge for theorists and practitioners for many years to come.