Innovative methods of evaluating business efficiency: a comparative study

This paper evaluates the efficiency level of medical spa businesses operating in Slovakia. The research aims to compile an efficiency ranking of these specific healthcare facilities to apply both methods and analyze their alternative use within the efficiency level measurement. The object of research is the Slovak spa businesses over the years 2014-2018. The study involved the Simplex Method of Linear Programming and the selected Data Envelopment Analysis model. In the study frame, the authors quantified the efficiency of medical spa businesses as the optimization task of SMPL and BCC input-oriented DEA model to identify prosperous businesses from non-prosperous ones. The study applied the Spearman rank correlation to reveal a potential degree of association of business rankings. The calculations were provided by the MS Excel, MS Excel Solver package, and the statistical program Gretl. The findings indicated that the business efficiency measured by SMPL provided similar results to the DEA model. These methods could be considered equivalent. Therefore, their alternative use was confirmed. The obtained results showed that both methods almost equally divided the businesses into two groups: 1) with efficiency score above (10 DMUs) and 2) below the overall achieved average (11 DMUs). According to the average results of both applied methods, the most efficient DMUs were DMU09 (Spa Lúcky, j.s.c.) and DMU03 (Spa Bojnice, j.s.c.), vice versa, the lowest efficiency score was achieved by DMU04 (Spa Brusno, j.s.c.). This research could be considered an important opportunity to identify new gaps in the prior literature and present the need for further development in these specific healthcare facilities, not only in Slovakia. The presented research findings are also beneficial for practice as they may lead to the formulation of recommendations for improvement of the current state of Slovak spa tourism and the spa businesses themselves.

Possibilities of Uranium Deposit Kuriskova Mining and Its Influence on the Energy Potential of Slovakia from Own Resources

Uranium is one of the strategic minerals used mainly in energetics. The main purpose of uranium mining is to achieve maximum production to meet the rapidly growing demand for energies. It needs to become aware that technological progress in mining processes could significantly reduce the negative impacts associated with environmental, economic, and social risks. Uranium mining is one of the most controversial topics. It is dealt with by many experts and scientists around the world. Various methods and technologies of uranium mining are encountered in professional journals, as well as political or socio-economic decisions based on the impact and importance of the energy potential of uranium deposits, or the environmental impacts of uranium mining. The deposit of Kuriskova is one of the most perspective deposits not only in Slovakia but also in the world. The deposit is located near the town of Kosice (with near 240,000 inhabitants) and near the recreational area of Jahodna in the east of the Slovak Republic. The analysis and determination of the energy potential of the deposit of Kuriskova shows that uranium reserves from this deposit would be able to fully cover the needs for nuclear power plants for the production of nuclear fuel, in the Slovak Republic, even in the longer term. With the above-mentioned energy potential of the deposit of Kuriskova at the level of 600 TWh, nuclear power plants in the Slovak Republic are able to be supplied with raw materials from the deposit of Kuriskova for about 40 years with the current amount of electricity produced (approx. 15 TWh). Therefore, for the purposes of this research, a proposal for the extraction of uranium reserves at the deposit of Kuriskova was made. Based on it, it is possible to determine the amount of recoverable uranium reserves from the deposit. A methodology has been determined with mining this proposal, which takes into account the basic criteria of uranium deposit mining, which was used for the selection of a suitable mining technology for the uranium deposit of Kuriskova.

Innovations in Human Resources Management: Mediating Role of Intrinsic Motivation

This study determines the impact of loneliness on creativity through a powerful and essential mediator of intrinsic motivation. The ability to motivate oneself leads towards the accomplishment of tasks and creative work. In recent years, workplace loneliness has become a more critical issue in both academic and practical debates. So, this study highlighted the significant cause of creativity which could help the organization to handle the problem of loneliness. The study assumes that when isolation at the workplace is high, employees are less approachable towards their tasks. So, their performance and creativity reduced. Because loneliness leads to stress, depression and anger, it reduces the creative skills of employees. To enhance creativity, lonely employees must be motivated to minimise their adverse outcomes. So, the research question arises: Does intrinsic motivation (IM) intervene in between the workplace loneliness (WL) and employees' creativity? This study is also significant because employees and employers' relations are the backbone of their respective organizations and directly affect the performance and growth of their respective organizations. A data collection survey method was held on employees of Banking Sector currently working in Vehari district of Pakistan. Sample space was the employees of Pakistani banks working on officer grades. There is a total of 124 bank branches in Vehari District of Pakistan. In these 124 branches, a total of 726 employees were working on managerial positions which were targeted for data collection. Simple random sampling technique was employed to collect the information from the respondents. Simple random sampling techniques were used to avoid from the busyness and undesirable unknown effects from the target population. Data were obtained from 400 banking officers. For data collection, validated and adapted questionnaires were used. Each variable of the survey was measured through a Likert scale of 5 points. For statistics evaluation, the statistical tools such as reliability of data, collinearity of data, the association of variable's, mediation and Regression were tested. For data reliability and validation, Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used while to measure the direct, indirect or mediation effect was measured through smart pls 3. Smart PLS3 is a landmark in latent variable modelling. It combines state of the art methods with an easy to use and in-built graphical user interface. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is utilized to quantify the power of essential philosophies with spotted data. Results showed Workplace Loneliness has a definite and meaningful relationship with employee's creativity. Results also supported the intervening role of Intrinsic motivation (IM) between the relationship Workplace Loneliness (WL) on Employees’ creativity (EC). The study provides significant implications in literature and for practitioners who are interested in measuring the profound effect of loneliness on creativity. Hypotheses are tested through mediation and for mediation analysis through the most commonly used approach of baron and Kenny. From results, it is stated that workplace loneliness is predicting the intrinsic motivation and creativity. Intrinsic motivation is the mediator in the current study, which partially intermediates the relation of WL and EC. So, it can be stated that employees can only be creative and able to utilize their cognition abilities for creativity when they are socially isolated from other works. The findings authenticate all hypotheses and their correspondence between the workplace loneliness, creativity and intrinsic motivation. In a nutshell, intrinsic motivation is the crucial element for creativity because when employees are internally satisfied with their work, they become energized and motivated and perform their work in a creative way. Keywords employees creativity, intrinsic motivation, mediation analysis, structural equation modeling, workplace loneliness.