Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Helena CHLADKOVA Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic Author-Name: Sylvie FORMANKOVA Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic Title: Strategy for SMEs in the area of primary agricultural production Abstract: The goal of the paper was to define recommendations of a suitable business strategy for SMEs in the area of primary agricultural production. First, the external environment was analysed to define suitable recommendations for the industry, and also to discover opportunities and threats through fitting strategic analyses, that affect the aforementioned businesses. Secondly, it was necessary to get familiar with the internal environment and functioning of specific businesses in the industry (namely those that operate in the Western region of Prostějov at the foot of the Drahanska Highlands) and to evaluate their efficiency to define their strengths and weaknesses. The paper demonstrates that there is a wide range of means that can be taken advantage of when defining fitting strategies for agricultural businesses, e.g. the Porter's Five Forces Model, the IFE and the IE Matrix, the SWOT Matrix as well as the general strategies by Ansoff. Among the most important recommendations for increasing the competitiveness of SMEs in the agricultural industry, there belong: taking advantage of all the suitable agricultural subsidies, taking advantage of accredited agricultural advisors, making sure that the legal requirements of governmental bodies are met, increasing revenues for arable farming (through a good quality seed stock, chemicals and fertilizers, the foundation of suitable storage facilities in order to postpone the sales of the grain after the harvest season), creating sales cooperatives/associations to balance the competing force of buyers, rejuvenating the workforce, solidifying the ownership structure in the businesses, entrepreneurial diversification (electrical energy production), increasing quality in animal farming. Keywords: agricultural business, competitiveness, external and internal environment, opportunities and threats, strengths and weaknesses Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 395-406 Volume: 62 Issue: 9 Year: 2016 DOI: 10.17221/260/2015-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/260/2015-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201609-0001.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:62:y:2016:i:9:id:260-2015-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Eva CIHELKOVA Author-Workplace-Name: Faculty of Economics and Business, Pan-European University in Bratislava, Slovak Republic Title: Formation of the theoretical framework for the comparative analysis of post-socialist countries Abstract: The beginning of the 90s was accompanied by revolutionary changes in the world economy. Newly created incentives for the comparative economics/economy were tackling, inter alia, the post-socialist countries, that were already exposed to the transformation and reform processes. Models of economic systems formed in this period have initiated a great discussion among the relevant stakeholders. This fruitful discussion has led to the creation of a number of model approaches, focusing on the definition of a common theoretical framework for the comparative analysis and its further applications within the surrounding of particularly advanced concrete modern economies. The presented paper contains newly emerged approaches, the so-called varieties of capitalism. The aim of the paper is: To explore the approaches typical for "the varieties of capitalism", that could be considered as the mainstream over the last 25 years, and to deliver their review; then to map the approaches how the models of economic systems of post-socialist countries are defined, and to answer a question, whether the varieties of capitalism can be used for the comparative analysis of economic systems of these countries. Keywords: comparative economics, comparative economy, model of economic systems, economic system, varieties of capitalism, models of post-socialist countries Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 407-420 Volume: 62 Issue: 9 Year: 2016 DOI: 10.17221/18/2016-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/18/2016-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201609-0002.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:62:y:2016:i:9:id:18-2016-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Jana STEKLA Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Management, Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic Author-Name: Marta GRYCOVA Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Management, Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic Title: The relationship between profitability and capital structure of the agricultural holdings in the Czech Republic Abstract: Decision on the capital structure of an enterprise is very important because a bad decision can affect a company's profitability leading to a decrease in the shareholders value. The good financial decision can increase the market value of the owners' equity and poor financial decisions can decrease it. The main objective of financial decisions is to maximize the wealth of stockholders. The effect that capital structure decisions have on profitability and enterprise value is that it increases value through the present value of tax savings from the use of debt. The enterprises can use debt or equity capital to finance their assets. The best what they do is to mixture the debt and equity. This paper analyses how far the capital structure affects the profitability of agricultural holdings in the Czech Republic for a period of six years from 2008 to 2013. Data was obtained from the Albertina and was analysed by using the descriptive statistics, the correlation analysis and the regression analysis. The results show that there is a negative relationship between the short-term debt to the total assets and profitability, between the long-term debt to the total assets and profitability, and between the total debt to the total assets and profitability. Keywords: long-term debt, regression, return on equity, short-term debt, total debt Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 421-428 Volume: 62 Issue: 9 Year: 2016 DOI: 10.17221/232/2015-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/232/2015-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201609-0003.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:62:y:2016:i:9:id:232-2015-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Qi-Qi CHEN Author-Workplace-Name: College of Economics & Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China Author-Workplace-Name: Hubei Rural Development Research Center, Wuhan, China Author-Name: Jun-Biao ZHANG Author-Workplace-Name: College of Economics & Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China Author-Workplace-Name: Hubei Rural Development Research Center, Wuhan, China Author-Name: Yu HUO Author-Workplace-Name: College of Economics & Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China Author-Workplace-Name: Tarim University, Xinjiang, China. Title: A study on research hot-spots and frontiers of agricultural science and technology innovation - visualization analysis based on the Citespace III Abstract: At present, the fundamental development way of agricultural production lies in science and technology to achieve the agricultural sustainable and stable development and ensure the effective supply of agricultural products for a long time. Many Chinese scholars had done many researches about the agricultural science and technology innovation. Numerous scholars got much valuable research conclusions for improving the construction of agricultural science and technology innovation system. However, there were still some problems existing in the current agricultural science research system, such as that the agricultural science and technology studies were divorced from the agricultural production, the mechanism of the market was still imperfect, there was an unreasonable layout in the agricultural science and technology. Therefore, we wanted to know the dynamic and the evolution path of the international agricultural science and technology innovation. What is more, we wanted to know whether there was a significant difference between the domestic and overseas agricultural science and technology innovation and if the international experience was good for the development of the Chinese agricultural science and technology innovation. So, there was analysed the research theme, the hot-spots and frontiers of international agricultural science and technology innovation based on the Citespace III to get the situation and character of the relevant international research. Keywords: agricultural science and technology innovation, Citespace III, research hot-spots, research frontier, visualization analysis Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 429-445 Volume: 62 Issue: 9 Year: 2016 DOI: 10.17221/207/2015-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/207/2015-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201609-0004.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:62:y:2016:i:9:id:207-2015-AGRICECON