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Health care economists estimate that 40-50% of annual cost increases can be traced to new technologies or the intensified use of old ones (Callahan, 2008). However, any limitation of their application is massively criticized as unethical. Patients (supported by journalists) believe that new expensive technology will speed-up their treatment and miraculously enhance their quality of life, while physicians are fascinated by fanciful possibilities of state-of-the-art devices. Nevertheless, due to limited resources of health care, each particular utilization of a medical device should be put to the test of the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness (Markiewicz, van Til, & Ijzerman, 2014; Rosina et al., 2014). The typical approach used above all in drugs is to calculate cost-effectiveness when the technology is in routine use.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are enterprise-wide information systems that integrate and control the complete range of processes and functions, in order to provide a holistic view of the business from a single information and information technology (IT) architecture (Klaus, Rosemann, & Gable, 2000), enabling organizations to manage efficient and effective use of their resources by using a complete, integrated, packaged software solution and a common central database for the organization’s information-processing needs (Al-Fawaz, Eldabi, & Naseer, 2010). By adopting an ERP system, organizations are looking for a better use of their own resources in order to raise their own efficiency, which can be jeopardized by high costs associated with ERP implementation, staff training, as well as maintaining and aligning the system with the needs of the organization (Jáčová, Brabec, & Horák, 2013).

Motivation research has a long history of considering employee motives and needs, and it is still popular. To find the reason, it is not necessary to look for a long time. Numerous studies have shown that employees could be the most valuable asset that organizations have. Employees, with their knowledge, skills, abilities, and work attitudes, influence how efficiently resources and means are used. Kazdová (2012) says that the employee who is motivated speaks about the firm positively, sees his/her future in the firm, and makes an extra effort which leads to the improvement of organizational outputs. According to Swift, Balkin, and Matusik (2010), employee motivation influences knowledge sharing in the organization, among other things. If the employee is motivated, he/she is more willing to share knowledge (Hau, Kim, Lee, & Kim, 2013).

The statistical process control (SPC) is widely used in industry. Its aim is to achieve proces stability and improve capability through the reduction of variability and it is included for example in the Six Sigma or Lean Six Sigma methodologies. The control of attribute data represents a considerable part of it. Until recently, the same approach was used to monitor variables or attributes data. In this approach, subgroups of items are taken from a process and sample characteristics are plotted in a control chart to see whether their variation is only random or whether it is affected by an assignable cause. The presence of such cause is indicated by exceeding the control limits that are based on the sample characteristic distribution.

Cities are considered centres of economic activity and, presumably, they remain attractive locations for manufacturing firms so as long as benefits agglomeration economies prevail over the costs of agglomeration diseconomies. Agglomeration economies attract firms and labour to co-locate, while agglomeration diseconomies push firms and labour to relocate to decentralised locations (Richardson, 1995). Industry patterns formed across urban landscape of a country or a region will largely depend on the interplay of these opposite forces, as well as on industry- and firm-specific issues. The size of agglomeration and the economic structure may be interrelated and in some economies, mostly larger, patterns of city specialisation emerge. All cities are characterised by being either specialised or diversified, depending on whether their economic activity is concentrated in similar or dissimilar types of production – and larger cities tend to be more diversified (Duranton & Puga, 2000).

After financial crisis in 2008, both financial and non-financial institutions, governments and monetary authorities as regulators faced great challenges in overcoming recent depression. Although different market participants in different fields reacted and accommodated in their own ways, they relied on monetary authorities more than they did before crisis. Monetary authorities were in position to deliver policies accommodative enough to stimulate economy, or at least reduce damage cumulated during crisis period. From our point of view, first step was pushing interest rates near zero level or lower in order to loosen borrowing conditions. But, on the other hand, monetary authorities approached to changes in legislation in order to prevent situation that caused crisis in the first place. In other words, meeting requirements for getting access to capital become stricter.

Knowledge is certainly one of the most important assets possessed both by individuals and by societies. In (substantial) part of the World, knowledge of individuals is obtained via a formal education in an educational system divided into subsequent several stages (usually pre-primary, primary, secondary, and tertiary education). Nowadays, populations’ costs of formal public education in the majority of countries constitute a significant portion of national wealth, often exceeding 5% of a gross domestic product. On average, World’s education costs reached 4.7% of the World’s GDP in 2013, according to the World Bank (2017). The costs of private education and especially the costs of tertiary education at the top universities in the USA, Canada, UK, or China are also considerably high.

As for creating values in society intellectual capital is as inevitable as money and physical capital. According to Edvinsson and Malone (1997), intellectual capital can be defined as intangible assets, which are not explicitly stated in the company´s balance but even though they have a positive effect on the company´s efficiency. The division of elements of the intellectual capital varies across different literature particularly regarding its titles. The same categories are called differently by Edvinsson and Malone (1997), by Petty, Cuganesan, Finch and Ford (2009), by Fragouli (2015) and by others like Ozkan, Cakan and Kayacan (2017). For our purposes, we will use the division that was also used by Ozkan, Cakan, and Kayacan (2017) and according to which intellectual capital consists of these three elements: structural, relational and human capital.

Industrialization, a major force in structural change, shifts resources from labour-intensive activities to more capital technology-intensive activities. It will remain crucial to the future growth of developing countries. Manufacturing’s share of GDP has remained stable over the last 40 years. Technology and capital equipment are the main drivers of both manufacturing growth and aggregate growth in developed and developing countries, although in developing countries energy and natural resources use affects growth in the medium- and low-tech industries (Unido, 2018). Currently, the industrial value creation is shaped by the development towards the fourth stage of industrialization, so-called Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0, referred to as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, also known as “smart manufacturing”, “industrial internet” or “integrated industry”, is currently a muchdiscussed topic.

Mechanical engineering belongs to the key industries in Slovakia. In terms of achieved sales and the rate of employment, it ranks among the largest manufacturing industries. The industry currently employs 12 per cent of the population and accounts for up to 42 per cent of total output of the Slovak Republic. Many of the enterprises operating in this industry are small or mediumsized. This industry apparently plays an essential role in the global economy, it is a source of entrepreneurship, innovations and new jobs. These are some of the reasons for which SMEs´ profitability and ways of its improvement should draw particular attention. It is therefore obvious that the issues of the financial analysis in SMEs are receiving constant attention. Since SMEs are the backbone of the Slovak economy and mechanical engineering is one of its key industries, our intention in this article is to focus attention on profitability and factors influencing it in SMEs active in the mechanical engineering industry.

The issue of female representation in top management teams is a growing area of interest among practitioners, policymakers, and researchers around the world (Ahmadi, Nakaa, & Bouri, 2018). In particular, there has been an ongoing debate about whether gender diversity in top management teams relates to company performance, more specifically financial performance (Farag & Mallin, 2017; Hernandez-Nicolás et al., 2015). The existing body of literature suggests that top management team gender diversity has both positive and negative effects on company performance. Additionally, the results of empirical studies on this issue remain mixed (e.g., Ali & Konrad, 2017; Eger & Indruchová, 2014; Julizaerma & Sori, 2012). On the one hand, there is evidence that gender diversity in top management is associated with higher financial performance (e.g., Campbell & Mínguez-Vera, 2008; Perryman, Fernando, & Tripathy, 2016).

Pharmaceuticals are chemical and biological substances produced by the pharmaceutical industry, used in therapies and prevention of various diseases. They cover an extremely wide range of products, ranging from simple medicinal preparations, to extremely advanced technological specifics. Similar to food, pharmaceutical products are believed to be one of the most important needs of human beings. They have a significant impact on their health, often support and extend their lives. Due to their specific properties and healthcare function of pharmaceuticals, they are contained in the category of basic products and their significance is appreciated not only by buyers (patients) but also by authorities in most countries. That is why in many countries special attention is paid to the development of production and trade in pharmaceutical products.

Managers often have to face kinds of decision-making problems in which a suitable investment alternative has to be evaluated and selected (Zhou et al., 2019; Yan et al., 2017; Rostamzadeh et al., 2017). Such a choice maybe related, for instance, to the technology choose for product development or machine selection for a manufacturing process (Frank et al., 2013). This kind of investment alternatives can be considered a multiple attribute decisionmaking (MADM) problem as it involves a variety of attributes that should be taken into account from finite feasible schemes based on the assessment information provided by decision makers. Due to the uncertain objects and ambiguous human thinking, sometimes it is impossible for decision makers to give all the evaluation values of attributes by exact numbers. The definition of fuzzy set is firstly introduced by Zadeh (1965) to address the uncertainty and ambiguity, which has been widely used in various domains.

In recent years, the problems of diverse transport mode development policy, travel price, duration and quality have been solved by a wide range of international scientists and researchers (Kandt, Rode, Hoffman, Graff, & Smith, 2015; Seelhorst & Liu, 2015; Woo, Cheng, Li, Chiu, Ho, & Horowitz, 2015; Kirschstein & Meisel, 2015; Guo, Yu, Chen, & Zhang, 2011). The choice of a particular mode of transport as an alternative to another one is subjective and usually based on an individual passenger’s approach to the evaluation of advantages and disadvantages of some particular means of transport (Sivilevičius & Maskeliūnaitė, 2018).A transport system is a system created for transporting large numbers of passengers at the low price of investment. Passengers can usually choose a means of transport based on the criteria, which seem to be important for them.