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Many changes occurred in the management of the economy in Slovakia caused by the transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. The process of globalization into Slovak economic conditions was limited due to initial alertness. While the governments of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic presented themselves as pro-reform, the Slovak government preferred Slovak privatizers (Kosír, 2016). Nevertheless, the retail chain Billa entered Slovak market in 1990, followed by automobile giant Volkswagen in 1991, American retail chain Kmart in 1992, which took over the department stores Prior. Because of the reforms implemented, Slovakia gains confidence from foreign investors. Significant foreign capital inflows into the emerging business environment of the Slovak economy, such as Heineken, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and others. A courtesy of Slovak government has also become reprivatisation of VSŽ Košice, which became part of the U.S. Steel, based in Pittsburgh in the USA.

As a consequence of political changes, the process of transitioning a centrally controlled economy to a market economy has influenced the development processes of the states in which this transformation has occurred (Hlaváček & Bal-Domanska, 2016). It was expected that the entry of foreign investors would bring an inflow of capital, new investment, export potential, and technological transfer (Estrin et al., 2009; Rapacki & Prochniak, 2009). Foreign direct investment (FDI) is generally considered to be the contribution of holders of know-how, technology, new management methods and skills, initiators of innovation activities, strategic employers, and exporters. FDI can lead to economic growth, changes in the business or institutional environment, restructuring of the economy and, ideally, also to the increase of labour productivity in the host region and the improvement of macroeconomic indicators (Damborský, 2013). Moreover, for transition economies, FDI is the key indicator for evaluating their economic transformation (Starzyczná, 2010). FDI in the Czech Republic, and in transition economies in general, is regarded as a crucial criterion for a successful economic transformation (Hlaváček & Bal-Domanska, 2016).

Organizational commitment, along with job satisfaction, is one of the two most often researched work attitudes (Riketta, 2008). It is the center of attention because it affects key variables in organizations such as the wellbeing of employees (e.g. Sui, 2002), absence due to illness (e.g. Meyer & Maltin, 2010), length of stay in an organization (e.g. Porter, Steers, Mowday, & Boulian, 1974), turnover intentions (e.g. Vandenberghe & Trembla, 2008), job satisfaction (Ulbegi & Yalcin, 2016) and job performance (Riketta, 2002). Despite being a key construct in management, we are not aware of any published studies on a validated scale of organizational commitment in Czech. Such a situation is a limitation for researchers intending to examine organizational commitment, or at least monitor its influence when examining other variables. There is also a lack of a reliable scale which could be used when surveying employee attitudes within an organization. In this study, we address this gap and adapt an internationally used organizational commitment scale into Czech. The adapted scale will allow professionals and researchers to measure organizational commitment in Czech organizations reliably and to compare the commitment of Czech employees with foreign samples.

Owing to a special role of agriculture in the national economy, governments have become the main suppliers as well as the main users of agricultural predictions (forecasts). They require internal forecasts to implement policies that provide technical and market support to the agricultural sector (Hedtrich, Loy, & Mueller, 2012). Forecasts of agricultural production and prices ought to be helpful not only for the governments, but primarily for farmers and the entire agriculture industry. Thus, agriculture is an area where politicians, consumers, scientists and environmentalists encounter (Rivera-Ferre, 2008). Remeikiene, Rozsa, Gaspareniene and Pěnčík (2018) state that supportive political attitudes towards the agricultural sector along with employment of protectionist measures determine ignorance of the rules of supply and demand, distortion of the conditions of free market competition, closeness of the agricultural sector in comparison to other economic sectors, incomplete international agricultural price transmission, inkonsistence of long-term market prices for agricultural commodities and existence of agriculture in disfavoured areas.

The purpose of this research is to assess the impact of university education and business environment on entrepreneurial initiatives and to make comparisons of the results between students coming from Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. These countries were selected for the analysis since these are three of the V4 countries with common targets regarding the development of business environment and with an important location advantage. The International Visegrad Fund promotes mutual cooperation within the region in various fields, including the development of economic relations (in tourism, education, scientific research, cross-border cooperation). This Fund also implements own projects in these fields. The importance of the research is justified by the identification of the factors that mostly affect entrepreneurial initiatives; these factors could be developed more in order to increase the number of successful businesses in each of these country. Moreover, some obstacles to entrepreneurial initiatives are identified and suitable recommendations are provided to minimize these obstacles.