L22 - Firm Organization and Market StructureReturn

The purpose of the article was 1) to assess the relationship between the organizational culture (OC) type and business strategy (BS); 2) to prove that OC influences the survival strategy success/implementation; 3) to contribute to the expansion of organizational theory by analyzing the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) strategy palette as the basis for developing an effective company survival strategy during the crisis. To achieve the purpose, correlation analysis between OC types (authors' typology) and BS (Boston Consulting Group and Miles & Snow Models) was used (561 employees of different industries participated in the survey; the data collected laid the foundation for the research). As a result, it was proved that 1) certain types of organizational culture correspond to certain types of strategies; 2) during the period when the company overcomes the recession, OC affects strategic innovation decisions; 3) building a sustainable business ecosystem enhances the positive impact. The main limitations of the study are 1) some elements of subjectivity assessment, 2) constant changes in OC and BS, 3) the probability of different subcultures coexistence.
Implications for a Central European audience: The results confirmed that there is a need for managers to 1) take into account the organizational culture characteristics/features to implement chosen strategies successfully; 2) be ready to adapt the OC before the BS is approved; 3) adopt the idea that building an innovation ecosystem can be crucial to confront the crisis with confidence.

The main goal of this paper is to identify the major factors for the decision of Swiss IT service firms to nearshore their locations and to quantify their relative importance. Moreover, we develop an IT Nearshoring Index ranking the attractiveness of different European regions. We use a quantitative survey of 56 Swiss IT service firms that are either actively engaging in nearshoring or planning to nearshore parts of their business. Using the survey, we identified five main factors for the nearshoring location decision of Swiss IT firms: economic, labour, institutional, social and location. We pin down the relative importance (weights) of the aforementioned factors using the survey results and expert interviews. The labour factors (including labour costs on the one and the availability of skilled IT workforce on the other side) proved to be most important. We use the obtained weights to construct a (weighted) IT Nearshoring Index. Based on the IT Nearshoring Index, we find that in contrast to general belief, the most attractive locations cannot be found in Eastern Europe, but in Southern UK or Western Germany. The first is due to their high availability of IT workforce, the latter due to their cultural and geographical proximity. Eastern European regions can base their competitive advantage on offering attractive labour costs, but this cannot make up for the disadvantage of greater cultural and geographical distance to Switzerland.

This paper describes new trends related to the concepts contained in HR organizational structures within Czech organizations. In addition, it describes the specifics of the roles played by HR in those organizations which have transformed their HR departments in terms of the principles of the HR Business Partner Model, both in theory based on available resources, and at the practical level based on the results of primary examination. The goal of this paper is to present the key perceptions of the changes made in the HR structure within the organizations, as well as the impact of these changes on the effectiveness of the HR departments concerned. Another goal of the paper is to summarize the responsibilities of the newly created position known as the HR Business Partner in these organizations as well as the demands placed upon the personnel employed in the HR Business Partner role. The paper offers conclusions based on the results of both quantitative and qualitative surveys. It also contains a case study of one organization which has one of the best transformed HR departments, and whose services are classified, by internal clients, as being of high quality.