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The book deals with the introduction of innovations, particularly environmental innovation. The issue of sustainable development affects all organizations from the economic, social, and environmental perspective. Through environmental innovations, businesses could achieve not only cost cuts and the reduction of their negative impact on environment; the innovations are also a platform for the involvement of employees in improving organizational processes. The publication describes factors influencing the birth and implementation of improvement proposals from the perspective of conservation psychology and organizational psychology. The outcomes of the research could be used as a probe into the system of business innovation support and they also give an idea of how employees view the environmental aspects of innovation activities

This article, published in connection with the recent death of Otis Dudley Duncan (16 November 2004), sets out to provide a critical summary of the development - from its beginnings in the 1960s up to its final revision & modification in 1983 - of the socio-psychological model of the status attainment process. The article not only looks at the classic model of the social stratification process of Blau & Duncan, but also examines the influence of one of the founders of the socio-psychological branch of the study of social stratification, W. H. Sewell. Special attention is devoted to the development of the so-called Wisconsin model, primarily the work of William H. Sewell & his student, Robert M. Hauser, who, while as a student of Duncan also, considerably contributed to the use of structural modelling in sociology. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the main critical reactions to the socio-psychological model emphasising the 'allocational' paradigm of interpretation of the reproduction of social inequalities. The article should primarily help students of sociology gain an orientation in the massive amount of often poorly accessible literature on one of the most cited of sociology's 'products'.

The article deals with socio-economic aspects of responsible behaviour of owners, entrepreneurs & managers in practice of economic transformation. As the starting point of defining the concept of responsibility serves the elaboration of basic theoretical economic, juristic, philosophical & ethical approaches. The validity of the hypothesis that private owner is invariably the responsible owner is examined. The article argues, that social responsibility isn't the bare result of private property & that it heavily depends on appropriate institutions. The study proceeds to the institution of liability as realized in basic forms of business organizations. The liability is studied & viewed upon as a constitutive element of the market order. The responsibility is examined in the framework of rights & liabilities of entrepreneurs, partners, shareholders, managers & directors of corporations & business organizations. References. Adapted from the source document.

Peripheral regions are most often described in terms of economic geography. However, this study stresses more the sociological aspects of peripheries, studying not only the causes, but also the social effects of life in peripheral regions. The authors use the term 'inner peripheries' because most of the peripheral regions detected in their analyses are located in the inner parts of the country, mainly along the borders of the administrative regions (kraje). Their approach combines the concept of the life world (espace vécu) as defined by A. Frémont and A. Giddens when describing the social and cultural consequences of living in peripheries, and a modified version of G. Myrdal´s theory of cumulative circular causation when trying to explain the origin and growth of peripheries. In the Czech Republic inner peripheries are usually the peripheral zones of metropolitan areas and regional centre areas. In the mid-1990s population numbers stopped declining in some peripheries as a result of suburbanisation processes, but in other peripheries depopulation processes continued. This last category of inner peripheries can be described as the hard core of Czech peripheral regions and in the authors' opinion they warrant the development of specifi c regional policy measures, stressing the creation of new jobs, the improvement of public transport, greater accessibility of service centres, and co-operation among communities.

EU programme documents designed to influence the social policies of the member states are filled with concepts of social exclusion and social inclusion. This paper aims to clarify these concepts as they are employed in academic and public policy discourse and to discuss the societal function of this discourse and the impact of the European agenda of social inclusion. The authors show that although concepts of social exclusion and social inclusion are far from straightforward in meaning, their influence on public policy discourse and agenda is evident. The reason is that they redirect social policy towards a multidimensional approach, towards balancing rights and obligations, and towards more complex but also local and individualised policies, though the corresponding discourse bears the normative features of a social 'vision'. The EU's social policy agenda exhibits aspirations towards and some potential for achieving real policy change. On the other hand, there are reservations about its true impact. In this respect, the specifi c societal and political context of its implementation plays a crucial role.

Infertility is a problem that affects around 15% of Czech couples of reproductive age. Using data from the survey 'Marriage, Work, Family' the objective of this analysis is to identify the attitudes that Czech men and women maintain towards various strategies for overcoming infertility (adoption, different forms of assisted reproduction) and the factors that influence and shape these attitudes. The fi rst part of the analysis looks for the determinants behind attitudes towards adoption and assisted reproduction in the respondent's external characteristics. For example, education and religion were found to have a signifi cant influence. More educated respondents are more open to methods of assisted reproduction; religious respondents are more open to adoption. In terms of inner determinants (the respondent's attitude patterns) the authors, building on the preference theory proposed by Catherine Hakim, found a preference effect among women. The fi ndings are seemingly paradoxical: of three groups of women (work-centred, home-centred, and adaptive) it is work-centred women (and the partners of work-centred women) who are most likely to take various infertility strategies into consideration. The third part of the analysis – an analysis of the external determinants of attitudes towards infertility strategies – revealed that in some cases attitudes are influenced by the characteristics of the partner more than by the respondent's own characteristics – in particular, the woman's attitudes are shaped more by the characteristics of her partner than by her own characteristics.