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Jaroslav Kacetl,1 Petra Maresova2 1Department of Applied Linguistics, 2Department of Economics, Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Kralove, Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic Introduction: The majority of developed countries are currently experiencing demographic aging. The most frequently expressed concerns related to the changing age structure are the increased costs of social and medical care, a lack of labor force in the job market, and financial sustainability of the pension system. These concerns are often based on the pessimistic view of population aging. This view understands aging as a prolonged period of illness and suffering. On the other hand, optimists believe that a longer life span is a result of increased quality of life and better health care. The quality of life may be improved not only by medicaments, but also by rapidly developing area of medical devices, which allow better care for seniors in many areas.Aim: This contribution aims to assess the legislative environment and ethical questions related to the use of medical devices, especially medical devices, in medical care for senior citizens.Methods: The methods used in this study are literature reviews of legislative and ethical environment in the European Union (EU) and the US.Results: Main findings of this study result from assessing the state of medical device regulations in Europe and the US. Namely, the US regulation seems to be better arranged, which is probably due to the fact that there is only one responsible body – the US Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for all medical device regulations. On the other hand, in the EU, talks about new legislation are led by ministers from all the EU member states and it may take a long time before all the EU countries come to an agreement. Keywords: senior citizen, medical devices, legislation, ethical aspects

Universities play pivotal roles when research findings are to be adopted commercially. Although these roles vary from one country to another, effective patenting and licensing procedures, as well as eventual commercialisation of scholarly inventions, reflect hard work on the part of the University mediating between the researcher and the industry through technology transfer offices (TTOs) in order to ensure that knowledge-developers take motivational and monetary credit for their findings. This paper details some existing models, processes, and roles taken up in some countries where sharing of intellectual property exists, and links it up with aspects of university–industry technology transfer, such as policies surrounding patenting, government investment and marketing, and the process of academic entrepreneurship, among others. 22 articles were found via a systematic review of literature and analysed with respect to four identified areas of focus: internal strategy, investment and market, academic entrepreneurship and policy. Based on models, processes, and roles in reviewed studies, our results indicate that new models for technology transfer mainly stem from the fact that there is no universally accepted model in the literature. Furthermore, management of technology transfer is mostly the responsibility of TTOs in most countries. While university TTOs act as intermediaries to protect the interest of the author/inventor, issues such as poor relationships between universities and industry, as well as funding, remain major challenges in many emerging economies. In contrast, researchers in western economies are mainly challenged by financial motivation and recognition within the academic domains.

Universities play pivotal roles when research findings are to be adopted commercially. Although these roles vary from one country to another, effective patenting and licensing procedures, as well as eventual commercialisation of scholarly inventions, reflect hard work on the part of the University mediating between the researcher and the industry through technology transfer offices (TTOs) in order to ensure that knowledge-developers take motivational and monetary credit for their findings. This paper details some existing models, processes, and roles taken up in some countries where sharing of intellectual property exists, and links it up with aspects of university-industry technology transfer, such as policies surrounding patenting, government investment and marketing, and the process of academic entrepreneurship, among others. 22 articles were found via a systematic review of literature and analysed with respect to four identified areas of focus: internal strategy, investment and market, academic entrepreneurship and policy. Based on models, processes, and roles in reviewed studies, our results indicate that new models for technology transfer mainly stem from the fact that there is no universally accepted model in the literature. Furthermore, management of technology transfer is mostly the responsibility of TTOs in most countries. While university TTOs act as intermediaries to protect the interest of the author/inventor, issues such as poor relationships between universities and industry, as well as funding, remain major challenges in many emerging economies. In contrast, researchers in western economies are mainly challenged by financial motivation and recognition within the academic domains.

AbstractThis study responds to the call in Vazquez's (2018) by providing more empirical evidence on ethical issues in family business. Drawing from the agency theory, we provide new evidence about the "CSR – stock price crash risk" nexus by examining the moderating effect of family involvement. With a focus on the Chinese capital market, we find that corporate social responsibility (CSR) negatively affects stock price crash risk. Such negative correlation is stronger for family firms as compared with nonfamily firms. Three proxies of family involvement, termly family member as a CEO, lower proportion of variable compensation to CEO, and greater family control, can strengthen the alleviating effect of CSR on crash risk. Nevertheless, a second‐generation successor as executive does not exert any moderating effect. Our findings advance the comprehension of the "CSR‐crash risk" nexus from the family business viewpoint and emphasize the important role of CSR in stabilizing the stock market.

For a successful economy, the interaction between research and its application in practice plays a key role. The aim of this paper is to analyze the institutional factors of patent activity at universities in the Czech Republic. The following five factors were selected for detailed investigation: budget from government, number of employees: professors, associate professor, and assistant professor, number of researchers and other employees, number of students (PhD, master, and bachelor), technology transfer workers. The patent activity analysis used methods of retrospective data analysis in the field of R&D activities, unstructured interviews, and statistical data processing. Following from the basic characteristics of the collected data, patent activity is related to the nature of universities, where technical universities are in leading positions in the monitored period of industrial-legal protection. However, the importance of encouraging innovation activity across all disciplines is crucial. The result of monitoring the dependency shows that a relationship of efficiencies and patent output is influenced by the size of a university. Secondly, there can be observed that technology transfer efficiency contributes more to the patent output that research staff efficiency.

The high quality of public health improves not only healthy life expectancy, but also the productivity of labor. The most important part of the health care sector is the medical technology industry. The aim of this study is to analyze the current situation in the medical device industry in Europe, its potential strengths and weaknesses in the context of topical economic and demographic development. The contribution specifies an analysis of the economic state of the medical device industry in the context of demographic development of European Union's macroeconomic indicators and views of experts in the field of medical device development, concerning the opportunities for entities involved in the medical device market. There is fierce competition on the European market. The innovative activity is stable and well regulated by responsible authorities. Worldwide, the medical device market is expected to grow.

Petra Maresova,1 Marek Penhaker,1,2 Ali Selamat,1,3 Kamil Kuca1,41Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Králové, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic; 2Department of Cybernetics and Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Technical University of Ostrava, Poruba, Czech Republic; 3Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia; 4Center for Biomedical Research, University Hospital Hradec Králové, Hradec Králové, Czech RepublicAbstract: The high quality of public health improves not only healthy life expectancy, but also the productivity of labor. The most important part of the health care sector is the medical technology industry. The aim of this study is to analyze the current situation in the medical device industry in Europe, its potential strengths and weaknesses in the context of topical economic and demographic development. The contribution specifies an analysis of the economic state of the medical device industry in the context of demographic development of European Union's macroeconomic indicators and views of experts in the field of medical device development, concerning the opportunities for entities involved in the medical device market. There is fierce competition on the European market. The innovative activity is stable and well regulated by responsible authorities. Worldwide, the medical device market is expected to grow.Keywords: technology context, medical device, Europe, expenditure, review

Open innovation has developed over several decades from a small pool of innovation pioneers, mostly active in high-tech industries, to be widely discussed and implemented in innovation strategy. The primary objective of the Open Innovation Session (OIS) is to create a platform where firms are able to facilitate knowledge transfer. This paper focuses on the contribution of OIS, implemented by regional government, in formulating companies' strategic management and to overcome barriers to innovation for high-tech companies in the South Moravian region of the Czech Republic. The methodology adopted for this paper includes monitoring and analysing the activities of this programme over seven years, followed by a quantitative study using both primary and secondary data. The primary data for the research were gathered through questionnaires, where the respondents were general managers of companies that had at least some experience of an innovation process. Secondary data were taken from the Czech Statistical Office. This paper has found that the association between an aspiration for innovation leadership and expenditure for research and development is high, further that participation in OIS led to a shift in the perception of the objectives, needs and conditions of the business and finally the major barriers to the innovation process are a lack of highly motivated people with the necessary technical and business experience.

Background: Within the EU, some of the challenges and perceived risks now facing medical device (MD) developers result from changes in the regulatory framework, emphasizing safety. Therefore, medical technology companies must adopt stricter quality assurance measures so that individual devices can be speedily tracked and retrieved in emergency situations. Objectives: We highlight the challenges and risks faced by the European medical devices industry, particularly those faced by SMEs in the Czech Republic. We address two important research questions: Q1. Do advantages from increased regulation outweigh the additional expenses? Q2. As many MD developers are SMEs, will the new regulatory regime result in some of those companies going out of business and therefore impede future innovation? Methods: The paper focuses on a single case study, with the situation and outcomes discussed in the context of the financial results of a further 50 medical device manufacturers marketing in the Czech Republic. Results: Our findings suggest that the new legislation will result in improved safety, facilitate product recalls, but the cost and administrative burden may be high. The evidence also indicates that some SMEs may be forced to diversify to "non-medical" products, with the inevitable loss of innovative MDs being made available to patients and healthcare providers.

Increasing demand for modern treatments and significant profit margins are strong incentives for investors and producers. However, the production and use of medical devices is subject to a number of laws, regulations, strict standards, and certification processes. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyze patent activity based on the example of the selected country (Czech Republic), compare it with selected foreign countries, and discuss the development of this industry in the context of new medical device regulation (MDR) implementation. The paper is based on the theoretical concept of the relationship between regulation and innovation. The main challenge in the implementation of the new medical device regulations lies in the area of innovation. This is because most innovative research in the medical device sector is undertaken by small to medium enterprises (SMEs) rather than by large companies. SMEs are more vulnerable than big companies when it comes to development because the accompanying administrative costs can be so high that it may force the company to leave the market. Given that the main reason for the existence of economic regulations are various forms of market failure, which occurs when market mechanisms do not lead to results that benefit society, any attempts to redress this situation should naturally lead to greater benefits for society and hence benefits for the given industry as well.

In the Czech Republic, the medical device industry is an important sector with a strong tradition and has high added value and perspectives in demand under changing demographic and social structures. The aim of this article is to describe and analyze the complex issues of the new European Commission Medical Device Regulation (MDR) 2017/745 from the perspective of the strategic decisions of companies that have to comply with the requirements imposed on them by the new legislation and at the same time fulfill their own business needs and goals. The legislative changes significantly affect the standards, processes, and certifications in the medical device sector. The classification system of medical devices has been revised to more appropriately reflect the possible health risks associated with use of modern high-end technology in healthcare. The requirement is to categorize each device under the highest possible risk class, which means for the medical device manufacturers to carefully review the new rules and regulations and classify their devices accordingly.

Attention has shifted to the development of villages in Europe and other parts of the world with the goal of combating rural–urban migration, and moving toward self-sufficiency in rural areas. This situation has birthed the smart village idea. Smart village initiatives such as those of the European Union is motivating global efforts aimed at improving the live and livelihood of rural dwellers. These initiatives are focused on improving agricultural productivity, among other things, since most of the food we eat are grown in rural areas around the world. Nevertheless, a major challenge faced by proponents of the smart village concept is how to provide a framework for the development of the term, so that this development is tailored towards sustainability. The current work examines the level of progress of climate smart agriculture, and tries to borrow from its ideals, to develop a framework for smart village development. Given the advances in technology, agricultural development that encompasses reduction of farming losses, optimization of agricultural processes for increased yield, as well as prevention, monitoring, and early detection of plant and animal diseases, has now embraced varieties of smart sensor technologies. The implication is that the studies and results generated around the concept of climate smart agriculture can be adopted in planning of villages, and transforming them into smart villages. Hence, we argue that for effective development of the smart village framework, smart agricultural techniques must be prioritized, viz-a-viz other developmental practicalities.

The introduction of information technology into all aspects of our lives has brought forth qualitative and quantitative changes on such a large scale that this process has come to be known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0. The aim of this paper is to fill in the gaps and provide an overview of studies dealing with Industry 4.0 from the business and economic perspectives. A scoping review is performed regarding business, microeconomic and macroeconomic economic problems. Four investigators performed a literature search of the Web of Science, Scopus, and Science Direct. The selected period spanned from 2014 to 2018, and the following keywords were used for the search: Industry 4.0, economics, economic development, production economics, and financial sector. A total of 2275 results were returned. In all, 67 full papers were screened. Results obtained from the relevant studies were, furthermore, divided into the following categories: work and skills development; economy growth and macroeconomic aspect; sustainability; intelligent manufacturing; policy; and change in business processes. Findings show that the aspects of work and skills development, smart technology adoption, intelligent manufacturing, and digitalization are very well described. The government and its policies usually play the role of a needed supportive element. Usually studies lack a coherent view of the topic in question and solve partial questions.