Strategic planning methods form an extensively developed and interrelated group of dozens of methods used for organisation strategy development. Research has confirmed that only a small amount of firms use strategic planning methods in practice due to different reasons. The publications on strategic planning are devoted mostly to theoretical issues or empirical characteristics of chosen sub-problems related to this concept of management. The methodological aspects, if at all, are taken into account as marginal or of minor importance. The purpose of this article is to present the principles of strategic planning methods classification and application. The methodology used in this research is based on the taxonomy methods and particularly Ward's method. A total amount of 28 different strategic planning methods were chosen and classified in our study.

The article presents a structure of management science methodology, reduced to determination and description of its basic components. It has been covered in three levels, differing in the degree of detail description of methods. These are accordingly: the 1st level, identified with philosophy of methodology, the 2nd level corresponding to a method as well as the 3rd level, the most detailed, convergent with a technique. A structural analysis was used for identification and providing characteristics of particular components of the management science methodology.

Artykuł przedstawia charakterystykę dwóch podstawowych metod naukowych wykorzystywanych w naukach empirycznych. Metody indukcyjna i hipotetyczno-dedukcyjna, jako metody nauk empirycznych, są w nim przedstawiane z perspektywy ogólnej metodologii nauk z uwzględnieniem specyfiki nauk o zarządzaniu. Pracę dopełniają rozważania określające wytyczne wykorzystania metod naukowych w obszarze tej nauki.

Regional policy of the countries – reducing disparities between economic development of the regions – has been, is and will continue to be the focus of policy makers’ attention, therefore it is important to assess regional conditions qualitatively and to spot the differences in the change of these condition. This would be the basis for developing targeted strategies for further regional development. The process of regional economic development may be assessed quantitatively and qualitatively. The integrated mean of the statistical indicators reflects the dynamics of development. The paper’s objective is to develop an aggregate indicator of development dynamics and to quantify the dynamics of the economic development of the Polish and Lithuanian regions. The employed methodological approach is based on the authors’ definition of the mean of regional economic development equilibrium. The analysis of the statistical characteristics of the indicators of three regions of Poland and Lithuania has shown that the dynamics of economic development in the regions of both countries is similar. On the other hand, Poland is characterized by a more intensive development, while the development of Lithuanian regions is more levelled.

Application of Modern Management Concepts by Polish Companies - Analysis of Research ResultsOur article presents the results of research on the use of modern management concepts in companies from the so-called traditional sectors of the economy in Lesser Poland and Silesia Voivodeships. The study group consists of 125 companies operating in metallurgy- and steel-related sectors such as machinery, coke, mining and energy. Studies have confirmed that the companies surveyed utilise modern management concepts in their activities, although such utilisation is highly diverse (only one company pointed out that it does not utilise any such concepts). The most popular management concepts are controlling and outsourcing. In contrast, Balanced Scorecard and Business Process Reengineering belong to the group of rarely used strategies.