CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) is an important part of communication with stakeholders and a response to the need for non-fi nancial reports. Regrettably, the rules of non-fi nancial reporting are almost not regulated. CSR reports are drafted using a variety of principles and guidelines, which limits comparisons across enterprises, transparency and assessment of progress. The reasons for reporting non-fi nancial information cited in the specialist literature, and by enterprises preparing CSR reports are examined, and the benefi ts of standardising reports of nonfi nancial information are determined. The literature review and empirical research into the motivations for CSR reporting and the trends in reporting of non-fi nancial information helped to verify the initial hypotheses: 1. Communication with stakeholders is the fundamental reason for reporting non-fi nancial information. This is confi rmed by the literature review, with most authors believing this is the prime reason for preparing CSR reports. Authors indicating other motivations still treat it as the fundamental cause which exists jointly with other motivations. 2. The need to standardise CSR reporting to ensure its transparency and clarity is noted by reporting organisations. This is proven by surveys of organisations drafting CSR reports – approximately 80% of all reports follow the GRI guidelines. This means the reporting enterprises wish their reports to be clear, transparent and comparable and for their stakeholders to be able to fully satisfy their information requirements. This is also evidence of the care for good relations with stakeholders, who receive standardised data although this is not binding on enterprises. A growing tendency for CSR reporting to follow guidelines other than the GRI can be noted in the entire period under analysis. This will not necessarily be a single compulsory standard, yet a model report would need to be followed to assure transparency and comparability. The Regulations of the Directive 2014/95/EU are a step forward since they will help to standardise rules of reporting non-fi nancial information and will improve its transparency and utility.

This paper investigates the financial aspects of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Slovak wood-processing industry. The aim of the survey was to determine the level of understanding and implementation of financial controlling, and to identify its potential for future implementation. The survey revealed a low level of understanding and implementation of this tool in Slovak wood-processing SMEs, because the use of all analyzed instruments of financial controlling was in small enterprises in a range of 15% and in medium-sized enterprises up to 40%. However, medium-sized enterprises were substantially more equipped than small enterprises at applying and recognizing the benefits of financial controlling. Based on the results of this research, the framework for a standardized model of financial controlling for Slovak wood-processing SMEs was proposed, as a practical way of improving company performance models.

This paper investigates the impact of the global economy on the forestbased sector in Slovakia in the early years of the 21 st century. Indicators such as gross domestic product, production value of forestry-wood sectors, net exports, foreign direct investments, and the ratio indices of foreign direct investment to GDP in industrial production and foreign direct investment to production value were used to analyze this sector in the context of globalization. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the factors that significantly affect the development of the forest-based sector and to shed light on how globalization impacts the analyzed sector. The results showed that the forest-based sector had a minor impact of the Slovak economy with less than 5% share on the whole GDP. Using multiple regression analysis it was found that globalization factors such as foreign direct investment and net export did not have a significant influence (p > 0.44175) on the forest-based sector during the investigated period. Nevertheless, the highest globalization indicators were detected by the pulp and paper industry ( ̅ = 2.72; 29.14) and the furniture manufacturing ( ̅ = 1.60; 27.57). The highest variability of FDI was identified in the forest sector (vx = 72.38%; 67.32%) by influence of zero FDI in the last three years and in the wood industry (vx = 38.90%; 38.51%).

This paper compares how Czech and Slovak microentrepreneurs perceive the volume and ease of access to finance that they face. Having an adequate number of sources of finance and easier access to them can help improve both enterprise and country performance. Chi-square and Z score tests for population proportions were used to test hypotheses. 740 microenterprises from Czech Republic and 287 microenterprises from Slovakia were included for the analyses that were performed by this study. The results show that Czech microentrepreneurs feel they have more sources of finance and have easier access to them than their Slovak counterparts. These differences may in part be linked to other factors such as the experience and age of microentrepreneurs and micro-firms, amount of business loans and microfinancing organizations, credit interest rates and credit rejection rates, the relative degree of economic freedom, the volume of government guarantees, relative GDP levels, the quality of business environment and ease of doing business. Additionally, The Moran’s I spatial autocorrelation index was performed to evaluate influence of location on the perception of Czech and Slovak microenterprises that were located in different regions of both countries. The paper also discusses the results’ policy implications for governments and financial institutions.

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