The competitive advantage of enterprises in the conditions of market economy is not generated merely by ensuring high quality products and services. Therefore, in their strategies, they need to involve elements such as corporate social responsibility. The aim of the paper is to identify the key sources of competitive advantage of large enterprises. In the empirical research, the hypothesis has been tested to determine if the application of corporate social responsibility by enterprises has a statistically significant effect on gaining competitive advantage in the market. The hypothesis is verified on the basis of the authors’ study of 253 large enterprises operating in Poland by means of exploratory factor analysis, the statistical method of reducing the number of classifying empirical variables, i.e. of discovering a structure in their interrelations. The procedure enabled the selection of the factors with the greatest statistical shares in explaining variability. To this end, the input space was rotated in accordance with the Varimax criterion, with the number of determined factors specified by means of the Kaiser criterion and Cattell’s scree test. The application of an exploratory factor analysis enabled the authors to construct an original factor model of sources of enterprise competitive advantage, with three factors identified: marketing, innovation activity and corporate social responsibility. This indicates that marketing activities, innovation activities and the application of corporate social responsibility are the key sources of competitive advantage in large enterprises operating in the market.

Abstract:The paper is dedicated to the issues of rural tourism with regard to the visitor's loyalty towards the destination in a sustainable development context. Particularly, the findings of the research focused on exploring mutual relations among quality dimensions of the rural destination, overall satisfaction of the visitor, and his or her loyalty towards the destination are presented. A structural model was used to explore the relations among quality dimensions, overall satisfaction, and loyalty in the specific environment of the Czech Republic (inland European country, EU member, until 1989 a socialist country, nearly 93% municipalities with fewer than 3000 inhabitants). The research results allow deeper understanding of the visitor's behavior and the factors influencing the loyalty towards the destination. The significance order of the dimensions according to their direct influence on the required loyalty towards the destination, i.e., coming back to the destination and spreading positive references to the destination, is as follows: 1. well-being, 2. image, 3. services. We conclude that overall satisfaction directly influences loyalty towards the destination.

Purpose This paper aims to review the research on tourists and outlines future scenarios for its development. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses a critical and conceptual approach to this phenomenon and provides new perspectives for its future investigation. Findings This research on tourists might consider more aspects, such as the change from purely human-centred to a broader scope including non-human tourists, non-physical space and non-current time slots. This might provide the opportunity to engage more research disciplines into the research on tourists. Originality/value The past perspective includes the comparison of research on tourists in Western Europe and North America with an often-overlooked situation in Central and Eastern Europe. The future perspectives deal with challenges that might affect tourism research in the following years.

In an increasingly competitive festival market, identifying visitors' motivation has been recognized as a key prerequisite for satisfaction, which is expected to lead to positive referrals and future visitations of an event. The objective of this study is to identify the main factors which motivate visitors to attend traditional cultural events in Slovakia and to examine their viability as the basis for festival market segmentation. Building upon previous research on festival attendees' motivation, a set of potential drivers of visitors' behavior has been identified and by the application of exploratory factor analysis further refined into the following six domains of visitors' motivation: new and different experience, friends and family togetherness, reconnection with culture and tradition, socialization, recover equilibrium and change from everyday life. The application of k-means clustering on the basis of motivational domains indicated four clusters of festival visitors and provided evidence in support of suitability of visitors' motivation as the basis for festival market segmentation. Findings of the study have been discussed, limitations are noted and directions for future research are highlighted.

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