Michał A. Leśniewski

One of the fundamental problems faced by companies in the market economy is competitiveness. It can be shaped in various ways in order to achieve the desired goals. Soft competitiveness is one of such ways of shaping competitiveness and it originates from human resources, i.e. employees who contribute to the development of an organisation (enterprise). This article presents a behavioural-humanistic model of soft competitiveness of enterprises. The following assumptions have been made: Employees (human resources) are the source of soft competitiveness (thesis 1) and soft competitiveness is of a behavioural-humanistic nature (thesis 2). The theses presented have been interpreted with the use of the literature of the subject.

Man is the primary resource of every organization, he gives rise to the resources at the disposal of the organization (enterprise) and is the source of creating competitiveness, including the behavioural competitiveness whose analysis is the subject of this study.

It is assumed that: Man is the source of behavioural competitiveness (thesis 1), Man is a behavioural being, which confirms the concept of Behavioural Man (thesis 2) and that Competitive Man and Behavioural Man with factor-dependent relations and behaviours contribute to the generation of the model of Behavioural Competitiveness (thesis 3).  The theses presented is examined through the interpretation of the literature of the subject.

The natural environment is one of the important elements shaping the development of a business enterprise in the ever-changing reality. Each business entity which wants to become a pro-environmental enterprise has to implement properly the essence of the eco-development concept inside its organisation. Organisational culture and competitiveness constitute two significant functional areas of business enterprises. Exposed to the influence of eco-development, these areas adopt the shape of the eco-developmental organisational culture and eco-developmental competitiveness of business enterprises. Both these areas are complementary to each other and together create a coherent system.

The objective of the article is to present the essence and structure of an eco-developmental organisational culture in the eco-developmental competitiveness of business enterprises. It includes the following theses: (i) An eco-developmental organisational culture is shaped by both soft and hard factors;and (ii) The factors of an eco-developmental organisational culture (as a constituent of eco-developmental competitiveness) shape the eco-developmental cultural competitiveness of business enterprises.

The article is based on the results of the author’s empirical research (a survey of a sample of 200 Polish business enterprises in the Świętokrzyskie Province) preceded by a thorough study of the literature on the subject.