The study deals with issues of corporate management and pitfalls of the ''socialist supervision'' in Czechoslovak enterprises in the period of late socialism. Using documents of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the State Security, period texts and specialized publications, it shows how party organs and state authorities were unsuccessfully trying to make supervisory mechanisms and audits a functional tool of the implementation of the ruling party´s economic policy. The author analyzes the supervisory and audit mechanisms that were used, and outlines basic reasons of the almost fatal failure of supervisory activities of the system which was, in a way, obsessed with supervision and control. He explains the systemic conditionality of the supervisory system which socialist managers often and in many respects bent to suit the needs of the enterprises they were in charge of; such situation naturally did not match the needs of the society as a whole. Using many specifi c cases as an example, the study graphically shows that members of the Czechoslovak corporate management community in the 1980s were fully aware of systemic, political and social limitations of the supervisory system which they managed to modify, fairly successfully, to suit intra-corporate conditions. The result was a situation in which the party leadership was reacting to increasingly obvious symptoms of the “agony of the centrally planned economy” by adopting various directives and guidelines to make the supervisory process more effective and to consistently promote the ''whoever manages - supervises'' principle. However, the anticipated effect did not materialize and, at the end of the day, the non-functional supervisory mechanisms made a substantial contribution to the collapse of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia. and Překlad: Jiří Mareš
The author summarizes the life and in particular scientifi c career of historian Bedřich Loewenstein, describes areas of his professional interest and his intellectual orientation, reminds of his most important works published in Czech and German, and assesses his contribution. Loewenstein was born in 1929 in Prague, in a Czech- -German-Jewish family, lived through the German occupation in diffi cult conditions, and started studying history and philosophy at what was then the Faculty of Arts and History of the Charles University, but was expelled two years later for political reasons. He was allowed to complete his studies later, and in 1957 started working at the Institute of History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, where he remained until his dismissal in 1970. He started intensive contacts with West German historians and other intellectuals during the 1960s, and organized an important international symposium, ''Europe and Fascism'', in Prague in 1969. Since the early 1970s, he was not allowed to publish and was employed as an interpreter/translator of the trade mission (since 1973 embassy) of the Federal Republic of Germany. Although watched by the State Security, he managed to make use of his position to establish an important connection between domestic dissenters and their supporters abroad, which was used to exchange publications and other documents. In 1979, he accepted an offer of professorship of recent history at the Free University in West Berlin, where he remained until 1994 and where he could develop and expand his research interests and devote himself to intensive publication activities. For a long time, Bedřich Loewenstein was focusing on the German history of the 19th and 20th centuries; since the 1960s, he was also studying ideological, psychological, and social prerequisites of Nazism and later also more general issues of crises of the 20th century, modernism and modernity, civic society, European nationalism, and civilization. In this respect, he was able to integrate approaches and knowledge of other social sciences - sociology, social psychology, anthropology, philosophy, political science, and economy - in a prolifi c manner. He was a long-time and intensive intermediary of views and ideas between the Czech (or Czechoslovak) and German historiographies. His works, written in a concise, scientifi c-essayist style, earned him respect among colleagues both at home and abroad. His principal works include Plädoyer für die Zivilisation (Hamburg, Hoffmann und Campe 1973), Entwurf der Moderne: Vom Geist der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft und Zivilisation (Essen, Reimar Hobbing 1987; in Czech in 1995), Problemfelder der Moderne: Elemente der politischen Kultur (Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1990), My a ti druzí: Dějiny, psychologie, antropologie [We and the others: History, psychology, anthropology] (Brno, Doplněk 1997; in German in 2003). A synthesis of Loewensteinʼs thinking about a broad spectrum of issues is presented in his book Der Fortschrittsglaube: Geschichte einer europäischen Idee (Göttingen,Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2008; in Czech: Víra v pokrok: Dějiny jedné evropské ideje [Faith in progress: The history of a European idea]. Praha, OIKOYMENH 2009). and Překlad: Jiří Mareš
Using results of extensive research in central and company archives, the author studies the cleansing of industrial plants from collaborationists and so-called anti-social elements in Czechoslovakia in 1945. He describes it as a standard-setting process during which the form of a new revolutionary value system and guilt criteria in relation to the occupation past arising therefrom were negotiated and established in practice in factories and plants. Both escalated nationalism and social egalitarianism, sometimes developing into class antagonism, found their use in it. In addition to acts prosecuted under offi cial legislation, the cleansing process incorporated various minor confl icts of employees during the occupation, in particular disputes between subordinates and superiors. For this reason, mainly top-ranking white collars, human resource offi cers, rate setters, and shop foremen were removed from their positions. The articulation of guilt of the above group also worked as an absolution of others, particularly rank-and-fi le workers and white collars, atthe symbolic and psychological level. The selected guilt criteria were subsequently becoming a part of the legitimization pattern of the ongoing revolution. The study illustrates how company councils, acting through investigation commissions which, nevertheless, had to create their own legal rules as they had no position or status defi ned in offi cial legislation, were trying, since mid-May 1945, to regulate, formalize, and unify initial spontaneous actions of employees. However, the legal uncertainty in factories led to a decline of respect to superiors, deterioration of working morale, and devaluation of expertise. In mid-July 1945, organs of the Revolutionary Trade Union Movement intervened into the cleansing process, as they were interested in improving the performance of the nationalized industry. Appeal chambers were established at regional trade union councils as second-instance bodies deciding disputes submitted by industrial plants. In doing so, they were demanding a higher quality of submitted legal documents and supporting assigning the individuals affected by the cleansing to adequate working positions in the production process. In October 1945, results of the company cleansing process were incorporated, under the pressure of trade unions, into offi cial legislation under the so-called Small Retribution Decree. The resulting legal framework was thus an apparent compromise between pre-war legal conventions and moral criteria established during the May 1945 revolution. and Přeložil Jiří Mareš
Czechoslovakia of the mid-1950s was a culturally isolated country where the Western gains were regarded suspiciously, to say the least. The regime’s attitude toward jazz was softening very slowly, and many jazz activities bordered on illegality. In this situation, Herbert Ward came to Prague (1954), one of a few American Communists, who asked for political asylum in Czechoslovakia and became involved in the local music scene. Although an almost unknown jazz bassist to the general public (though he played with Sidney Bechet, Willie ''Lion'' Smith, Bud Freeman, etc.), in the late 1950s, however, he contributed signifi cantly to the rehabilitation of jazz in communist Czechoslovakia. Ward became an invaluable asset for Czech jazz fans, and one of their tools in negotiating the position of their favourite genre with respect to the doctrine of Socialist Realism. Herbert Ward was not a part of the well-known cultural diplomacy projects arranged by the US Department of State (described by Von Eschen, 2004). His political activities were monitored by the FBI and, as a political refugee, he naturally took part in Czechoslovakia’s communist propaganda. As a ''jazz curiosity,'' however, he became part of the 1960s popular culture and the living myth of Czech jazz fans and musicians. Reconstructed from previously unknown archival records (FBI, State Security Archives), my paper portrays Ward’s political activities and his ambiguous identity of a jazz musician and a young American communist. and Přeložil: Jiří Mareš
Objectives. The aim of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Czech version of the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) in the group of hospitalized patients. Sample and setting. The sample contained 386 respondents hospitalized in the Faculty hospital Hradec Kralove. The Czech version of GSES was used. Statistical analysis. All the analyses were performed in the R environment. Factor structure was tested using Item Response Theory (IRT), namely two-parameters Graded Response model. This model was used also for testing measurement invariance for men and women. T-tests and linear model to test relation between GSES and demographical variables were used. Percentile norms were constructed using kernel smoothed cumulative distribution for men and women separately. Results. The score of the scale ranged from 15 to 40 points with an average of M = 30.86 (SD = 6.05). The results suggest that the Czech version of the GSES has satisfactory psychometric properties, the internal consistency is on high level (Cronbach,s α = 0.924; ωt = 0.938). Even though the analysis of the structure of the questionnaire showed to be slightly twodimensional, the correlation of the two factors is quite high. This implies the potential of working with one universal questionnaire score. Of all monitored variables, only gender had statistically significant influence over the perceived self-efficacy, the scale was invariant for both genders. The differences between clinics were very small, only the respondents from psychiatric clinic achieved statistically significant lower score. Study limitations. The limits of the study come from its cross-sectional character and the fact that the choice of respondents was not representative. Data are based on subjective statements coming from respondents hospitalized with various health problems. and Cíle. Cílem práce bylo zjistit psychometrické vlastnosti české verze Dotazníku obecné self- -efficacy (General Self-Efficacy Scale – GSES) u populace hospitalizovaných pacientů. Vzorek a metodika. Sledovaný soubor činil 386 respondentů hospitalizovaných ve Fakultní nemocnici Hradec Králové. Byla použita česká verze dotazníku General Self-Efficacy Scale. Statistická analýza. Veškeré analýzy byly provedeny v prostředí R. Faktorová struktura byla ověřována s využitím teorie odpovědi na položku (Item Response Theory), a to pomocí dvouparametrového Graded Response Modelu. Tento byl použit i pro ověření invariance měření mezi muži a ženami. Pro hodnocení vztahu obecné self-efficacy s demografickými proměnnými byla použita lineární regrese a t-testy. Percentilové normy byly sestrojeny pomocí vyhlazené kumulativní distribuční funkce pro muže a ženy zvláště. Výsledky. Celkový skór škály se pohyboval v rozmezí 15–40 bodů s průměrem M = 30,86 (SD = 6,05). Psychometrické vlastnosti české verze dotazníku GSES jsou dobré, vnitřní konzistence je vysoká (Cronbachovo α = 0,924; ωt = 0,938). Struktura dotazníku je spíše dvoudimenzionální, korelace obou faktorů je však velmi vysoká. Je tedy smysluplné pracovat s jediným celkovým skórem dotazníku. Ze všech sledovaných proměnných pouze pohlaví mělo statisticky významný vliv na vnímanou self- -efficacy (SE), škála byla pro obě pohlaví invariantní. Rozdíly mezi klinikami byly velmi malé, pouze respondenti z psychiatrické kliniky dosahovali statisticky významně nižšího skóru oproti respondentům z ostatních klinik. Limity studie. Limity studie vyplývají z jejího průřezového charakteru a skutečnosti, že výběr respondentů nebyl reprezentativní. Data jsou založena na subjektivních výpovědích; jedná se o respondenty hospitalizované s různými zdravotními potížemi.