Zastosowanie badań koniunktury do ocen konkurencyjności przedsiębiorstw

Business suiweys can be applied in a wide rangę of fields as well as interpreted in a variety of ways, from many different angles. Among others, it is possible to analyze relationships between economic situation, in the light of qualitative and quantitative indicators, and the competitiveness of enterprises. Business survey indicators facilitate carrying out such an analysis due to the fact tliat they absorb both external, macroeconomic changes and those taking place at the level of given enterprises. The possibilities of application and interpretation of qualitative indicators of business surveys change in time. The significance of this method varies with the influence of the external, macroeconomic eiwironment on the situation of the enterprises sector. Such very dynamie changes of external factors have been taking place for the last ten years. They concern both the world economy and countries in transition. This, in tum, is a result of the revolution in computing, widespread privatization processes in the world, as well as a rapidly growing number of substitutes. Tliese generał tendencies are accompanied by economic policies in individual countries, for example in Poland. Due to the above mentioned macroeconomic factors, the extent to which companies can manipulate prices in order to gain profit is diminishing and, at the same time, it tends to be replaced by cost reduction. As a result, a widespread decrease of inflation can be observed and the demand - supply - price relations are not as distinct as in the early phases of market economies. Thus, a new paradigm of enterprises’ conipetitiveness emerges. It consists in the ability of a company to react to changes. Therefore, an economic situation of an enterprise nowadays reflects its adaptation to changes, in addition to a classic cycle of market conditions known from earlier periods. In the above context, the aim of the paper is the assessment of the changing competitive situation of enterprises in the Iight of business surveys. The analysis will be carried out with the use of qualitative indicators, as well as selected quantitative macroeconomic ones.