This early-stage researcher conducts his research under the supervision of dr hab. Karol Marek Klimczak, TUL professor, affiliated with the Institute of Management. The research plan submitted with the application to the PRELUDIUM competition followed from previous work on digital methods for analyzing corporate reporting, funded with an OPUS grant. You can read about it in this article published in ŻU 157: Przetwarzanie tekstu naturalnego i słowosieci.
The researchers have built research tools that they now use to tackle new problems. They write computer programs in Python, which take advantage of machine learning as well as computational linguistics techniques, and also use statistics software packages. They published Polski Korpus Komunikacji Finansowej, a database for textual analysis available at REPOD. Their new project seeks to extract strategic data from corporate financial reporting documents.
Tons of data for analysis
Companies follow a variety of strategies to achieve previously envisioned business goals. But how do they respond to sudden, global changes, external shocks that nobody could have predicted? What elements of strategy do they focus on and what changes do they effect? Which strategies prove to be effective and bring the best results to companies? Mgr inż. Fryczak will attempt to find answers to these and other questions, drawing on data from hundreds of companies required to publish their financial reports online. He will analyze the data thereby procured with the aid of specialized domain text processing tools. His research will take into account the terminology used by managers and the degree of attention they pay to specific topics.
‘We have the capacity to process large data sets, known as Big Data, although corporate reports are extremely heterogeneous and unstructured. I am keen to see how companies in Europe and the United States reacted to the sudden changes over the past few years, such as the coronavirus-induced crisis and lockdowns, broken supply chains, the war, the energy crisis, and galloping inflation; I also want to find out whether what they communicated matched their actual behaviour. I have access to the latest data, and I plan in the years to come, to keep them up to date. My only concern is that by the time the project ends in 2026, there will have been too many crises for me to study.’, mgr inż. Fryczak said.
A prelude to a career
Dean of the OiZ Faculty, prof. Agnieszka Zakrzewska-Bielawska, points out
'Makary joined our Faculty during his master degree program, when he had been awarded a scholarship in prof. Klimczak's project. He became familiar with research methods and enjoyed his job at the university. Scholarships and research projects are the best path to follow for young researchers.
Mgr inż. Jan Makary Fryczak, began his adventure with TUL at the EEIA Faculty, from which he graduated with a bachelor degree in automatic control and robotics. Another outlet for his passion for new technologies is to be an educator in the PAKT project, whose first in Poland pilot Laboratory for Active Use of Technology was launched at TUL in December 2022.