Edvard Jakopin
Structural changes in the economy directly affect macroeconomic and financial stability, income growth, productivity and economic efficiency, social inclusion, and the improved quality of life. The global contraction in 2020, caused by COVID-19, the deepest since the Second World War, will cause a great global economic reset, extreme poverty will increase, and the biggest permanent loss will be in human capital. The biggest consequences for the Serbian economy will be a slowdown in structural reforms. The key performance of the economy in the conjunctural period was positive and affected the growth of the resilience of the economic system, but the research showed that the implemented structural reforms were insufficient and slow, that the old problems are still the causes of low competitiveness. In the context of new reform challenges, the focus of activities needs to be shifted towards creating a stimulating environment for the development of domestic entrepreneurship and the growth of private investment in order to increase trust in the entrepreneurship-institution relationship.
Vlastimir Leković
We hereby inform our domestic academic community and the foreign academic community that the Economic Horizons scientific journal, which is published by the Faculty of Economics of the University of Kragujevac, has been referenced in the Scopus Base since October 2020 after many years of its pre-evaluation and final evaluation by the Scopus Content Selection and Advisory Board. The fact that the journal is referenced in Scopus, one of the most referenced scientific journals bases, has enabled the scientific papers published in the Economic Horizons to be considerably more visible, which is of exceptional importance not only for the Journal, but for the authors of the published journals as well.
Vlastimir Leković
Mladen Krstić1 and Ksenija Denčić Mihajlov2
The role of the Government in the implementation of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) concept into the business policy in the field of recycling in the Republic of Serbia is analyzed in this paper, with a special overview of the End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) recycling. The research has shown that quite different government approaches to these two independent waste streams are the most responsible for the differences in the amount of the recycled products in the analyzed period. The fact that the so-called self-regulatory CSR observed in the recycling of the used cars in the previous period caused a substantial reduction in the volume of official car recycling is pointed out herein. This indicates that, although car recycling is a financially profitable investment, it is not enough to motivate potential investors to carry out this process through official waste streams in compliance with regulations. On the other hand, in the field of e-product recycling, CSR facilitated by the government has further motivated investors, resulting in an increased amount of recycled e-products.
Goran Nikolić1 and Predrag Petrović2
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts a gradual slowdown in the, otherwise strong, growth of the Chinese economy in the first half of the 2020s, and the anemic growth of the Western economies: the US and, especially, the EU27. Given the practical (and symbolic) importance of reaching ‘the number one economy’ status, the primary objective of the paper is to estimate the GDP (and the GDP PPP) of the observed economies over the next decade. The main contribution and finding of this paper is the estimation of future GDP trends for the US, China and the EU27 in the period 2025-30, based on the previous trends and the IMF 2020-24 projections. China’s economy will become globally leading in 2029-2030. The basic research hypothesis is proven, given the fact that a change in the global economic position implies significant geopolitical consequences. Namely, while the US will almost certainly remain the leading global power in the 2020s, with the EU still continuing to focus on itself, China’s economic growth will have rising global consequences, fueling the move towards the dispersion of authority. This conclusion is in line with the claims of the majority of the relevant authors who emphasize the increasingly limited possibility of the US unilateral actions.
Ebiaghan Orits Frank
This research is aimed at assessing the conceptual linkages between the qualitative characteristics of useful financial information defined by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and ethical behavior within informal institutions. Derrida’s deconstruction theory was employed to carry out a diagnostic content analysis of the chapter two of the IASB’s 2018 financial reporting conceptual framework. The findings arising from the study reveal salient conceptual linkages between the fundamental (primary) and enhancing (secondary) qualitative characteristics and biblical ethical constructs, such as objectivity, equity/fairness, accuracy, neutrality, humility, trust, honesty, responsibility, open accountability, public trust, discipline and diligence. Consequently, the study recommends the inclusion and teaching of these ethical constructs in the curricula of tertiary and professional accountancy programs so as to churn out intellectually sound and morally balanced accounting professionals, who will prepare and present decision-useful financial statements with a high sense of moral and ethical responsibility.
Biljana Bogićević Milikić
Intensive changes in the business environment with significant implications for organizations reflected in increasing their size, thinning structures, the application of new models in the intra- and inter-organizational designs, the growing importance of knowledge management and the application of multi-strategies have produced significant effects on the human resource management (HRM) architecture. As there are a number of different approaches to the HRM architecture in the relevant literature, this paper is aimed at creating an integral conceptual framework for designing this function. For this purpose, the paper analyzes different approaches to HRM design from the standpoint of the main theoretical models of organizational design in order to identify both similarities and distinctions between them, and build up an integral conceptual framework for designing the HRM architecture. These will form the ground for the application of a comprehensive approach in creating, analyzing and understanding the HRM architecture. The research findings suggest that the HRM modern architecture includes six design elements, namely: HRM contingent factors, key stakeholders’ interests, the HRM hard components, the HRM soft components, organizational results, and feedback.
Fatai Abiodun Atanda1 and Florence Olubunmi Osemene2
This study examines the key determinants of the competitiveness of firms in Nigeria. It draws the firm-level (i.e. firm-specific characteristics) data and macro-data (environmental factors) from the annual reports and accounts of non-financial listed firms and the Statistical Bulletin of the Central Bank of Nigeria, respectively. In addition, it employs descriptive, inferential and econometric tools to analyze the data. The results reveal that the age of a firm, its productive assets, profitability and the capital expenditure ratio of the government enhanced the competitiveness of high-competition firms, on the one hand, while the high cost of finance hindered it, on the other. However, profitability, business risk, the size of a firm and inflation contributed to the competitiveness of low-competition firms, on the one hand, while sales growth and employees’ capacity reduced it, on the other. It was concluded that both firm-specific and environmental factors played the beneficial and detrimental roles when the level of the competitiveness achieved by the Nigerian non-financial listed firms is concerned. Thus, the policy implications of these results were discussed.
Vladimir Mihajlović
This study investigates the validity of the New Keynesian Phillips curve in the Republic of Serbia. By means of empirical analysis, the impact of domestic inflation drivers, i.e. inflation expectations, real marginal costs and the output gap, is quantified. The results reveal that inflation in Serbia responds more intensively to negative rather than positive supply and demand shocks as it decreases more significantly in economic contraction than in expansion. The estimated model of the New Keynesian Phillips curve with marginal costs gives the unambiguous evidence that the growth of cost-push inflation could be reduced by a productivity-enhancing policy. Expected inflation significantly impacts the actual inflation rate, albeit inflation dynamics are dominated by inertia, i.e. past rates affect the current. The empirical estimate of the New Keynesian Phillips curve model with the output gap that indicates monetary expansion in the Republic of Serbia might, inter alia, stimulate the economic activity without causing significant inflationary pressures to occur.