Katja Crnogaj, Karin Širec
High-growth companies, gazelles, are responsible for stimulating economic growth and development through extreme growth rates (employment, income, assets, value-added etc.). Consequently, exploring highgrowth companies may offer valuable insights into promoting dynamic entrepreneurship in contemporary society. In this paper, we are examining high-growth companies and their socio-economic contribution through a company’s size, because the size dimension is an important characteristic affecting the level of employment and making important contributions to employment growth. Based on the national ranking of the 500 fastest-growing companies, based on the income statement data (sales growth in the 5-year period), we compare the gazelles with the average of all Slovenian companies. The findings provide evidence of the gazelles’ considerable contribution to employment and the creation of an added (new) value. Company growth can also be measured on the basis of other parameters and therefore, in one part of our analysis, we limit the use of the measures to the relative employment growth – the DaBeg index. The results have shown that the growth patterns among the companies are very heterogeneous and that innovative fast-growing companies make a valuable socio-economic contribution. As such, gazelles require effective supportive measures of government policies, aimed at encouraging and promoting growth-oriented entrepreneurship.
Nebojša Janićijević
In this paper, the causal relationship between certain dimensions of a national culture and certain organizational change strategies are analyzed. The paper uses two of the four dimensions of national culture, identified by G. Hofstede: the power distance and masculinity–femininity ones. On the other hand, the four organizational change strategies have been differentiated: the coercive strategy, the normative-reeducative strategy, the rational-empirical strategy and the creative strategy. The identified dimensions of national culture and the identified organizational change strategies differ from one another with respect to the same criteria: the distribution of power and task orientation versus people orientation. Based on this fact, it is possible to establish eight hypotheses about a causal relationship between certain types of national cultures and certain organizational change strategies.
Slavica P. Petrović
Issue 1 of Volume 16, Year 2014 of the Economic Horizons scientific journal contains four original scientific papers, one review paper, a book review, and the announcement of the international scientific conference.
Katarina Borisavljević
Igor Mladenović
The current economic crisis has affected the level of the economic activity in many sectors of the economy. Among theorists and practitioners, the construction industry, followed by all the other industries, is increasingly said to be facing a serious crisis and to encourage its recovery of the overall economy of the Republic of Serbia. For this, the construction industry is said to be able to bear half of the economic growth of Serbia. However, taking into account the above-mentioned positions, the question is what the effects of the economic crisis on this economic sector are and what the effects of the measures imposed by the previous government of the Republic of Serbia regarding this sector were. Searching for answers to this question can to a great extent profile the answer of the current government regarding the solving of the problems in the Serbian construction industry.
Lela Ristić
This paper aims to present the current level of sustainable rural development in the Republic of Serbia, the development potentials and the problems identified in this area, as well as to bring to attention the necessity of sustainable rural development modernization as a significant part of the EU accession process. The mentioned issues are examined in accordance with the specific characteristics of the rural areas in the Republic of Serbia and the generally accepted principles of sustainable development (the economic, environmental and social ones), taking into account the interests of present and future generations. The paper analyzes the necessity and possible directions of the sustainable rural development of the Republic of Serbia. In this regard, the paper points to the significant role of the official state development policy in solving the problems of rural areas by establishing appropriate priorities and specific guidelines for future sustainable rural development. The conclusion is that the comprehensive and continuous work on the revitalization and development of rural areas is essential and must be in compliance with the principles of sustainable development. It is vital that the efforts towards sustainable rural development include significant investments, education programs, initiatives and activities of all development actors at the national, regional and local levels, as well as people directly involved in agriculture and agricultural production.
Violeta Todorović
The functioning of banks in a deregulated and competitive market environment involves taking growing and complex business risks. Inadequate risk management on the part of bank managers leads to the emergence of problem banks and banking crises. Practically speaking, banking crises stand for an integral part of the development of banking systems in the modern business environment that can be characterized as complex, dynamic, heterogeneous and unpredictable. The negative effects of the bankruptcy of individual banks on the economic system require the timely establishment of adequate regulatory frameworks and undertaking interventionist measures for the rehabilitation of banking problems. The issue of managing banking crises, which has been discussed in the professional domestic and foreign literature for years, has been brought back into focus with the emergence of the global Subprime crisis. Therefore, the paper makes an attempt at a comprehensive analysis of the causes and ways of resolving banking crises. In addition to identifying the causes and substantial differences among the analyzed banking crises, the paper will review the relevance of the applied interventionist measures and the existing regulatory policies.
Darko B. Vuković
The identification and analysis of the indicators of regional competitiveness is the most important phase of the process of measuring competitiveness. However, prior to the measurements, it is necessary to determine whether there is a high correlation between the selected indicators or not. The aim of this paper is to determine whether there is a high correlation between the most important indicators of regional competitiveness or not. The subject of this paper are the indicators of competitiveness in Serbia’s regions, whose values are measured in the 2011-2013 period. For the indicators unrelated to each other or those having no logical mutual influence, no correlation was revealed. On the basis of these results, it turns out that there is a high correlation between the GDP of the region, the number of companies in the region, the number of employees, the extent of the cluster, investments in innovation and confidence in business institutions. The Pearson correlation coefficient statistical method has been used in the estimation. These data, whose measure cannot be achieved through quantitative measurement, have been obtained in the survey.