Gordana Radosavljevic
Olivera Janković
Žaklina Stojanović, Jelena Filipović, Dragan Stojković
Although food with nutritive and health claims in the Western Balkan countries hasbeen present in this region for more than a decade, it has remained rather understudied. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the importance of products with nutritive and health claims in the Western Balkans, using qualitative research techniques. In the study, the prices and margins of the subject product group, distribution channels, demand perception and incentives as well as barriers for the future development of the functional food market were analyzed. The study included five categories of products with nutritive and health claims, whilethe technique of the in-depth interviews was adopted. The total of 29 producers and 26 retailers form all the six countries of the region participated in the research. Even thoughthe studied categories recorded a sales growth in the previous period, a significant increase is expected in the mediumand long term, along with the growth of the living standard – given that products with nutritive and health claims are more expensive than regular ones. The results imply that it is necessary that the level of education regarding the role of food in health preservation should be raised; and that a change inbad eating habits should be influenced. The development of functional food markets also requires a government support and an appropriate legislation.
Biljana Jovković
The independent auditor expresses his or her opinion on financial reports, whose primary role is to reduce the asymmetry of information between insurance companies’ management and the existing and potential investors. Through reducing the information risk of the presented financial reports, audit provides the safer making of investment decisions of the users of these reports. In order for this basic function of audit to realize, it is necessary that auditors should collect sufficient pieces of evidence by applying adequate and relevant examination techniques. The goal of this paper is to point at the specific position of audit when an insurance company is a client, and in this regard, at a need for the differentiation of the priorities of individual audit objectives as well as the necessity of the customization of the implemented evidencecollection techniques implemented in an audit engagement with an insurance company simultaneously respectfully referring to the prescribed ordinary procedures imposed by the professional regulation. In the paper, an attempt has been made to comprehensively analyze the effectiveness of individual evidencecollection techniques for the purpose of proving the achievement of each individual objective of the audit as well as their different applicability in the examination of certain balance-sheet positions in financial reports of insurance companies.
Milan Kostić
The concept of the relevant market is very important for the competition policy. The assessment of the market power of the economic entities operating on a relevant market depends on the market size. The relevant market has two dimensions – the production and the geographic ones – hence, there are a relevant product market and a relevant geographic market. The purpose of the paper is to show the possible ways of determining the relevant market boundaries, in an explicit and systematic way, by applying appropriate tests, and on the example of the specific Serbian market. In the paper, two important tests to determine the boundaries of the market have been applied: the Price Correlation Test and the Goods Physical Movement Test (the Elzinga-Hogarty test). The tests are very useful in situations where researchers only possess secondary data and want to determine the boundaries of the market based on them. The disadvantages of the tests, which of course exist, do not diminish their importance; therefore, they are very useful and recommended for determining the scope of the market.
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.