Tijana Tubić
Stanislav Zekić, Bojan Matkovski and Žana Kleut
By acquiring the conditions for the usage of the pre-accession funds of the European Union, concretely the instrument for rural development (Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance in Rural Development – IPARD), The Republic of Serbia (RS) will have a chance to improve the position of its agricultural farms and the conditions of its rural areas. Agriculture is specifically important for the economy in RS, and the rural population makes up almost one-half of the population, which additionally enlarges an interest in these funds. In addition, the objective of the research is to identify the effects of the usage of the IPARD funds on the development of the rural areas, respectively the socio-economic progress of the rural population. A qualitative descriptive analysis on the basis of the empirical data was used. The basic conclusions are that, thus, structured funds will have a limited impact on the reduction in the development inequalities and the achievement of the parity living conditions between the rural and the urban areas. Namely, the dominant focus of the IPARD funds on the investments in agricultural farms and enterprises, and not in rural households, limits the level of their impact on the rural development in RS.
Violeta Domanović
The shortcomings of an individual application of some managerial innovation models in the domain of management accounting and strategic management in the modern business environment made research into the complementary and integrated application of managerial innovation models inevitable. The aim of the research is to show that the complementary use of the BSC and the ABM in managing enterprise strategy and efficiency eliminates the shortcomings of their individual application. The paper specifies the effects of the application of the BSC and the ABM on the enterprise strategy, particularly emphasizing the role of ICT in the course of implementation, and presents the results of the empirical research into the correlation of the BSC and the ABM regarding the strategy and efficiency of an enterprise. Despite possible problems and limitations, a proper synergic use of respective managerial innovations enables a better implementation of the defined strategies and improves the efficiency of the enterprise in the long run.
Vesna Stojanović Aleksić
Despite the fact that most of the theories and models of leadership are solely focused on the leader as the central figure of the leadership process, there is a need to draw attention to the importance of the followers’ role in the organizational leadership process, which is the main subject of this paper. Newer approaches to leadership provide a framework for the study of a reciprocal influence in the leadership process, in which the behavior of the leader appears as both an independent and a dependent variable at the same time. The aim is to draw attention to the necessity of adjusting leadership styles to the characteristics of the followers and encourage the followers’ active role in leadership, as the basic precondition for the effectiveness of the entire leadership process. The paper reviews the evolution of the role of the followers in organizational leadership through various approaches and models of leadership, from the attribution of potential leadership qualities through the process of attribution, through the followers’ influence in the selection of the dominant leadership style, to the equal participation in the leadership process, reflected in the concepts of servant leadership and shared leadership.
Alfred Wong
In order for the EU to achieve its goal of 10% biofuel for all EU motor vehicles by 2020, a substantial amount of biofuel as well as a biofuel feedstock would need to be imported largely from developing countries where the climate is warm and labor is inexpensive. But there may never be sufficient supply to fulfill the evergrowing demand for biofuel for road transportation in the EU, even as motor vehicles are increasingly becoming more fuel-efficient. The constraint to realizing an effective and equitable reduction in greenhousegas emission is the overbearing political economics of neoliberalism. A different remedial strategy is needed to address the dual problems of the excessive uses of motor fuels and greenhouse-gas emission.
Liu Bolong and Li Danni
This paper chooses pollutant discharge as the study object and utilizes a modified scatter degree comprehensive evaluation method to establish the pollutant discharge comprehensive evaluation index. Then, using the convergence test model and from the perspective of intensity and gross, this paper respectively studies the convergence of the pollutant discharge at the nationwide level and in the three major regions. The result shows that the pollutant discharge level of the middle region is the highest, whereas in the western one, it is the lowest; that of the eastern region is higher than the national average. The σ convergence, based on the Theil index, shows that only the middle region shows a feeble σ convergence tendency, whereas the other two ones show a different tendency. Besides, considering the differences of the per capita GDP, the industrial structure, the structure of energy consumption and pollution regulation, the β convergence shows that the two variables of all the regions are conditional β convergence, not absolute β convergence.
Yuan Xiaoling and Chen Ali
In this article, the urban efficiency factors of 285 Chinese prefecture-level cities in the period from 2003 to 2012 are analyzed by using the spatial econometric model. The result shows that the development of urban efficiency between the cities positively correlates with space. And we conclude that the Industrial Structure, Openness and the Infrastructure can promote the development of such urban efficiency. The Urban Agglomeration Scale, Government Control, Fixed Asset Investment and other factors can inhibit the development of urban efficiency to a certain degree. Therefore, we come to a conclusion that, in the new urbanization construction process, the cities need to achieve cross-regional coordination from the perspective of urban agglomerations and metropolitan development. The efficiency of the city together with the scientific and rational flow of the factors should also be improved.
Slavica P. Petrović
Issue 2 of Volume 18, Year 2016 of the Economic Horizons scientific journal contains two original scientific papers, three review papers, preliminary communication, a book review, and the acknowledgements to the reviewers of the manuscripts submitted to the Editorial Board of the Journal, in 2015.