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.
Vlastimir Lekovic
Issue 2 of Volume 22 Year 2020 of the Economic Horizons scientific journal contains three original scientific papers and three review papers, as well as a Letter of Appreciation to the reviewers of the manuscripts submitted to the Editorial Board of the Journal in 2019.
Violeta Domanović
Miloš Marjanović
In a time of fierce competition in the tourist services market, it is very important to pay attention to businesses’ service orientation towards end users. Service orientation can be considered as a competitive advantage on the demanding tourism market. In this study, the relationship between service orientation, job satisfaction and empowerment among the employees of Serbian travel agencies is examined. A survey was conducted through an online questionnaire. The survey included a total of 94 respondents. The study is aimed at investigating the connection between employee service orientation, job satisfaction and empowerment. The paper also investigates whether there are significant differences between the measured variables among the employees with and without tourism education. The results showed that job satisfaction had a significant impact on service orientation. The impact of empowerment on service orientation proved to be a less significant statistical variable. According to the research study, job satisfaction occurs as a mediator between empowerment and service orientation. Also, there is no statistically significant relationship between the measured variables and tourism-related education.
Vojislav Babić1 and Siniša Zarić2
The study measures and analyzes the influence of knowledge management on average wages in Serbian construction companies. For the purpose of this research, of Knowledge Management (KM) dataset with 11 variables was created. The main goal of the research was to examine the influence of the dataset on the average wages in medium-sized and large construction companies. At the basic sample level, through factor analysis, a total of four factor scores were isolated, representing the strategies that the companies combine in KM. Using a regression analysis, it was found that the set of the four independent variables explained 84.5% of the average wage variability in the medium-sized and large construction companies. Two of the four strategies were statistically significant. According to the first strategy, the management insisted on a larger share of experts with the master’s and bachelor degrees, while the second strategy was based on the introduction of the formal, legal protection and registration of innovative solutions, as well as a larger number of employees with a PhD degree.
Edirin Jeroh
This paper comparatively analyzes the internal determinants of environmental disclosure practices among firms in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). To achieve this, secondary data on the characteristics of the measures of the board and the characteristics of the audit committee were obtained from a sample of 60 companies from across the region (20 each from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa). The regression technique was used to analyze the data and the results revealed the fact that, while the characteristics of the measures of the board and the audit committee were found to be the significant determinants of the environmental disclosure of firms in Kenya and Nigeria, the same cannot be said of firms in South Africa. The study, therefore, recommends that borrowing from South Africa, environmental management practices should be institutionalized in the entire region. Additionally, standard-setters should make practical efforts by developing new reporting standards which will guide and encourage a full disclosure of environmental concerns by firms.
Wasiu Abiodun Sanyaolu1, Trimisiu Tunji Siyanbola2 and Hafeez Babatunde Makinde3
Credit risk is one of the biggest challenges banks in Nigeria are faced with. By implication, it is also the one with dire consequences for their operation and survival, given the fact that a series of banks’ failures have significantly been brought into connection with nonperforming loans. Thus, this study examined the bank-specific and macroeconomic determinants of the nonperforming loans of the listed Deposit Money Banks (DMBs). Regression analysis involving fixed effect was adopted in order to analyze the panel data of the 10 selected deposit money banks in the period from 2008 to 2017. The findings show that the capital adequacy ratio, the size and the loans-to-total-assets ratio negatively and significantly affect nonperforming loans, whereas profitability and age were found to significantly but positively influence nonperforming loans of the Nigerian deposit money banks. More so, the liquidity ratio negatively, but insignificantly, affects nonperforming loans. However, not a single macroeconomic variable exerts a significant effect on nonperforming loans. The study recommends that banks should always deploy strategies for credit risk management by taking cognizance of the bank-specific and economic determinants of the nonperforming loans.
Olgica Glavaški and Emilija Beker Pucar
In the aftermath of the global recession, the need for fiscal consolidation in order to reduce budget deficits and the public debt has intensified, but with the aim to make the measures applied not affect the further slowdown of the economic activity in the European Union (EU) economies. In this paper, the episodes of the fiscal consolidation in the period from 1990 to 2015 in the 28 EU economies are analyzed, differentiating the multiyear episodes against the one-year (i.e. cold shower) episodes and their effects before and after the global recession. The episodes of the fiscal consolidation that result in successful (a reduction in the cyclically-adjusted primary budget deficit) and expansionary effects (the GDP growth) are identified, thus empirically confirming the existence of non-Keynesian effects. The stated affirms the idea that the achievement of fiscal sustainability by using austerity measures does not necessarily imply contractions in economies and that the development of a fiscal architecture in the EU by establishing complementarity between the national and supranational fiscal rules is of extraordinary importance in the post-crisis period.