Veljko Marinković
Economic, political and militaristic tensions between countries are present throughout the world. The devastating effects of the global financial crisis are still generating the ever-increasing instability of the world economy. Patriotism and nationalism, as well as animosity towards the economic and military policies of certain foreign countries, seem to be on the rise across many countries and nations in recent years. It is precisely the current situation in the world that is favorable for encouraging citizens to purchase domestic products. The policy can be particularly useful for less-developed import-oriented economies. Thus, in the conditions of the economic crisis, the study of consumer ethnocentrism is gaining in importance. The paper examines the effects of the patriotism of the citizens of the Republic of Serbia and animosity towards the EU on consumer ethnocentrism. The results show that both these variables stand out as the statistically significant antecedents of consumer ethnocentrism; however, it should be noticed that patriotism shows a stronger influence on the consumer’s orientation towards buying domestic products. The research findings indicate that love of one’s country may direct consumer choices towards domestic brands, despite the positive image and high quality of foreign ones. In addition, due to citizens’ strong dislike towards the EU economic policy, some of them may decide to buy lower-quality domestic products; however, this does not necessarily negatively affect one’s perception of foreign products.
Slavica P. Petrović
Issue 1 of Volume 19, Year 2017 of the Economic Horizons scientific journal contains one original scientific paper, three review papers, one preliminary communication, and a scientific meeting review.
Vesna Stojanović Aleksić
Katarina Borisavljević
The implementation of information technology in tourism brings numerous advantages for all participants in the chain of the tourism off er. Traditional tourist agencies also orient themselves towards online business doing via the Internet. On the other hand, the Internet has an infl uence on the reduction in the mediation role of tourist agencies. The subject ma% er of the research done in this paper is the implementation of the Internet in the business doing of tourist agencies with the aim to improve their marketing performances. The aim of the research is the infl uence of the quality of the Internet off er of tourist agencies on the development of the relationships with buyers and the improvement of the image of tourist agencies operating in The Republic of Serbia. The research results presented in the paper have shown that a higher level of the quality of agencies’ Internet off er has a positive infl uence on buyer loyalty, as well as on the image of an agency. The business success of tourist agencies is based on a combined approach of traditional and online business doing.
Marija Kastelan Mrak, Danijela Sokolic and Nenad Vretenar
Industries create specific business settings that exert a backward influence on industry prospects. In this paper, the manner in which two industries – the construction industry and the food and beverage processing industry – have behaved during a crisis period is examined and compared. First, the performance indicators available from statistic sources are compared; then, the panel data of the two subsamples of the largest Croatian firms in terms of capital and employment related to construction and food processing in the period 2005-2014 are subjected to comparison. The provided data demonstrate that the five largest business firms in the two industries have a tendency to employ different business behaviors specific to the industry they are part of. The basic idea behind this research was that industry characteristics are created by individual business firms through their adjusting their behavior, i.e. strategies, organizational design and operation models to perceived industry settings. So, in the longer time period, depending on resource availability at the firm level and the market opportunities in the industry, a dominant pattern of the business model will evolve. The research showed differences in the rate of the activity and business demography during the observed period. There is also evidence of different business models being employed in construction and food processing. However, at this stage of our research, we have not been able to establish a relationship between the business model employed and the firm´s or industry performance.
Milka Grbić
Financial intermediaries have the key role in making a connection between savings and investments. Given the fact that an effi cient transfer of savings into investments is made more diffi cult by transaction and information costs, fi nancial intermediaries are specialized in minimizing the said costs per unit of invested capital. They are also trained to identify productive and innovative investment endeavors which contribute to the growth of real output. Real output growth is the basis for increasing the fi nancial potential, which creates the basis for the development of fi nancial intermediaries. In connection with that, apart from the analysis of the relevant factors making the process of the mobilization and transfer of savings more diffi cult, the theoretical models that put an emphasis on the relationship between the effi ciency of fi nancial intermediation and economic growth are discussed in the paper. The research results are indicative of the fact that the improvement in fi nancial intermediaries’ business doing enables faster economic growth. Simultaneously, the growth of the economic activity increases the scope of the business operations conducted by fi nancial intermediaries. Thanks to the eff ects of the economies of scale that contribute to a reduction in transaction and information costs, the effi ciency of fi nancial intermediations grows.
Loc Viet Nguyen
The business community is a social force which has had a great influence on all aspects of life and the socioeconomic conditions of every country. In the context of today’s globalization, particularly in international economic integration and the multi-cultural business climate, the current study will offer a theoretical model of entrepreneurial culture in order to identify, measure and evaluate the essential entrepreneurial culture of the business community. The paper introduces an entrepreneurial culture model through a cultural value system approach. The value system approach, also known as the table of cultural stratification values, helps model the entrepreneurial culture created by value factors. Such factors can be measured, they are easy to reproduce and help identify the strengths and weaknesses of the business community.
Dragana Rejman Petrović
Razvoj modela za unapređenje poslovnih procesa u e-lancima snabdevanja podrazumeva primenu procesnog pristupa i metodologija za razvoj informacionih sistema, i obuhvata dizajn modela zahteva, logički dizajn modela klјučnih procesa sa definisanim tokovima informacija unutar logičkih podsistema, logički dizajn modela podataka, logički dizajn modela mreže i distribucije podataka, kao i logički dizajn modela interface-a za potrebe različitih korisnika. Pri tome korišćene su različite metode i tehnike za različite faze razvoja menadžment informacionog sistema, upravljanje poslovnim procesima, upravljanje performansama poslovnih procesa i analitički hijerarhijski proces kao metod višekriterijumskog odlučivanja. U radu su analizirani poslovni procesi i različiti tipovi lanaca snabdevanja u automobilskoj industriji kao predstavniku složenih sistema. Izabrani su ključni poslovni procesi i ključni indikatori performansi poslovnih procesa na bazi kojih je razvijen model analitičkog hijerarhijskog procesa i vršena njihova optimizacija. Rezultat rada je model menadžment informacionog sistema za unapređenje klјučnih poslovnih procesa u e-lancima snabdevanja. Rezultati istraživanja pokazuju da se kroz unapređenje performansi poslovnih procesa u e-lancima snabdevanja, primenu razvijenog modela za unapređenje ključnih poslovnih procesa, kao i primenu Web baziranih informaciono-komunikacionih rešenja utiče na efikasnost i kvalitet e-lanaca snabdevanja.
Yang Wangping and Lu Xiaolu
In this paper, we construct the six criterion layers evaluation index system of new urbanization, including population urbanization, land urbanization, economic urbanization, social urbanization, ecological civilization and overall planning of urban and rural areas. We use the horizontal and vertical levels of the grade method in order to determine the weight of each index, and then calculate the quality of the urbanization process at the provincial level in 2004-2013. The result shows that the overall comprehensive
evaluation index of China has a trend of rising volatility. The quality of new urbanization has continuously been improving since 2004; the new urbanization process, however, shows significant differences between the regions and specific performances: eastern urbanization level is the highest, whereas the western is the lowest. The evaluation index, however, increases steadily during the studied period and the gap with other regions gradually narrows.