Ljiljana Maksimović
The paper analyzes the ways for measuring competitiveness as well as the Global Competitiveness Index which, pursuant to the methodology of the World Economic Forum, ranks countries’ competitiveness within global frameworks. The analysis begins with a hypothesis that the macroeconomic performances of national economies are positively correlated with their global competitiveness index, which has been shown on the examples of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Slovakia. The other hypothesis is that the bad macroeconomic performances of the Serbian economy and its bad ranking according to the Global Competitiveness Index are the result of the systemic limitations in the Serbian economy. The analysis presented in the paper shows that systemic limitations such as the concept of transition (privatization) and its realization, the concept of macroeconomic stabilization, the concept of institutional reforms and the concept of restructuring economy are the main originators of the non-competitiveness of Serbia’s economy.
Ljubinka Joksimović
The financial crisis in several European countries has turned into a full blown sovereign debt crisis. The current trends of public debt burdens per capita could be averted, but not by relying primarily on economic growth, for which the outlook is bleak in the near term. The best approach to solving the crisis is not through growth, but through a serious – and undoubtedly painful – process of fiscal consolidation to reduce government deficits and debts accumulation. After the short consideration of the recent fiscal and debt positions of six South-Eastern European (SEE) countries, placing an emphasis on the Republic of Serbia, the paper analyzes which institutional and political factors can lend credibility to consolidation efforts and underpin the commitment to financial sustainability.
Dragana Rejman Petrović, Igor Milanović and Zoran Kalinić
The concept of supply chain management (SCM) has occupied serious research a! ention in recent years. This concept goes beyond intra-organizational boundaries to achieve a greater value of the entire supply chain network. The development of ICT, together with the Internet environment, has an impact on the management concept of traditional supply chains, allowing the integration of participants and the management of complex interfaces between organizations in the supply chain network. The e-business model connects the separate activities of the supply chain in an integrated, coordinated, fl exible, effi cient and responsive system. This paper analyzes the key aspects of e-SCM and diff erent supply chains architectures in an e-environment as the starting point for defi ning the generic architecture model of e-SCM.
Dejana Zlatanović
The models represent the key methodological tool for management problems solving in System Dynamics (SD) as a functionalist systems methodology. Above all, it is about mathematical models, built according to appropriate feedback structures, i.e. specific elements and flows that form feedback loops. Since SD is based on the assumption that a system structure represents the behavioral key determinant, SD models provide an effective prediction of the future system behavior. The paper focuses on the modeling process in SD, as a complex, iterative process, consisting of the following phases: model conceptualization, formulation, testing and implementation. Although being extremely useful in solving numerous organizational managing problems, SD models have certain disadvantages as a consequence of their quantitative nature. Qualitative modeling and group model-building, as possible directions for further SD development, are appropriately important in SD models` deficiencies elimination.