Throughout history, states have controlled economic and social activities in various ways. Initially, command and control orders were used, but the state has recently relied on market incentives. Increased regulation during the coronavirus pandemic is inevitable. The effects of regulation can bring gains and losses to individual actors. Research has shown that excessive economic regulation results in loss of efficiency and large amounts of redistributed income. Many researchers also believe that regulation creates a monopoly force rather than restraining it. In times of great plagues, the question arises: What is the relationship between the value of human life and economic activities in a particular society of a historical period? These topics are examined through the analysis of cases of major epidemics that have changed the social and economic paradigm; Athenian plague of 430 BC, medieval Black Death, and COVID 19 pandemic, with particular reference to mortality, loss of working-age population, their impact on the economy, and the adoption of some post-epidemic regulations, which must consider broader institutional changes, as well as new living conditions, gave the new economic circumstances.
In this paper, the sector productivity of the Bosnia and Herzegovina economy is analyzed by measuring the labor productivity for three different moments in the Beili economy (years 2012, 2017 and 2020). Despite the long-standing problem of low productivity, the issue with labor productivity has been neglected in Bosnia and Herzegovina's economic policies. Due to the importance of productivity for sustainable economic growth, this paper can serve as a warning to economic policymakers that they need to address the problem of low productivity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The current study provides an insight into the productivity of economic activities (NACE Rev.2) by measuring the rate of change in labor productivity in 2017 compared to 2012, in 2020 compared to 2017, and 2020 compared to 2012. Data from the Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina were used: 1. Gross value added by activities and gross domestic product, chain-linked at prices 2015 (ESA 2010), and 2. According to CEA, the annual average of persons in paid employment (NACE Rev.2). The labor productivity was calculated for different disaggrega tions in the economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the primary, quaternary and quinary sectors, there was a decrease in labor productivity in 2017 compared to 2012. However, in 2020, compared to 2017, there was an increase in labor productivity in the primary, quaternary, and slightly in the quinary, while there was a decrease in the secondary and tertiary sectors. In 2020 compared to 2012, there was a decrease in labor productivity in all fives aggregate sectors. Due to the limitations of measuring the productivity of only one input (labor), the limitations and guidelines for future research were presented in the paper after the discussions.
The past few years have seen an increase in domestic or foreign investors deciding to invest their financial resources in sports, specifically in football clubs. This article aims to determine the profitability of investments in the sports industry, football, and football clubs. To determine the profitability and self-sustainability of large sports systems, it is necessary to analyze the structure of revenues and expenditures to determine the factors and their impact on each segment of the financial structure of the sports organization. The analysis of the structure of the revenue and expenditure sides of the budget will be used to detect the importance of certain factors in sports organization operations. It is known that, in terms of expenditure, there are "less and more costly" sports, that is, sports that can achieve their sports results with lower budgetary expenditures and those sports and competitions that require higher financial sums to achieve their sports goals. Of course, depending on the competition level, revenues and expenses of sports organizations grow. As football is the sport with the most significant number of followers globally, the topic of this paper is precisely football and football clubs, both in the Republic of Croatia and in the most attractive and best football leagues. A comparison of revenue structures will also answer the question of self-sustainability in financial terms. This refers to the analysis of the extent of stable revenues that the football club manages directly, their share in total revenues, how dispersed the revenues are, and the like. The management must answer all these questions to manage the sports organization well.
This article identifies, presents, and analyses the applications of the leading nonparametric DEA (data envelopment analysis) methodology in the assessment of the impact M&A transactions in European banking had on bank efficiency. The main goal of this paper is to identify all the relevant published studies in this area thus far and present and analyze the findings regarding the impact of M&As on banks' efficiency. Another goal of this article is to provide a theoretical background to the processes of M&As in banking and the leading nonparametric DEA methodology. This paper conducts a systematic review according to the PRISMA statement guidelines with stringent selection criteria to include relevant Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) studies on the impact of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on bank efficiency in Europe. The authors have surveyed the two largest scientific databases, i.e., Scopus and Clarivate Web of Science databases, with the keywords "DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS", "BANK": "MERGER", and "ACQUISITION": The PRISMA method has led the authors to 7 relevant papers regarding the impact of M & M&A on bank efficiency in Europe. The ultimate goal of this paper is to raise awareness to academic members, researchers, and analysts globally to employ the DEA methodology more often when it comes to measuring the effects and impact of M&A transactions in banking.
Many authors believe that journalism is becoming a female profession due to the commercialization of the media. That means improving market needs, higher ratings, more advertising, and more money to owners. Women journalists in traditional journalism have a much more fragmented and contradictory professional identity than men. Many authors suggest that managerial positions in the media are changing in favor of women, noting the visual media's tendency towards fostering youth, feminization, and sexualization. The transformation of journalism into feminist journalism has happened because the owners are focused on consumers and the market. The scope of this paper is to recognize the causal nexus between the representation of women on national televisions and their income. One hundred eighty-nine women employees of news programs of three national televisions answered an anonymous survey. Collected data were synthesized and correlated on their age, salary, education, managerial position, or better-paid jobs. The survey results will show whether the mobilization of women in the television industry has resulted in their better position and good monetization of their contribution to the growing industry or whether women are only lower-paid workers in homojournalism. This paper aims to determine the position of women in the television industry, the division of labor and the form of employment, and trends in divergence, based on microdata from the survey on age, salary, and education. According to the survey results, 42% of female television workers receive the average Croatian salary. Only 0.9% have managerial income.
The global pandemic Covid-19, which has been causing havoc worldwide for two years, has drastically changed the established rules of humankind's behavior until then. There is almost no business segment that is not affected by this pandemic. People's lives have changed fundamentally, and the habits of behavior acquired so far have changed accordingly. Of all the economic activities that had to adapt to this new world order, web sales, which had been on an upward trajectory until then, were the easiest and fastest to adapt and continue an upward path. At the moment of the most significant uncertainty that the recent history of humanity remembers, web or online shopping provides security. When a lockdown is becoming a daily occurrence worldwide, just one click of the mouse separates customers from the necessities required for daily functioning. They give the illusion of security and normalization of life, which humanity expects. This paper will analyze the shopping habits caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in the online environment. The main goal of this paper is to determine how the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic affected humanity's current shopping habits in the online environment, whether they remained the same or changed, and who adapted better and worse to the new market situation. The importance of demographic and gender characteristics, the perception of security provided by web sales, price comparisons, time savings, and positive consumer attitudes towards online shopping before and after the Covid-19 pandemic will be described, and how global companies have adopted the new situation. The paper examines how e-commerce has changed in Croatia. It will be seen in the example which of them reacted immediately and patiently waited for the eventual calming of the situation so that they may have reacted with a delay.
The automotive industry is one of the most dynamic and challenging business areas in the European Union (EU) and wider. It implies a complex supply chain with a turnover of 7% of EU GDP (gross domestic product) and 6.1% of total EU employment and has an important multiplier effect on the economy. Given the apparent impact of automotive companies on the economy, they are under constant pressure to review and improve their production processes, business activities, and market position. It can be said that each process that supports the creation of new value in the automotive industry is of equal importance. The focal point of this paper is the procurement management process for new products. Considered procurement is related to the components of the products purchased for the first time. These procurements have a direct impact on business expenses. Therefore, the paper proposes a conceptual model to improve the procurement of new products components. The model is developed following modern control theory and based on the feedback loop principle. All elements of a feedback loop (reference, system, sensor, comparator, and controller) are described. The model development is based on a case of a large company from the automotive industry in the Republic of Serbia.
All buildings have a service life. In order to extend service life as much as possible while preserving the functionality of the building, maintenance measures must be implemented. Service life must be the longest of all life cycle phases from the economic perspective. Total costs of use and maintenance are the highest among all other phases' costs and even more financially significant than the initial investment. However, another reason recently became equally crucial for being solicitous about maintenance - energy efficiency of buildings being one of the critical determinants of general sustainability. Because of these reasons, the purpose of this paper is to argue the importance of building maintenance planning and management and highlight the main steps of the process. Presented research combined qualitative scientific methods used to create a relevant theoretical framework, with a case study, present value calculation, and sensitivity analysis as methods used for the empirical part. Findings suggest that planning maintenance as early as in the design phase is the best management practice: service life can be prolonged and energy efficiency achieved while keeping total costs of use and maintenance within a controllable and acceptable range. Future research might compare results for different types of buildings since the specific limitation of this study is the focus of its empirical part only on the public purpose building. However, public buildings are, individually analyzed, one of the most critical areas for achieving the goals of European energy policy. Therefore, this paper is considered to accomplish academic and substantial social (in terms of sustainability) and practical (in terms of business and engineering professions) implications.
For the development of the tourism industry and the economy, the key factor is the internet and the transmission of information. The content of information on the internet has a huge impact on tourism, and social networks have greatly changed the way tourists explore and make decisions about tourist destinations. According to Global Social Media Research, between 2020 and 2025, social network users will increase by 926 million. Social networks are irreplaceable in tourism and contribute to promoting tourist destinations. This research investigates whether social networks, as a tool for practical information sharing, influence the decision when choosing a tourist destination. A survey was conducted during October 2021 on a sample of 150 respondents. A questionnaire was used to collect information among the student population as representatives o the Z generation. Given the importance of social networks, the research sought to determine whether students use social networks to choose a tourist destination and to what extent the importance of obtaining quick feedback using them has been established.
Croatia's political and fiscal decentralization process has not been completed, causing some local government units to lag in economic development. As an already scientifically proven consequence, the disparities among cities and municipalities and between cities and municipalities are pronounced and continue to deepen. This imposes a growing need for comparative efficiency measurement of local government units. Building upon earlier research, this paper empirically investigates such efficiency from the fiscal angle to question two common perceptions emphatically. The first one predicts greater efficiency of cities than municipalities, while the second one assumes greater efficiency of coastal compared to non-coastal local government units. Accordingly, two hypotheses were formulated to determine the validity of these perceptions on the example of Istria County. The results obtained based on five fiscal indicators for 2007-2020, using the window data envelopment analysis (DEA) method, unexpectedly refute the first hypothesis. At the same time and as expected, the second hypothesis is supported. Thus, the perception that cities have a better performance than municipalities is dismissed, while the perception that non-coastal local government units underperform the coastal ones is confirmed. The third hypothesis that, based on two previous types of research, points to the number of local government employees as the most significant source of inefficiency, is also examined on the data of Istria County. Although the testing of this hypothesis showed the compensation of local government employees (instead of their number) to be the most significant source of inefficiency, this additionally confirmed the previously identified problem of local government employees. All these elucidating results can serve as an assistance tool for local policymakers to diminish or eliminate the identified problems.
The effectiveness of the teaching process depends on the teacher's qualification because it directly affects the quality of education of students. Therefore, increasing attention is being paid to the professional development of employees in education, which coincides with the national educational policy within which one of the goals is to enhance the competence of teachers. This paper explores the motivation, challenges, perspectives, and difficulties teachers encountered during their professional development in the Republic of Croatia. The empirical research was conducted online through a questionnaire on employees from the Industrial-Craft Vocational School and High School Marka Marulita Slatina during June 2021 on a sample of 63 respondents. The results of the study indicate that there are specific differences in the attitudes of teachers who teach general and those who teach vocational subjects on the applicability of the acquired knowledge in practice, while promotion to higher titles and personal satisfaction are the two of the most common motivating factors for professional development. The most sought-after areas of development are teaching gifted and children with disabilities, better methodological knowledge, and more efficient use of information and communication technology in teaching. The limitation of this study was the insufficient sample size for the scientic confirmation of these theses, but the results do correlate with previously conducted studies. Future studies should cover a more significant number of secondary schools due to more relevant indicators or compare teacher development in primary and secondary schools. The study's conclusions provide insight into the challenges and perspectives of the teaching staff in professional development and training and guide school management in motivating their employees for professional development.
This paper presents an analysis of trends in the European Union labor market and the current situation and trends related to various flexible forms o f employment. Also, the author analyzed the variables of job continuity, i.e., whether a person has a permanent job (work for an indefinite period) or temporary job (fixed-term job) and whether the job is full-time or part-time (part-time). These variables are related to economic development as measured by gross domestic product. Through the conducted research and testing of the hypothesis, the paper presents the impact of the frequency of occasional work on the readiness of persons for temporary work and part-time work. The paper also observes the share of permanent and temporary jobs in the total volume of jobs, the share of full-time and part-time jobs in all types of jobs, and the impact of different forms of employment on labor market dynamics and the labor movement. The paper also observes the mutual influence of the most important and most common flexible forms of employment.
Consumers are increasingly buying green products, mainly organic food, and beverages. This includes organic wines, which show above-average demand compared to traditionally cultivated wines. However, academics have mainly focused on the research of organic foods and beverages in general, but only to a limited extent on organic wines precisely. Hence, this study focuses on analyzing the drivers of purchasing behavior using the Theory of Planned Behavior for organic wines. Our findings of an empirical study (n=222) in Germany show that Attitude towards buying organic wine and Subjective Norms impact the Purchase Intention of organic wine. In addition, Moral Norm and Self-identity contribute to predicting an individual's Attitude towards buying organic wine. In contrast, Health Consciousness and Environmental concerns did not significantly affect Attitude. These results lead to a variety of theoretical and practical implications.
The depopulation of rural areas due to the impossibility of employment and earning in urban areas has led to a significant imbalance in which urban areas have become overcrowded and rural areas devastated. The European Union has recognized such a direction as unsustainable and has decided to dedicate itself to the development of rural areas. In this paper, particular emphasis is placed on the development through a digital transformation of the community by improving the infrastructure and the digital skills of the population from rural areas. In this paper, using Eurostat and Eurobarometer data, the authors compare digital infrastructures and skills by different sociodemographic characteristics in Croatia, Austria, Slovenia, Hungary, Denmark, Finland, and Ireland with an average of 27 EU member states. Based on this comparison, an analysis of the Republic of Croatia's digital competitiveness with EU countries in the region and demographically similar countries was conducted to specify which advantages to emphasize further and which shortcomings to correct. This paper aims to indicate which countries should be a benchmark for Croatia in the digital transformation of rural areas and whom to encourage to be the bearers of change in smart rural communities.
Neural networks or artificial neural networks are a branch of machine learning, a technology based on brain and nervous system studies. Thanks to the fast-technological changes, growing computing power, advanced algorithms, and widely available digital data, the application of neural networks has spread tremendously in many fields of study, from health and medicine, accounting, finance, engineering, manufacturing, and marketing to natural language processing and robotics, wherever the analysis of big sets of data is needed. This paper focuses on using neural networks in higher educational institutions for student performance analysis and prediction, intending to investigate these researches' bibliometric and topical characteristics published in scientific papers. We have searched the indexing service Scopus to track the papers that present the applications of neural networks in higher education in the last five years. The research has been investigated based on the bibliometric characteristics (authors, publications, institutions, funding) as well as the topics of the research. The presented analysis is preliminary and can be relevant for future in-depth research on the applications of neural networks for the analysis of student performance in higher education.
Defense planning can be defined as a comprehensive process of defining, achieving, and sustaining defense capabilities at optimum levels. Thus, it is about the operationalization of policies and strategies within the framework of the primary state function - defense. The complexity, duration of execution, and amount of invested public resources required to accomplish planned procedures are the reasons for political disputes not only in Croatia. Does Croatia manage to build a credible, autonomous, and effective defense planning system? The analysis of Croatian defense capabilities and assumed requirements in the given strategic context shows the need to improve the existing defense planning system. Missing or deficient defense capabilities were identified in all domains and forms of warfare. Therefore, contemporary solutions enabling interoperability within NATO and the EU require a holistic analytical approach to Croatian defense planning. According to available resources, this paper is the first attempt to produce a scientific paper to analyze defense planning in Croatia's national defense system. There are numerous professional and scientific papers in foreign sources discussing defense planning in national and international frameworks but, generally, not related to defense planning in Croatia. The emphasis should be on autonomous, national considerations on defense function, based on the existing state's strategic context - considering actual security circumstances and its instruments of power at disposal. To date, this has been based on the mechanical and procedural implementation of the elements and phases of the defense planning process - however, with unsatisfactory results. The research revealed the need to rethink the fundamentals of Croatia's unique strategic context, which is understandable given the lack of historic institutional experience. This study considers the existing framework of Croatian defense planning and recommends its modernization, with organizational, financial, and legal consequences.
We are witnessing the fact that artificial intelligence (AI) is advancing daily in the healthcare system, and with each new implementation, we expect an improvement in outcomes. Computer science also includes artificial intelligence, which aims at implementing a form of intelligence in computers that would meet new challenges. AI provides new opportunities and personalized health interventions and services based on advanced technologies for effective service management and health decisions. Trust and the impact of trust on clinicians through the factors that form trust in AI are essential for developing the system in clinical use and the uncertainty that comes with the known and the unknown. By building trust, healthcare professionals and our clients will recognize and take advantage of many opportunities and challenges offered by AI through better diagnostics, prevention, and treatment accompanied by increased cost-effectiveness. We are taught that the goal of health care management is to provide effective client-centered care in a fair and timely manner. One of the tools may be AI, which uses stored data to improve the clinical quality of health services. There are high expectations from AI to address growing health data effectively. The digital decade that follows is the path we will travel together. We will incorporate our experiences ideas with confidence and belief that this is the path to the future, the path of safe artificial intelligence. AI is based on applicable laws and regulations to ensure ethical principles and values. This review paper will present views of health scales based on current knowledge regarding artificial intelligence in healthcare.
The modern business environment is marked by the labor shortage organizations face regardless of the activity and whether it is a demand for the highly skilled staff or executive, low-skilled workers. According to the above, the authors start from the need to change the existing paradigms within which the organization focuses on the profile of the required staff and create new paradigms in which the business organization while meeting its employment needs, raises the question of what it gives and how the very organization enables motivation system that is significantly changed in recent years. Starting from the question of how-to better cope with the labor market challenges, the paper presents different concepts of NLP (neurolinguistic programming) and discusses whether these concepts can contribute. The concept focuses on the communication process that will lead to the desired outcomes. NLP models do not provide readymade solutions that will undoubtedly lead to the desired goal but enable the correct approach to the candidates in the recruitment (selection) process and the implementation of communication that influences the creation of the desired perception interlocutor. The authors see an alternative solution in organizing the work climate and environment and presenting it, which will make the business organization itself desirable and achieve a competitive advantage in the labor market.
The research discusses the theoretical framework of regional economics. The authors first approach the research from a macro aspect, outlining the main groups of theories of regional economics, namely the location theory and the regional growth and development theory. The research continues to explore in detail the structure of each of the theories that make up the main theoretical framework of the research subject. The paper provides a systematic overview of theories in the field of research, starting from the early papers and the beginnings of regional economics dating back to the 19 6 century (Johann Heinrich von Thunen) and continuing with the period of strong development in the early 20th century (Weber, Christaller, Losch, and others). During the 1950s, the interest in problems of regional economics was further sparked by the papers of Walter Isard (1956), while recent works (Krugman and Venables, Fujita, Baldwin, Ottaviano and Thisse, and others) provided new perspectives of research in regional economics. The structure and purpose of the research presented a more detailed analysis of individual theories, which requires broader systematization due to the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary nature o f the discipline. The paper contributes to the discipline by providing an overview and systematization of the theoretical framework of regional economics, a discipline whose structure and content require an eclectic approach to developing a specific theoretical framework, which significantly complicates the systematization of theoretical approaches.
Considering the increased relevance of the sharing economy and collaborative consumption, researchers have addressed which motives encourage consumers to participate in sharing offers. Existing research looks at extrinsic and intrinsic motives, with the latter also including the ecological dimension of sustainability. Contrary to the generally accepted multidimensional understanding of sustainability (i.e., economic, social, environmental), the focus in the context of sharing - as in many other research contexts - is on ecological sustainability, while social sustainability is largely neglected. Based on a literature review on social sustainability in different disciplines on the one hand and social aspects in the context of collaborative consumption, on the other hand, this paper develops a comprehensive approach to expand the motives for participating in sharing concepts. As a result, it becomes clear that with the aspects 'sense of belonging; 'social experience of exchange' and 'social equity; three different aspects can be summarized considering socially sustainable motives for participating in collaborative consumption.
