Croatian construction companies continue to struggle with inefficiencies and slow adoption of digital tools. Understanding the key drivers of efficiency and productivity is therefore crucial to ensure the long-term sustainability and competitiveness of the sector. This paper examines efficiency and productivity trends in the Croatian construction sector from 2019 to 2023, focusing on large and very large construction companies and the key challenges impacting their performance. Using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI), the study tracks efficiency and productivity changes over time using a three-year window analysis of company accounting data. The results show that overall efficiency remains relatively low but stable, with a slight decline in 2023. The main causes of inefficiency are management practices and external factors rather than a (non-)optimal production size. In contrast, productivity has generally increased, especially between 2022 and 2023, due to improvements in technical efficiency and technological advances. These results underline the need for greater investment in digital tools and innovation to increase efficiency and productivity growth in the sector in the long term. The study provides valuable insights for policy makers, industry leaders and researchers and highlights the importance of digital transformation, workforce development and strategic investment. Eliminating persistent inefficiencies, accelerating technology adoption and addressing labor capacities will be critical to ensuring the sector’s future competitiveness in both domestic and international markets.
This paper examines the post-privatization performance of an enterprise privatized through the Special Spin-Off model in Kosovo, focusing on the case of Stone Castle Vineyard and Winery. The study addresses a significant gap in the literature concerning structured privatization mechanisms in post-conflict transition economies. While previous research on Kosovo’s privatization process has primarily emphasized compliance with contractual obligations across multiple enterprises, this paper provides an in-depth firm-level institutional analysis of how binding investment and employment commitments interact with a weak regulatory environment. The study adopts a qualitative case study design, integrating semi-structured interviews with managerial representatives, questionnaire data, audit reports, and official documentation from the Privatization Agency of Kosovo. The findings demonstrate that the enterprise fulfilled its contractual commitments related to capital investment and employment, expanded production capacity, strengthened export orientation, and implemented technological modernization. At the same time, the enterprise faced institutional obstacles, including bureaucratic delays, legal uncertainty, and limited state support for export development. The analysis suggests that the effectiveness of the Special Spin-Off model operates through a conditional mechanism: enforceable contractual commitments can stimulate productive restructuring and reduce opportunistic behavior, but long-term success depends on complementary institutional capacity. The paper contributes to the broader literature on privatization in transition economies by providing firm-level evidence from a post-conflict context and by highlighting the interaction between contractual design and institutional constraints. Limitations in the research are difficulties to ensure audit reports and deficit of literature related to Special Spin-Off method.
Unatoč rastućem interesu za problematiku ESG-a, brojna istraživačka pitanja još uvijek nisu razjašnjena. Svrha rada jest empirijskim nalazima rasvijetliti tri važne teme: način agregiranja ESG pokazatelja, prirodu uzročnosti ESG praksi i čimbenika ESG rizika te postojanje interakcijskog utjecaja ESG praksi i čimbenika ESG rizika na profitabilnost. Na uzorku od 294 europske financijske institucije, indeksirane u bazi podataka pružatelja ESG Book , primijenjene su sljedeće kvantitativne metode obrade podataka: višestruka linearna regresija, analiza nužnih uvjeta, modeliranje strukturnih jednadžbi parcijalnih najmanjih kvadrata, regresijska moderacijska analiza i višegrupna analiza. Glavni teorijski i praktičan doprinos rada sadržan je u primjeni logike nužnosti, kojom je utvrđeno da bez razvoja upravljačkih čimbenika ESG-a financijske institucije nisu u mogućnosti ostvariti višu razinu prinosa na imovinu (ROA). Dodatna je vrijednost sadržana u prepoznavanju moderacijske uloge čimbenika ESG rizika: kod visokih okolišnih rizika, poboljšanje upravljačkih čimbenika ESG-a neće promijeniti ostvareni ROA. Metodološki doprinos vidljiv je kroz triangulaciju metoda obrade podataka, u sklopu koje su primijenjene za sada još uvijek rjeđe zastupljene statističke tehnike u području održivih financija. Glavno ograničenje rada je korištenje presječnog dizajna istraživanja.
This paper examines country-level determinants of venture capital investment (VCI) across 22 European economies from 2013 to 2020. We combine Invest Europe VCI totals with 14 indicators from the Global Innovation Index (GII) and classify each indicator into quintile tiers. Using one-way ANOVA with Tukey HSD post-hoc tests, we assess whether VCI differs systematically across tiers for each determinant. VCI is highly concentrated: France and Germany form a persistent upper tail, followed by the Netherlands, while Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece sit at the lower end. Eleven of fourteen indicators display significant between-tier differences in VCI: business environment, government effectiveness, gross expenditure on R&D, human capital and research, ICT access, ICT use, knowledge & technology outputs, knowledge creation, patent applications, PCT applications, and university–industry collaboration. By contrast, creative goods & services, ICT services exports, and political/operational stability do not discriminate VCI within this European sample. Results are robust to alternative binning, log-VCI transformation, and exclusion of the largest ecosystems. We interpret the patterns as consistent with VCI concentrating where institutional quality is strong, innovation inputs are deep, digital readiness is advanced, and knowledge/IP outputs are abundant. The findings offer actionable priorities for policy aimed at strengthening SME finance ecosystems, while acknowledging the study’s associative design and the aggregation of VCI across stages and sectors.
This study analyzes the impact of intellectual capital on brand value. We separately measure the effects of the dimensions of intellectual capital (human, structural, and relational capital) on brand value. The data consists of 448 observations covering the 2013-2021 periods of 56 firms listed in the BIST Manufacturing Index. We calculate the intellectual capital using the Value-Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC) method and brand value through the Hirose method, respectively. The study utilizes the balanced panel regression analysis via the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) method. Our findings show that intellectual capital components statistically and partially affect brand value.
