This study examines how women-led innovations in rural Slovenia are experienced through the fulfilment and interaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, the three basic psychological needs identified in Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Using a qualitative, exploratory design, the study draws on semi-structured interviews with 20 women innovators from the FLIARA (Female-Led Innovation in Agriculture and Rural Areas) project. The interview material was analysed through thematic content analysis supported by ATLAS.ti, combining deductive coding based on SDT dimensions with inductive identification of empirically grounded subthemes. The revised ATLAS.ti-based analysis also enabled a more transparent assessment of how broadly key subthemes were represented across participants. Findings show that women-led innovation supported autonomy through self-initiation, boundary-setting, temporal control, resistance to restrictive norms, and value-driven purpose; competence through experiential learning, novelty-related experimentation, adaptive problem-solving, recognition, and growing self-efficacy; and relatedness through emotional support, professional collaboration, community contribution, and intergenerational and gendered solidarity. Mentorship emerged as a context-specific mechanism linking competence support with relational involvement and, in some cases, autonomy support. The study contributes by applying SDT to women-led rural innovation and showing how established SDT concepts can illuminate the motivational, relational, and place-based conditions under which rural women initiate, sustain, and give meaning to innovation. The findings suggest that rural development policies and support programmes may benefit from strengthening psychosocial and relational conditions, including autonomy-supportive environments, competence development opportunities, mentorship, peer learning, and participatory networks. These implications should be interpreted in light of the qualitative and context-specific nature of the study.

Norms are fundamental to social life, but basic questions about how they are affected by social context remain. Specifically, how do normative constraints depend on the presence and status of observers, and how do such relational contingencies vary across cultures? Using data from more than 25,000 individuals across 90 societies, we test several hypotheses linking normative constraints on everyday behaviors (like arguing, laughing, cursing, kissing, and crying), to the presence and status of observers. We find that behaviors widely viewed as appropriate in private become more constrained in the presence of others (an observer effect), and even more so when those others are higher in status (a status effect). Both observer and status effects are culturally universal, but the observer effect shows more variation across cultures. In particular, we find that observer effects are larger in societies that emphasize individualizing moral foundations, that is, avoiding harm and unfairness to others, because these societies are more permissive of actions when others are not around. The relative stability of status effects across cultural contexts suggests a universal tendency to defer in social hierarchies. These findings shed light on the relational contingency of everyday norms and underscore the role of such norms in the maintenance of social order and reproduction of inequality.

Virtual leadership requires creating a motivational environment for employees from diverse cultural and geographical backgrounds while promoting effective cross-functional collaboration throughout the organization. Despite the literature highlighting cross-functional collaboration as a key factor for success, there is a lack of research examining the relationship between virtual leadership and cross-functional collaboration. Our empirical study addresses this gap and explores the connection between factors such as the quality and frequency of leader-subordinate communication, a leader’s networking skills and virtual leadership efficacy, and the association between virtual leadership efficacy and cross-functional collaboration. We tested research hypotheses on a sample of 133 participants in a global company with a matrix structure. Using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), we analysed the conceptual model and confirmed a positive relationship between communication quality, leader networking ability, and perceived virtual leadership efficacy. The research findings indicated that the frequency of communication between leader and subordinate does not have a significant impact on the perception of virtual leadership efficacy. The study also revealed the direct and indirect effects of virtual leadership efficacy on cross-functional collaboration. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the impacts of virtual leadership efficacy and broaden the understanding of the direct and indirect effects of virtual leadership efficacy on cross-functional collaboration.

Every social situation that people encounter in their daily lives comes with a set of unwritten rules about what behavior is considered appropriate or inappropriate. These everyday norms can vary across societies: some societies may have more permissive norms in general or for certain behaviors, or for certain behaviors in specific situations. In a preregistered survey of 25,422 participants across 90 societies, we map societal differences in 150 everyday norms and show that they can be explained by how societies prioritize individualizing moral foundations such as care and liberty versus binding moral foundations such as purity. Specifically, societies with more individualistic morality tend to have more permissive norms in general (greater liberty) and especially for behaviors deemed vulgar (less purity), but they exhibit less permissive norms for behaviors perceived to have negative consequences in specific situations (greater care). By comparing our data with available data collected twenty years ago, we find a global pattern of change toward more permissive norms overall but less permissive norms for the most vulgar and inconsiderate behaviors. This study explains how social norms vary across behaviors, situations, societies, and time.

Several studies show the importance of basic psychological needs (BPN) for decreasing burnout and increasing grade point average (GPA), but, to our knowledge, no prior study has explored the potential contextual differences in Southeastern European countries. Moreover, even less is known about how this relationship may differ during stressful (exam) and less stressful (beginning of the semester) periods. Measures of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey and BPN Satisfaction and Frustration Scale were translated and adapted. The study included a cross-sectional sample of students from Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia during beginning of the semester and exam period. Across all countries and both contexts, students with high autonomy need satisfaction showed the strongest decrease in burnout, followed by those with high competence need satisfaction. Students with high academic achievement showed an increase due to competence need satisfaction. Competence and autonomy need satisfaction were higher beginning of a semester, while burnout was higher during the exam period. BPN play an important role in educational settings-satisfaction of the need for autonomy and competence protects students from burnout, and the need for competence predicts greater academic achievement regardless of culture or time of the semester.

The University of Ljubljana conducts a student evaluation survey to monitor students' opinions on individual courses and the teaching performance of higher education teachers and colleagues. The aim is to examine their reception and response to feedback on their teaching performance. The data was collected through a survey questionnaire. 244 teaching staff members at the University of Ljubljana participated in the survey, 15 of whom did not read the student feedback. The final sample consisted of 229 people. The surveyed members of staff generally have a positive attitude towards the feedback. However, their opinion on whether the received feedback should play a major role in promotion decisions is less unanimous. Negative feedback motivates the surveyed teachers to improve their teaching, while positive feedback instils feelings of self-confidence. The received feedback gives most of the surveyed teachers ideas on changes in teaching style and encourages them to improve their teaching. The results show statistically significant differences between teaching assistants on the one hand, and assistant professors, associate professors and professors on the other hand. The most significant difference was in the evoked feelings of confidence when receiving positive feedback and evoked feelings of doubt about one's abilities. The findings can offer insight into the reception and response of higher education teachers to feedback. Thus, the conclusions of this thesis can aid the management of the University of Ljubljana in developing strategies for dealing with feedback.

This article examines the role of such factors as gender, age, nationality, and cultural intelligence in building trust between business partners coming from different countries. The research involved 560 employees, of which 115 were Croatians (20.5%), 114—Russians (20.4%), and 331—Slovenians (59.1%). In addition to socio-demographic questions (gender, age, nationality), we employed the Organizational Trust Inventory and the Cultural Intelligence Scale. The research was made available to the participants online and in three language versions—Croatian, Russian, and Slovenian. We discovered that gender played the greatest role in building trust between business partners, since women rated all trust components higher than men. Cultural intelligence, nationality, and age are not predictors of trust among business partners. Our data contributes to a clearer understanding of the ambiguity of predictors of trust. While previous studies have focused on cultural intelligence as a factor in successful international interaction, our results show that cultural identity retains its importance even in the context of globalization and international cooperation.

BACKGROUND: Past studies have tended to consider the relationships between presenteeism, physical activity and psychosomatic symptoms in a partial manner and not as a whole. OBJECTIVE: This cross-sectional study investigated the relationship between physical activity, psychosomatic symptoms and presenteeism, in order to increase the visibility of presenteeism and promote workplace health. METHODS: Two questionnaires (Patient Health Questionnaire and Work Limitations Questionnaire) with a set of physical activity questions were administered on the sample of 514 employees. RESULTS: The results showed a statistically significant relationship between presenteeism and some variables of physical activity, as well as between presenteeism and psychosomatic symptoms. Further results showed a statistically significant association between psychosomatic symptoms and some variables of physical activity. General evaluation (adequacy) of physical activity, and lack of general, aerobic physical activity proved to be important predictors of presenteeism, while general, aerobic physical activity also predicted psychosomatic symptoms. Analysis of the results revealed that psychosomatic symptoms moderate the relationship between physical activity and presenteeism. CONCLUSIONS: The article points out that employees with health problems have a lower percentage of productive time than healthy employees. However, developing an active lifestyle can be a cost-effective measure to cope with presenteeism and promote psychophysical health among employees.

As a crisis response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies quickly established virtual leadership systems and enabled employees to continue their work from home. This cross-sectional research addresses virtual leadership efficacy assessed by the leaders and by their employees. The findings suggest that leaders evaluate themselves significantly better than their employees, and their leadership efficacy mainly depends on their previous experience of working from home and ability to use communication technologies. This research contributes to the understanding of the factors that have the biggest influence on the belief in leadership efficacy in the context of a rapidly evolving system of remote work.

Returning to work after sick leave is a process that begins with the initial steps of functional recovery and results in full vocational capacity. Different personal and situational factors could influence an employee's well-being after returning. The following research was conducted in order to examine how occupational demands and resources, self-efficacy, and social engagement contribute to the return-to-work process. A total of 256 employees took part in the study, who were later divided into two groups: short- (less than 30 days), and long-term (more than 30 days) sick leave. We measured their self-efficacy at the workplace, recent job demands and resources, social engagement, and work satisfaction after returning to work after sick leave. The results showed that personal (gender, age, and self-efficacy), social (social engagement), and occupational (job demands and resources) factors are associated with the duration of sick leave. Participants who were on shorter sick leaves reported being more satisfied with their work after returning than those returning from long-term sick leave. The research presents important insights that could help employers better understand the needs of employees who are returning to work after sick leave.

Background and purpose: Trust is embedded into the national culture. It is a tool that helps create strategic partnerships and facilitates deals that carry certain risks. Cultural differences and norms can affect business relations, but more often focus is on the obvious differences. Although trust in a business partner may be due to non-obvious differences, for example, which part of the deal the partner wants to control himself and which part of the deal he wants to give to the partner to control. If the difference between the real and desired levels of the partner's control over the deal is large, then is trust possible, especially in intercultural business relations? Objective: One aim of our study is to find out whether trust may be considered as moderator of control in a business deal. In other words, if the level of trust in a business partner is higher, are the partners more open to sharing their control over the deal with each other? The other aim is to identify the links between these indicators (trust and control) in business partnerships of partners from different cultures. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study investigated the answers of 103 Slovenian and 124 Russian business partners. The Organizational Trust Inventory (OTI) and the 5-items questionnaire on control over deal were used to collect data. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to process the data collected. Results: The probability that the business partner will not fulfil their obligations in the deal negatively relates to the level of trust. The difference between degree of desired control and degree of control negatively relates to the level of trust. Conclusion: As our results showed, trust cannot be considered as a strong moderator of control between partners. In response to greater trust, the respondents only agree to increase their partner's control, but are not willing to reduce their own. Moreover, this finding is stronger in the group of Russian partners than in the Slovenian ones.

In this study we looked at whether job satisfaction and engagement have a positive connection with the level of career satisfaction. Career satisfaction also influences employee motivation and the achievement of better performance. This study is the first to look at the relationships between these three constructs (job satisfaction, work engagement and career satisfaction). The study participants were 1,168 employees of the University of Ljubljana (55.7 % of them women) with an average age of 42.8 years. Participants completed the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), the Career Satisfaction Scale (CSS) and the Job Satisfaction Questionnaire, all of them online. The following factors were shown to be important predictors of career satisfaction: a managerial position, engagement, job satisfaction, satisfaction with co-workers, satisfaction with opportunities for promotion and education, and satisfaction with salary. The findings indicate the important role of employers in shaping and developing adequate career satisfaction.

The problem of age diversity in the workplace is becoming increasingly important, especially because of the ageing workforce. Knowledge-sharing should therefore be encouraged among employees of different ages. The topic of this research is the role of age-based differentiation or intergenerational differentiation in motivation to share knowledge. Participating in this study were 202 employees of six Slovenian companies. The participants filled out the Knowledge-sharing Motivation Measure, translated into Slovenian for the purposes of this study, and The Intergenerational Differentiation in the Workplace Measure. Our objective was to find out how three different age groups differ in the subjective perceptions of knowledge-sharing motivation and how the perception of intergenerational differentiation is correlated with knowledge sharing motivation. The results show that the youngest age group of employees feels the most discriminated against due to their age, but is also the most motivated to share knowledge when compared to the other two age groups. The correlation between the two measured constructs is not significant. The main findings are that it is important to acknowledge the younger age group of employees, since it seems to be the most vulnerable to intergenerational differentiation. Also, it is important to encourage older workers to share their valuable knowledge.

This study examined the factorial validity of the Slovene version of the cultural intelligence scale (CQS) in a representative sample of 1,000 Slovenian participants (49% were female). The results of confirmatory factor analysis supported the factorial validity of the Slovene CQS and the existence of a general (second-order) cultural intelligence factor. The four scales and the overall (general) CQS scale showed satisfactory internal consistency. The results of multiple-group confirmatory factor analyses supported the hypotheses of partial measurement invariance across gender, and full measurement invariance across type of settlement (urban vs. rural).