MARKET ORIENTATION, BUSINESS INNOVATION AND HRM IN TOP SLOVENIAN EMPLOYERS

The paper builds on a cross-sectional longitudinal study of 101 best Slovenian employers (firms) in a three-year period between 2008 and 2010. It employs both regression and power analysis (Cohen’s d effect size statistic). The paper analyzes the impact of internal and external marketing orientation, business innovation and HRM performance indicators on firm performance (added value per employee) in an economic crisis context. The effect size statistic further analyzes the link between the basic employee-firm relationship and the perceived importance of trust and long-term relationships with the firm in the “eyes of the customer”; as evaluated by respondent firms’ managers. The results of our analysis confirm the increasing importance of relationship orientation in an economic crisis. On the one hand both internal and external relationship orientation are closely linked, while on the other hand, only the internal relationship orientation (internal marketing) seems to be directly linked to firm performance in our OLS regression model. This does not by imply that external market orientation is not important, but may indicate that is acts more as a buffer, not as a productive source of firm performance in an economic crisis. In addition, the results of our effect size estimation show how market oriented firms also display significantly higher scores on the basic employee-firm relationship; indicating a significant effect size relationship between the two constructs. More interestingly, this effect size is almost identical for 2008 and 2010, but considerably higher for 2009, when the economic crisis in Slovenia reached its climax. In the end, a series of implications for marketing and management theory and practice are discussed

Firm growth types and key macroeconomic aggregates through the economic cycle

The paper investigates the role and impact of different groups of firms according to their growth type on macroeconomic aggregates at various stages of the economic cycle based on the entire population of firms in Slovenia. The applied classification of growing and fast-growing firms is based on microeconomic theory. Results exhibit that despite larger year-to-year fluctuations, firms with growth towards their long-term equilibrium contributed most to macroeconomic aggregates, i.e. employment, capital and sales, especially in times of economic prosperity. Firms with growth that shifts them closer to their short-term equilibrium proved to be more important primarily for assuring employment stability. Furthermore, we show that using single growth measures prevents us from identifying all growing firms and capturing the true contribution of particular growth groups of firms to studied macroeconomic aggregates. The paper provides both theoretical and empirical information for managers for designing different types of firm growth and enables policy makers to adopt adequate industrial policy measures

IFRS 9 transition effect on equity in a post bank recovery environment

On January 1, 2018, IFRS 9 became effective in the EU. It introduced the expected credit loss model to allow for timely recognition of credit losses, estimated not only on the actual credit loss experience but also on forward looking information related to current loan portfolio. Although the transition to IFRS 9 should lead to increased impairments and decrease in banks’ equity, this effect is ambiguous in the settings characterised by combined effects of optimistic macroeconomic outlook and strong regulatory intervention related to extensive loan portfolio restructuring. This paper investigates day-one transition effect of IFRS 9 on level of loan impairments and total equity of banks in Slovenia, Eurozone country, which barely averted international bailout in 2013 by extensive state assisted bank restructuring. The comparative analysis is done on banks that transferred deteriorated loan portfolio to the state’s Bank Assets Management Company and all other banks. In line with expectations we find that banks without extensive asset portfolio improvements recognised additional loan impairments on transition to IFRS 9, whereas the opposite effect is observed for banks which performed state-assisted loan portfolio restructuring. Our study provides additional insight on the effect of institutional and regulatory setting on IFRS 9 implementation effects