Employee motivation – a guide for entrepreneurs: managing people

The success of a good entrepreneur does not depend only on his/her innova-tiveness, education, specialized knowledge, talent, boldness, similar, but very much so on his/her abilities to manage people. The aim of this article is to suggest practical rec-ommendations for entrepreneurs on how to develop or improve their people management skills. The recommendations are not all-inclusive. They are just a starting point. Each en-trepreneur should develop from there, based on personal experience

Employee motivation – a guide for entrepreneurs: managing people

The success of a good entrepreneur does not depend only on his/her innova-tiveness, education, specialized knowledge, talent, boldness, similar, but very much so on his/her abilities to manage people. The aim of this article is to suggest practical rec-ommendations for entrepreneurs on how to develop or improve their people management skills. The recommendations are not all-inclusive. They are just a starting point. Each en-trepreneur should develop from there, based on personal experience

The business case for corporate social responsibility in education

In the dynamic global marketplace, understanding the fundamental connections between business, the environment, and society has become essential. The roles and responsibilities of business, as a global force, are becoming more complex, and concepts related to societal responsibility and sustainability are gaining recognition as essential elements in business management. Increasing complexity requires new approaches. Companies need integrative management tools that help incorporate environmental, social, and governance concerns into their strategic thinking and daily operations. They require talented and ethical leaders to do so. That is why companies need the help of the academia. By being involved in the education of current and future managers, academic institutions most directly act as drivers of business behavior. They help shape the attitudes and behavior of business leaders. Through different means, academic institutions have the potential to generate a wave of positive change, thereby helping to ensure a world where both businesses and societies can flourish. However, there is much more that can be done by the academic institutions. This Paper will try to identify and evaluate the actions, methods, means that may be employed by the academic institutions to support and promote social responsibility. The Paper will discuss the Global Compact Principles of Responsible Management Education, as well as other relevant principles or recommendations, and possibly suggest new directions and aspects of improvement. Due to the fact that businesses by definition are profit driven, considering the academic institutions merely from a business perspective, the Paper will also touch upon the question: Do academic institutions have the business case for being socially responsible

The business case for corporate social responsibility in education

In the dynamic global marketplace, understanding the fundamental connections between business, the environment, and society has become essential. The roles and responsibilities of business, as a global force, are becoming more complex, and concepts related to societal responsibility and sustainability are gaining recognition as essential elements in business management. Increasing complexity requires new approaches. Companies need integrative management tools that help incorporate environmental, social, and governance concerns into their strategic thinking and daily operations. They require talented and ethical leaders to do so. That is why companies need the help of the academia. By being involved in the education of current and future managers, academic institutions most directly act as drivers of business behavior. They help shape the attitudes and behavior of business leaders. Through different means, academic institutions have the potential to generate a wave of positive change, thereby helping to ensure a world where both businesses and societies can flourish. However, there is much more that can be done by the academic institutions. This Paper will try to identify and evaluate the actions, methods, means that may be employed by the academic institutions to support and promote social responsibility. The Paper will discuss the Global Compact Principles of Responsible Management Education, as well as other relevant principles or recommendations, and possibly suggest new directions and aspects of improvement. Due to the fact that businesses by definition are profit driven, considering the academic institutions merely from a business perspective, the Paper will also touch upon the question: Do academic institutions have the business case for being socially responsible

SYNERGY EFFECT: HOW TO CAPTURE VALUE IN THE BUSINESS STRATEGY? A CASE OF IT BUSINESSES IN NORTH MACEDONIA

Nowadays, businesses are required to create added value and difference. In recent years, the synergy perspective grew into one of the main concerns of corporate and strategic management. It creates a new path for change in the way of designing the business strategy, characterized by the collaboration mindset embedded in the overall strategic thinking context. This paper investigates the perceptions and practices of the IT managers with regards to the potential of synergy strategies. It aims to explore the growing importance of synergies between all elements, stakeholders, and processes in the organization, with a particular emphasis on the connections which include cooperation, interaction and working together to realize accepted purposes and strategic goals. The primary data were obtained through a survey carried out in the IT businesses in North Macedonia and evaluated by using the descriptive statistics. The key findings indicate that synergy strategies can create added value on the company’s sustained competitive advantage. The results showed that the synergy strategy appears to be a good managerial practice to be fostered on the organizational level to produce greater results. As the synergy effects seem to be a widespread practice, but rarely discussed topic within the IT sector in North Macedonia, the research will attempt to provide a theoretical contribution to the academic community, but also to help local managers to identify and coordinate opportunities for integrating the sinergy in their business strategy. Apart from the main research focus, our aim expands further to making a broader contribution to the theories of strategy and organization. JEL codes: L19, M1

Corporate governance and small & medium businesses

Corporate governance refers to a set of internal policies, rules, and procedures that a company follows on a regular basis to ensure that it operates in a fair, equitable, and appropriate manner for the benefit of the company, its management and its stakeholders. It is almost always thought about in the context of big publically listed companies. However, it is just as important for privately held, small and medium sized businesses to adhere to good corporate governance policies and practices. One of the reasons being their accountability as key economic drivers and job creators in most of the countries (example: in 2009, there were 27.5 million businesses in the United States, according to US Office of Advocacy estimates`1). As businesses grow and stakeholders increase, good corporate governance becomes even more important, as there are many people with vested interests. Yet many small and medium businesses do not necessarily pay attention to the concepts of corporate governance. Most of them do not even have the necessary structure and knowledge organize and implement it. This Paper discusses how corporate governance applies to small businesses. It explains the mechanisms related to sound corporate governance in big companies, such as well developed and implemented policies, procedures and processes, risk management systems, strategic planning, transparency and disclosure, reporting, employee management systems, etc. and recommends which of these mechanisms may be applicable and effective for small and medium businesses. As there is a buzz among the businesses that legislation requiring small and medium businesses to adhere to similar if not exact rules on corporate governance as big publically listed companies, is being considered, this Paper shall discuss whether the government should impose its will to the small and medium business environment, or leave it up to the discretion of the businesses. As a final note, having discussed all of the above, the Paper shall conclude that every company, no matter what size it is, will see the positive effects of implementing the principles of corporate governance. `1 Kobe, Kathryn. 2007. U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau and Intellectual Trade Administration. www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs299.pdf (accessed September 10, 2011

Low temperature electrical transport in microwave plasma fabricated free-standing graphene and N-graphene sheets

Funding Information: This work was performed under the framework of the PEGASUS (Plasma Enabled and Graphene Allowed Synthesis of Unique nano-Structures) project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon research and innovation program under grant agreement No 766894. Work partially funded by Portuguese FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, through EAGER project (PTDC/NAN-MAT/30565/2017) and under projects UIDB/50010/2020 and UIDP/50010/2020. The authors would like to thank S. Russev for the SEM images. M A, E V, K K and Zh K thank the European Regional Development Fund within the Operational Programme ‘Science and Education for Smart Growth 2014–2020’ under the Project CoE ‘National center of mechatronics and clean technologies ‘BG05M2OP001-1.001-0008’. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd.In this paper, the electrical transport in free-standing graphene and N-graphene sheets fabricated by a microwave plasma-based method is addressed. Temperature-dependent resistivity/conductivity measurements are performed on the graphene/N-graphene sheets compressed in pellets. Different measurement configurations reveal directional dependence of current flow—the room-temperature conductivity longitudinal to the pellet’s plane is an order of magnitude higher than the transversal one, due to the preferential orientation of graphene sheets in the pellets. SEM imaging confirms that the graphene sheets are mostly oriented parallel to the pellet’s plane and stacked in agglomerates. The high longitudinal electrical conductivity with values on the order of 103 S/m should be noted. Further, the current flow mechanism revealed from resistivity-temperature dependences from 300K down to 10K shows non-metallic behavior manifested with an increasing resistivity with decreasing the temperature d ρ / d T < 0 usually observed for insulating or localized systems. The observed charge transport shows variable range hopping at lower temperatures and thermally activated behaviour at higher temperatures. This allows us to attribute the charge transport mechanism to a partially disordered system in which single graphene sheets are placed predominantly parallel to each other and stacked together.publishersversionpublishe

Prospects for microwave plasma synthesized N-graphene in secondary electron emission mitigation applications

PTDC/NAN-MAT/30565/2017 D01-284/2019 (INFRAMAT) IBB BASE 2020-2023 UID/FIS/00068/2019.The ability to change the secondary electron emission properties of nitrogen-doped graphene (N-graphene) has been demonstrated. To this end, a novel microwave plasma-enabled scalable route for continuous and controllable fabrication of free-standing N-graphene sheets was developed. High-quality N-graphene with prescribed structural qualities was produced at a rate of 0.5 mg/min by tailoring the high energy density plasma environment. Up to 8% of nitrogen doping levels were achieved while keeping the oxygen content at residual amounts ( 1%). The synthesis is accomplished via a single step, at atmospheric conditions, using ethanol/methane and ammonia/methylamine as carbon and nitrogen precursors. The type and level of doping is affected by the position where the N-precursor is injected in the plasma environment and by the type of precursors used. Importantly, N atoms incorporated predominantly in pyridinic/pyrrolic functional groups alter the performance of the collective electronic oscillations, i.e. plasmons, of graphene. For the first time it has been demonstrated that the synergistic effect between the electronic structure changes and the reduction of graphene $-plasmons caused by N doping, along with the peculiar “crumpled” morphology, leads to sub-unitary (textless 1) secondary electron yields. N-graphene can be considered as a prospective low secondary electron emission and plasmonic material.publishersversionpublishe