Towards Explaining Growth of Private and Public services in the Emerging Market Economies

The employment in public and private services in Emerging Market Economies (EME) has undergone disparate patterns of change during the transition. The paper reveals the main determinants of employment growth in different service groups in the period 1995-2008. Standard variables (per capita income, productivity gap and government expenditure) provide insufficient explanation for the increasing share of services employment while transition reforms indicators exert statistically significant influence. Estimations differ substantially for public, mixed and private services. Deviations from the theoretical framework and patterns in developed economies are observed that need to take into account path dependency of the convergence process of emerging market economies in major service groups. The findings are inconclusive and call for the extension of research towards additional explanatory factors and improvement of data set.employment growth, tertiarisation, public services, private services, transition

Exploring Determinants of International Sourcing: Captive Offshoring vs. Offshore Outsourcing

The growing significance of international sourcing has been well documented and has spurred the emergence of extensive body of theoretical literature analyzing the organization of firms’ activities on a global scale. Recent literature on integration strategies and global production sharing combines elements from international trade and industrial organization with the theory of the firm in order to explain endogenously the variety of organizational forms. Using the propositions of transaction costs and internalization, firm-specific advantages and location advantages, we examine the role of different factors as a determinant of the fragmentation strategy of Slovene firms. We evaluate how firm-level, industry-level and country-level characteristics influence the choice of sourcing mode (domestic sourcing, offshore outsourcing and captive offshoring) on recently conducted Eurostat survey

Relevance of innovation cooperation for firms’ innovation activity: the case of Slovenia

The paper analyses the importance of innovation cooperation on the innovation activity of Slovenian firms, and puts it within the broader context of firm’s innovation activity determinants. Probit estimations based on firm-level data confirm that, next to R&D spending, innovation cooperation is the most important factor in firms’ probability to innovate. This paper is the first to explicitly analyse the effect of variety and different types of innovation cooperation. Within innovation cooperation, a significant and positive effect on innovation activity is confirmed for domestic as well as for international innovation cooperation, for public as well as private cooperation, especially with customers, suppliers and advisors, but not for cooperation with public institutions such as universities and R&D institutes. Innovation cooperation should, thus, be more intensively promoted, especially in countries that lag behind in own R&D spending

Inward and Outward FDI Country Profiles, Second Edition

This second edition contains a series of 77 standardized country profiles dealing with the inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) performance of 40 economies. The profiles have been peer-reviewed by a global network of experts. The publication is intended to contribute to the analysis of trends in foreign direct investment and policy issues related to them. More specifically, the individual profiles discuss FDI trends and developments (country-level developments, the corporate players); effects of the recent global crises; and the policy scene. Each profile contains a standard set of tables, including on FDI stocks and flows, sectoral and geographical FDI distributions, the largest M&As and greenfield investments, the principal foreign affiliates (for inward FDI), and the principal multinational enterprises (for outward FDI). The standardized template used to produce the profiles allows cross-country comparisons. The volume is meant to be a reference tool for anyone interested in foreign direct investment

Razvoj storitev ekonomske diplomacije

Prispevek predstavlja izzive sodobne ekonomske diplomacije v pospeševanju internacionalizacije z analizo vrzeli med povpraševanjem in ponudbo. Stran ponudbe oblikuje spremenjen odnos med državo in mednarodno delujočimi podjetji, kjer se odnos konfliktnosti zamenjuje s sodelovanjem in pojasnjuje organizacijske spremembe in rastočo ponudbo storitev podpornih institucij. Povpraševanje oziroma rastočo potrebo po ekonomski diplomaciji podjetij utemeljim z analizo ovir v mednarodnem poslovanju slovenskih podjetij in vrednotenjem izbranih storitev podpornih institucij s strani podjetij. Konceptualni model in predstavljeni rezultati empiričnih raziskav kot možnost za zmanjšanje vrzeli (s povečanjem ponudbe in zmanjšanjem povpraševanja) izpostavijo večje in zgodnejše sodelovanje med podjetji in institucijami, kakovostnejšo analitiko, razvoj veščin in znanja zaposlenih, izmenjavo izkušenj in organiziranje mrež ter prilagajanje pričakovanj.The paper analyses the challenges of economic and corporate diplomacy by defining the gap between the supply and demand for these services. The changing relationship between governments and multinational enterprises reveals increasing co-operation and development of services. In contrast, a survey-based analysis of major barriers in international business and an evaluation of institutional support highlight the rise in demand. The conceptual framework suggests that greater and earlier co-operation, the increased quality of analytics, exchanges of experience, learning and developing skills and adjusting expectations could bridge this supply-demand gap

Outward FDI from Slovenia and its policy context

High export orientation originating from a small domestic market and experience in outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from the pre-transitionperiod helped Slovenian enterprises to internationalize early onafter their countryŽs independence and separation from the former Republic of Yugoslavia, making Slovenia one of the first outward investors among transition economies in South-East Europe. This facilitated a reorientation ofinternational trade and investment toward developed economies after the lossof the Yugoslav market triggered by Slovenian independence. OFDI flows increased rapidly after the end of the 1990s. Following the global financial and economic crisis, OFDI flows fell significantly in 2009 and 2010, and in 2010, the OFDI stock decreased for the first time since 2000. With the help ofOFDI, SloveniaŽs enterprises have grown considerably beyond the constraints imposed by the country\u27s dynamic, but small, economy. Their foreign expansion is in line with national strategic priorities that include entrepreneurship, business internationalization and innovatio

Towards explaining growth of private and public services in the emerging market economies

The employment in public and private services in Emerging Market Economies (EME) has undergone disparate patterns of change during the transition. The paper reveals the main determinants of employment growth in different service groups in the period 1995-2008. Standard variables (per capita income, productivity gap and government expenditure) provide insufficient explanation for the increasing share of services employment while transition reforms indicators exert statistically significant influence. Estimations differ substantially for public, mixed and private services. Deviations from the theoretical framework and patterns in developed economies are observed that need to take into account path dependency of the convergence process of emerging market economies in major service groups. The findings are inconclusive and call for the extension of research towards additional explanatory factors and improvement of data se