Globalization, Governance, Democratization and Fair Trade

The chapter presents the discussion on fair trade initiatives and their possible role in achieving more equilibrated trade relations inside globalization and governance. The authors want to challenge the overrated goodwill of peoples’ initiative mostly positioning itself as a counterpart of existing trade policy developments. Fair trade is scanned through principles of economics, which enable a conclusion that the present concept is too narrow to produce enough inside energy for its establishment in real policy of developed economies. Special attention the authors are paying to governance as a field that may profoundly explain the gaps subject to action in the fair trade initiatives. Due to the global meaning of the principle for sustainable global trade and security, it must continuously be more and more incorporated in the mainstream politics of world leading economies

What Has Happened with C-B M&A Acceptance? A Follow Up Based on 2005 – 2015 Study

Especially since 1990s when capital flows liberalization took their intensive course, also the literature on foreign direct investment and respectfully cross-border mergers and acquisitions grew. On the other hand, although it was accompanying these processes, foreign divestment attracted much less attention. Speculating about the reasons for such situation, one could stress that following the nature of the balance of payments logic foreign direct divestment was not expected. Nevertheless, these processes were present. This chapter addresses some of the most important impacts of foreign direct investment that had been a subject to inverse processes later. The authors try to confront the drivers of these processes and search for different patterns obviously often deriving outside economic rationale from the position of a developed market economy. Using their expertize the authors connected concrete findings of their study with possible drivers of divestment. According to the finding the common nominator was mixed success with the transition in transition countries

Otklanjanje varanja studenata kod pripreme seminarskih radova sa praktičnim iskustvom na odabranom univerzitetu

Sa razvojem društva sve veći broj mladih ljudi pohađa visokoobrazovne ustanove. To je posledica potrebe za dobijanjem višeg nivoa znanja, dok nije zanemariv ni interes za sticanjem boljeg društvenog statusa. Zbog toga se kreiranjem novih studijskih programa, a naročito onih koji se ubrajaju kao relativno pristupačniji, ispoljava određena motivacija za varanje u cilju dobijanja prolaznih ocena ili diploma. Nakon pregleda literature o fenomenu varanja kod provere znanja studenata, autori navode primer dobre prakse za sprečavanje plagijarizma na Ekonomsko-poslovnom fakultetu u Mariboru. U radu se polazi od problema varanja kod pripreme seminarskih radova, koji se u prethodnom periodu otklanjao primenom klasične metode – otkrivanjem i sankcijama. Ovaj pristup je produkovao negativne rezultate kako za profesore tako i za studente. Posle analize uzroka koji su doveli do ovakvog razvoja događaja, uveden je novi model pisanja seminarskih radova, koji isključuje mogućnost varanja, a pri tom donosi i pozitivne sporedne efekte

Evolution of Marketing in Smart Cities through the Collaboration Design

Our time sees more and more cities striving to grow into smart cities, which makes this market to grow with a considerable pace. However, there are many challenges of these processes such as municipal budgets, disposability of skilled staff, privacy and cyber security concerns, etc. Besides, by the technology-driven smart city development, an essential thing has been lost on the way—the human dimension. While the world has started to recognize this deficiency, the hunt for the right methodology to do better has begun, and so an open run to understand the relations among humans, technology, and society in order to manage their effect on business and economy. This development will eventually enter the perspective of the electoral body of democratic societies, thus influencing public policy. It will provide the room to a new equilibrium within the triad: people, businesses, and public policy. Being close to the population and their everyday needs (smart), cities will no doubt act as a push factor to these developments. Propelled with technology change and new values, the private-public-people partnerships (PPPP) will earn the pace. The communicators, bringing new relationship to life, are in this way challenged by metadesign: designing for the “new” designer(s)—the empowered end user. Therefore, for the communicators, the next challenge for marketing in smart cities is the creation of tools and methodologies for the new forms of the collaboration design. After presenting the unique factors that are driving the growth of smart cities in different parts of the world, authors identify important challenges that still need to be overcome in different markets. Special focus will be given on the discussion of contemporary challenges of public policy seen through smart cities development, which by requiring new marketing design is exercising pressure on public policy. Smart cities marketing design will be discussed from the perspective of the need to hear human needs, and at the same time to support the functionality of the 4Ps. Its concrete role will be in bringing understanding of the need for collaboration, which can reduce costs of public policy, thus enlarging benefits of collective action in smart cities

FDI Blessing — How Is It Recognized by Local Communities? — A Comparative Study of Slovenia and Serbia

Foreign direct investments play a vital role in generating economic growth. National governments as well as local communities therefore need an appropriate strategy for attracting foreign direct investments on the one hand and maximizing their benefits on the other

Foreign direct investments’ openness in local communities – the case of Slovenia and Serbia

Inward foreign direct investments are usually cited as an essential tool for economic growth and are often listed as one of the priorities by national governments, especially in transition countries strive. When local communities are concerned, the economic effects of international capital flows in principle should not differ from the national economy. Despite the threats they can also pose, they should mostly represent the opportunity for technological improvements and raising the competitiveness of the economy. When inward foreign direct investments are more or less limited to a local community, its leadership is in a position to follow them carefully. In this case, they are usually also well informed on sentiments of the population regarding these investments. These processes may add to the governments’ responsibility when planning the investments but often also add to the transparency of other stakeholders, which could help the governments to manage foreign direct investments in the local community. To offer a novelty with research in the field, the authors added this perspective to existing studies, predominantly analysing foreign direct investment effects in the national economy. The paper brings a comparative analysis of sentiments in local communities in Slovenia and Serbia. Statistical analysis based on opinion polls, although not free of statistical risks, enabled expected conclusions but also opened new insights

Institutional setting as a determinant of FDI attraction – example of Serbia

South-Eastern European countries (SEE countries) are still net importers of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the form of cross-border mergers and acquisition. Their companies have not significantly involved in this type of expansion on the foreign markets. The main obstacles to entrepreneurship in their business environment are high levels of corruption and large state bureaucracy. Therefore, their economies are mostly characterized by low competitiveness, high trade deficit and insufficient inflow of FDI necessary to support their transition process from centrally planned toward market economy. Design of an efficient, transparent legal and institutional framework is a crucial determinant of FDI. Institutional setting in SEE countries has an impact on the entry mode choice as undeveloped institutions drive up the costs of organizing business. Therefore, efforts towards the higher quality of institutional setting may help them to attract more FDI inflow and catch up more advanced economies. To enable an insight into the quality of institutional setting in Serbia, authors will show the most important economic and political events since the beginning of the 90s which had direct or indirect influence on the level of FDI

Održivost ekonomskog rasta i direktne strane investicije – primer spremnosti za strana ulaganja u opštinama Slovenije i Srbije

U literaturi ne postoji jedinstveno mišljenje po pitanju prednosti stranih direktnih investicija (SDI). Što se tiče stava nacionalnih vlada, jasno je da lokalne vlasti preferiraju greenfield investicije od prekograničnih merdžera i akvizicija. Ovaj vid investicija se često optužuje da ignoriše nacionalne ekonomske ciljeve. Međutim, uprkos tome, oba tipa SDI se često koriste kao instrumenti za konsolidaciju industrije. U radu se analizira kako lokalne zajednice u Sloveniji i Srbiji procenjuju šanse koje SDI predstavljaju za njihov ekonomski rast

Vpliv novega zakona o pokojninskem in invalidskem zavarovanju na javnofinančne razmere v Sloveniji

Pokojninsko reformo v Sloveniji narekujejo, podobno kakor v drugih članicah EU, demografske razmere, ki povzročajo pomisleke o medgeneracijskem sporazumu. Ker je Slovenija huje kakor primerljive države v EU občutila finančno in gospodarsko krizo, ima postavitev fiskalno vzdržnega javnega pokojninskega sistema še toliko večji pomen, zahteva pa tudi hitrejše ukrepanje, kakor je bilo prepričanje pred krizo. Značilno za sedanje razmere potekajo na tem področju divergentna gibanja. Po eni strani se nadaljuje približevanje števila upokojencev delovno aktivnemu prebivalstvu, po drugi strani pa se slabšajo razmere na strani proračunskih prihodkov. Seveda zmanjšana gospodarska rast in zaposlenost zmanjšujeta prilive v proračun. To, da moramo dvomiti o nekaterih predpostavkah, na katerih temeljijo ocene o potrebnosti pokojninske reforme, še utrjuje naše prepričanje, da je sprememba pokojninskega sistema nujna. Ekonomska politika jo mora izvesti v zelo neugodnem času. Zato se bo morala bolje posvetiti vzpostavljanju širšega soglasja in stroške posodobitve pokojninskega sistema razdeliti med generacijami čim enakomerneje

The Nature of Institutional Change in Transition

Contemporary empirical evidence of transition in Central and East European countries proves the importance of institutional change, as was claimed by advocates of this field of transition. The article assesses institutional change in the first phases of transition from the perspective of competing strategies: rapid changes versus gradualism. After pointing to some inconsistencies in this debate, the article discusses the possibility and prospects for development of a market for institutions in European transition countries. The main criterion which is used is the requirement for the rule of law as one of the foundations of a market economy. It concludes that undeveloped endogenous factors of institutional change still do not enable development of markets for institutions. Reluctance of national governments to act according to a long-run perspective is at present to a certain extent compensated by the presence of external factors of institutional change.