The Relationship Between Organizational Culture and Employees’ Satisfaction Shown on the Example of Tourism Businesses in Montenegro

Organizational culture, as an area of management is a complex system of mutual values that creates an organization’s identity and makes it different from the competition. The aim of this paper is to create an adequate approach for improving competitive advantages and better performance of Montenegro’s tourism businesses through improving business environment as one of the competitiveness factors. Through this work, the relationship and influence between the type of organisational culture and employees’ satisfaction is being determined and analysed through different dimensions of the work they are doing. For the needs of this work a quantitative explorative research has been done, using the method of questionnaire. In the questionnaire, the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) and the Test for measuring employees’ satisfaction have been used. The obtained results show us the type of organizational culture that is characteristic for tourism businesses in Montenegro, as well as the influence it has on the level of employees’ satisfaction, through different dimensions. Business environment that increases the level of job satisfaction of employees contributes to loyalty and achieving better results in tourism businesses. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

Tourism in the Digital Age: E-booking Perspective

Digitization in the tourism sector beside hospitality information systems application as its integral part has also led to the application of on-line booking systems, which enable the booking of the desired tourist arrangement via the Internet. Consequently, the emergence of the e-booking concept has made it possible reducing administrative and operational costs, since the e-booking system is also used on smartphones with appropriate applicative support. This paper aims to point out the importance of e-booking in the digital age of tourism, especially from monitoring the most common destinations, customer preferences and performing predictive analytics by collecting large amounts of data. In this way, the implementation of big data and cloud computing concept enhances tourism services, since it is possible to analyse destination history and tourist potential of the client via the Internet. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

Dietary fibers and bread: Attitudes, beliefs and knowledge among young population

The link between dietary fibers and prevention of non-communicable diseases is well documented in the existing scientific literature. Despite that, most of the population still do not have enough knowledge about fibers and their presence in certain food. This study intended to make an insight in the knowledge of the Serbian young population about dietary fibers and bioactive compounds through a questionnaire survey. A survey was conducted to a sample of 173 individuals, (37% male and 63% female) randomly selected among students from elementary, high school and university in the Novi Sad municipality. Topics covered by the questionnaire included knowledge of the term dietary fiber, fiber content in different bread types, the relationship between fibers and health and bioactive compounds sources in food. The results for each of the particular topics addressed varied among studied groups, but generally level of knowledge was related to the education level. The highest overall knowledge about dietary fibers and bioactive compounds was expressed by the university students, although elementary and high school students showed a considerable level of knowledge on the subject. Male participants appeared as more familiar with the questions related to bioactive compounds, while females were more informed on questions regarding dietary fiber. This survey revealed that young population in Serbia is well informed about the contribution of dietary fiber and bioactive compounds in promoting health. However, further expansion of existing knowledge will be beneficial in order to improve general health of the entire community

A Comparison of Retrospective Radon Gas Measurement Techniques Carried Out in the Serbian Spa of Niska Banja

Indoor radon retrospective concentrations were obtained and compared using two radon measurement methods. Both methods rely on the measurement of the long-lived radon progeny (210)Pb, collected either on the surfaces (surface trap technique), most frequently glass, or in a volume trap, usually sponge from furniture (volume trap technique). These techniques have been used to retrospectively estimate radon gas concentrations that have existed in dwellings in the past. The work presented here compares the results provided by the surface trap technique devised at the University College of Dublin, Ireland, and the volume trap technique devised at the Scientific Research Center, Mol, Belgium. The field campaign was carried out by the research team of the ECE Laboratory of the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences at the spa of Niska Banja, identified as a region of Serbia with a high indoor radon and ground water radium and radon content

Experienced Well-Being in the Rural Areas of the Srem Region (Serbia): Perceptions of the Local Community

The sustainability of rural settlements in Serbia has become the main focus of strategic rural development planning. Although it is still difficult to measure the quality of life of the citizens of the Republic of Serbia, preliminary results show that it is necessary to go beyond the GDP as the only or one of its most important indicators. A multidimensional approach and analysis at the local level is necessary for more comprehensive insight into quality of life in order to avoid erroneous or simplified conclusions. Striving to provide more detailed insight into the attitudes and needs of the local population, this research uses a qualitative approach. Subjective measures of how people feel and function in everyday life can predict future reactions, many of which are in the domain of the interests of local public services. The aim of the research is to apply measurement indicators through six dimensions of well-being in order to determine to what extent the inhabitants of rural communities are satisfied with some indicators and how they assess their own well-being. The research results illustrate the importance of understanding the needs of the local population and the perception of overall life experience in monitoring balanced rural development. The research can be adapted and applied to any rural community. Thus, only by developing a participatory approach can one strive for community-based rural development

Experienced Well-Being in the Rural Areas of the Srem Region (Serbia): Perceptions of the Local Community

The sustainability of rural settlements in Serbia has become the main focus of strategic rural development planning. Although it is still difficult to measure the quality of life of the citizens of the Republic of Serbia, preliminary results show that it is necessary to go beyond the GDP as the only or one of its most important indicators. A multidimensional approach and analysis at the local level is necessary for more comprehensive insight into quality of life in order to avoid erroneous or simplified conclusions. Striving to provide more detailed insight into the attitudes and needs of the local population, this research uses a qualitative approach. Subjective measures of how people feel and function in everyday life can predict future reactions, many of which are in the domain of the interests of local public services. The aim of the research is to apply measurement indicators through six dimensions of well-being in order to determine to what extent the inhabitants of rural communities are satisfied with some indicators and how they assess their own well-being. The research results illustrate the importance of understanding the needs of the local population and the perception of overall life experience in monitoring balanced rural development. The research can be adapted and applied to any rural community. Thus, only by developing a participatory approach can one strive for community-based rural development

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Tourists’ COVID-19 Risk Perception and Vacation Behavior Shift

Without a doubt, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on global tourism for at least two reasons: (1) imposed systematic travel restrictions that discourage people from traveling even though they would like to; and (2) increased travel anxiety due to the perceived risk of the COVID-19 virus, causing people to change their typical travel behavior. This study aims to explore the role of Covid-19 in shaping future travel behavior. More specifically, following the general model of vacation behavior and the role of risk in travel behavior, we investigate how COVID-19 influences travelers’ perceptions of risk and how this affects planned vacation behavior. The results show that COVID-19 risk perception per se influences typical forms of vacation behavior, but this risk also leads to the development of travel anxiety, which additionally influences only some forms of vacation behavior. Empirical findings show that general anxiety, which is not associated with Covid-19 risk perception, also predicts some forms of planned changes in vacation behaviour. The study concludes with recommendations on how to reduce traveler uncertainty in order to recover international leisure travel

Analysis of the influence and optimization of concentration of organic acids on chemical and physical properties of wheat dough using a response surface methodology and desirability function

In order to improve physical and chemical properties of dough produced from wheat flour of suboptimal quality (protein content 10.7% dry basis, dough energy 4.0 cm2), optimal doses of ascorbic and citric acid were evaluated using a response surface methodology and desirability function. The paper brings the analysis of the main effects as well as their interactions. The effect of organic acids was evident in relation to pH lowering and decrease in free thiol groups, which consequently changed the physical properties of dough (increased dough energy, extensibility and resistance). The well known oxidative effect of ascorbic acid which is manifested as increase in dough energy and resistance, was enhanced by the addition of citric acid i.e. their synergistic action. Contribution of citric acid was the donation of hydrogen ions which changed the pH, lowered the content of free -SH groups and increased protein aggregation. Ascorbic acid individually significantly increased energy (linear regression coefficient b1 = 4.010-4) but higher effect was exerted by the addition of ascorbic and citric acid mixture as seen through higher interaction regression coefficient (b12 = 0.076). Dough resistance was significantly affected only by ascorbic acid due to its oxidizing action whereas dough extensibility was affected by both acids (main effects) at all applied doses and their mixtures. The effect on dough extensibility depends on the dose of acids but resistance decreased with quadratic increase of acid doses. Second-order polynomials were used in modeling of responses (dough energy, resistance and extensibility) which showed a good fit with experimental data as shown by high values of the coefficients of determination R2 for energy, resistance and extensibility (0.953, 0.976 and 0.996, respectively). Based on F value, it could be concluded that the model gave good prediction of experimental data while p-values for all responses showed that the models were significant at significance of 90%. The obtained models were used to optimize the doses of ascorbic and citric acid in order to maximize dough energy and extensibility. Significant increase of dough energy by 4.7 times and extensibility by 1.5 times was achieved by the set of optimum conditions of 97 mg/kg citric and 100 mg/kg ascorbic acid. The obtained results are applicable in semi-industrial and industrial facilities for flour processing

Analyses of the Attitudes of Agricultural Holdings on the Development of Agritourism and the Impacts on the Economy, Society and Environment of Serbia

Agritourism as a special type of tourist migration is a very important link in the diversification of rural areas, connecting the geography, culture, tradition, and gastronomy of the local population, and placing products and services through the hospitality and tourism market. Thanks to this form of tourism, underdeveloped places are gaining in importance and attracting the attention of visitors who are oriented towards natural things, which in turn contributes to a better economic situation of the locality and the population. This paper aims to examine the attitudes of farm owners in the Republic of Serbia toward the impact of agritourism on the economy, living environment, social life, and culture. The data were collected by surveying the owners of agricultural holdings in the territory of the Republic of Serbia and statistically processed using factor analysis, descriptive statistics, and linear regression. Based on the obtained results, it has been established that the owners of agricultural farms are interested in the development of agritourism, and that their positive perception of the impact that agritourism has on the living environment and economy greatly contributes to that. To a lesser extent, a positive attitude was noted toward the importance of agrotourism for the local community and locals, where the positive aspects of agritourism were the education of visitors on agriculture, promotion of the local culture, agricultural and gastronomic products, and sustainable development and investment in infrastructure