Gaining Strength For A New Future: Bosnia And Herzegovinas Export Opportunities

International trade is crucial for Bosnia and Herzegovinas (B&H) economic prosperity. In this study guidance to B&H exporters is provided by identifying potential markets and products to focus on when designing future trade strategies. To this end trends in the world trade and trade patterns are examined using various approaches.First approach to identify the potential markets for the B&H exports called for identifying the countries with highest general demand for Bosnia and Herzegovinas current export products. The products Bosnia and Herzegovina exports most along with the countries that demand these products the most in the world are identified. The second approach for identifying the potential export markets for B&H products examine the import volumes of other countries in the world. Still a more fruitful approach for the B&H exporters, at least in the short term, is to target the markets with the fastest growth of import volumes (the third approach). In the fourth approach, untapped trade and highly untapped trade countries that should be targeted by B&H exporters are presented. The fifth approach for identifying the potential export markets for B&H products is based on examining the products whose imports increased fastest in recent years and the countries that imported these products most.The products/product groups that have the highest potential for B&H export success are also identified. First, most imported products as well as the products/product groups whose exports increased the fastest in recent years are examined. Second, the import volumes ten countries with the highest total imports are examined on a product basis to identify the products they import most as well as the products with the highest growth rate of imports. Third, product categories with untapped trade potential and highly untapped trade potential along with their respective markets are presented.Long term sustainable success in the ever changing global economy requires a close and continuous scanning of the trends in the environment. The analysis approaches described above provide B&H exporters a starting point in evaluating their product and market selection strategies and designing new ones for the future

The influence of top managers' personal values on sustainability of SMEs in developing countries

The purpose of this paper is to provide a new theoretical insight regarding top managers' personal values in developing countries based on the Schwartz Values Theory (Schwartz, 1992, 1996, 2006; Schwartz and Bilsky, 1990) and to explore the influence of top managers' personal values on sustainability performances of successful businesses. The research describes personal values differences between top managers and their commitment to pro-social and pro-environmental responsibility who were approached through the validated and reliable questionnaire on identifying top managers' personal values (PVQ40) and questionnaire on sustainability indicators observed through the „triple bottom line“ concept which includes three measuring elements: financial, social and environmental performances (Fauzi, Svensson and Rahman, 2010). Given that top managers are very often the owners in SMEs, their values are largely reflected in the organizational values, which means that in small pro-environmentaly oriented firms, the personal values of ownersmanagers seem to play a much stronger part in motivating proenvironmental behaviors than in other SMEs (Lawrence at al., 2006). With regard to business sustainability, it is still insufficiently known, developed and understood in Southeast Europe and in developing countries. Therefore, this research may be used to encourage companies and local governments to include a sustainability issues in their business activities as a pre-condition for business success and competitiveness. The managers in SMEs can use this research as a guideline on introduction of contemporary principles of sustainability into their companies and to improve and direct their personal values towards sustainability.peer-reviewe