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The section Dialogue is in this issue is led by Rade Šerbedžija and Borislav Vujčić. Their fascinating dialogue discloses the fate of Rade Šerbedžija, one of the greatest actors of 20th century former Yugoslavia, a fate that remains paradigmatic for many intellectuals of the region. A Serb from Croatia, Zagreb citizen to the core, he found himself banned from work and welcome nowhere. So he went abroad, like many others did.
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The main goal of the paper is to point to opportunity of involving academic community as the key factor in production of knowledge for the main purpose of cooperation and democratic oversight of security intelligence services. Old fashion way of generating intelligence throught the bureauocratic mechanism will no longer be able to compete with network based production and dissemination of information and knowledge. Security phenomenons and their trends characterised by dinamics and complexity require interdiciplinary approach and raise an opportunity for cooperation between intelligence and security agencies and academic community. Both of these comunities have simillar caracteristics, resources, methodology and similar goal - to find answers and look for the truth. That could be useful for the purpose of national security and democracy if the differences and specific nature of both sides such as the relationship with the government and society, attitude towards through the secrecy and publicity are taken into account. The main purpose of this cooperation colud take a form of long term planning and identification of threats, better understanding of new security challenges, gaining public support, developing rare skills and management of agencies.
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The paper discusses influences on the Bosnian medieval law development, its role and importance in context of the European ius commune. Adopted Roman law influenced the law of the Duchy of Bosnia, then the Kongdom of Bosnia, primarily through the law of Mediterranean cities, where a legal transaction was the liveliest. The influence of the Hungarian law and the Sasks law was also visible, but the impact of canon law, which was developed and sirens from the Franciscan monastery was not negligible either. Revewing the elements of the Bosnian medieval law, it is evident that the Roman law had the greatest impact on contries of the former European area, where the Bosnia as a whole shared the fate of the legal development of neighboring countries.
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Despite the globalization processes that lead to the integration and unification of all segments of society, issues of culture, ethnicity and identity are becoming more and more actual, because along with strong process of integration there is current process of national awakening with all the elements of passion and distinctiveness. These issues are particularly complex in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had from immemorial been under the influence of different cultures, religions, cults, and great civilizations. Because of its turbulent history, the frequent conflicts, wars and the rule of large invading force, many start processes remained incomplete, and at the same time impose a new one. In that sense, this discourse will be talking about the Bosnian cultural polychrome, multiculturalism, the divergence of ethnicity and identity of a once unified, monolithic Bosnian society to the present at least three ethnic communities, which have been, with the aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina, finally differentiated. Scale process of differentiation of Bosnian society is full of ambivalence, from the idyllic coexistence, harmony and unity in diversity to severe conflicts, crimes and genocide, which will be particularly focused. In that sense, this presentation will highlight the complexity and intricacy of the establishment of a Bosnian national identity.
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Primećuje se da su na većini razvijenih tržišta, strateške osnove marketinga (segmentacija, targetiranje ili izbor ciljnih grupa i pozicioniranje), kao mehanizam za unapređenje konkurentske prednosti i njeno prevođenje u poslovne mogućnosti i nove proizvode, počele da pokazuju izvesna ograničenja. Kompanije mogu nastaviti sa segmentacijom tržišta na sve sitnije delove ali na kraju, rezultat su tržišta previše mala da bi bila profitabilna. Zato je danas potreban novi način razmišljanja o tome kako osmisliti efikasnu tržišnu ponudu. Stiglo se do prelomne tačke kada je marketingu bio potreban novi okvir za razvoj ideja.
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In last 15 years the EU almost doubled the number of its member states, and enlargement became almost continous phenomena in the EU. Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union, supplemented by the Copenhagen criteria, provides the framework for enlargement. In this sense, the paper discusses the process of EU enlargement in the context of the new Lisbon solutions, conecting with the possibility of forthcoming EU enlargement in the Western Balkans.
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Prema podacima Organizacije za ljudska prava International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights broj muslimana u EU procjenjuje se na više od 20 miliona. Prezentacija muslimana u Evropi predstavlja jedan poseban izazov za aktuelnu politiku i društvo kao i sve veći broj muslimana i džamija. Broj učenika koji uzimaju učešće na vjeronauci u javnim školama predstavlja, također, izazov za politiku i ekonomiju kao i za zakonodavce. Novim proširenjem EU povećava se pritisak na aktuelnu politiku u cilju razvitka novog koncepta za integraciju muslimanske manjine.
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Slovak companies record conflicting responses regarding the use of the balanced scorecard (BSC) system in practice. Apart from information on positive results there are reports referring to negative experiences, documenting the insufficient contribution of the BSC system. The starting point of the research described in this paper is based on the assumption that the BSC is not meeting the management expectations to the required level it was implemented into practice, yielding limited contribution, or reduced functionality. The results presented were aimed to verify the functionality or disfunctionality of the BSC system and identify its degree in those Slovak companies businesses where the methodology has been applied.
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By making use of the newly constructed regional portfolios of Korean SMEs, this paper examines the effect of oil price changes on these portfolios returns. The results from the multifactor market model are as follows: (1) the portfolios classified in the capital area (Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi-do-do) are less likely to be significantly exposed to oil price changes rather than others in non-capital area; (2) portfolios are more likely to be significantly exposed to oil prices changes when oil price changes are sizable; (3)portfolios are more likely to be significantly exposed to the type of oil price changes measured by the ‘random-walk’ assumption rather than by the ‘GARCH (1,1)’ process. These results suggest informative features on oil price exposures of Korean SMEs.
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Currently, e-business and e-commerce systems became standard tools in the business environment. As we can see in practice and literature, current trend in e-business and e-commerce, is to develop systems enabled to manage and coordinate (and help the managers to manage) the business and production operations. Companies' managers increasingly need new methods and tools that can help them in their decision-making. In general, managements can make right decisions only in case they have current and adequate information. In addition, managers have to get all information in time, and decision-making processes should be realized quickly and under the strong thumb of a competitive environment. It also applies in the context of management of e-business and e-commerce systems. One of basic features of efficient e-commerce is correct definitions and descriptions of all internal and external processes of the supplier. All of them are targeted to customers´ needs and requirements. The optimal and most exact way how to obtain and find optimal solution of e-commerce system and its process structure is modeling and simulation. Contrarily to most approaches using process-oriented modeling, this paper presents the value-chain-oriented modeling approach. Value chain model and its transformation into control loop is shortly presented as a base for simulation. The closing discussion outlines next research directions. The aim of this paper is to outline value chain approach to modeling in e-commerce systems. First, we present an e-commerce system as a subject of our research. Next the role of modeling at the design level and its’ role in the decision support is discussed. After that, we shortly characterize the two main business modeling perspectives, namely the process-oriented and value-chain-oriented approach. Section 4 deals with an outline of generic e-commerce model based on value chain modeling. The last sections include simulation model, model results, and closing remarks.
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The article presents the results of a research focused on identifying, understanding and synthesizing the current trends in the field of full logistics services. The character of the article is empirical and descriptive. The research was dealing with the activities of providers of full logistics services operating in the Czech Republic and working in the B2B segment. The searching was based on a combination of qualitative methods (monitoring, analysis of documents, interviews) with simple statistical methods. About 300 providers of full logistics services were identified in the Czech Republic. Their classifications according to size, ownership, scope of activities and transport modes used in their services were performed. More detailed findings about sample of 13 large providers were obtained. These findings were related to competition in the branch of full logistics services, approaches to solve the problems generated by crisis, empowering the integrated logistics solutions and exclusive partnership with customers as well as the organizational concentration within the branch of logistics services. In conclusion of the article the areas for further research are formulated.
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The role of small and medium enterprises in any economy needs no exaggeration. They provide employment to the local community and contribute significantly to the nation’s income and growth. Yet many of these enterprises routinely fail. This study attempts to predict a non-financial qualitative factors model on the lines of Lussier (1995), with modifications in the independent variables and using ‘profit for at least three years out of the last 5 years’ as a measure of success or failure of an enterprise. The study will contribute to the limited literature on business success versus failure prediction studies using neural networks.
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The aim of the paper is to propose a model of multi-criteria investment decision-making tool supporting the decision-making of territorial self-government regions at the level of NUTS 3, based on theoretical knowledge and data obtained from the empirical survey conducted in three analyzed countries (the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic and Hungary). The proposed model of multi-criteria investment decision-making tool is based on the method of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) adapted to the needs of the investment decision-making of self-government regions. Based on the results it can be said that the proposed tool is a suitable complement of the investment decision-making of territorial self-government regions.
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Indebtedness of public administration has become a key issue of the economic debates and discussions in recent years. Growing public debt negatively influences the economic development and causes serious troubles to every country and its inhabitants. In a paper we analyze and examine the influence of growing indebtedness on municipalities’ decision to finance sport. For our purpose, we chose eight capital cities of the Slovak high territorial units. We analyzed the development of indebtedness and financial health indicators within period 2009-2012. From obtained data we examined how indebtedness influences the decision of selected municipalities to finance and provide sport activities and services. Methodology and methods for data analysis are described in Section 2. We stated hypothesis that indebtedness in selected municipalities causes decreased financing of sport activities. We found out that indebtedness development has direct connections, impacts, and correlation on decision of municipality representatives. Further conclusions and discussion are part of Section 4. Paper is elaborated within national scientific research project VEGA 1/1195/12 Strategic interactions of the Slovak local municipalities in determining the tax rates.
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Polish SMEs are the key aspect for the development of Polish economy. They can be a solution to reducing the unemployment, improving the economic situation, soothing social tensions and increasing the quality of life in Poland. SMEs provide employment opportunities for Polish citizens, and engage in local issues and contribute to sustainable economic development. Therefore, they are crucial for helping Polish economy by cushioning the impact of institutional changes caused by Poland’s transition to a capitalist economy. The aim of this research is to identify factors influencing the success of Polish SMEs in tourism sector (measured by the gross profit per employee). Our results show that being a middle-aged owner/manager who established an enterprise because he or she wanted to achieve self-realization or experience risk and run a one-person, or sole-trader enterprise that had certificates for its products, used Broadband Internet connection and was located in the province in the proximity of large cities increased the probability of achieving enterprise success.
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In recent years, the investigation of persistency of profit for insurance sector has become a significant subject of research with its increasing importance in economy. With this respect, by using the data of return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) of 7 insurance companies quoted in BIST (Stock Market of Istanbul) in the period from March 2005 till September 2013, the profit of these companies was investigated whether persistent or not via IPS (2003) without break and Panel LM (2005) with structural break unit root tests. As a result of study, by eliminating the findings via panel LM test that profit was observed persistent from model without break, profit was determined non-persistent in situation taken into account structural breaks. The reason of this situation can be competitive economic structure and effects of 2008 global financial crisis in the scope of being developing country of Turkey. Furthermore, these findings are supported by accomplished previous literature for Turkey.
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The major aim of the study is to identify the factors related to the implementation of Quality Management practices in manufacturing units from organization perspective, based on an empirical analysis and to identify the relationship between TQM implementation and organizational strategy. This study is limited to small manufacturing units registered with confederation of Indian Industries in Tamil Nadu. The instrument used in this study is a survey questionnaire. The samples of 110 units are selected for the study. The study implies that the presence of people involvement based organization strategy influenced the successful implementation of TQM and its success depends on the dimensions of top management involvement and organization culture which resulted in higher organizational performance. This encourages managers to accompany their TQM practices with the infusion and reinforcement of employee empowerment, shared vision, and style of an organization.
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Mainly past studies used security prices to test the random walk theory. Not much attention is given to gold bullion coin prices. Furthermore, past literature emphasised on the developed countries’ markets to test the random walk theory for gold prices. However, the evidence for developing countries’ markets is lacking. In addition to this, several important events happened in the past decade seem to have affected the gold prices. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to test for the presence of a random walk in the series of Malaysian gold bullion coin (1oz) daily prices, ranging from July 18th 2001 to May 11th 2012, by incorporating the structural break in the series. Past studies on testing the random walk theory of gold prices used tradition unit root tests without incorporating structural breaks. In contrast, this study applies Zivot and Andrews (1992) one-break and Lumsdaine and Papell (1997) two-break unit root tests. Furthermore, we also provided the empirical evidences based on traditional unit root tests to compare the results with the prior studies on this topic. The main finding is that Malaysian gold bullion coin prices follow mean reversion, implying that the market is inefficient and the impact of shocks is transitory. We also capture important break dates in the series. The finding has implications for econometric modelling, in particular forecasting and structural breaks. The structural breaks captured in the series reflect that investors are responsive to market sentiment. Furthermore, as our empirical results show mean reversion, therefore, investors can exploit past price trend to get abnormal profit. This paper adds to the literature on random walk theory of gold prices, by providing the evidence on Malaysian gold bullion coin prices. In our knowledge, no previous research tested the random walk theory of gold prices on Malaysia, by using structural break unit root tests.
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We apply a double panel data econometric analysis (a static regional, for the period 1995-2011, and a provincial dynamic panel, for the period 2005-2011) for Italy, in order to evaluate which wellbeing factors can cause internal migration, by pointing out the relevance of subjective factors and economic variables. For what concerns social variables, we verify the Tiebout’s hypothesis, according to which migration depends on the satisfaction of provision of public goods; furthermore, we consider the relevance of social cohesion in the migration process, according to the EU Regional Policies framework. As for the economic variables, we follow the Harrod-Todaro approach, according to which individuals migrate to improve their economic wellbeing related to labour market conditions. Our results find that pull factors of internal migration are the high level of income per capita and the good perception of the quality of local services, while push factors of internal migration are the high perception of social insecurity and the huge level of unemployment with the latter increasing its influence during the crisis.
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