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Locals feel snubbed after Russian foreign minister arrives for an official visit wearing jeans.
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The article is devoted to the intense literary and public activities of the Bulgarian philosopher Yanko Yanev in Germany from the mid-1930s and until his death in 1944. Yanev was educated in Germany and defended a doctoral thesis under the supervision of H. Rickert. He is the author of competent studies on Nietzsche, Hegel, Goethe, Hölderlin, Novalis, Schopenhauer, etc. The article is focused on Yanev’s metaphysical inquiries, which brought him to perceive a kinship between the Balkans and Germany. The article discusses Yanev’s rejection of the claims regarding the Slavic nature of Balkan people, claims that he considered to be a Russian insinuation. Also commented on is his view that the Balkans are a construct, in the creation of which this Bulgarian thinker invested his Romantic attitudes and imagination.
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This paper aims to determine whether corporate governance affects manager's real operating or investment decision to control reported earnings. Through data analysis of firms listed on the Korean stock exchange, it was found that the aggregated measure of real activity-based earnings management decreases as the size of board is larger or as a greater proportion of external directors sit on the board. Those findings are almost the same, whether a corporate governance index composed by each BOD characteristics is employed, or problem caused by endogenous relationships among variables is controlled. The results provide the first empirical evidence that real activity-based earnings management is influenced by corporate governance structure. This focus on real activity-based earnings management suggests new avenues for research on corporate governance. The results offer some insights for policy makers interested in promoting legislation to ensure strong corporate governance in their nation.
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Knowledge became a vital resource to all economy subjects after humans had become capable to catalyze the creation and spreading of knowledge in the 20th century. It became urgent to be capable of measuring and assessing knowledge to enhance this resource purposefully and well-grounded. Although quite a lot of scientific articles, as well as more popular publications, analyze various aspects of knowledge management, but the problem of knowledge assessment is yet to be solved. Although plenty of scientists have researched the theoretical and practical problems of assessing organization's knowledge potential for a few decades, a unified and single methodology of assessment has not been accepted. The outcome of our research is the original concept for determining knowledge potential, essentially based on new principles. An assessment of the factors making a real impact helped in building a model including such components as employee's knowledge potential, knowledge potential synergy, and organization's environment. The quantitative specifications of the above introduced components have been prepared. Practical application of the model has been researched by an experiment and theoretical modelling.
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The aim of this study is to develop new strategies for sustainable development of a group and to establish a holding from several companies by considering the regulations in the World Trade, recent developments in textile sector and raising conflicts among stakeholders. In this study, internal analysis of the group was carried out with interviews, observations and surveys. To prepare external analysis, the economical situation of Turkey and the World was researched and categorized under standard PEST (Political – Economic – Sociocultural – Technological) categories. Later, SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis of the group was prepared and most significant factors were chosen. Important problems were identified and the purposes and objectives of the firm were determined by focusing on opportunities. In the light of these factors, TOWS (Threats, Opportunities, Weaknesses, and Strengths) matrix was prepared to combine external and internal factors of the enterprise in order to deploy strategies. A new organization structure of the group was determined and presented based on these strategies.
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Informal investment represents one of the main sources to finance early-stage new ventures. Despite the progressive participation of women in informal investment, little is known about the characteristics of female informal investors, especially in developing countries. This study examines the gender differences of a sample of 613 informal investors in Chile. To this end we used the database from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Chile 2007–2008 and applied tests of differences in proportions and means for independent samples. The results show that there are significant gender differences in some socio-demographic variables, like education and work status, and also in the perception of good opportunities and the fear to failure. Additionally, women invest smaller amounts and expect lower returns than men do. Finally, women invest more than men in close family. Policy implications of these results are discussed.
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In a constantly changing environment, factors influencing creativity and approaches to evaluating them, considered controversial in the scientific literature and in practice, are also experiencing changes. Different authors evaluate and interpret factors affecting creativity differently. Consequently, the problem how to identify and evaluate which of the approaches fully reflects the situation arises. The present article deals with these problems by combining the approaches of different authors from the aspects of identification and evaluation of factors affecting creativity. The aim of the article is to develop an evaluation system for factors affecting creativity in the Lithuanian Armed Forces. In an attempt to identify and evaluate factors affecting creativity, expert and multicriteria methods for evaluation were applied. A multi-level system for the evaluation of factors affecting creativity, that creates preconditions favourable for the identification of factors affecting creativity (by means of the method of determination of the significance of criteria), more objective evaluation of factors affecting creativity and development of suggestions for the stimulation of creativity, was suggested.
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Due to the globalisation and mobilisation of capital markets, the concept of EMH is gaining a lot of importance in both developed and emerging economies. Most of the researches on the weak-form efficiency to date were based on the developed countries. The present study will seek to provide a comprehensive understanding of the weak-form efficiency in emerging economies. In terms of practical implications, the paper has direct implications for future research in EMH in particular emerging economies. The paper contributes in manly three ways: First, the paper collates and examines the broader and most effervescent literature and their findings. Second, it also presents a comprehensive, encompassing research work and a holistic view of various aspects of weak-form EMH. Finally, no studies have been conducted to date on a literature review of EMH weak-form efficiency in emerging economies. Nevertheless, the limitation of the study is that the findings are presented that may not be generalized to developed nations, which may be quite different in socio-cultural and political settings including the behavioral aspects of investors and the strength of the capital market.
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The article tests if foreign banks have lowered their market share in the Baltic States, Romania and Bulgaria during the recent financial crisis after 2007, due to the perception of risk exposure in local markets. It has been proved that, the credit supply by foreign banks in the Baltic States, Romania and Bulgaria has remained relatively stable during the latest crisis by TSLS method. Foreign ownership generally utilizes derivative products more than domestic banks in the NMSs because they have more expertise in hedging and can diversify risks effectively with their larger parent banks in their home country. The reaction of foreign banks abroad depends on the capital adequacy of the parent bank and the business opportunities in the host economies.
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The aim of this paper is two-fold: to analyze the relevance of fiscal multiplier as concept used in assessing the efficiency of the fiscal policy in general, and to apply empirical analysis on the fiscal policy multipliers in the case of the Republic of Macedonia. On the first aspect, we emphasize the very different results obtained by the extensive empirical literature on the size and sign of fiscal multipliers, both for changes in taxes and changes in government expenditures. On the second aspect, we apply the VAR methodology in the analysis of the efficiency of the fiscal policy of the Republic of Macedonia during the period 2000-2012, so that we could be able to study the effects of various fiscal measures during the relatively good times preceding the global financial crisis and Great Recession as well as the effects of the various countercyclical fiscal measures aimed at alleviating the consequences of the macroeconomic downfall associated with those landmark events. One of the most interesting results of the empirical analysis in the paper is the negative sign obtained for the fiscal multipliers in the case of the Republic of Macedonia.
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The article examines the difference between value and production factors. Was done theoretical research influencing different factors of the amortization on useful life of fixed assets. Formed an innovative approach to estimate reasons of depreciation, which change proportion of survival fixed assets. Proposed a method for adjusting the useful life of tools using depreciation for reason strong influencing scientific and technological progress and development of country on the fixed assets. Developed a methodology to estimate changes in the factors of repair tools, which affect on survival life passive and active assets, as an element of the production function of the fixed assets.
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This paper examines the relationship between trade liberalization and trade tax revenues applying an advanced dynamic panel threshold technique. The empirical analysis is based on a large panel-dataset including 103 developing countries for the period 1993-2012. The empirical finding results indicate that the relationship between trade liberalization and trade tax revenue is non-liner and also provide evidence of a Laffer effect. In particular, we find that additional trade liberalization has a negative impact on trade tax revenue, but this negative effect will disappear at the higher levels of trade liberalization. The results point to harness the benefits of trade liberalization without having worry a lot about its impact on trade tax revenues.
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National culture is still an important factor in managing a wide spectrum of areas and forms of international business. The understanding of the concept of culture, respectively the values and practices of foreign business partners, is instrumental in achieving effective intercultural communication and international business. The notion of culture as a set of schemes and codes (culture-as-a-code) gives ground to the context dependent concept of culture (culture-in-context). Although the context dependent paradigm of culture is not a new phenomenon, the international business practice has not capitalized on its contributions yet. The paper does not aim at comprehensively revealing the nature of culture and its components. The focus is on those issues which have proved its significance for international business practice. The thesis states that culture is dynamically enfolded in international business practice and its specific context. That’s why contemporary international business players should be knowledgeable about both the traditional postulates about the culture factor and the dynamic aspects of cultural, including intercultural, matters. On the basis of a literature review and analytical reasoning, the paper strives to shed light on the topical debate on culture and its implications for international business.
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An analysis of the pension legislation has been performed, particularly in the field of restrictions on asset allocation into various funds, and a model for real investment profile has been proposed that secures minimal risk at the given profitability and satisfies legal requirements, as well as immunizes the sub-portfolio of risk-free securities from changes in the market interest rate. The numerical experiment has been carried out with and without regard to transaction expenses. It has been estimated that frequent renegotiation of the portfolio leads to a decrease in profits from investing as a result of transaction expenses.
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The firm indebtedness is a extensively studied topic in the contemporary economic literature. Researchers in Bulgaria and Europe most often focus on the relations between the indebtedness and the general macroeconomic performance, the optimal choice of the firm debt structure, approaches for its restructuring, tendencies in emissions of corporate bonds and the economic effects of the deleveraging processes. The paper presents the data for some poorly studied and ignored endogenous elements of internal firm policies generating firm indebtedness, received from a study of indebtedness of non-financial enterprises in Bulgaria in 2013. These are mainly data for firm policies for delivery, firm savings, intentions for investment activity and compensation mechanisms for balancing the firm finances. The paper shows also the main firm preventive measures and practices against potential problems from accumulating indebtedness.
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The management of inbound and internal material flows has an effect on the performance of manufacturing companies‘ logistics systems and consequently on customer satisfaction and competitiveness. The study reveals the characteristics and weaknesses of procurement and operations management in manufacturing companies in Bulgaria and outlines the prospects for their improvement. An analysis is carried out of different dimensions of these areas using indicators calculated on the basis of empirical data. The impact of company size on procurement and operations practices is examined and those practices that are positively related to competitiveness are brought out. The study finds out that manufacturing companies in Bulgaria generally follow the world trends in the management of inbound and internal material flows but there are some problem areas that need to be improved. More competitive are those companies that reflect the real demand in procurement and operations strategies and policies and realize the strategic role of suppliers. Small companies, and to a lesser extent middle ones, lag behind in the application of contemporary strategies, policies and methods in the areas of procurement and operations. It is necessary for them to make improvements, for which they need a high degree of knowledge about the existing and applied by leading companies methods and achievements in the area of logistics, and to increase the competence of employees in procurement and operations.
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