Davor Filipović

Knowledge sharing and firm innovation capability in Croatian ICT companies

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to empirically distinguish the influence of the individual factors (enjoyment in helping others and knowledge self-efficacy), organizational factors (top management support and organizational rewards) and technology factors (information and communication technology use) on knowledge-sharing processes. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through a survey of 196 employees from large ICT companies in Croatia, and structural equation modeling was used to investigate the research model. Findings Results of the empirical research indicate that enjoyment in helping others as an individual factor, top management support as an organizational factor, and ICT use as a technology factor significantly influence knowledge-sharing processes. The results also suggest that the willingness of employee to donate and collect knowledge enables the firm to improve innovation capability. No influence of the individual factor knowledge self-efficacy on the employee knowledge-sharing behavior was found within this research. Research limitations/implications Subjectivity of respondents, Likert scale – perception, and future research can include higher number of population and examine how personal traits (such as age, level of education, and working experience) and organizational characteristics (such as firm size) may moderate the relationships between knowledge enablers and processes. Practical implications From a practical perspective, the relationships among knowledge-sharing enablers, processes, and firm innovation capability may provide a guide regarding how firms can promote knowledge-sharing cultures to sustain their innovation performance. Originality/value This study identifies several factors essential to successful knowledge sharing, and discusses the implications of these factors for developing organizational strategies that encourage and foster knowledge sharing.

Analysis of Cultural Differences between Croatia, Brazil, Germany and Serbia

In the context of globalisation process and the growth of economical interdependence between countries, national culture is becoming more and more important. The article presents comparative analysis of national cultures. Empirical research was conducted during 2012 in Croatia, Brazil, Germany, Serbia and Spain while results for Spain were used for standardisation purposes. Estimated positions on the dimensions of national cultures (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity and long versus short-term orientation) were done by using a narrow-sample strategy. The ranking of the countries from Hofstede’s original research was confirmed in all dimensions with the exception of uncertainty avoidance for Croatia and Brazil. The most significant change is the move from collectivism towards individualism in Brazil, Croatia and Serbia which confirms Hofstede’s assumption about a cultural change towards individualism as a consequence of global economic growth.

Internal and External Supervisory Mechanisms in Corporate Governance

Internal and External Supervisory Mechanisms in Corporate Governance Good corporate governance depends on well balanced relations between supervisory mechanisms in the corporate governance process. Relations between the supervisory board, as the internal supervisory mechanism, and external auditing, as the external supervisory mechanism, are crucial for the development of good corporate governance practice. This paper focuses on analyzing the relationship between the supervisory board and external auditing in order to determine the current state of that relationship in the Republic of Croatia and to determine possible guidelines for improving the relationship between the supervisory board and external auditing in practice. In addition, this study analyzes the relationship between the supervisory board and external auditing, which could lead to the maximum efficiency of both the supervisory board and external auditing and tests that relationship in practice using publicly traded companies in Croatia. This study also analyzes the impact of the audit committee on the efficiency of the supervisory board and external auditing.

Multinational Corporations: The Changing Strategic Orientation in the Twenty-First Century

There has been much attention and debate on global integration versus local responsiveness and likewise whether to standardize or adapt to local circumstances when operating abroad. It is believed that the world is globalized more than ever, but how does that reflect on businesses and multinational corporations? According to Rugman’s research at the beginning of the 2000s, only few corporations from the Fortune Global 500 could be actually considered as global, with truly global sales and operations. By Rugman’s methodology, corporations were classified as home-region oriented, bi-regional, host-region oriented, “near miss” global, or global. Regions North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific are determined as equivalent geographical regions. Similar research was conducted based on the Fortune Global 500 2012 ranking, 10 years later. Changes have happened. For example, out of nine truly global corporations in 2002, only three remained global in 2012. These are IBM, Sony, and LVMH. Furthermore, stream of revenues have changed for many other MNCs due to their internal strategic decisions and due to external market forces. All these relevant aspects are discussed in the chapter.

Impact of Company’s Size on Takeover Success

Abstract Respecting the fact that vast number of M&As do not achieve planed synergies and results and that M&A success is affected by different organizational variables like management, strategy, structure, corporate culture, company size etc., the main aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of company’s size on takeover success. Successful takeover is defined as takeover in which target company performs better in the period after the takeover than in the period before the takeover. Hypothesis according to which the smaller the relative ratio of the size of target company compared to the acquirer, the more successful is target company’s performance after the takeover was tested and confirmed on the 43 companies that were acquired in the Republic of Croatia.

Strategic Importance of Cross-Border Acquisitions for Emerging Market Multinationals

Business environment has changed significantly during the last two decades under a rapid globalization. The growing number and power of multinationals from emerging markets is one of the most prominent results of these changes. From niche players in the global market or regional competitors in similar emerging markets, they became multinationals that are challenging world leaders, even in high intensive industries. As late followers in the global market, these companies are faced up with competition gap. Therefore, they use cross-border acquisitions to obtain strategic resources necessary to compete in the global market (technology, brands, marketing knowledge, etc.). They combine the obtained resources with their own cost advantage to reshuffle competition in the industry. To preserve targets’ strategic resources, these multinationals retain the top management and give them great autonomy. Through this approach, the risk of acquisition failure is reduced, regardless of the fact that some cost synergies are not achieved. Two case studies, Lenovo and Tata Motors, from China and India, the major emerging markets, are used to show how emerging market multinationals rewrite motives and strategies for cross-border acquisitions.

Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions in Southeast Europe: Cases from Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria

Researches regarding cross-border M&A are present in economic literature for a long time period starting from 1890s, but nowadays in time of globalization their impact is particularly remarkable in terms of size and geographical dispersion. The focal interests of this paper are cross-border transactions in selected Southeast European countries. These countries (Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria) are deficient in cross-border transaction analysis and are interesting for academic research since they are comparable economies and resemble in political history. Analyzed transactions were cross-border mergers and acquisitions, precisely cross-border acquisitions since they account more than 95% of all cross-border transactions in selected countries. Results indicate that trends in M&A activities in selected countries are consistent with general - national and globe – economic tendencies. Furthermore, the dynamics of cross-border M&As are largely similar to those of domestic M&As for each country, even though they differ in volume. However, due to their international nature, cross-border M&As also involve unique challenges, as countries have different economic, institutional (i.e., regulatory), and cultural structures. Due to the growing importance and popularity of cross-border M&As, this study provides relevant review of the extant literature across different areas, applicable empirical research concerning influence of cross-border M&As for economic development of transition economies and finally provides potential areas for future research.