Dijana Močnik

Asset specificity and a firm's borrowing ability: an empirical analysis of manufacturing firms

Abstract This paper investigates the importance of asset specificity in explaining differences in firms’ ability to borrow money. With empirical research, we investigated whether there is a relationship between asset specificity and the debt ratio of a Slovene manufacturing firm. The basic idea of the research was to link the sources of finance that define property rights and the attributes of the assets that are the objects of finance. A firm’s capital structure can be viewed as a description of the allocation of risk and control among investors.

The determinants of Internet use controlling for income level: Cross-country empirical evidence

This paper seeks to explain the intensity of Internet use in terms of information and communication technology (ICT) and other socioeconomic indicators (i.e., economic, investment, international trade, educational, and population distribution) according to income. Using factor analysis, the three most important factors were extracted; their factors scores are used for further regression analysis to estimate impact on Internet usage. The strongest positive and most significant impact on Internet use was the ICT infrastructure and people capabilities, followed by income distribution, and investment and international trade. These results demonstrate that the size of the impact differs across income groups, as hypothesized.

Gender specifics in entrepreneurs' personal characteristics

This paper explored Slovenian entrepreneurs’ personal characteristics to understand the existing gender gap in transitional countries, testing the proposed model among small and medium-sized company owners (N = 201; 32.3% female, 67.7% male). The research operationalized entrepreneurs’ characteristics according to psychological and non-psychological motivation factors; the former resulted in four types of Slovenian entrepreneurs while the latter was divided into human and social capital. Significant differences emerged among genders related to certain psychological motivation factors and social capital categories, but not human capital. Women remain an unexploited source of entrepreneurship; thus, Slovenia should establish effective mechanisms to promote female entrepreneurship.

Determinants Of A Fast-Growing Firm’s Profits: Empirical Evidence For Slovenia

Abstract This paper seeks to explain the relationship between a firm’s profitability and firm size, leverage ratio and labour costs – using a sample of 782 Slovenian fast-growing firms from the years 2008 and 2009. We determined that profitability is negatively related to the firm size and leverage ratio, but positively to the labour costs. These results illustrate that, with increasing firm size, a fast-growing firm becomes less profitable. The negative coefficient for the leverage ratio indicates that the higher the extent to which debts were used as the source of financing, the lower the profits. One explanation for this is that profitable, fast-growing firms rely on their equity capital. Alternatively, higher-leveraged firms bear greater risks of bankruptcy; consequently, creditors are reluctant to approve credit for such clients. The positive association between labour costs and profitability implies that the higher the labour cost, the higher the profitability of fast-growing firms.

The Impact of Economic Growth on the Dynamics of Enterprises: Empirical Evidence for Slovenia's Non-agricultural Sector

The Impact of Economic Growth on the Dynamics of Enterprises: Empirical Evidence for Slovenias Non-agricultural Sector The aim of this paper was to test the hypothesized U-shaped relationship between economic development and dynamics of enterprises. The dynamics of enterprises is influenced by the achieved economic development. This paper first analyzed the association between the regional gross value added (GVA) growth rate and different measures of enterprises dynamics from Slovenian data from 2000 to 2005. Our graphical analyses indicated that 1) the rate of gross entry and GVA growth rate were linearly and negatively associated; 2) the association between the rate of gross exit and GVA growth rate is best represented by the downward U-shape function (Ç); and 3) a U-shaped association exists between the rate of net entry and GVA growth rate. The size of the impact was estimated using the regression analysis between the net entries as dependent variable and GVA growth as independent variable that showed the best fit. According to the results, 1) economic growth significantly impacts net entries; 2) the hypothesized U-shaped relationship between net entries and economic growth was confirmed as the Slovenian net entries decrease until the GVA growth rate reaches 10% yet increase when the growth in GVA is higher than 10%; and 3) a ‘natural rate’ of entrepreneurship is to some extent governed by ‘laws’ related to the economic growth rate. The results further indicate that the average net entry rate should be increased by 0.787 units (%) as a result of a regions specific environmental factors. This research confirms the theoretical assumptions that have previously been sparsely tested empirically and even rarely supported by results. Therefore, our results represent a contribution to the robustness of the theoretical as well as empirical clarification of the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic development.

Building an Entrepreneurial Society : 25 years of entrepreneurship at FEB UM

The present scientific monograph was formed on the occasion of the anniversary celebrated in the academic year 2017/2018 by current and former members of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Business Economics, and the members of the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management at the University of Maribor. Twenty-five years – a quarter of a century – is a period after which it is worth looking back on the past and summing up the memories of the achievements and milestones that have marked it. The monograph is also an acknowledgment and tribute to the initiator and founder of the first study track for entrepreneurship education, and the head of the Department and Institute, Professor Doctor Miroslav Rebernik. The collection of selected scientific contributions is thus put together in such a way that he is the co-author of all of them, with individual members of the Department. A collection was created that chronologically presents some of the most visible contributions of the 25-year period. We would like to thank all publishing houses that approved the reprint of the contributions.

Slovenska podjetja in krožno gospodarstvo : slovenski podjetniški observatorij 2017

V monografiji smo analizirali vse gospodarske družbe in samostojne podjetnike v Sloveniji za leto 2016 ter primerjali kljucne podatke za leto 2015 oziroma 2014 med Slovenijo in EU-28 oziroma posameznimi clanicami v nefinancnem sektorju gospodarstva (to so dejavnosti industrije, trgovine in storitev). V Sloveniji je bilo leta 2016 v celotnem gospodarstvu 124.058 podjetij, ki so zaposlovala 543.371 ljudi. Najvec podjetij (skoraj petina) je v Sloveniji leta 2016 delovalo v dejavnosti trgovine; vzdrževanja in popravil motornih vozil. Tudi v EU-28 je leta 2015 vec kot cetrtina podjetij (26,4 % ali 6,2 milijona) poslovala v dejavnosti trgovine; vzdrževanja in popravil motornih vozil. Ta dejavnost je zaposlovala najvec ljudi, skoraj cetrtino (33,1 milijona). V EU-28 in Sloveniji so najvec dodane vrednosti ustvarila podjetja predelovalnih dejavnosti. Povprecna dodana vrednost na zaposleno osebo za agregirane dejavnosti v EU-28 v letu 2015 je znasala 51.086 evrov, v Sloveniji pa 32.694 evrov (skoraj 40 % manj). V drugem delu proucujemo kontekst krožnega gospodarstva z vidika izzivov in priložnosti za slovenska MSP. Opredeljujemo koncept krožnega gospodarstva, strateska izhodisca za prehod v krožno gospodarstvo na nacionalni ravni, problematiko merjenja krožnega gospodarstva in prikaz stanja in možnosti uporabe ekodizajna v slovenskih MSP na podrocju gradbenistva in z njim povezanih dejavnosti.

Slovenian Entrepreneurship Observatory 2000

Slovenian Entrepreneurship Observatory 2005 shows some aspects of Slovenian entrepreneurship in the previous year. We provide the basic features of Slovenian companies, as can be seen from the economic and statistical data. The analysis included all those companies, which in 2004 submitted the annual reports at AJPES. We have analysed four topics: 1) evaluated the ambitions of established entrepreneurs in Slovenia with regard to their future growth in comparison with the growth ambitions of emerging and new entrepreneurs; 2) analysed the cooperation and partnerships between enterprises, reasons, forms and areas of cooperation and impacts of the effectiveness of cooperation on the competitiveness of small and medium-sized businesses compared with large enterprises in Slovenia; 3) analysed the differences in age, size, export orientation, performance and aspirations for growth between family and non-family small and medium-sized enterprises in Slovenia; 4) studied the internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises, and added a survey of major works by Slovenian authors who have written about entrepreneurship in 2005.

Growth aspirations of early-stage entrepreneurs: Empirical investigation of South-Eastern and Western European countries

We aimed to 1) estimate the associations between innovation and international orientation of early-stage entrepreneurs and their growth aspirations and 2) determine whether these associations differ across south-eastern European countries (SeECs) and western European countries (WECs). We used the data from the 2003–2008 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Adult Population Survey for 3,098 SeEC and 3,626 WEC entrepreneurs. The results show that 1) a firm’s high level of competition inhibits its growth aspirations in both regions, albeit more so in SeECs; 2) innovative products/services stimulate firm growth aspirations in WECs only; and 3) international orientation stimulates firm growth aspirations in both regions, albeit more so in WECs.