Josip Mesarić

An Approach to Creating Domain Ontologies for Higher Education in Economics

Owing to development of ICT, knowledge representation and possibilities of its usage, sharing, storing and reusing, increasingly rely on ontologies as formal representation of (knowledge) conceptualization in different domain. Economics being the widest area of human personal and organizational activity as well as countless (structured and unstructured) data has no unified upper ontology and taxonomy. Economic curricula on faculties of economic in the Republic of Croatia reflect the problem of taxonomic shortcomings in economics as academic discipline. Numerous courses in economic curricula show the trends to specialization of economic knowledge but that also point out on decreasing capabilities of complex problem solving. The main idea in this paper is to research and define appropriate approach to ontology development useful for: -representing the institutional economic curricula which can serve to potential students in making the choice of their desirable courses, -representing academic discipline, -documenting the data, -creating meta data about learning and management systems. The approch will will be based on multiphase process of ontology creation and multilevel approach to common vocabulary creation and it will be tested on faculties of economics at universities in Croatia.

Conceptual model of public opinion monitoring system using mobile phones (m-Referendum)

Short message service communication, i.e., the number of short text messages is continually growing. The reason for that lies in the fact that more and more people have access to modern digital communication technology that is becoming more user-friendly and budget-priced. There are various uses of modern mobile communication technology and available infrastructure in solving practical problems. By means of telecommunication technology we can receive required information and distribute it from our telecommunication devices. In view of all the possibilities of telecommunication technology, it should also be used for the purpose of raising the degree of democracy and promoting civil society principles. Due to its simplicity and popularity, text messaging is almost an ideal means for public opinion surveys. It is especially interesting to consider the possibility and devise a model that would facilitate quick referendums and help acquire information on public opinion on particular political initiatives. This seemingly simple problem entails many technological, organizational and security issues which are to a certain degree solved by the proposed model.

Efficient Demand Management in Retailing Through Category Management

Demand management is complex and crucial coordinating activity in supply chain management. Its roots are at retail echelon of supply chain where it is most efficiently conducted through category management process. This chapter aims to highlight the importance of category management for efficient demand management activities in the retail supply chain management through a theoretical analysis of the category management process. The need for cooperation between retailers with other members of the supply chain in category management is also emphasized, especially in form of category captainship collaboration. Category management run by retailers is the beginning and precondition for efficient and effective demand management throughout the whole supply chain. Potential implementation problems in certain areas of demand management in retailing are pointed out, and finally solutions for overcoming these issues are offered.

Management Curriculum between Theory and Practice

The boom in business schools and schools of management in the European and world formal and informal educational area on the one hand and poor, sometimes even catastrophic, effects of managerial practice on the other hand, initiate the necessity to reviewing the existing general management curricula. Curricula of many educational institutions with long tradition in manage-ment education have undergone this process recently, as well as those institutions that have de-signed their curricula recently and under socio-economic conditions that were significantly dif-ferent from contemporary conditions. The analysis of general management curricula in twenty business schools and schools of management at bachelor level and twenty eight schools at gradu-ate and master level indicated that there is no generally accepted management curriculum. Fur-thermore, curricula have been developed in different contexts and from different starting points and different ends and means. By analysing general characteristics of managerial knowledge, we have researched curricula through some existing models and approaches to their development (curriculum as BOK to be transmitted, curriculum as a product, curriculum as development and process). Starting with specificities of managerial education and the approach to curriculum de-velopment, we have introduced a new model for curriculum design through multidimensional prism. This model can be used when analysing and revising the existing general management cur-ricula.

Conceptual model for promotion of Croatian tourist product based on integration of CRM and Web technologies

Global economic crisis should be accepted in two ways: as a limitation, but also as an opportunity. Related to tourism, crisis will surely reflect on the Croatian tourism for a simple reason that the target group of Croatian tourism is middle and lower class population of the central and Western Europe, with lower purchasing power. These classes are the first to be hit by a crisis, which implies the necessity of reorganization of Croatian tourism toward those consumers who travel also at the times of crises. In order to do so, it is necessary to utilize potentials of information and communication technology, especially the Internet, and potentials of the customer relationship management concept. On the side of information and communication technology, particular advantages are provided by the concepts Web 2.0 as a synonym for social network, and Web 3.0 as a synonym for implementation of artificial intelligence in Web technologies. Synergistic effect of the above mentioned concepts and technology should be realized in the model of integral presentation of the Croatian tourist product through the Web.

Distributive trade's significance in national economy

Background: The paper analyzes a significance of distributive trade in contemporary national economies of select European countries (10) from the point of view of employment, gross value-added creation, supply chain establishment, and international expansion. A cause for the paper is a dissatisfactory level of economic development of certain transitional countries on one side and the high distributive trade shares (especially in the number of employees and in the GDP) on the other side. Methods: Distributive trades significance for a country is analyzed entirely and segmental. The data collected by Eurostat and Deloitte are analyzed and depicted graphically via usual statistical methods (relative numbers, indices and shares, tabulation and graphical depictions). Results: The results of the research conducted should confirm a thesis on distributive trades significance based on its shares in the economic structure ; however, as an integrator in the value- creating chains, distributive trade has different significance for certain national economies, for the large-sized companies and groups (especially the retailing ones) are also expanded internationally, along with their supply chains. Conclusions: Distributive trade does not have an equal significance for the economic development in all countries. Equally, all the divisions within distributive trade do not have equal significance for the overall countrys economy, as well as for a launch of its economic development. Nevertheless, it should be necessary to analyze concentration and internationalization in detail for the sake of an evaluation of distributive trades significance as an integrator in value- creating chains. In that respect, some transitional countries observed do lag behind

Vertical Marketing Systems, Supply Chains and the New Indicators of Retailing’s Significance

Abstract In modern vertical marketing systems (i.e., in grocery sector), the greatest power is demonstrated by retail chains, and producers depend thereupon. This paper analyzes vertical marketing systems and the role of retailing therein. Specially analyzed is the power of retail chains’ demand with regard to the entire supply chains they head, as well as the present-day new competition in retailing and modern business concepts related to the vertical marketing systems. Additionally, analyzed are also select indicators to examine the significance of retailing in an individual national economy. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the new indicators of significance of retailing in economy with regard to the realized GDP, as a component of value chains. These indicators complement the usual retailing significance analyses from the point of view of its share in the number of employees and the number of companies. From the conducted analysis, one may conclude that the vertical marketing systems become increasingly important, and retailing assumes a new role in economy in that sense. Thus, new indicators of retailing significance might also be necessary.

Success factors of online training

Critical success factors of online training is enticing a lot of interest in business, health, education and many other types of organizations [6, 1, 2, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, 22, 24, 26, 27, 29]. The research reported in this paper is looking at the use of online training in large corporations in Australia. It focuses on Critical Success Factors (CSF) of online training in Australias Finance and banking industry. This research represents an exploratory study into the online training issues in large organizations in Australia and is accomplished through a survey of top 500 large organizations in Australia in 2011. The findings from this research confirm the findings from the literature about major critical success factors of online training such as : top management support, skilled work force [23]; financial support, cross-functional team, alignment of the software and organisational standards [8]; just in time training [6]; and usability and transferability [27]. Additionally, the findings also confirm the findings from the literature about major benefits of OT such as: cost effectiveness; efficiency, competitive advantage, receiving training any time, any place, ability to provide custom tailored solutions, etc.

Goals of information systems and causes of their failures: will information system of high education in the Republic of Croatia succeed

In the theory and practice of information system design, implementation and functioning very little attention is paid to the systematic analysis of causes of information system failures and information systems goal setting. A vaguely defined goal of the IS implementation will result in solutions that will satisfy the demands of information system users, information system professionals and business systems management to a certain degree. The contribution of information systems to the realization of intermediary goals and causes of information system failures is discussed on the example of the information system at university institutions in the Republic of Croatia.