Marko Pahor

Intra-Organizational Learning Networks within Knowledge-Intensive Learning Environments

Organizational learning contributes to organizational performance. One research question that remains inadequately explained is how learning occurs. Can it be explained by using the acquisition or participation perspectives? Or is there a need for some other view? This paper suggests that learning networks form an important learning environment for knowledge transfer. A case study of a software development and business consulting company is used to test the network perspective on intra-organizational learning. Both exploratory and confirmatory social network analysis of a learning network within the IT company are used to establish learning patterns within organizations. Learning needs to be seen as both participation in communities of practice and a flow of previously acquired knowledge.

A Respecified Fama French Three‐Factor Model for the New European Union Member States

This study uses factor models to explain stock market returns in the Eastern European (EE) countries that joined the European Union (EU) in 2004. In line with other studies, we find that the market value of equity component in the Fama French (1993) three‐factor model performs poorly when applied to our emerging markets dataset. We propose a significant amendment to the standard three‐factor model by replacing the market value of equity factor with a term that proxies for accounting manipulation. We show that our three‐factor model is able to explain returns in the EE EU nations significantly better than the Fama French (1993) three‐factor model, hereby offering an alternative model for use in the numerous markets in which previous studies have found little correlation between market value of equity and equity returns.

Building a corporate network in a transition economy: the case of Slovenia

Post‐socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe underwent a massive programme of privatisation in the 1990s. Corporate networks that emerged from the privatisation process are a reflection of a particular privatisation model chosen. In Slovenia, as in developed economies, financial institutions play a central role in the corporate network. But whereas in Western economies these are mainly banks, investment banks, pension funds and insurance companies, the central role in Slovenia was given to privatisation investment funds and state funds. Owners and regulators in transition countries face the difficult task of balancing between governance issues and benefits that arise from co‐operation among companies.

Influence of management attitudes on the implementation of employee participation

This article examines the role of management in the system of employee participation. It builds on the premise that management can have a sizeable impact on how employee participation is put into practice. The authors develop a comprehensive index of employee participation implementation and test the relation between management’s attitudes towards employee participation and the implementation of employee participation in a cross-sectional survey among 225 managers in Slovenia, using a mail-solicited web-based questionnaire. The results indicate a positive link between managers’ support for participation and its actual implementation. If managers perceive a positive link between employee participation and corporate performance they will tend to put such participation into practice to a greater extent.

Using a multilevel modelling approach to explain the influence of economic development on the subjective well-being of individuals

Abstract Individual-level factors and country-level determinants influence our satisfaction; therefore, the single-level models that prevail in the analyses of subjective well-being are not appropriate. Thus, this article aims to add a multilevel perspective to the understanding of self-reported well-being. We analyse the impact of gross national income on the life satisfaction of individuals. We develop a two-level regression model based on the existing ‘economics of happiness’ literature. Factors describing an individual’s characteristics are included at the within level, measures describing the social situation are included at both levels, while a nation’s income, inflation and unemployment rates are between-level variables. In order to obtain the moderating effects of gross national income per capita on the influence of individuals’ relative incomes, a random intercept and random intercept-random slope model are tested using the cross-sectional data from the last wave of the World Values Survey. Our results support the hypotheses that the impact of relative income on subjective well-being decreases with the development of a country.

Do European Firms Behave as if they Converge Toward a Target Capital Structure

Utilizing a large sample of European firms, we demonstrate that firms behave as if they converge toward a target capital structure (“leveraging process”), defined by traditional trade‐off variables. Moreover, we find that such behavior is evident regardless of firm size and ownership structure. We compare the degree of convergence among different groups of firms and find that medium‐sized firms, firms from the new EU member states, and firms from Southern Europe exhibit a stronger “leveraging process” than the rest of the sampled firms. Our results also highlight that the economic crisis, which began in the late 2008, impacted the leveraging dynamics; however, the general pattern of convergence remained unchanged.

The Structure of Policy-Induced Innovation Networks in Slovenia

Purpose – The recent economic crisis has significantly slowed Slovenia’s recent social and economic progress and exposed some important long-term problems such as a reliance on low value added industries and lagging labor productivity. The Slovenian government has taken steps to create research partnerships between public science and the private sector and among multiple private sector companies. The purpose of this paper is to conduct a social network analysis (SNA) of the research partnerships and examine whether public funding has created the desired partnerships. Design/methodology/approach – The authors employed a SNA in two stages. In the first stage, the authors treated the founding partners of government-funded 32 research centers as a single two-mode network and investigated how each of the members was bound to the network. In the second stage of the analysis the authors used project data from ten of the centers to characterize a project network based on collaborations on specific projects. Thus,...

Network Effects on the Dynamics of Slovenian Corporate Ownership Network

Corporate ownership networks have a long tradition in developed economies, they are however new to transitional economies like Slovenia, where these networks developed only recently as a result of institutional changes. The resulting network is not natural and is therefore changing rapidly. Techniques like the stochastic actor-oriented models give us an insight into the factors that influence the rate and the direction of the changes in the network. We tested a sequence of eighth corporate ownership networks on the sample of 178 largest financial and non-financial Slovenian companies.

A Respecified Fama French Three Factor Model for the Eastern European Transition Nations

This paper uses factor models to explain stock market returns in the Eastern European (EE) countries that joined the European Union (EU) in 2004. In line with other studies, we find that the market value of equity component in the Fama French (1993) three factor model performs poorly when applied to our emerging markets dataset. We propose a significant amendment to the standard three factor model by replacing the market value of equity factor with a term that proxies for accounting manipulation. We show that our three factor model is better able to explain returns in the EE EU nations than the Fama French (1993) three factor model, hereby offering an alternative model for use in the numerous markets in which previous studies have found little correlation between market value of equity and equity returns.

Measuring Globalization of Economy as a Tool for Designing Economic Policys’ Strategies

Measuring globalization of economy has become a challenge for academic profession, international governmental organizations and advisory institutions in the last fifteen years. Various indicators and methodologies are subject of polemics that often reflect viewpoints of institutions and individuals respectively. Most of these approaches have two common characteristics, namely, they measure globalization results and are mainly based only on a very general definition of globalization. This paper introduces the systemic approach towards measuring globalization of economy, which is based upon the theoretical comprehension of national competitiveness and economic growth. The main purpose of such approach is to emphasize the importance of holistic view on a globalized economy. Thus, the significance of measuring globalization of economy is to get the information not only on the position but also on the potentials of economy for international integration. In the empirical part of the paper, the composite indicator of globalized economy is developed by the principal components analysis. Then the ordinary least squares and panel regression analyses confirm the hypothesis that globalized economies achieve higher long-term cumulative economic growth.