Najla Podrug

Cultural differences affecting decision-making style: a comparative study between four countries

The aim of this paper was to identify the impact of national culture on decision-making styles in selected countries: Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Hungary. The estimation of Hofstedes dimensions of national cultures and comparative analyses was carried out by using a narrow-sample strategy. The estimated positions on each dimension confirmed the Hofstedes original research ranking. The result with significant value was the confirmation of the global trend of decreasing power distance and significant movement towards the individualism. Besides the standardization procedure of comparative cross-cultural analyses, variance analyses were used to identify cultural differences in decision-making styles related to complex decisions. The proposition is that complex decisions are, above and beyond all others, the consequence of social and cultural values installed in every individual. Statistically significant dependency was identified for hyper-vigilant and vigilant decision-making style and national cultures dimensions. A beneficial goal was to identify the differences and the similarities in value orientation and those in the decision-making style which should not be mistreated as they may influence future business cooperation and political and economic integrations within the CEE context.

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.

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.

Manufacturing Strategies in Selected European Countries

Our contribution to the manufacturing strategy research is to identify the strategic manufacturing practices among manufacturers in selected EU countries and to identify differences, if any, among Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, and Ukraine. The Global Manufacturing Research Group (GMRG) is an international community of researchers studying the improvement of manufacturing supply chains worldwide, and the data was a subsample from the Round V GMRG. The multi-focus cluster appeared to compete on all capabilities (but dominantly on quality, cost, and delivery and in that order) and may be supporting the cumulative model rather than the trade-off approach which competes on a single competitive priority. This puts additional pressure on manufacturing companies which have to provide exceptional quality and reliable delivery at the price that is not significantly higher. These findings suggest that the manufacturing strategy needs to be focused at country level rather than as a global perspective with a single dominant model.

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.

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP - CASE STUDY OF INA AND MOL

Transformation of INA through privatization has and still represents a crucial part of Croatian economy. Following liberalization and consolidation in the oil and gas industry Croatian government decided to privatize its ownership and transfer it to public sector. Model of INA’ s privatization is planned to go through several phases. In this model of INA’ s privatization, the first phase included partnership with a strategic investor. By transferring its technology and knowledge, and applying its successful management and business practices, strategic partner enabled further growth and development, revitalization and easier access to resources, markets and innovation.

DEREGULATION AND PRIVATIZATION PRIVATIZATION OF EUROPEAN ELECTRICITY MARKET - CASE STUDY OF HEP PRIVATIZATION

Discussion of energy liberalization took place several decades ago between countries of Western Europe. The general belief was that with changing ownership of companies, they would become more profit oriented and thus more efficient. Through deregulation the idea was to introduce competitiveness among energy players which would further increase efficiency, lower the electricity price and therefore make the European manufacturing more competitive on a global scale. This case gives a brief overview of electricity market privatization in Europe and additionally, the case of Croatian electro energetic company HEP.