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Entrepreneurship activities are crucial for regional development. Croatian legislative supports regional development almost fifteen years. Acts from the late 90s are directed to separated, economically stagnated regions (areas special state concern, hill and mountain areas, islands etc.). Acts are still lawfully and still encourage entrepreneurship activity through the tax exemptions. Regional development Act and subordinate acts from 2009, defined regions with developmental disabilities, so called assisted areas. Their status is determined by development degree. Development degree is connected indirectly with entrepreneurship activity progress. Earlier regulated and economically weaker areas differ territorially with regard to assisted areas. Considering the above, authors of this paper will analyze entrepreneurship activity indicators (entrepreneurship number, number of employees and financial results). Indicators will be compared for two groups of areas: Areas special state concern (1st, 2nd and 3rd group) and hill and mountain area Assisted areas at local self-government level Research results should indicate on correlation between areas development degree and entrepreneurship success. The paper will provide the overview of entrepreneur activity indicators for areas which are not include in Croatian system of incentive measures and it will never be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Businesses have started using Internet at the beginning of its development during the early nineties of the 20th century. Since then, the process of Internet adoption has had a significant growth for businesses especially as a new communication and distribution channel. Along with the expansion of Web 2.0 and global popularity of social networks, companies started adopting these changes and using social networks for achieving their specific business goals. Even though some sectors showed faster adoption rates, it is a general view that social networks are used for business purposes regardless of the sector those companies belong to. The same trend is apparent in Croatia, especially in the last few years as Croatian companies are using various social networks in their Internet presence strategies. The survey is focused on the most profitable Croatian companies and their Internet activities. The aim of the paper is to explore the volume of Croatian most profitable companies present on social networks and other Internet locations and to determine the main purposes of their usage with specific company goals. In addition, the paper will test the similarities between different sectors in the Croatian economy according to the usage of social networks for their business purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the framework of promotion of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources in Croatia it is aiming at achieving the objectives of energy policy that includes sustainable energy development, energy supply security and competitiveness of energy systems. In order to make a final conclusion it is necessary to identify the key factors and by scientific evidence minimize conflicting opinions in the pricing of fuel, limiting climate change and the use of various forms of energy, the possibilities of import or export of energy, all in accordance with national interests. Although the consumption of electricity in Croatia is small, inefficient usage of electricity brings structure of its available resources into a state of exhaustion. In the paper, but not entering in the structure of production and consumption, by applying regression models, the relationship between the amount of production, imports, exports and the availability of electricity to its final consumption in the Republic of Croatia is determined. Descriptive statistical analysis in this paper is reduced to the determination of the analytical expression that in some sense the best presents empirical data on the variables shown for comparison. By simple linear regression model and multiple regression model the relationship between production, import and export of electricity are represented i.e. the total availability and its consumption. Based on obtained size it will be determined whether and in how much regression model is representative. The calculated parameters have provided a clear picture about the relationship between studied variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of accountants within a business enterprise is of key importance. Not only that they record business transactions (bookkeeping), but they also have a complete, overall view of the business process of an enterprise, starting from business decisions and their implementation, over preparing financial statements, to the insight into employee fluctuation and technology usage. However, accountants in Croatian companies are rarely involved in decision making processes. In this paper the author explores the accountants' perceptions of organizational decline on an example of an industrial dinosaur through monitoring internal business factors - organization's financial indicators, fiscal control system, technology and human resources. Research questions were tested by surveying a sample of 126 accountants in Croatia in a scenario-based study. The results showed that there is no reason for marginalization of accountants as decision makers in Croatian business environment. The paper also provides some of possible solutions on how to confront the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financing business activities of any company requires the availability of adequate sources of funding in the required amount and in a timely manner. The structure of the funding sources or capital structure, which finances business assets, is one of the main factors, which determines the competitive position of the company on the market and influences growth opportunities and expanding abilities of the business. In today's complex business conditions, characterized by globalization processes and dynamic socioeconomic relations that prevail in the market, there are a significant number of funding sources that are available to businesses in accordance with their requirements. Those funding sources are different in terms of types, maturities, interest rates, and other contractual terms. Strong competition and market conditions demand a continuous restructuring of the company's capital structure as well as finding the most appropriate financial mix between owned and borrowed funds of a certain maturity. Available data show that besides the usual external sources of funding, such as different types of bank and commercial loans, the companies increasingly are using alternative funding sources such as leasing. The concept of leasing implies a financing of business activities through lease rather than purchase of the necessary business assets. A lease is an agreement in which one party (lessee) gains a long-term rental agreement for the use of some fixed asset, and the other party (lessor) provides that asset and receives a series of periodic contractual payments in return from the lessee. The leasing is particularly important for small and medium business enterprises that very often do not have sufficient financial resources to purchase the necessary assets nor can they get bank loans at favourable terms. There are numerous advantages of the leasing compared to other asset financing methods such as simplified management and planning of current and future cash flows, better costs control, flexibility and ease of contracting, tax treatment (benefits) and many others. Therefore, the paper provides an overview of the basic characteristics and types of leasing as an alternative way for financing businesses and indicates the significance and role of leasing for business activities in modern market conditions. Additionally, the paper presents structure and basic features of the leasing market and leasing companies in Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is crucial for faster development of the countries that are still developing their economies and trying to reach the developed countries. This flow of new capital strengthens the structural basis of an economy because of long term investments. This implies the investor brings new knowledge in managing the company and investment means a great improvement in abilities of local workforce. Furthermore, there are also great advantages in obtaining new technologies, production processes and opening new markets. Since FDI is divided into greenfield (investing in new capacities) and brownfield (investing in existing capacities) investments, the importance of the first one is much greater since brings greater 'blood flow' to the economy. Many countries give investors a lot of benefits trying to lure them in an investment that will greatly benefit the countries' economy starting from new employment. Smaller costs of production, political stability, market growth, good infrastructure, educated workforce are the conditions that increase FDI. The FDI in Croatia as in other countries slowed down and created great problems in boosting the economy. In the paper figures will compare investment and growth in different countries trying to find the reasons why there is difference between them. We will look for the determinants that are slowing the flow of FDI. With the recession, stagnation of GDP and a big unemployment figure FDI would greatly help in restoring economic growth. According to the findings and obtained results, this paper will propose measures that can help the growth of FDI in Croatia and similar counries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study, which analyzes the rate of unemployment by education level of unemployed persons, divided into three parts. The first part deals with the theoretical explanatory variables used in the paper in order to analyze the structure of unemployment by education level. The second part presents the research methodology and data used in the work of the selected sample of 40 countries of the world. The variables used in the paper to explore are: the percentage of unemployment of people with low education (primary school), the percentage of unemployment of people with secondary education (secondary school), the percentage of unemployment of people with higher education (university degree) and the unemployment rate. Data relating to the 2011 th year and are part of the official statistics (Education at a Glance 2011 th- OECD indicators), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2011 th year. In the third part of this paper is an analysis of the research results that show the structure of unemployment by level of education and the impact of educational level on the unemployment rate. The study is to test the hypothesis that individuals with higher levels of education have a significant negative impact on the unemployment rate of a country of the world. Also, the study aims to test the hypothesis that unemployed people with higher education in a much shorter time finding jobs and significantly shorter period of time are part of the unemployed population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main components in a motor vehicle, without which the vehicle can not be started, nor be in operation, is the battery, or that in the academic literature is called, a starter battery or start - light - ignition battery (SLI), in Croatia usually called acumulator. The subject of this paper is the development of battery industry, while the paper focuses on the only company of this industry in Croatia, the company Munja, Inc.. The main goal of this paper is to analyze strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of battery industry. To achieve this goal, the paper argues the possibilities and directions of development of battery industry and on this basis analyzes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of company Munja, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the authors analyse the Leader Programme function, its principles and implementation in practice, comparing the European countries' experiences wiThthe development trends in Croatia. In a realistic way, they show the management issues, but they also point out the paths of rural area development according to other countries' experience. Using the method of analysis and synthesis, as well as by the field research conducted using the Delphi method, the authors wish to, as realistically as possible, show the Leader Programme model and its adoption in the current politics of our country's rural area management and development. This paper's aim is to illustrate the advantages of this programme as a current and future development model, but also to indicate the problems this particular programme encounters in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New technology development, media globalization and global media expansion on local markets puts before media institutions in small countries, like Croatia, numerous challenges for which it is necessary to find adequate measures of adjustment. Among media industry global trends which aren't just the case on Croatian media landscape, but as well in European countries, particularly notable are economic influences on media news production. Accordingly, the paper will indicate that specific determinants of Croatian journalism are characterized exactly with ascending presence of global media players' that, along with profit as a justification, considerably influence on presentation of media created social image of reality. The papers main goal is to indicate the omnipresent trend in media environment where instead of public, economic interests prevail, and according to them the media news production is carried out. The results are news as market goods where the faith of publishing the news depends on pure economics laws of supply and demand. The paper doesn't have pretensions to offer overall knowledge about research problem, but has pretensions to show the aspects of apparently just media process in order to encourage further scientific research on this interesting topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upgrading the legislation in the area of financial reporting requires from businesses, whose financial statements are object of the audit, disclosure of all fees paid to auditors as well as the basis on which fees are paid. Such emphasis on transparency provides the starting point for analysis of the audit fees determinants which takes the central place in this article whereby the audit fees include fees for the performed audit of financial statements. The purpose of this paper is to point out the need for the establishment of appropriate mechanisms for regulating the amount of audit fees charged, since research findings indicate the presence of audit fees which amounts does not provide the covering of the costs that would assure gratification of minimum requirements that ensure the audit process is performed according to guidelines in the International Auditing Standards. The aim of this paper is in the function of achieving its purpose, and consists in identifying the most important audit fees determinants in the Croatian audit services market as well as the direction and intensity of their influence. The starting point of this research are the audit fee determinants emphasized in the previous researches conducted in economies with long tradition in performing the financial statement audit. The analysis of data from financial reports of 194 business entities whose securities are listed on the Zagreb Stock Exchange in 2009 showed that 50 business entities publicly disclosed the amount of audit fees so they represent the sample in this research. Various research methods were used in drawing the conclusion among which the quantitative ones are emphasized. Partial Least Square regression is used for identifying the determinants of audit fees. As it combines features from principal component analysis and multiple regression, it was useful when determining the contribution of each assumed determinant of audit fee. Considering that, two models which capture most of information on mentioned determinants, at the same time also useful for predicting audit fees, are established. The contribution of each observed audit fees determinant is identified in an individual model. According to that, the most important contributors to specific model, as well as most influential determinants that define such audit fees model have been identified. Finally, obtained regression coefficients can be used to compute predicted audit fees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficiency is one of the basic questions in each organization, no matter are they functioning in the public or private sector. An efficient organization is considered to produce the maximum possible outputs given its inputs, or to produce a certain level of output wiThthe minimum amount of inputs. While the importance of efficiency in the public sector is widely recognized, its measurement in the public sector remains a challenge due to its complexity. The purpose of this paper is to present a notion and concept of the efficiency in the public sector. In the light of theoretical concept of efficiency, the paper will briefly discuss the (in)efficiency of the public sector, i.e. public administration of the Republic of Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interest of the majority of scientists dealing wiThthe issue of state-owned enterprises is primarily focused on the reasons for the existence of state-owned enterprises. The key issue in these debates is whether the state should be the owner of enterprises in which cases these ownership can be justified. Furthermore the focus of a large number of scientists is the question of microeconomic (in)efficiency of state-owned enterprises. On the other hand, when talking about privatization as one of the primary goals of privatization are fiscal effects putted forward. There are only few authors and papers that studied the issue of fiscal effect of (not-privatized) state-owned enterprises. The aim of this paper is to explore theoretical and practical experience of fiscal effects of state ownership of Enterprises, with special reference to the fiscal effects of state-owned enterprises in the Republic of Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What can Croatia expect when it enters the community of 27 countries is the question which the paper aims to answer. How to approach the development of the economy so that selected economic indicators which are represented in the paper follow up the indicators in the countries of the fifth european Union (EU) enlargement. The fifth enlargement took place in two periods: in 2004, when Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia became members and in 2007, when Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU. The aim of this paper is to present the analysis of selected indicators by synthesizing the research results as well as presenting an overview of Croatia's economic indicators and provide insight into the processes faced by the future members of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern economic systems measure their performance also with knowledge-based economy indicators of basic resource efficiency. The paper examines the measured results of the Intellectual Capital Efficiency of the Croatian economy that is based on the concept of knowledge-based economy. The results of performance of the Croatian economy in the year period from 2003 to 2009 are presented and compared in the paper, according to the parameters of the knowledge-based economy and traditional indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employees use organizational power and politics in order to fulfil their organizational objectives and to strengthen their position in the organization. Success depends on how people understand organizational power and politics and how and when they apply them. This paper defines and explains the meaning of power and organizational politics as independent variables of organizational behaviour. Without proper application of power and organizational politics, an organization becomes less effective, and sometimes unable to achieve its own goals. In the research part of this paper the emphasis is placed on organizational power and politics role in relation to other elements of organizational behaviour. The idea was to put emphasis on employee opinions on being inhibited in the workplace, on frequency of employees' delegation, and on the influence of power and political change on business. It is possible to conclude that appropriate use of organizational power and politics has positive effect on business in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small enterprises have an important place in Croatian economy with the tendency of growth and the main reason is successful management. Small businesses in Croatia are considered drivers of economy development. Knowledge of management functions and actualizations of management functions is a path of success for small enterprises. This paper is concerned wiThthe functions of management in small enterprises and the impact of management function for small business excellence. Moreover, this paper is concerned with defining concrete measures for management of small enterprises in order to enhance the organization performance and success. The research for this paper was conducted among small enterprises in Šibenik- Knin County. The research goal is to define the level of actualization of management function among small enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union funds can make a strong contribution to regional and local development of Croatia, however, how the funds will be achieved and implemented in the area of specific region, county, town or municipality depends on many factors. Also the importance of the European Union funds is growing, because local supporting measures funded by the Croatian Government are reducing, and entering the full European Union membership, most of them will be abolished. From that moment, the grand structural and cohesion European Union funds will be available. Criteria and conditions for obtaining of domestic support are much milder and easier to fulfil, but are less generous financial support. On the other hand, criteria and funding conditions of the European Union funds are difficult to fulfil, but financially much more generous. Therefore, in the context of accession to European Union except meeting of administrative requirements and harmonization of Croatian legislation with the acquis communautaire, it is particularly important to prepare the stakeholders at the regional and local level for using of the currently available funds of European Union and those funds which will be available in the future. Through this paper, using a case study of Pozega-Slavonia County , are showed some of the key challenges with which stakeholder are faced in the preparation of projects at regional and local level, and it is showed how much are stakeholders prepared and skilled to use their own capacities and other available capacities in preparation of project proposals. The paper gives specific guidelines, on how to successfully overcome the current challenges, and how to take as much as possible advantage of the European Union funds, which would certainly contribute to the higher level of regional development and higher competitiveness of our regions in conditions of the membership in European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recommendation to increase the competitiveness of Croatia, the Clusters Policy in Croatia highlights the objectives, the uniformity of regional development, human resource development, with the intent to keep the population in a particular area with opening perspective for employment, strengthen competitiveness and economic restructuring on the basis of facilitating access to technologies, information resources, financing and market information. Some measures are applied according to the needs of the individual clusters, which carries the characteristics of the region in which has been or will occur. Already present concentration of certain activities in a given region is a consequence of natural resources and / or industrial capability. It is precisely to the specific circumstances of developing the competitiveness of specific region. This paper presents one way of determining the concentration of key industry in a particular region, based on generally accepted Porter initial narrow definition of regional clusters, which was later extended, that the regional cluster can be defined as a geographical concentration of related independent companies. In this paper, the key is to determine the concentration of industrial activities using the location quotient in the NUTS II region of Pannonian Croatia and NUTS III regions Brod-Posavina and Pozega-Slavonia County. Determining the concentration of industrial activity, shown by coefficient, represents the first stage within all measures to be applied in order to more actively link economic development actors in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The overall objective of this paper is to investigate the evolution of market power in the banking industry in the Republic of Croatia since 2002. to 2009. During the last two decade competition has become a frequent topic in the banking literature, great deal of empirical work has attempted to measure the level of competition and concentration. In particular, the paper has a general objective to analyze non-structural and direct measure of bank competition such as the Lerner Index. This measure assumes that each bank set a price to maximize profits, where the price includes two components: marginal cost and margin which is the basis of market power. Index is calculated using the regression analysis. This approach provides more powerful framework to examine industry competition, compared to the commonly used alternatives of using only industry concentration figures such as Herfindahl-Hirschman index, concentration coefficient… For our research we used panel datasets for the Croatian banking industry, provided by Croatian National Bank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of discrimination has been addressed by many academic scholars, including Nobel Prize winners for economics such as Gery Becker and Kenneth Arrow. Namely, Kenneth Arrow (1971) provided often cited definition of discrimination as the valuation in the market place of personal characteristics of the worker that are unrelated to worker productivity. Also, Gerry Becker (1971) has developed the theory of discrimination by examining the behavior of employers who have showed the «taste» for discriminatory policy. Discrimination can manifest itself in all aspects of life. This paper focuses on gender discrimination on the labor market. Much has been done around the world to reduce gender inequality in the labor market in terms of economic participation and economic opportunity, yet no country has managed to eliminate the gender gap. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the complex notion of gender discrimination on the labor market. After providing a theoretical review of why discrimination occurs on the labor market, this paper addresses two most known forms of discrimination against women - gender pay gap (i.e. women are being paid less than for doing the same or similar job) and glass ceiling (i.e. a limitation preventing women of upward advancement within the organization which is not immediately apparent, usually as an unwritten rule or unofficial policy). The theoretical perspective of the paper is illuminated by the example of Croatia, an EU candidate country, which has been investing en effort to promote gender equality in accordance with EU legislation. Taking into consideration that discrimination is economically inefficient and leads to lower wages for women and consequently to lower output of national economy, the paper provides selected suggestions how to support gender equality on the labor market. They may serve as a general guide for national or regional decision makers in promoting the status of women in the labor market which can positively impact the overall economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human resources are the most important segment in any company or institutions. Today we are witnessing more frequent changes in business, daily changes with which are faced all employees and managers. Today it is not enough to know a little, people must know everything. If employees and managers want to survive in this turbulent environment, they must know everything at any time and any place. Entrepreneurs need a help from entrepreneurial support institutions if they want to realize their goals and make profit. In Croatia we have a large number of institutions that serve as a service to businesses - Croatian Chamber of Commerce, regional development agencies, business incubators, business centers, chambers, etc., these are institutions that are supposed to prepare businesses and create conditions so that small and medium sized enterprises could adapt more easily to the entrepreneurial climate that will prevail once we enter European Union. The main thesis of this paper is "Entrepreneurial support institutions are sufficiently good quality services for all small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and could enable them to meet those high demands and standards that EU market requires?" In this paper we will review the new human resources criteria, knowledge and skill profiles in business support institutions. Entrepreneurs can no longer perform independently. They are forced to daily find out about open tenders for EU grants, how to apply and implement projects. All the above indicates that during the forthcoming period lifelong learning and real-time information will be crucial for the success of their business. Every beginning is difficult. For entrepreneurship in today's business, not only in Croatia but also worldwide, continuing business successfully is even more difficult. Big role in getting real - time information for SMEs have business intelligence and readiness for lifelong learning because late information are useless and then they no longer serve companies in achieving their business goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among other things that modern democratic societies wish to exhibit is also the fact that they are meritocratic. In such societies, a social standing that brings prestige, power and material gains has to be earned by one's own efforts, education and capabilities, which should be a sufficient motive for those taking an education and planning a career. To what extent is this motive present in Croatian society is a central issue of this paper, as well as the question whether the country's youth can recognize it in everyday life. University students were questioned about their attitudes, and their answers indicate whether they see a connection between education and social development, and what they expect in the future after graduation. Do the university students recognize themselves as future managers or as employees without any responsibilities? The paper will present a part of research conducted in January 2011 at Osijek University with students closer to graduation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will show the level of time management skills of managers in the cities of Osijek and Vukovar, whose self-assessment results are compared with results of previous studies on the overall territory of Republic of Croatia. It is an indisputabile fact that the cities of Osijek and Vukovar among the least developed in the Republic of Croatia, compared with the situation twenty years ago. There are many reasons that lead to such results. Among them are the embarrassment of the war, emigration of educated and skilled population, however, the reason of underdevelopment can be found in unskilled management of time at all levels of management. We hereby wish to explore the need for additional training of managers in the cities of Osijek and Vukovar, the time management skills so that they can be educated on time and accordingly facilitate rapid development. This paper consists of three parts, of which the first is about theory of time management and people who manage it. The second part contains the functions of a successful time management as form of presentation of instructions for organizing a quality time. The third section presents the results of research conducted in a way self-assessment managers of personal time management and compare them with previous studies performed on the entire Croatian territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the relationships between the different aspects of social capital and regional economic disparities in Croatia. The focus is given not only to the analysis of the quantitative aspects of civil society, but also to its different qualitative characteristics. On regional level, there are significant changes and shifts in the development of civil society and social capital in Croatia. Although the number of civil society organizations has been increasing, the enhancement of the quality of social capital is not proportional to its numerical growth. All evidences originated from different surveys and researches conducted in the last decade have stressed the very low level of trust in Croatian executive and legislative power as well in judicial authority. In addition, they documented the trend of reducing the density of social networks and disrespecting the social norms. The regional dispersion of the registered legal non-profit entities shows agglomeration pattern in the biggest Croatian cities and their belonging counties. This spatial clustering of civil entities as well of social excluded group corresponds to the level of regional economic development. The paper discusses also the case of the National Foundation for Civil Society Development as an example of good practice. The Foundation shows how social capital, decentralized organizational structures and financial initiatives as well as local civil community may stimulate social partnerships, improve administrative capacity and so help meet its goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Croatian path to the EU membership was not and will not be easy. In fulfilling the various conditions that we ultimately provide candidate status, were only the beginning of a long road of transformation and becoming an equal member of the EU. The purpose of this paper is to show the chronological sequence of funds, the possibility of using resources through funds that were offered to Croatia by the Union, but more importantly, the actual utilization of these funds and the effects that they caused, both at national and local level. In the paper was given example for successful application and implementation of the EU project by the Office for International Cooperation and Rural Development of municipality Tovarnik, Nijemci, Tompojevci, Lovas and the city of Ilok, with all its positive sides as well as the challenges faced by the project managers that they met, in order to confirm or deny the way Croatian public looks at the pre-accession EU funds and large financial resources intended for Croatia. In the end, we will try to give an overview of the current situation, difficulties that are created on the way to the cohesion and structural funds, and also the challenges that Croatia and its entrepreneural sector still have not found right answer, as well as ways to successfully solving the long-standing differences in the ways of doing business between Croatia and the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the tourism business law, especially in the hotel-keeper's contract (direct, agency, allotment), the hotel-keeper assumes certain obligations to the guests, among which, in the last twenty years, the protection of the guest's privacy is particularly emphasized. The subject of the paper is hotel guest's privacy protection in the Croatian and comparative tourism business law. The paper is structured in a way that it analyzes, through the laws of Croatia, France, Italy, Germany, UK and USA, the hotel-keeper's: 1) duties on guest's privacy protection (1. respect of the guest room privacy, 2. registration of the guest under the false name, 3. non-receiving certain guests or persons, 4. discretion of the hotel staff) and 2) contractual liability for non-proprietary damage to violation of guest's privacy (a. the intrusion of staff in the guest room, b. the release of persons in the guest room, c. recording, wiretapping or spying and d. giving third parties information about the guest). Croatian law does not yet recognize the institute of guest's privacy protection as the comparative law of Euro-Continental and Anglo-American legal system (between which there are differences in relation to the institute). The conclusion is the need of adopting unified source at the international law and the European Union's law level, about hotel-keeper's obligation to protect the guest's privacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local and regional governments in Croatia are organized in the forms of cities, municipalities and counties. Each local unit has a legally prescribed responsibilities and scope of work. At the moment, there are 576 local and regional government units in Croatia, of which 20 are counties, City of Zagreb has a dual status as a city and a county, 126 are cities and 429 are municipalities. In order to fulfill their tasks, local governments must have sufficient budget revenues at their disposal. Partly because of a large number of local governments and inefficient territorial division, there is a problem of low fiscal capacity of many local units that are unable to fund all the public needs on the local level. Especially difficult for local governments to finance are investments in long-term capital (development) projects. According to present legal regulation, local governments acquire budget revenues such as tax and non-tax revenues, grants and capital revenues. Beside these, local units can borrow financial funds from banks and other financial institution and/or issue debt securities on the market. This paper examines the role of debt securities, namely municipal bonds issued by the local governments in the Croatia in order to acquire sufficient financial funds for financing long term capital projects on the local level. The main legal regulation in Croatia and basic criteria and constrains on local government borrowing and municipal bond issuing will be analyzed. Additionally, the relative contribution of borrowed funds and municipal bonds in the overall budget structure will be discussed along with possibilities and challenges for their increase in the future. The paper will present an overview of municipal bonds and their characteristics issued by local governments in the period to present date. A proper model of financing capital investments on the local level is of great importance for development of local communities. Therefore, local governments must find new ways to acquire additional financial funds to finance large capital projects, such as infrastructure, schools, hospitals, roads and similar. Issuing of municipal bonds by some local governments is certainly one of the models that should be utilized in the future more often. This paper attempts to indicate main advantages of municipal bonds as a source of revenues of local government budgets, as well as to point out possibilities for further developments in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to give a brief theoretical overview of the notion of economic freedom and discuss it as being a link between economic opportunity and prosperity. First part of the paper offers definition of the economic freedom, (basic) arguments for the limited role of the state in the national economy as well as it discusses one of indexes - Heritage Foundation Index - used worldwide for measuring economic freedom. Based upon the theoretical overview and presented index, the second part of the paper will evaluate economic freedom in the Republic of Croatia and suggest some policy implication how to redefine the role of the state in order to make it more supportive for market's needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decade a large number of scientific papers analyzed Internet reporting of listed companies, but research is still very limited in the emerging markets like Croatia. Therefore, this paper is aimed to analyze voluntary Internet reporting of Croatian listed companies in the period 2005-2007. The research shows that Croatian companies on average are not very transparent as measured by IFR Score. Although capital market in Croatia has been growing very strongly for the last few years there has been only limited improvement in voluntary Internet reporting. The average IFR Score measured on the sample of 55 companies has slightly risen during the period of analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is no generally accepted theory of regional competitiveness, competitiveness (regional or urban) has become very popular subject of interest among scholars, business and policy authorities, where the latter are especially interesting in formulating regional policy aimed at boosting it (from the both demand and supply side). The main purpose of this paper is to discuss issues associated with the interpretation of regional competitiveness under the framework of achieving regional and national sustained economic growth and of contemporary findings in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship, briefly considered in this paper, may be the driving force that enables the transformation of regional resources into regional and national competitiveness, added value, economic growth and development. The paper also focuses on the City of Osijek. It is the largest city of the Croatia's region named the Central and East Croatia. The region is positioned below the Croatian average and it is lagging behind. Lessons considering the early-stage process of entrepreneurship development in the City of Osijek and the role of policy authorities are discussed as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Croatia there is recognized growing interest and effort gain by authorities to give all areas equal opportunities to gain economic and social resources above all needed for EU accession. Allocation of budget which can ensure expected quick economic growth of eastern parts of Croatia justifies budget deficit. The paper shows necessity to accept a challenge of change the mainstream of financing capital investments because conventional patterns slow down and make difficult to run development projects. There is a great extend of opportunities of financial sources but not used in enough scale. The goal is to answer on questions: what kind of sources of financing are suitable to use in public sector, and is their current way of borrowing fit efficiently enough to be adequate for quick economic development? This paper contributes in attempt to present some solutions to problem of areas legged behind in Eastern Croatia which plead for strengthening development and economic prosperity because nominated projects for public goods exceed their budgets possibilities. Many factors depend about financial productivity of local units. For that purpose the current mainstream of public debts will be considered. The potential of different pattern of public debt will be foreseen and at the same time identify the possibilities which could bring new patters of financing public investments like involvement of private sector in projects of public interest like public-private partnership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High unemployment represents striking economic failures that are costly not only to individuals directly affected, but also to the economy and society as a whole. Measures of Active Labor Market Policy (ALMP) - such as training, wage subsidies, public employment measures, and job search assistance - are widely used in European countries to combat unemployment. Croatia, as an EU candidate country, also has a long tradition in ALMP since rising employment is continuously at the top of the Government policy agenda targeting at economic growth and development. The purpose of this paper is to present ALMP and their role in combating the unemployment. Particular attention will be given to the ALPM of the EU and its implications for Croatia as a candidate country. The paper is organized as follows. After introductory remarks, the section 2 provides a theoretical background on the ALMP and relevant measures and discusses the ALMP in the EU Section 3 presents the ALMP in Croatia and discusses its status and perspective. The paper concludes with the section 4, suggesting further research focus, as well as some policy suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Programs ECHO and OBNOVA was first assistance programs which the European Union pursued in the Republic of Croatia in the period since 1991 to 2000. These programs have greatly helped in the return of refugees, reconstruction of war-torn areas, humanitarian action, and freedom of speech. Assistance program CARDS and pre-accession programs PHARE, ISPA, SAPARD have been active since 2000 to 2007, when they are replaced by a single IPA program. The main aim and purpose of the IPA program is providing assistance to candidate countries and potential candidate countries in the harmonization and implementation of legal, political and economic acquis communautaire and to prepare them for the use of the Cohesion Fund and the Structural Funds. This paper analyses the competence of project managers, barriers to application and implementation of the projects (the inability to pre-finance and co-financing, the complexity of application procedures, the adequacy of human resources, language barriers, and lack of defined strategic priorities, not preparation of project documentation, lack of motivated managers and project team members). Research results will help organizational units in the Republic of Croatia to more effectively use the resources of the Structural instruments with the aim of further regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of financial managers and financial management in making investment decisions is increasing. The role of finance is incorporated into all business processes and financial decision in the long term affects the total businesses enterprise. This paper investigates and analyzes the way in which small enterprises that manufacture furniture in Croatia prepare themselves for financial decision-making and how they prepare themselves for financing investment projects. An empirical research was conducted among small enterprises that manufacture furniture in Croatia on the extent of their use of financial pre-accession funds of the European Union and preparations for project funding from the Structural and Cohesion Funds of the European Union. In this context, the contribution of financial resources from these funds on the market competitiveness is described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virovitica-Podravina County as one of the least developed counties has an opportunity to accelerate its development, including the development of tourism, by use of EU funds. Therefore, this paper, by using the case study method, describes the role of the EU funds for tourism development in Virovitica-Podravina County. Emphasis is placed on the total amount of funds disbursed from the EU funds, an analysis of EU projects that have been implemented and their impact on the development of tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the moment when approaching of Republic of Croatia to the European Union is pretty obvious, stakeholders on various levels, in the counties, towns, municipalities and stakeholders from various spheres of socio-economic life, are putting attention on necessity of use of the EU funds. Regarding to that fact, there is logical question, is this orientation on EU funds and EU projects only verbal and declarative, or it is supported and followed by needed capacities or readiness to build this capacities? Currently available data on funds that will be on disposal for Croatia by the end of 2013, tell us that there will be so huge amount of funds, that it will be real challenge to use most of that funds. On the other side, related to regional development which is conducting through the EU funds, we have paradox situation, that the counties of ex NUTS II Pannonia region have biggest need for regional and other development, because they are less developed, at the same time for reaching of that biggest development they need the largest and highest capacity, which they surely don't have. Just opposite, according to their macroeconomic indicators they have smallest capacity among the other NUT II regions, at least the financial ones. While other types of stakeholder's absorption capacity of can be building over time, it generally does not apply to financial capacity, at least for those stakeholders who do not have the aim and function of the accomplishing and maximizing profit, while they have a different role in the socio-economic environment. However that is just one of the challenges faced by stakeholders in the field, at the moment of planning to prepare projects for EU funds or when they develop their project ideas. In this paper will be presented some results of the research that was conducted through a survey among the stakeholders in the ex Pannonia region, with aim to analyse challenges that they face in the process before and during the development of their project ideas or their projects for applying on EU funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EU structural funds are available to EU member states that have the need for additional investments in a balanced and sustainable economic and social development. Structural Funds are in function of EU Cohesion Policy, which aims at achieving economic and social cohesion as well as harmonious development of the European Union. The role of structural funds are financial support of projects which will help in reducing the gap between developed and less developed parts of the EU, and promote the overall competitiveness of the European society and economy. Regional differences within countries are increasing, creating an entirely lag in the development of certain regions. EU funds are therefore a key for reducing these differences by co-financing development project which will contribute to greater stability and growth. Entering the European Union, Croatia will have on its disposal allocated funds from the EU Cohesion Policy. In this paper, it will be presented the attitude of the experts for EU funding about the importance of EU funds for reducing a regional disparities within the EU countries. Research will include perception survey on the sample of the 69 project consultants in Croatia. The aim of the research is to emphasize the importance of preparing development projects and achieving a satisfactory level of regional development as well as providing guidelines for easier absorption of available EU funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social responsibility has become one of the most important issues in today's world, because more and more institutions trying to integrate social responsibility and environmental concerns in the daily activities. Consequently, the movement is spreading over the world and citizens preference for social responsibility, in order to increase awareness of sustainability issues, and because of the impact of social responsibility on the overall community. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which social responsibility is presented today. This primarily refers to the impact of transport and environmental concern to which is European Union firmly committed. Considering Croatia soon accession to the European Union it will be discussed how the application of European standards in the field of transport affected Croatia and how it responded to this change. That area of consideration will be substantiated by survey results, conducted at the University of Applied Sciences of Slavonski Brod, direction Management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to expenditure increases that can be attributed to several reasons, healthcare systems throughout the world strive towards cost containment. In order to conduct it in a satisfactory manner, it is necessary first to determine the sources of inefficiency in the process of providing healthcare services. In this paper regional healthcare efficiency of Croatian counties is measured based on hospital performance in three-year period (2007-2009) using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The set of inputs and outputs consists of six indicators. Four of them are directly related to the healthcare efficiency, while two are external/ uncontrollable factors included in order to take into account great regional socio-economic disparities. Analysis is carried out using models with assumption of variable returns-to-scale (BCC). Since the hospitals have little control over their outputs and more opportunities to reduce inputs used to produce them, inputoriented models are used. In terms of providing hospital healthcare services, DEA identifies efficient counties as examples of good operating practices (benchmark members) and inefficient counties that are analyzed in detail to determine not only the sources but also the amounts of their inefficiency in each source. To enable proper monitoring of efficiency dynamics and make conclusions on behaviour of the county (whether its efficiency has improved, deteriorated or stagnated), window analysis is applied. Based on the results, guidelines for implementing necessary improvements to achieve efficiency are given. Analysis reveals great disparities among counties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the reported turnover of catering industry taxpayers in the past periods a very low turnover has been noticed. There arises a question of unrealistically reported income which is incongruent with the income scale of the taxpayers. Accordingly, Ministry of Finance suspects that there is an area of underground economy and therefore suggests the Fiscalization Act in order to try to suppress it. In our paper we will show the stated results of turnover records after the obligation of reporting the records through the fiscal register office and compare them with the stated turnovers before the Fiscalization Act came into effect in the same period. The turnovers will be compared based on the average turnover per employee. We will provide an outline of two groups of taxpayers; small entrepreneurs and craftsmen, and large taxpayers, who have been obliged by the Fiscalization Act since 1st January 2013, and we will establish how much the Fiscalization Act has contributed to the state budget. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metal industry is one of the largest and most important industries, together with agriculture, in Brodsko Posavska County. Through history this industry was and still is one of the main drivers of the economy, but in the last two decades, this industry has experienced stagnation, decline and was neglected. Large number of enterprises does not exploit their competitive advantage. Sometimes think they have it, but are not aware that they do not. The second case is to have a strong competitive advantage that they do not know and fail to promote their service users or goods. Often small-sized enterprises do not specify its competitive advantages, which should be the basis for all strategic and operational decisions. The main goal of this paper is to research and evaluate approaches, views and factors that determine the competitiveness of 15 small-sized enterprises in 2013 in metal industry in Brodsko Posavska County. Analysis is based on primary research by questionnaire. The targeted objectives are to understand the necessity and role of strengthening competitiveness, to evaluate current state and investigate what enterprises can do to improve and achieve better scores in future. Try to find answers what the enterprise distinguishes from the rest of the competitors in the market why it operates, maintains and allows growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our globalized world more and more experts are dealing with investigation of country image, and number of countries, trying to shape consciously their country brand, is increasing. Present study is dealing with a reasonably actual field of marketing through an example of a special country image. Croatia proclaimed its sovereignty in 1991, which also meant the beginning of the Yugoslavian war causing enormous human, cultural and economic devastation. At that time Croatia, coming out from Yugoslavia put itself on the map independently, and its success is not only proven by its being one of the most famous destinations of the Mediterranean but as well by its new chapter heading the EU, leaving its history's storms behind. Now the new challenge for Croatian country image is to find its place in the European Union. The paper aims to demonstrate the present Croatian image in Hungary based on primary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategies in the management of museums and galleries show the need for strategic management and governance, which is a key factor for the quality management of galleries and museums. This area of culture management is a specific area for itself, because culture is traditionally observed as a very vulnerable area, due to lack of financial resources that would normally characterize these activities. Planning, implementation strategies, the results of performance achieved by good strategy are essential elements of any management. Since museum and gallery activities in the Republic of Croatia are in an unenviable position, this paper will show some of the possibilities for better management, will an emphasis on the importance of management, strategic management and the potentials that can be achieved through quality marketing management, to increase the number of service users and thus generate revenues. It will explain the fact that museums and galleries can increase the number of users through strategic management and marketing activities, in order to create revenue by attracting customers, by offering well-attended exhibitions, being thus a successful organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering that transportation is one of the most sensitive passenger services (passenger safety, punctuality of departures) which are mostly subsidized by the taxpayers, a key role is played by a quality management system that every common carrier should be implemented, and thus to secure the same level of services for each passenger in Croatia. The paper will show the importance of the theoretical model and the importance of quality management in the public transport of passengers, and through research via questionnaire shown how the representation of the quality management system, Implementation of International standards, as well as knowledge management with concepts of quality management in public passenger transport in Croatia in terms of the service provider. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environment is nowadays characterized by permanent change and growing complexity. Flexibility and lifelong learning are required for success in such environment for individuals and for organizations as well. Learning organization is defined as organizations that have implemented structure, processes and organizational culture that continuously foster individual, team and organizational learning and which results with permanent changes in behaviour and organizational processes. Learning organization is not new subject of research and it is not unknown to managers. In order to enable development of learning organization, many authors have developed concepts and defined specific activities that can help management in achieving the goal of creating and measuring learning organization in their companies. In this paper we describe several of these constructs with emphasis on Building Blocks of Learning Organization, created by David A. Garvin, Amy C. Edmondson and Francesca Gino. Based on this construction we wanted to test if Croatian companies are dedicated to implementation and development of learning organizations. We have conducted a research on a convenient sample and it showed that Croatian companies fall behind on implementation of learning organization. The results of this research may serve as guidelines for decision makers who want to improve learning processes within their organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with the entire economy, the wood industry in the Republic of Croatia also has to face strong and numerous competitors, both in the home and foreign markets. Solutions for survival and future development should be sought in market competition. Modern marketing increasingly uses branding as the means to increase sales and profit. Advertising as a part of the branding process is an unavoidable step toward creating a strong brand. To optimise the decision making process when selecting an appropriate media combination for advertising, in the paper linear programming is used, particularly a special case of linear programming - integer linear programming. One possibility is to use the technique for distribution of a fixed or limited budget across various media - radio or TV commercials, newspaper adverts, direct mail, etc. The other possibility is to use advertising space (and type of advertising) based on the greatest possible number of potential users that can be reached by the advertising message. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Croatia is at the very end of its pre-accession process of joining the European Union, during which many institutions and entities had the opportunity to apply and obtain the pre-accession funds. The aim of these funds was to reduce regional disparities between Member States and candidate countries, to strengthen the public institutions with a focus on integration into the system of the European Union and to prepare them for the use of the Structural and Cohesion Fund after accession. Tourist Boards in collaboration with local government units, legally defined as carriers of tourism development for specific area were also one of the entities who had the opportunity as a project applicants and / or partners in the project to become the beneficiaries of pre-accession funds. This research shows that during the pre-accession period 2007-2013 there were not so many of such projects. Small number of projects that were financed from pre-accession funds is the result of the shortcomings of the administrative and organizational functioning modes of tourist boards in the Republic of Croatia. With creation of additional cooperation between larger number of local government units who have the same or similar tourism characteristics on their territory, between tourist boards and development agencies active in this field as well as between other entities in tourism, situation could be changed significantly. Then it comes to merging into "clusters", which show the great opportunity of development with regard to their current funding by the relevant ministries and the European Union in the future. This paper will review the legal options for the development of possible models, and show in a concrete example of Vukovar-Srijem County that theoretical model can find its application in practice in one undeveloped tourist area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The city population in Croatia is in line with post-transition period, and before the transition, over the past two decades, was faced with a new understanding of redefining the function of local public services and the concept of choosing your own requirements, but is in complete accordance wiThthe democratic rights related to the selection and creation of further functioning of the activities of local public services in the local area. In this way, the city population, during the period of creation and customization of the entire organization and functioning of cities in Croatia, got the opportunity to participate in the creation of further prospects of communal economy of cities in Croatia. This paper seeks to define the basic theoretical and practical features of the functioning of the communal economy of cities in Croatia at the aggregate level of cities. Communal economy of cities on an aggregate level, and observed by the sectoral distribution, can be measured in differentiated individual communal industries (transportation, garbage, water, etc.) and thus easier to identify and position the advantages and disadvantages in particular in terms of noticeable differences in the organizations among the towns in Croatia, where the smaller towns and the city of Zagreb have a similar structure and functioning in relation to the secondary cities, which is not to compare, if we analyze the number of population size and structure of utility activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic objective of this research paper is to explore the contribution of road networks to regional development. The results of the study are based on Croatian experience. The study of variations in GDP and the total length of the road network will determine if there is a statistically significant positive correlation between movements in GDP and the total length of the road network at the level of national economy as a whole, but also at the level of county/ region. The impact of the road network on regional development will be determined by comparing the growth of GDP, between those regions/counties that significantly increase the overall length of the road network, and those regions/counties that do not. This research will be subdued to different scientific methods, including the method of induction and deduction and the method of regression analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]