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The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between market orientation, innovation resources and companies’ financial performance. Focus is put on the mediator role of proactive market orientation (PMO) in the relationship between reactive market orientation (RMO), innovation resources and financial performance in the context of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. Research builds on reliable scales. Four hundred and fifteen usable questionnaires were collected from companies in Slovenia with more than 20 employees. The results show a strong and positive relationship between RMO and PMO. The impact of RMO on innovativeness as an element of organisational culture is both positive and stronger than the impact of PMO. PMO proved to have a significant positive influence on the capacity to innovate. While innovativeness alone does not directly influence financial performance, the results do confirm the positive impact of an organisational capacity to innovate on financial performance. The finding of our paper is that when PMO was included as a mediator between RMO and the capacity to innovate, the result was that this indirect impact proved to be one of the strongest in the model. Also, it proves that in CEE countries, it is important to stress the influence of market and market orientation in building innovation resources and consequently financial performance. The limitation of the current study is that we considered the relationship only among few marketing resources and organisational performance. In future research, additional measures of market performance may be introduced as mediators between innovation resources and financial performance.

Every day more and more Internet users use social networks, which have become a very interesting channel also for the marketing experts, who are always looking for the new opportunities how to deliver their messages to a wider range of users. Social networks are due to some of its specific features very different from traditional marketing communication channels and have several advantages as well as some pitfalls. People responsible for marketing communication must be aware of the latter, if they want marketing communication on social networks to achieve its objectives. Especially in the times of crisis, when the resources for marketing communication are very limited and requirements to maximize the return of investment are present, some specific characteristics of social networks enable companies to take the advantages of social networks for the effective communication with users.

Services are becoming more and more a primary force for economic growth, in modern society. National economies that want to cope with changes are in the midst of a quality revolution. Yet, little has been done in the marketing management of the quality of services. Hence the article reveals some problems in this area and focuses on the measurement of the quality of services from the customers perspective. The systemic approach to the measurement is introduced as well as some findings of the research of the quality of the Slovenian health spas- services.

We investigated relationships among market orientation, innovation and reputational resources, and their impact on market performance and fi nancial performance within the transitional economy of Slovenia. Market orientation related positively to market and fi nancial performance of fi rms indirectly through innovation and reputational resources. Reputational resources associated positively with loyalty, market share, and sales volume, innovation resources associated positively with market share, and sales volume indirectly through customer loyalty. Selected marketing resources related positively to fi cial performance indirectly through customer loyalty, market share, and sales volume. The implications of these fi ndings for theory and practice are considered. Copyright © 2007 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. JEL Classifi cation: M31, M10

In most service companies achieving customer satisfaction is the primary objective since they explicitly link it to their business success. The clear importance of consumer satisfaction drives various companies to conduct, from time to time and with or without the help of marketing agencies, consumer satisfaction surveys and report to what extent their customers are satisfied. Although customer satisfaction is considered to be a key variable — indicative of the success or failure of a business relationship — a review of the pertinent literature reveals a lack of consensus definition for consumer satisfaction as well as a lack of comprehensive, theoretically based empirical research stream. Therefore authors decided to carry out a study in one of the most sensitive industries as far as customer satisfaction is concerned — hotel industry. Data was gathered and analysed on the prevailing practice of the population of hotels in Slovenia using different methods to measure the satisfaction of hotel guests.

Companies are faced with a multitude of environmental influences. The dynamism of these influences is more and more turbulent. Also the interactions of the companies with their relevant environment are dynamic and complex. Porter has identified five forces that are widely used to assess the structure of any industry. This paper discusses the situation in the field of competitive forces: customers, competitors, technology, and suppliers. The research compares all the Slovene companies with companies in the hotel industry. The researched population includes the companies with more than 20 employees. According to the results of the ANOVA tests, the basic hypothesis that there are no statistically significant differences in the perception of trends in competitive environment between all surveyed companies and hotel companies is generally confinned, with the exception of only two of the eleven statements.

Perceived value is an extremely important concept in marketing and many authors have dealt with it in recent years. In Slovenia perceived value of product is a rather neglected aspect of the research. Moreover, nobody has empirically researched the impact of individual factors on perceived value of a product. The researched target group was students – the fastest growing segment among the users of mobile phones in Slovenia. In their research the authors focused on two of the perceived value impact factors: perceived product quality and perceived risk. Based on literature and our own findings, their main researched objective was to design the model of relationships among perceived value, perceived quality and perceived risk. After the model had been tested with the method of structural equation modeling (LISREL 8.0), the authors found that statistically significant relationships (positive and negative, direct and indirect) among the concepts researched exist.

The Narver and Slater market orientation scale is tested in the context of service firms in the transition economies of central Europe and found to be both valid and reliable. The survey examined levels of market orientation in 205 business to business services companies and 141 consumer services companies in Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. As predicted by the predominantly western marketing literature, those service firms with higher levels of market orientation; were more often found in turbulent, rapidly changing markets; were more likely to pursue longer term market building goals rather than short term efficiency objectives; more likely to pursue differentiated positioning through offering superior levels of service compared to competitors; and also performed better on both financial and market based criteria. A number of different business approaches, however, are evident in the transition economies suggesting that other business orientations may co‐exist with a market orientation creating a richer and more complex set of organizational drivers.

The article deals with users’ beliefs, attitudes and behaviour toward marketing communication on social networks based on survey originally conducted in Slovenia in Spring 2014. The main novelty in comparison with previous studies is the inclusion of belief factor »good for individual«, which is typical for marketing communication on social networks and not for any other marketing communication channel. Since previous researches deal with younger users only, this survey, which includes a wide range of social network users, contribute to the theory, respectively. Based on the results of the research authors created a generally applicable model of users’ beliefs, attitudes and behaviour toward marketing communication on social networks, which can serve as the basis for the following empirical research in this area. The results show, that users’ beliefs about factors »information«, »entertainment« »good for individual« and »good for economy« have positive impact on users’ attitudes toward marketing communication on social networks, while users’ beliefs about factors »materialism«, »falsity/nonsense« and »value corruption« have negative impact on users’ attitudes toward marketing communication on social networks. Level of users’ education has negative impact on both, users’ attitudes and behaviour toward marketing communication on social networks, while users’ gender has impact only on their attitudes toward marketing communication on social networks.

The authors concentrate on the importance of service quality elements in health spas. In the introduction the authors describe general characteristics of the health spa industry in Slovenia. They also point out the expanding emphasis on the service elements of products, their perceived quality and their influence upon the management practices of organisations. The main characteristics of the theoretical discussion on quality of services are presented, as well as the background of the research project. This 1999 study was a replication of part of a research project on the health spa industry in Slovenia conducted in 1991 using the SERVQUAL instrument. The project dealt with the assessment of the overall service quality in two health spas, the identification of important profiles of health spa service quality components and the identification of possible differences between important profiles of service quality components identified in 1991 and those seen in 1999. Most of the important differences in the structure of the service quality elements emerged during the interval between both research projects.

The introduction stresses the role of the library in the environment and the importance of marketing thinking in the management practice of libraries. The main characteristics of library services as well as the importance and the definition of the perceived quality of services are dealt with. Reveals the current situation concerning research into service quality in libraries, and focuses on the structure of importance and the level of the service quality components in the library at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Maribor, Slovenia. Discusses the reasons for the project and its goals, analyzes the results and submits proposals for the improvement of the overall service quality in libraries.

The Narver and Slater (Narver, J.C., and Slater, S.F.: The Effect of Marketing Orientation on Business Profitability. Journal of Marketing 54 (1990): 20–35.) market orientation scale is tested in the context of the transition economies of central Europe and found to be both valid and reliable. Relationships between market orientation and both marketing strategy and performance broadly follow predictions from the Western literature indicating that the adoption of a market orientation is equally applicable in transition as in Western economies. A number of different approaches, however, are evident in the transition economies suggesting that other business orientations may coexist with a market orientation creating a richer and more complex set or organizational drivers.

The industrial organisation and evolutionary economics traditions in international business and the resource-based view of the firm in strategic management provide a rich and related set of perspectives on the question of performance in an international environment. This paper draws on these perspectives to examine the nature of marketing capabilities across a range of firm types in Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. A number of key strategic capabilities are examined including market orientation, the time horizon of strategic decision making and positioning capability. The study finds that firms with foreign participation have been able to develop a sophisticated level of marketing capability with a resulting positive impact on financial and market performance. Wholly-owned subsidiaries and international joint ventures emerge as equally effective mechanisms for the transfer of marketing capability. Conclusions are drawn and implications from the research are outlined.© 2000 JIBS. Journal of International Business Studies (2000) 31, 63–81

In the contribution we present the results of the research, which derive from research work of Bearden in Etzel (1982). In this research Bearden and Etzel explain the influence of necessity/nonnecessity and visible/private consumption as factors for determining the power of the reference group impact. Bearden and Etzel define the impact of reference group on (a) possessing the product and (b) on selection the brand of the product. They distinguish between four categories: public necessities, public luxuries, private necessities and private luxuries. Despite all eminence of this research, its weakness is in categorical approach. From didactic point of view categorical approach is perhaps better, because it enables better memorising and clear view in the problem. Categorical approach is questionable because the world is not categorical but dimensional in nature. Our opinion is that the dimensional approach would be more proper. Probably in majority of products the necessity and visibility are middle and so is the reference group influence on possessing the product and selection the brand of product. The main purpose of the research was: Products: in the research we analysed 43 products (the concept product we use in the broadest sense; we include material and non-material products; product is every result of the human physical or mental activity). Respondents: 113 female students of the University of Maribor (age 21). In research we present: The results do not have only theoretical, but also a practical value. On the basis of the estimation of the visibility and necessity of the product we can for each product define the influence of the reference group on choosing the product and product brand. From this reason the results give us a starting point for decision to use or not to use the reference groups as one of the factors in building the strategy for product promotion, distribution and sale. Every research has limitations. In this research the limitations were at least: product selection and respondent selection.

The resource based theory of the firm (RBV) is briefly reviewed together with its recent application in the marketing literature. Significant contributions by Webster (1992) and Day (1994) are identified and an integration of the two presented as a hierarchical model of marketing capabilities. Three research propositions concerning the relationships between marketing capabilities and performance are developed and tested empirically in the transition economies of central and eastern Europe. In line with expectations from the theory of the RBV, higher order marketing capabilities are seen to be more important than operational capabilities in explaining superior competitive performance. The overall model is shown to be a helpful conceptualization of marketing capabilities and a number of issues for further research are identified.

The purpose of the article is to instigate librarians to start to think about their new role which was actually imposed on them by the time of new information technologies,especially networks, the globalisation of offer, competition, and above all, users and their needs and expectations. In the article, the activities of Iibraries in the frames of special markets and their aims are described. The awareness of the quality of Iibrary services requires at least basic knowledge of marketing. The evaluation of the quality of library services has its special place within total quality management (TQM); it is carried out in different ways, by means of different performance indicators, methods and programmes. Quality can not be measured only in terms of quantity because it is always a combmahon of subjective and objective factors. At present, libraries will have to give up thelr classical role of only offering books and periodicals and have to tum to target users.

Summary Privatization is an essential part of the transition process in Central and Eastern Europe. In this process the major stakeholders have a variety of different objectives. The conventional Western literature views of the objectives of governments, investors, and privatized companies are identified. The research then studies the importance ol'thcsc in Central and Eastern Europe and the degree to which they have been achieved in Hungary, Poland, and Slovcnia for former state-owned enterprises (SOEs) which are now fully or partly private and for organic private firms. The paper concludes that the major objectives are more likely to be achieved by fully privatized former SOEs.

First part introduces typical tourist programs of health resorts in Slovenia, their competitive advantage and possible routes of development. In the second part certain elements of perceived quality of health resorts in Slovenia are presented, stemming from the national visitor survey. Third part is concerned with the empirical analysis of the profiles of tourists satisfaction with the elements of service quality in two health resorts in Slovenia, and of the correlation between the perceived service quality and tourists loyalty.

Services are a primary force for economic growth in a modern society. At the same time the concept of quality is in the midst of managerial attention in every successful organization. Yet, extensive work in the field of empirical research involving the measurement of this important marketing variable and subsequently in the marketing management of quality in numerous service organizations all over the world has started only at the end of the eighties. As a result the author undertook an empirical study to identify the salient components of service quality and the nature of impact of several factors on the guests estimation of service quality in two successful Slovenian health spas. As the basis for the investigation this study utilizes the conceptual model of service quality as proposed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1985).

Companies use different marketing activities to communicate with the environment. These decisions are often a result of past experiences, habits or a certain influences. Measuring the efficiency of a communication mix as well as analyzing the effect of using a specific marketing communication activity on different business performance determinants are usually neglected. This paper might contribute to this problem as it focuses on the correlation between marketing communication activities and the business performance of a company through two aspects: a) the frequency of using a specific marketing communication activity and its correlation to business performance determinants; b) the correlation between the number of marketing communication activities that a company uses and its business performance determinants. We found statistically significant relationships (positive and negative) among some variables. The results helped us interpret which activity a company should use in order to increase customer loyalty, which activity helps raise net profit, and how many marketing communication activities should a company employ to optimise business performance. With this, managers have obtained basic guidelines when building their marketing communication mix.

In the present paper, first the conceptual model of perceived value concept as a mediating variable in tourist perceptions of hotel services is presented and afterwards tested with structural equation modelling. The study reveals that: (a) the relationship between perceived hotel quality and perceived value is strong and positive; (b) the relationship between hotel quality and guest satisfaction is not direct, but rather indirect through the perceived value; (c) hotel image is significantly positively related to perceived value and perceived hotel quality; and (d) perceived value strongly impacts hotel guest satisfaction. Further, invariance analysis shows that no significant differences exist in relationships among perceived quality, image, perceived value and satisfaction between tourists from Slovenia and tourists from Italy., U ovom se radu prvo predstavlja konceptualni model percipirane vrijednosti kao posredničke varijable u percepcijama hotelskih usluga od turistâ, a potom ga se testira modeliranjem strukturnim jednadžbama. Studija otkriva: (a) da je odnos između percipirane kvalitete hotela i percipirane vrijednosti snažan i pozitivan, (b) da odnos između kvalitete hotela i zadovoljstva gosta nije izravan nego neizravan (percipiranom vrijednošću), (c) da je imidž hotela značajno pozitivno povezan s percipiranom vrijednosti i percipiranom kvalitetom hotela te (d) da percipirana vrijednost snažno utječe na zadovoljstvo hotelskoga gosta. Nadalje, analiza invarijance pokazuje da nema značajnih razlika u odnosima između percipirane kvalitete, imidža, percipirane vrijednosti i zadovoljstva između turistâ iz Slovenije i turistâ iz Italije., Die Verfasser präsentieren in ihrer Arbeit zunächst das konzeptuelle Modell perzipierter Werte als eine vermittelnde Variable bei der Wahrnehmung von Hotelserviceleistungen auf Seiten ausländischer Touristen, um es sodann anhand von Strukturgleichungen zu modellieren und zu testen. Dabei zeigte sich Folgendes: a) Es herrscht ein starker und positiver Bezug zwischen der perzipierten Qualität eines Hotels und dem perzipiertem Wert; b) der Bezug zwischen der Qualität eines Hotels und der Zufriedenheit des Hotelgastes besteht nicht unmittelbar, sondern entsteht über den perzipierten Wert; c) das Image eines Hotels steht in einem wesentlich positiven Zusammenhang mit dem perzipierten Wert und der perzipierten Qualität eines Hotels; d) die Zufriedenheit des Hotelgastes wird stark durch den perzipierten Wert beeinflusst. Eine Invarianzanalyse zeigt des Weiteren, dass es im Hinblick auf die untersuchten Phänomene keine nennenswerten Unterschiede zwischen slowenischen und italienischen Touristen gibt.

The study investigates the relationships between market orientation, innovation resources, reputational resources, customer related capabilities, and distribution based assets, as well as their impact on market and financial performance. The results indicate that market orientation is indirectly related to a company's market and financial performance through other four marketing resources. Reputational resources have a positive impact on loyalty, market share, and sales volume, while the impact of innovation resources on market share and sales volume is rather indirect through customer loyalty. While the customer related capabilities significantly impact customer loyalty their impact on market share and sales volume can not be confirmed. On the other side the distribution based assets are weakly related to loyalty and market share and sales volume. General findings indicate that selected marketing resources impact financial performance indirectly through the creation of customer loyalty and directly through market share and sales volume. V raziskavi proučujemo povezavo med tržno naravnanostjo in inovacijskimi viri, viri ugleda, sposobnostmi povezanimi z odjemalci in premoženjem, ki temelji na dobaviteljih, kakor tudi njihov vpliv na tržno in finančno uspešnost. Rezultati razkrivajo, da je tržna naravnanost preko štirih obravnavanih marketinških virov posredno povezana s tržno in finančno uspešnostjo podjetij. Viri ugleda imajo pozitiven vpliv na zvestobo in tržne deleže ter obseg prodaje, medtem ko je vpliv inovacijskih virov na tržne deleže in obseg prodaje predvsem neposreden preko vpliva zvestobe odjemalcev. Sposobnosti povezane z odjemalci sicer pomembno vplivajo na zvestobo odjemalcev, vendar v raziskavi njihove povezave s tržnimi deleži in obsegi prodaje nismo potrdili. Premoženje, ki temelji na dobaviteljih je zgolj šibko povezano z obema kazalcema tržne uspešnosti (zvestobo, tržnimi deleži in obsegi prodaje). V splošnem ugotavljamo, da tržni deleži in obsegi prodaje na finančno uspešnost vplivajo neposredno, hkrati pa so tudi pomemben mediator pri posrednem vplivu zvestobe odjemalcev na finančno uspešnost.

Companies are faced with a multitude of environmental influences. The dynamism of these influences is more and more turbulent. Also the interactions of the companies with their relevant environment are dynamic and complex. Porter has identified five forces that are widely used to assess the structure of any industry. This paper discusses the situation in the field of competitive forces: customers, competitors, technology, and suppliers. The research compares all the Slovene companies with companies in the hotel industry. The researched population includes the companies with more than 20 employees. According to the results of the ANOVA tests, the basic hypothesis that there are no statistically significant differences in the perception of trends in competitive environment between all surveyed companies and hotel companies is generally confinned, with the exception of only two of the eleven statements., Hotelska poduzeća se suočavaju s višestrukim razvojnim utjecajima. Interakcija utjecaja hotelskih poduzeća s njihovim okruženjem sve je dinamičnija i kompleksnija. U ovom radu obrađeni su odnosi sudionika “tržišne utakmice”: kupci, natjecatelji (proizvođači), tehnologije i dobavljači. U istraživanju natjecateljskih snaga u poduzećima s više od 20 zaposlenih uspoređena su sva slovenska poduzeća s poduzećima u hotelskoj industriji. Rezultati istraživanja potvrđuju hipotezu da nema bitnih razlika između poduzeća u drugim djelatnostima i poduzeća koja nude hotelske proizvode. Za hotelska poduzeća znakovito je da u svom poslovanju više rabe informacijske tehnologije nego u drugim poduzećima.

Central Europe (CE) has been an important locus for research in the area of marketing since the fall of Communism. Researchers have adopted both the perspective of a potential investor in the region (Quelch, Joachimsthaler and Nueno, 1991) and well as that of indigenous firms (Hooley, 1993; Noar, 1989). This study builds on an emerging line of research that examines the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on marketing practice in countries in CE. The extant research has highlighted, for example, that Hungarian firms tend to be more market orientated than their Polish counterparts (Shipley et al., 1994) and that firms with foreign participation in Hungary are more likely to have long-term, growth-orientated marketing objectives than state-owned enterprises (Hooley et al., 1996). To date, however, most research has focussed on the larger countries in CE, such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. In particular, there is a dearth of knowledge on the status of marketing in several of the smaller economies, such as the Baltic states, Slovakia and the states of the former Yugoslavia. The research outlined in this chapter is the beginning of the process of filling this void, presenting an assessment of the impact of foreign direct investment on the marketing practice of a sample of Slovene firms.

The economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have seen substantial changes in the last decade, as they have, with varying levels of success, sought the transition from centrally planned to market-led economics (Fingleton et al., 1996).

Privatisation in Central and Eastern Europe was introduced to encourage competition in companies with subsequent beneficial effects on company performance and market orientation. Companies have been privatised by four main methods in these countries depending on the company circumstances before privatisation and leading to different dominant stakeholders after the privatisation. The performance and market orientation of companies privatised by each method are surveyed by mailed questionnaires and differences are found that are attributable to different stakeholder influence as a result of the privatisation method. Privatisierungen wurden in Mittel- und Osteuropa durchgeführt, um den Wettbewerb anzukurbeln, welcher in der Nachfolge positive Effekte auf Unternehmensleistung und Marktorientierung haben sollte. Unternehmen in diesen Ländern wurden nach vier verschiedenen Methoden privatisiert, abhängig davon, in welchen Umständen sich das jeweilige Unternehmen vor der Privatisierung befand. Je nach Methode führte die Privatisierung zu verschiedenartigen Hauptanteilseignern. Die Leistung und Marktorientierung von Unternehmen, die je nach einer der vier Methoden privatisiert wurden, wurde anhand von Fragebögen untersucht und es haben sich Unterschiede gezeigt, die aufgrund der verschiedenen Möglichkeiten zur Einflußnahme seitens der Anteilseigner zustande kommen.

Innovation resources are among the resources critical for the creation of sustainable competitive advantage and therefore, for the growth and survival of companies. Authors explore partial dimensions of innovation resources and their relations with company performance from a sample of companies in Slovenia as a transforming socialist economy. The results of research show moderate positive correlation between these two variables.