Sustainable Business Management and Digital Transformation: Challenges and Opportunities in the Post-COVID Era

Blockchain transactions are secured from falsification by appending a digital signature using the PKI (Public key infrastructure). When signing a blockchain transaction, the user must have access to his private key, which must be kept on a hardware or software token. The scientific works analyzed in this paper represent the application of Blockchain technology in payment card system, and in this way the architecture of the system is simplified. The fusion of biometric technology and blockchain technology, which allows a blockchain transaction to be signed without tokens and eliminates the need for a third-party transaction validator, has improved the functionality of current payment card systems. This paper contains three contributions. It is first demonstrated how different biometrically based digital signature models reported in the literature compare, then it is demonstrated how blockchain transactions can be digitally signed using digital signatures made using biometrics, and finally, because biometric digital signature creation methods have not attracted much attention in the scientific public, a detailed comparison of the FIBS (Fuzzy Identity Based Signature) scheme and the Fuzzy signature method was presented as for these two schemes was shown that we can implement them in Blockchain and Payment Card System.

Traditional supply chain management systems can struggle with issues such as traceability, transparency and trust between supply chain participants. In order to mitigate such issues, we propose application of blockchain technology and smart contracts. This paper presents a working supply chain model based on the Ethereum blockchain network. Ganache, a personal Ethereum blockchain, was used to deploy contracts, and TruffleSuite was used as a development environment. Although participants in the supply chain are simplified in comparison to real world scenarios, the presented model allows us to demonstrate how application of blockchain and smart contracts can improve mentioned issues characteristic for traditional supply chains. Detailed process flow of such a supply management system was given, and used system structures were described in detail. Described model proves that it is possible to apply smart contracts in order to solve problems of traceability transparency and trust in a simple and reliable way.

Blockchain as a technology is being more and more common, both in software development industry and in many spheres of business, such as law, finance and many others. The use of blockchain technology provides many advantages in terms of decentralization, information security and concealment. Ethereum, which provides the possibility of using smart contracts, stands out as one of the most frequently used blockchain platforms. The use of smart contracts provides a more efficient alternative to traditional way of the key aspects of business, such as making payments, traditional payment being the one executed in e-payment system, or specifically EMV payment systems. The use of smart contracts in the execution on the Ethereum platform is researched in this paper. The paper showcases overview of blockchain tecnology and an example of a smart contract written in the Solidity programming language, over which the examination was performed and the main aspects were explained. Main vulnerabilities of Solidity programming language are given. Finally, in the conclusion, comparison, or rather the advantages of payment systems based on blockchain over the traditional electronic payment systems are also considered.

We address the full fuzzy linear fractional programming problem with LR fuzzy numbers. Our goal is to revitalize a strict use of extension principle by employing it in all stages of our solution approach, thus deriving results that fully comply to it. Using the $$\alpha $$ α -cuts of the coefficients we present the linear optimization models that empirically derive the $$\alpha $$ α -cuts of the optimal objective fuzzy value, and discuss the optimization models able to derive the exact endpoints of the optimal objective values intervals. For initial maximization (minimization) problems the main issue is related to how to solve two stage min-max (max-min) problems to obtain the left (right) most endpoints. Our goals are as it follows: to obtain exact solutions to small-size problems; to obtain relevant information about solutions to large-scale problems that are in accordance to the extension principle; and to provide a procedure able to measure to which extent the solutions obtained by an approach to full fuzzy linear fractional programming comply to the extension principle. We illustrate the theoretical findings reporting numerical results, and including a relevant comparison to the results from the literature.

Higher education institutions are fully engaged in producing adequate labour supply. Targeting the persistently high youth unemployment should be among the top governmental priorities in a mutual benefiting environment for the economy and the HEIs. Earlier studies and practical experience for the national labour market imposes indications for a possible labour market mismatch. As the main objective, this research targets the two labour market segments (employment and self-employment) in North Macedonia for graduated economists at the Faculty of Economics – Skopje at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. Through the utilisation of machine learning and cluster analysis techniques for graduated economists between 2017 and 2021, we found that age, academic success, family’s income, and having some type of informal education, significantly determine the employment status of graduated economists. Moreover, there is no clear-cut evidence that the gender and the bachelor programme are one of the main determinants, even though positive linkage for females, studying financial management and Accounting and auditing, and employment is observed. The empirical findings provide clear direction for policy creation regarding study programmes and higher youth employment, both for the national government and the higher education institutions.

Credit ratings tend to be very informative for investors and issuers and might serve as a powerful tool. The purpose of this paper is to investigate existing credit rating methodologies (e.g. Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s, Fitch) and to introduce improved data model for corporate ratings prediction based on computational intelligence methods. We hope that this study will provide academic researchers and industry practitioners new insights into the aspects of credit rating and its predictions. The research is performed on the selected companies that are constituents of the S&P 500 index. Company data from financial reports over period of 2016 to 2019 are analyzed and numerous financial indicators are included into analysis. The paper focuses on the design of data model, data preparation and working with missing values. Various well-known imputation techniques but also computational intelligence-based ones (e.g. fuzzy C-means) are applied to handle missing values and improve performance. In further research, the corporate credit rating prediction is brought down to a classification problem. Being a successful computational intelligence technique for credit ratings prediction, a typical neural network model is applied and compared to support vector machines as another popular data-based method in this domain. Finally, we have performed both cross-industry and industry-specific analysis. It is shown that industry-specific approach improved prediction results achieved by cross-industry data.

Youth unemployment is a major challenge for economic policy makers around the world, especially in developing countries. In developing countries, the role of HEI is to produce employable graduates, which will directly affect the improvement of the level of human capital. Higher Educational Institutions (HEI) have a main role to produce employable graduates who, with their skills and knowledge, will have optimal integration in the labor market. The main goal of this research is to determine the basic determinants that affect the employability of students. This study was conducted among students of Faculty of Economics - Skopje, who are in the final year of their studies. Well-structured questions in the questionnaire distributed provided a solid basis for gathering demographic information and economic characteristics of respondents, as well as their average grade and outlook for the future. Student self-perception of employability is largely relied upon for most of the information. In the study, results indicate that obtaining employment during the study is positively correlated with employability after graduation. Results indicate that students who successfully integrate themselves into the labor market during their studies are significantly more likely to be employed immediately after graduation. Students who come from families with a higher income experience a higher degree of integration into the labor market. Hence, it can be concluded that the level of household income has a statistically significant positive influence on the degree of integration of graduates in the labor market.

Globalization, regional integration, and the era of digitalization impose the need for Customs, as an entity of the state administration, to implement process innovations in terms of integration, automation, and digitalization. Thus, the purpose of this research is to analyze the possibilities of improving the customs system by applying process innovations. For the experiment, economic operators, as end users of the customs system were employed for a case study to test and verify the proposed guidelines for the lean innovation approach. The main methods used in the research are descriptive analysis of the processed data collected by survey and the method of interview with the economic operators. The result of the research is that applying process innovation supported by lean approach prior to digitalization can significantly improve efficiency, effectiveness and shorten the execution time of customs transit procedure.

The research is aimed to develop a model for financing sustainable development projects in smart communities by utilizing literature review, survey and interviews in the period 2005 to 2020. Literature review exposed the important factors: sustainable development, innovations, phenomena of smart cities and public-private partnership. Empirical study among Slovenian municipalities embraced period 2005 to 2012 while follow-up interviews were conducted in 2020. Survey questions targeted the number and value of projects by type of funding, the number of professional staff responsible for obtaining funds for investment from EU programs and their experience, the number and value of projects with any form of public-private partnership, the shares of applicable concession of companies with private ownership majority, the number of investment projects, in which municipality acted as one of the partners, and the proportion of these projects. Interviews in 2020 provided some evidence of improved management of development projects. Findings in literature, survey and interviews gave a strong foundation to deliver a hybrid model of financing. The model incorporates three substantive different variants; a classic public-private partnership, crowdfunding and EU funding. Flow of activities include gathering of project ideas, assessment of innovation concept adequacy, evaluation of idea feasibility, performance monitoring and post project evaluation.

Modern business of the digital age brings numerous opportunities, but also imposes challenges and carries a risk for companies. The amount of data generated via multiple sources, which characterize the embraced Industry 4.0, could be considered as an incredible chance for process improvement, but also it is a source of tasks that are not easy to complete. A necessity for quick response to business changes often collides with general information systems features and functions. The lack of fit of official information systems with users’ requirements frequently implies occurrence of Shadow IT. Shadow IT is still an emerging topic, although gaining more attention in the previous decade. This paper aims to examine shadow IT existence and its characteristics in companies operating in the Republic of Serbia. A systematic literature review was performed to identify papers that cover the topic of shadow IT in the Republic of Serbia. The following electronic databases were searched: Web of Science, Scopus, COBISS.SR and Google Scholar. Based on the literature review, the most frequently occurring form of shadow IT in the Republic of Serbia is outlined, along with accompanying positive and negative consequences. Given the literature review, the authors proposed risk mitigation suggestions related to spreadsheet education improvements.

The world’s sea or waterways are the basic infrastructure through which between 65% and 70% of international trade in goods (intercontinental trade) is transported or moved, and it is therefore necessary to maintain and equip this infrastructure and to introduce modern intelligent systems for safe navigation, which will ensure better navigation, monitoring, and information. Study will present the progress of intelligent systems, their role in modern vessels and in port operations (organization of navigation, arrival, or departure at the port, through the improvement of embarkation or disembarkation, through the many logistical tasks of transshipment, warehousing, inland port transport and through the many tasks in the port itself). The performance of ports is evaluated in terms of the number of ships arriving, the amount of cargo handled, the number of operations carried out, the amount of transshipment, and the number of embarkations or disembarkations, which is why intelligent systems play an important role. This is consequently reflected in the added value of goods and financial flows. As a consequence, the commodity, financial and capital flows on which the functioning of ports, industry, the market and society depend would be improved. An overview of the Port of Koper transshipment data is presented, and predictive model is developed a using several regression methods and assessed its applicability to the realities of the global economy.

The importance of digital transformation for banks has been recently stressed by many researchers. However, banks are perceived as traditional market players that are relied on robust infrastructure and rigid internal procedures. Apart from market competition imposed by innovative market players, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed to be strong external driver for digitalization in financial industry. The objective of this study is to examine how COVID-19 pandemic is influencing digitalization of Serbian banking industry. The research methodology is based on management tool of Canvas Business Model. The results show that communication channels were the most affected and evolved from traditional such as branches to digital communication channels such as websites, social networks, and online applications. Employees and IT infrastructure turn to be the most important resources while COVID-19 had no significant influence on key business activities, customer segmentation, cost structure and revenue stream. Finally, we elaborate research limitations and use research results to formulate potential directions for future research.

Process of digital transformation affects and changes industries considerably, with the financial services industry as well. Digitalization and fintech introduce many innovative products and services for the bank’s customers. Focus in this paper is on customers’ perspectives of digital banking services in Serbia. The aim of the paper was to discover incentives for the digital banking products and services use. Authors have created a research model and set four factors that mostly represent incentives for the use of digital banking products and services. Online empirical survey has been conducted with 522 respondents. Research results show that time saving, flexibility in time and place, and user-friendly application represent the most significant reasons for the digital banking products and services use. Costs connected with the use of digital banking services have lower influence, as incentive, then three factors aforementioned. Generally, consumers’ satisfaction with digital banking services in Serbia is on a high level. The results of this study could be used by banks to further develop their digital banking product and services and improve customer experience or could be beneficial for the institutions that intend to enter the digital financial services industry. Future research should be focused on factors that have an important influence on consumers’ satisfaction with digital banking services.

The purpose of this paper is to present the pathway for the effective digital transformation of the tax administration (TA) in Serbia. Digital transformation of the TA in Serbia is lagging behind OECD countries and is highly asymmetric. While the Serbian TA is mostly in line with the OECD average regarding infrastructure development, complicated legal procedures and almost annual law amendments results create high level of uncertainty and produce significant costs for taxpayers. Inadequate number of skilled staff is also one of the main reasons for lagging behind in digital transformation process. Finally, some procedures that were supposed to be digitalized are still done in the paper form. The described shortcomings urge the necessity for the paradigm switch from the old paper-based procedures towards a new approach to simultaneously increase budgetary revenues and contribute to the increased efficiency and productivity of businesses and individuals. The changes must include the introduction of automated solutions and automatically derived reports which will decrease taxpayers’ need to directly correspond and/or physically visit the tax administration premises; reallocation and re-qualification of employees and creation of a single data-base to enable accurate and precise tax accounting. Therefore, the most important tax digitalisation challenges in Serbia are also presented and analysed and possible solutions are elaborated and proposed.

This paper aims to tackle a problem of distinguishing organic honey products from the conventional ones. The main goal is to give an example of blockchain oriented system for tracking the process of organic honey production in order to provide transparent information about the origin of the product that cannot be modified. Focus will be put on individual beekeepers and end consumers. The paper gives a brief theoretical background of blockchain technologies and Internet of Things (IoT). Designing a system for tracking honey production includes creating business model, process model, data model and model of smart contract. The paper also gives an example of prototype development including a prototype device with appropriate sensors and also a proposed application layout. System can be additionally expanded to include different stakeholders, such as distributors and retailers.

The main aim of this research is the development of a methodological approach for the promotion of a new fashion brand based on a digital marketing strategy. This method should enable easier creation of the recognition of new fashion brands in the digital market, reach the target audience, connect with stakeholders using omnichannel communication, and gain competitive advantages. The proposed methodological approach expects as a result simpler process of introducing a new fashion brand to the digital market. According to the developed methodological approach, a pilot project was conducted. The pilot project included identifying target audience preferences for introducing a new fashion brand to the digital market and the implementation of the Internet marketing plan. Analyzing the effects of online appearances and the application of digital marketing should provide a starting point for the improvement of customer and stakeholder relationship management, fashion brand development, and defining future promotional strategies. The method can be adapted and applied in the introduction and promotion of any fashion brand.

This research addresses the possibilities of applying the concepts of open innovations and crowdsourcing to increase railway traffic safety. The goal is to propose an approach to developing IoT-based solutions through crowdsourcing, where various participants can contribute, and conduct a preliminary assessment study of readiness of students to participate. Crowdsourcing-based open innovations have already shown a great potential for the rapid development of new solutions, but the application in the context of improving railway traffic safety has not been fully explored yet. For piloting purposes, the authors have organized an open innovation project, where the students of the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, were provided an opportunity to propose and develop solutions for various safety problems in railways. The solutions were expected to include one or both aspects of developing marketing plans for raising awareness and designing and prototyping the IoT solutions for the selected problem. Research results show students’ general interest in participating in this type of project and provide implications regarding the organization of this type of project.

One of the main challenges that organizations are currently facing is resource allocation and planning. It is becoming very hard for the organization or team to achieve excellence in results and to deliver the requirements to the clients quickly and in a timely manner. Some of the road blockers and factors for that could be found in: poor initiation, wrong estimation, lack of clear objective, failure to communicate properly and everything done by one individual. In Agile IT operations, estimation techniques can be used to properly plan for resource allocation. This is especially important and it could be very challenging in the remote working environment that was introduced recently. The main objective of this paper is to propose a new decision support system for estimates. To achieve this, next two secondary objectives were defined: (a) review the existing estimation techniques that are widely used by companies for project management and proposed by other researchers; (b) explore different aspects of the estimation process and identify areas for the potential improvement, which is achieved by analyzing the results collected from the survey that was organized in the previous period. Findings from the secondary objectives were used to formulate improvements in the area of team consensus in estimates, logical approach when calculating the estimates and feedback, which are incorporated in the mentioned decision support system.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether it is possible to define a conceptual framework for measuring the success of digital transformation projects, which will comprehensively and integrally respond to the complexity of this undertaking. In accordance with that, a review of the literature on the concept of project success was carried out, with a special emphasis on the success and critical success factors of software projects. Based on the methodological criteria obtained in the literature review, the concept and characteristics of digital transformation projects were analyzed. The key results obtained in this work are the multidimensional concept of success, which consists of three dimensions, software project success, digital transformation success, strategic digital transformation success, as well as identified groups of critical success factors for each of the success dimensions. In addition to the identification and grouping of critical success factors within the success dimensions, a hierarchy of success levels was identified from the success of software part of project to the strategic success. Based on the proposed conceptual model, future research directions are defined, which include the development of a balanced set of performance measures for each group of critical success factors and the implementation of empirical research. The results of this work can serve the scientific community, but also people in practice to critically look at current attitudes and practices in this area.

Telecommunications market is a turbulent, competitive, technology and digitalization driven environment. Widespread market, different customer needs, complexity and diversity of products demand new concepts in telecommunications. The objective of the paper is to investigate the application of the product-service system and different forms of servitization in the telecommunications industry. Following a case study approach, the relationship between supplier (the one who develops and offers complete service) and customer (mobile operator) is analyzed. The research includes the analysis of a process for supplier selection for one cloud solution. Three different servitization examples are compared and evaluated. Key elements used for studying cases are ownership of the service, payment model, maintenance and development capabilities. The study offers insight into how companies create integrated packets of products and services and shows examples of good practices. Research confirms that a product-service system can be beneficial for both suppliers and customers in the telecommunications industry. Servitization can give a competitive advantage to the supplier. Servitization can reduce risk and decrease initial investments in the new systems to the customer. The findings of this paper complement the literature for product-service system and offer concrete inputs for companies in terms of how to better organize their business and gain advantage on the market, based on real-life examples.

Analyzing the costs of renewable energy companies proved to be of high importance for the business sustainability and a long term economic feasibility. The paper gives an insight of relevant cost management methodologies with aspects of the future investment potential within this subfield of energy economics. Having in mind that fossil fuels have still a substantial impact on global warming potential of the energy sector, modern approach to cost analysis of renewable energy deployment is necessary. Several methodologies are emphasized, with special reference to changes in total costs for these companies. Methods that include intangible costs and specific market conditions are used, as it is noticed that these are often empirically neglected. The paper investigates how the control of costs and dynamics of the cost as main categories are significant for overall business sustainability. Results indicate that managing costs of renewable energy companies is a challenging process. However, if there is an appropriate method applied, results show that cost management is one of the most essential tools for a sustainable development of renewable energy companies.

Global economic trends are shifting steadily in the direction of digital and sustainable economy, so countries throughout the world strive to achieve sustainable development along with digital change. Like the rest of the world, the EU economies face significant challenges related to new technologies, digital and sustainable economic development. The relationship between digitalization and sustainable development has been the subject of recent research. This paper’s objective is to demonstrate the success of the European Union in digitalization and sustainable economic development. The paper uses regression to analyze the link between the DESI index and the variables of sustainable economic development in the EU countries for the period 2016–2020. The results show that all the variables are positive and statistically significant at the 1% level, except adjusted net savings (ANS) which is insignificant. Additionally, the DESI index will rise by 0.794%, 0.264%, and 9.602% respectively if income per capita, renewable energy, and urbanization grow by 1%. The variables of sustainable economic development have influence on digital performance of the EU economies.

According to United Nations Resolution (2015), all organizations, but notably those in the public sector (PSOs) should encourage sustainable development. The seventeen SDGs in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development can be broken down into five categories. (five Ps): People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership. The role of PSOs in reaching the SDGs is crucial because PSOs should develop strategies, policies, and actions to do so, as well as obtain resources and organize the efforts of stakeholders, particularly civil society groups and real sector organizations. Non-financial reporting (NFR) is one method for disclosing information when it comes to reporting on the SDGs. A survey of the literature on NFR and sustainable development in public sector organizations is the goal of this essay. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on NFR and sustainable development in PSOs. The study's key findings can be classified into two categories. First, there is literature on both subjects, but the literature that directly connects NFR and sustainable development is weak, despite the fact that this topic has only recently been the subject of literature due to its novelty. Additionally, there are a number of NFR frameworks, but the GRI Standards (2016) and the IR Framework (2021) stand out as being particularly well suited for reporting on the SDGs. For PSOs. Non-financial reporting will be used voluntarily in public sector organizations as a result of the requirement to accomplish the SDGs, and it is anticipated that it will become required in the near future.

The efficiency of manufacturing and service companies can be improved by the implementation of modern technologies. This paper presents concepts and technologies used for digitalization, i.e. smart transformation of logistics processes. Also, this paper presents an emerging concept of Industry 4.0 called Logistics 4.0. The main objective of this paper is to define the role and structure of digital logistics systems in the Industry 4.0 concept. This paper explains the improvement of logistics and supply chain processes by implementing the Logistics 4.0 concept in manufacturing and service companies. The purpose of this paper is to point out the importance of logistics digitalization and to emphasize the importance of technologies applied in the digitalization of logistics and supply chain processes used for the improvement of these processes in companies. The main contribution of this paper is the conceptual framework of Logistics 4.0. Additional contribution is six key criteria defined for the comparison of traditional logistics and Logistics 4.0. This paper is valuable for all companies that tend to implement or introduce Logistic 4.0 as a new business concept.

Companies operating in the sector of transportation have faced the challenge of transporting products in a high level of service and, at the same time, consider aspects related to sustainability, as the reduction of CO2, for example. In companies operating in this sector, the demand for transporting goods involves a strict control around compliance by the consumers, moreover, the need to increase quality and reduce costs when transporting goods has been one of the major concerns. Aiming to solve this challenge, logistics aspects can be considered as an important tool to support companies on developing the processes of transportation in an effective and efficient way. In this context, this research aims to understand how to bridge this gap, when analyzing the planning and management of routes in a SME in a sustainable manner, focusing on a flower company, and then to identify the problems related to distribution of products. The obtained results summarize the main problems related to distribution routes of the company, and a proposal to face those problems considering sustainable aspects was listed. For instance, solutions, such as introduction of the coordinates of all customers in the PHC software, design of new distribution zones, and a proposal to control the routes through a software with the new distribution zones for the optimization of routes. Altogether, it allowed the company to reduce the time to perform this task, as well to reduce the CO2 emission during the transportation.

Green bonds are fixed-income financial instruments that resemble conventional bonds but differ from them in the purpose of issuance. Since their purpose is to finance socially responsible and environmentally sustainable projects, they are linked to ESG criteria and have only been present in the financial market for a relatively short time. Despite the increasing presence of green bonds in recent years, many countries have not yet recognized the importance of this form of financing because they have not issued green bonds. In the context of the research objective, this paper defines the purpose of issuing green bonds under adverse climatic conditions that pose systemic risk to financial systems. The paper stands out the importance of the regulatory framework needed for the further development of the green bond market in the world. With an overview of green bond representation by region in the world and a special focus on Europe, this paper offers conclusions and recommendations for future development.

Limited access to credits by small and medium size enterprises and entrepreneurs (SMEEs) is a major barrier for the development of small-scale ventures and the growth of an economy. Microfinance institutions (MFI) are seen by both scholars and practitioners as a viable alternative for financing SMEEs. This paper aims to collect the evidence on the importance of MFIs for the access to finance of SMEEs (MFI-A2F). The objective of this paper is to provide a comprehensive bibliometric review the microfinance institutions in providing access to finance. The findings of this study indicate that the MFI-A2F stream of research is growing and that it has most probably reached its peak and full saturation level. Accordingly, the body of knowledge is sufficient enough for policy-holders, policy-implementors and decision-makers to create the most feasible, viable, and desirable microfinance system.

Many scholars have emphasised the importance of tourism for global economies. However, contemporary business paradigms in tourism have changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which made a tremendous negative impact on tourism hitherto and affected certain positive aspects, such as boosting digital transformation. Despite the considerable increase in the inquisitiveness to the influence of COVID-19 on different industries and digital transformation and a myriad of notable studies concerning this subject, the interdependence between the impact of the pandemic on digital transformation in tourism is understudied. Building on the previous studies, this paper aims to address this issue, narrow the existing theoretical gap, and provide how to use new technologies to strategically approach future tourism challenges. The paper particularly investigates smart tourism as a new and effective method to cope with challenges in tourism. The goal of the article is to contribute to understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and other crises on the acceleration of digital transformation and the role of new technologies in tourism. This study sheds new light on the strategical approach to contemporary and future tourism challenges.

Since the beginning of the transition period, the pension system in Croatia has been subject to review and numerous reforms have been implemented. Nevertheless, the sustainability of the pension system and insufficient pension revenues remain the fundamental problems of the Croatian pension system. Therefore, it seemed reasonable to examine the causes and possible solutions that could mitigate the devastating effects of unfavorable demographic trends, limited budgetary resources, and lack of recognition of the need for independent savings for the elderly. The paper proposes measures that can be taken to reduce the pressure on the state budget for the payment of pensions based on an active employment program, as well as measures aimed at increasing participation in voluntary pension savings to counteract the negative effects of population aging, promote demographic renewal, and achieve a possible increase in retirement income.

Collaborative robotics is one of the foremost innovative technologies increasingly growing in the manufacturing market. Indeed, the disruption of collaborative robots, or cobots, in the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR4.0) has renewed the design and concept of manufacturing workplaces, in terms of flexibility and modularity. As a result, human-robot collaboration (HRC) has broken the standard and old-fashoined idea of performing manual assembly tasks in manufacturing systems. Numerous research studies have underlined that human-robot simultaneous or cooperative activities may improve the efficiency and productivity of companies with a positive impact on the health of workers. However, despite these benefits in the workplace, there is a lack of indicators to monitor this innovative collaboration, leading to losses and waste in terms of efficiency and costs. Moreover, an unwell design of this collaboration might decrease operator’ satisfaction and confidence. Hence, there is a desire to spot, select and systematize the main key performance indicators (KPIs) associated with HRC to boost the productivity of the system. Thus, the motivation for this research is to seek out the proper KPIs within the design of an HRC in line with different aspects of the business.

Hopp & Spearman proposed a construct consisting of four lenses of lean in their attempt to guide research and implementation of lean. Authors claim that their proposition could introduce much needed systematicity into the field. In order to test if the proposed construct is useful for researching and practicing lean in non-repetitive manufacturing, authors propose a systematic literature review of 126 articles published in 72 peer-reviewed international journals. The analysis results show that lenses are addressed with different levels of attention, where Process and Flow lens dominate the literature. The construct covers some important topics for non-repetitive manufacturing, such as the context of waste, waste propagation, variability, buffering, and complexities, deeming it suitable as a foundation for considering lean in non-repetitive manufacturing. On the other hand, the construct has some fallacies which should be recognized, in general, and within the context of non-repetitive manufacturing, such as a strong focus on efficiency, disregard of some important lean topics such as responsiveness, flexibility, strategic aspects of lean, management commitment, people development, and change management.

This chapter analyses factors and perceptions of telework, a term used for all practices of remote work, distant working, telecommuting and working from home. Our focus is on the influence of ownership, industry and support given by the organisation to the employee. Data for this study was gathered during the year of 2021st. We have analysed data from 166 employees after roughly 15% of responses were eliminated by the control question. More than 50% of participants were mostly teleworking, around 25% mainly were working from the office, and the rest had a relatively equal combination of those two work approaches. We have found the difference between state-owned and privately-owned organisations in the perception of “telework benefits” and between different industries for the perception of “telework problems”, and both variables show different perceptions in groups with different educational support. We propose a model of the telework aversion with the factors of leaving home preference, telework anxiousness, and provided education and support by the organisation for the telework. The main limitation of our research comes from the sample size and structure. While all the model’s factors are significant, our model’s predictive power is very low, which calls for future research. Expanding regional scope and analysis on larger sample sizes can provide comparison and a basis for more advanced models predicting telework aversion.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution has changed the way organizations do their business, resulting in highly digitalized business environment and making digital competences as one of most needed in the future. The purpose of the study was to establish the proficiency level of the future project managers’ digital competences. The study design included using self-assessment tool and targeting undergrads and grads students in field of project management. The results showed that respondents are at advanced level of digital competences and that there is no difference between gender, level of education, previous field of study for grad students or academic achievements. The best results are in area of information and literacy, while most challenging is safety. Future research should include verification of the results using tools to examine digital competences specifically needed for project managers working in digitalized environment. The results of this study could be useful to both academics and practitioners, especially in upgrading current teaching program and developing skills which are needed in labor market.

The goal of the paper is to study what effects can be achieved by guiding and supporting tenants of high-tech business incubators and which benefits we can expect for entrepreneurial ecosystem established after pandemic. Many authors have explored social and economic impact that accelerators and incubators can generate, but we can also detect a certain lack of academic literature when it comes to COVID-19 and post-COVID determinants in this environment. Authors have gone deep into interpretive content analysis of secondary sources in order to shed a light on these observations. Examination of previously available research was conducted; top tier academic literature and many articles on the business incubation management were reviewed and many relevant industry reports were analyzed. The goal is to get a hold of profound understanding of the context and qualitative aspect of the narrative created by existing case studies and academic sources. Therefore the emphasis is on narrative and why conclusions should be approached with this in mind, since generalization is partially limited. Focus of the examination is mainly oriented towards high-tech startup business incubators and their contribution to different functions in society. New context created by pandemic dictates new business models, creative spin on traditional frameworks and innovative practices, which are particularly significant for accelerators that nurture high-tech startups. It can be concluded that sustainable governance of incubators can lead to development of entrepreneurial skills and mindset, creation of modern and innovative solutions and business models and progress of society in general.

The study intends to investigate how much stress people working in the auditing industry in the Republic of Serbia perceive to be brought on by Covid19. An adjusted Cohen’s perceived stress scale was used. The answers to the questionnaire were analyzed by the method of descriptive statistics and by applying a simple regression analysis on the ratio of the age of the respondents and the evaluation of the answers to the tested statements. The main finding is that Covid19 significantly worsened stress levels and mental health of auditors. They believe that Covid19 significantly increased their stress levels during daily planning and implementation of work and personal obligations. This study can be used as a concept and a guide by external audit firms and internal audit departments to help those engaged in audit work to overcome stressful situations and master stress management techniques through training and interviews with professionals and by developing a stronger organizational culture.

The raise of projectification has been observed at organization and society levels globally. Its impact on individual level has been corroborated too. Calls to explore this environment with growing number of projects and provide insights into more effective organizing have been made by managers, professional project management associations, and researcher community. Therefore, the research presented in this chapter serves the purpose of gaining insights into manifestation of projectification into work and life context. Specifically, it focuses on women top managers who encounter unique challenges in coping with projectification at their workplaces, as well as in their private life. Study is rooted in the ephemeralization perspective of the projectification and recognizes challenges of work-life intensification, while addressing the gaps in our understanding of experiences of women in top leadership positions.The findings substantiate the increasing projectification as experienced by women top managers, resulting in transformations of workplace spaces and increasing psychological pressure. More interestingly, it unveiled gendered tenets that due to projectification impact work and life of women top managers even in the most gender egalitarian country in the world, Iceland.This study emphasizes the need to look at projectification effects in the more holistic, work and life, context in order to address the challenges of top managers in increasingly complex world. Furthermore, it accentuates the need to recognize specific adversities that women top managers face in context of increasing projectification and provides reference points for undertaking these challenges in order to contribute to more socially sustainable workplaces.

As in other developed countries, in Slovenia the view of ethics changes with growing up. The key changes occurred during the transition from the traditional to the modern, and then to the postmodern information society. Leadership is regarded as the study of a fundamental psychological process or social influence in relation to certain issues. Our hope for a better world lies in leadership, as every leader leaves a positive imprint on future generations as well. Through generations, differences in values and views on ethics are perceived. Therefore, in our paper we ask ourselves the research question of how students’ self-assessment of ethics affects the expected qualities of a good leader. 242 undergraduate students were included in the study. Data collection took place from March 2020 to April 2022. Through the analysis of collected data based on students’ self-assessments, we determine how they value their ethics and what qualities they expect from a good leader. We conclude the article by giving our opinion based on the findings of the research.

The “organizational equilibrium” all over the world has been significantly disrupted by the Coronavirus outbreak. The human resources system was the first internal organizational component to come under the “instability attack” that originated from the world economy collapse. Mass layoffs and reductions/reorganizations in terms of work engagements followed. This labor market’s unexpected transformation has awakened anxiety among all employees, mainly among the young, millennial generation which has faced a crisis of this magnitude for the first time in their working life. The research aimed to examine the current relationship between job insecurity and organizational commitment from this age cohort perspective, whose representatives tend to withhold their devotion to organizations which proved to be incapable of protecting their work positions in crisis times. The main research hypothesis, created as an extension of knowledge from previous research [11, 32, 47], assumed that from the perspective of employed millennials, job insecurity has a statistically significant negative impact on the commitment level they nurture towards the organizations they are part of. The theoretical part of the research encompassed the content analysis method for relevant national/foreign literature overview, while the empirical research part engaged the survey method via an online questionnaire released during 2021. The main research hypothesis was tested by examining a sample of 99 millennials employed in the Republic of Serbia. The data collected this way were processed using the SmartPLS and SPSS statistical software, while the obtained research results indicated that the derived main research hypothesis could be labeled as confirmed.

This paper aims to make a review of the literature investigating the CEO succession as a board’s decision and to describe the process in a Macedonian company. The Covid 19 pandemic stressed the importance of CEO succession planning for achieving a higher level of organizational resilience. The crisis generated by the Covid 19 pandemic showed that boards’ participation in the CEO succession process is crucial. This research was motivated by the observation that during the Covid 19 pandemic boards need to actively engage in the process of CEO succession planning and to help the transition of the leadership structures. The method used for investigating the CEO succession process in the context in which the companies from North Macedonia operate is a case study analysis. To create the case studies, secondary data available at the Macedonian stock-exchange official website were used. From the cases described in the paper, several conclusions can be generated. In a relatively stable external and internal environment and in a situation in which there is a consensus between the Board of directors or Supervisory Board members with the incumbent CEO on the candidate that should be selected, the process runs smoothly and did not disturb the overall organizational functioning. On the other hand, in an unstable external environment, a power struggle might emerge within the organization, causing a disruption in the overall organizational functioning. This paper contributes to understanding how boards participated in the CEO succession process in a relatively stable internal and external environment, and how in an unstable environment.

The study aims at understanding the relationship between a firm’s internationalization and its sustainable development by exploring the differences between the export market strategies of enterprises from Serbia and Germany. Considering that the choice of the export market strategy will affect the choice of entry modes and the selection and sequencing of the largest export market(s), the study aims at exploring various export market strategies, ranging from taking small and gradual steps toward the foreign market to being a born-global. Additionally, the study aims at exploring various export and non-export entry modes while addressing the differences between enterprises from emerging and developed countries. Our findings suggest that the country’s level of economic development may have a vital role in determining the framework by which enterprises address the local business and the export market strategy. Our findings suggest that enterprises from Serbia (compared to enterprises from Germany) might need some kind of continuous support aimed at capacity-building and expertise development to benefit from the foreign market(s) while contributing significantly to sustainable development.

Crisis communication strategies are used by companies to prevent or mitigate the negative outcomes of the crisis and to neutralize or control the damage to corporate reputation. Communication during and after the crisis determines the change of public perception, trust, attitudes and intentions towards the company and its brands. The food industry is particularly vulnerable to crises, especially those that refer to product safety. Due to the impact they might have on consumers’ health, these crisis generate large public interest and media coverage that could amplify the consequences on brand and corporate reputation. The objective of the empirical research presented in this paper, was to identify and measure the change of attitudes and intentions of consumers in connection to the type of the crisis communication strategy applied by the company. The research was conducted by using the online survey method on a sample of 148 respondents in Serbia. The findings demonstrated certain differences observed by demographic criteria. Male and employed respondents were more likely to consider post-crisis cooperation with a food company in comparison to women and students. On the other hand, female respondents appeared to be more willing to restore trust in company’s advertising messages and recommend its products after the crises.