According the literature, it appears that foreign direct investment (FDI), bank credit (CRDT) and current account balance (CAB) are key factors that determine economic growth as they influence funds needed in order for a country to keep its growth. In other words, FDI, CRDT and CAB set the ground for sustainable development. In this study covering 44 countries and the period of 1977-2017, the impact of FDI, CRDT and CAB on economic growth is investigated on the basis of income level. In this regard, 44 countries are divided into 4 groups: high income level (HIL), upper middle income level (UMIL), lower middle income level (LMIL) and low income level (LIL). In the study, the panel data approach is used. As per the results, FDI is a key factor for growth and especially, it is important for LMIL and LIL countries. As the income level increases, its positive effect on economic growth decreases. Current account deficit has a positive effect for UMIL countries, while it has a negative effect for HIL and LMIL countries. As for CRDT, it affects the growth of HIL countries only and its impact is negative.

Rad prikazuje rezultate istraživanja o financiranju projekata u području sporta iz europskihfondova i programa. Cilj istraživanja bio je analizirati u kojoj je mjeri ostvarena ekonomska koristod članstva Republike Hrvatske u Europskoj uniji kroz povlačenje bespovratnih financijskihsredstava za područje sporta. U sklopu istraživanja analizirane su odluke o financiranju projekatana razini Republike Hrvatske u okviru različitih poziva za dodjelu bespovratnih sredstava,a kojima su nositelji sportske organizacije. Također, u istraživanje je uključeno i financiranjeprojekata izgradnje ili rekonstrukcije sportske infrastrukture u Republici Hrvatskoj.U prvom se dijelu ukratko pojašnjava tematika europskih fondova, položaj sporta u kontekstuEuropske unije i mogućnosti financiranja sportskih projekata. Glavni dio rada prikazuje rezultateanalize specifičnih javnih poziva u sklopu nacionalnih operativnih programa te centraliziranihprograma Europske komisije za razdoblje do 2013. do 2023. godine. Konkretno, prikazan jeukupan broj financiranih projekata i iznosi bespovratnih sredstava. Među ostalim, analizirana sudosadašnja ulaganja u lokalnu sportsku infrastrukturu u sklopu operativnog programa Ruralnirazvoj. Rezultati pokazuju da su u dosadašnjem razdoblju članstva u EU-u iskorištene i određenemogućnosti za financiranje sportskih projekata, ali da su ta sredstva iznimno niska u odnosu nasve druge sektore. Ulaganje u sport bi kroz povećanje broja natječaja moglo rezultirati stabilnijimsportskim sektorom te cjelokupnim ekonomskim i društvenim rastom. Rezultati istraživanja mogudoprinijeti oblikovanju budućih politika u području sporta na nacionalnoj razini, a trenutno u literaturine postoji slično istraživanje financiranja sporta iz fondova EU-a na razini RH. Nedostatakje istraživanja manjak sličnih istraživanja u drugim državama kako bi se napravila usporedba.

Product origin dispersion around the world in today's globalized market has aroused interest in depicting brand origin in more detail, the latter being considered a more distinctive cue of product origin. Due to the fact that the impact of product origin location on product evaluation has already been established many times, the purpose of this paper is to offer new insights into the less researched, reverse country of origin effect. More specifically, this paper deals with the impact of product attitude on the evaluation of brand origin, latter being viewed through the brand's country image and cultural background. Since this research is an exploratory one by nature, the PLS-SEM methodology was utilized, while the data collection was done through a questionnaire, through which 154 students from two Croatian universities belonging to generation Z completed the questionnaire successfully. The results point that brand attitude mediates the impact of product attitude on brand origin, implying that brand managers have to pay even more attention to product development strategies today, since favorable consumers’ product and brand attitudes can have a spillover effect on the image of an entire country. The results of this research point to several practical implications for brand managers. The first is the fact that each product in a brand's portfolio must be optimal, as respondents showed that product attitudes influences brand attitudes directly. Brand managers need to keep in mind that consumers' product attitudes can be a whole set of triggers for thinking about the origin of a particular brand and forming attitudes toward the origin of that brand based on their own experiences or product perceptions. Finally, the results suggest not only that product attitude influences the components of brand origin, but also that products that reflect the values of their origin help to build a favourable image of brand origin. This paper gives a broader perspective to the country of origin effect studies, but also contributes to further brand origin conceptualization by observing the brand origin framework through both country and culture of brand origin.

The purpose of this study is to identify data from the financial reportsof NGOs that influence donors’ willingness to donate. Using logistic regression,the authors attempt to identify the accounting measures associatedwith donations among the NGOs in our sample. The study included a sampleof 2,981 NGOs in Croatia that use a double-entry accounting system. Theresults show that several accounting variables have an impact on donations,including organizational size, volunteer staff, revenue concentration,government grants, business-like income, debt ratio and adequacy of equity.The study has some limitations. First, the sample covered mainly largeCroatian NGOs. Second, by design, the focus was on a broad sample whichincludes different types of organizations, so there is the possibility that theeffects of organizational and financial characteristics on donations are notequal across the sample of different types of organizations. This study helpsto fill the gap in the literature on this topic by examining the relationshipbetween information from NGOs financial reports and giving behaviour. This study also presents new empirical findings from a large sample studyfrom Croatia with a different institutional background. Research results providenew insights into how financial disclosure can meet the needs of donors.

The entire world was significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic,leading to confusion and turbulence in healthcare systems, as well as toextreme uncertainty in the financial realm. There was a profound distressin stock markets due to the enormously elevated levels of risk instigated bythe pandemic, which additionally inflated investors’ losses. The contagionwas supplemented by a surge of false stories that appear to be news (“fakenews”) that circulated throughout all media channels, thus additionally amplifyinguncertainty. This paper expands the previous literature by investigatingmedia impact on prominent indices of the stock and cryptocurrencymarkets. RavenPack Panic and Fake News indices were utilized to examinetheir influence on S&P 500 and crypto (Royalton CRIX) indices’ dailymovements by employing OLS and quantile regression. The results exhibitthat there are noteworthy dependencies over the conditional distribution,but they present only a small influence on observed indices. Fake news influencesthe cryptocurrencies’ daily movements in a bearish market, howeverthe effect is very weak. Furthermore, media-induced panic is significant inboth exceptionally bearish and bullish conditions considering S&P 500 dailyreturns, but is also exhibiting low impact.

The aim of this paper is to identify the main practices of Croatian companies in financing decision-making. Following the best-known field study by Graham & Harvey (2001), this paperpresents the main findings on capital structure decisions of Croatian companies. Primarydata collected using a highly structured survey questionnaire through an extensive one-timecross-sectional survey conducted in 2018, was analysed primarily by descriptive analysis, afterwhich a univariate analysis on the responses conditional on the selected companies’ characteristicswas performed. According to the survey responses, practitioners report the perception ofcreditworthiness, financial flexibility and financial independence as the most important factorswhen deciding on debt financing. However, the importance of these factors is not driven by theinformation asymmetry problem, as the pecking order theory assumes. Furthermore, there is alsoa moderate support for the trade-off theory in terms of medium high proportion of companiesthat target their debt ratios. Yet, it should be emphasized that in the process of debt financingpractitioners are concerned about the arising risks, but not the benefits of debt financing, andthus show risk-averse behaviour. As the results of empirical research deviate from the theoreticalassumptions, both in this study and in similar studies conducted in the USA and Europe, it raisesthe questions about applicability of the existing theories and the need for their revision.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how impacts from the labour market affect human resource management (HRM) practices in Croatian manufacturing companies. The goal of this paper was to find out do companies acknowledge labour market impacts; with what intensity mentioned impacts are related to HRM practices and do companies have developed practices of dealing with such issues. The research was conducted during 2021 and 2022 on the sample of 31 large Croatian manufacturing companies. Four labour market impacts were observed: population ageing, deficiency of vocationally educated employees, deficiency of highly educated employees in specific deficit occupations, automation and robotization, and young employees’ characteristics. The results showed that the companies did not acknowledge the presence of these impacts and/or did not react adequately to them by specially designed HRM practices. Since the research on relationship between labour market impacts and HRM practices are rare in the Croatian context, and wider, the insights of this paper could be a unique contribution to new knowledge enhancement. This paper showed that the companies’ acknowledgment of certain negative labour market impacts was poor and accordingly have undeveloped strategic HRM. The stated results are not in accordance with the theoretical assumptions and data on the unfavourable impacts from the labour market in Croatia. A pro-active approach of companies was expected in the application of various activities available to them, in the form of their independent practices, and in the use of stimulating legislation, which was also not determined by the results of this research. The reasons for this should be determined by some future research, with the expectation that there have been some recent changes in this area. The small research sample oriented only on one industry and only one country is the first research limitation. Additional limitation is the self-created questionnaire and self-reported measures. The cross-sectional analysis is also a research limitation. The awareness of these limitations could be additional base for further research in order to clarify the meaning and importance of strategic HRM.

Ljudski kapital s jedne te kauzalni i efektualni pristup poduzetništvu sdruge strane postali su važni koncepti u objašnjavanju uspješnosti poslovanjapoduzeća. Iako u literaturi postoje naznake o njihovoj teorijskoj svezi,dosad ih nijedno istraživanje nije sagledalo u jednom koherentnom modelu.Ovim radom ispunjava se navedeni istraživački jaz kroz uključivanje jednekategorije ljudskog kapitala, odnosno poduzetničkog iskustva, u empirijskimodel gdje su kauzalni i efektualni pristupi poduzetništvu glavne determinanteposlovne uspješnosti. Relevantni podaci prikupljeni su elektronskimputem pomoću anketnog upitnika na uzorku malog gospodarstva u RepubliciHrvatskoj. Hipoteze koje proizlaze iz predloženog strukturnog modela testiranesu modeliranjem strukturnih jednadžbi temeljenog na pristupu varijance.Rezultati pokazuju kako je poduzetničko iskustvo značajan moderator odnosakauzalnoga pristupa poduzetništvu i poslovne uspješnosti, dok isto nijepotvrđeno za odnos efektualnoga pristupa poduzetništvu i poslovne uspješnosti.Pomoću navedenih rezultata može se istaknuti postojanje važnosti interakcijeljudskog kapitala s jednim od dva temeljna poduzetnička pristupate nužnost daljnjeg teorijskog razvoja oba poduzetnička pristupa kao dvapovezana (a ne suprotna) načina upravljanja poduzećem. Usprkos ograničenjima,primjerice upotrebi presječnih podataka, ishodi ovog istraživanja važni su za konceptualno unaprjeđenje kauzalnog i efektualnog poduzetničkogpristupa te za povećanje njihove praktične primjenjivosti i efektivnosti.

The objective of this study is to examine the impact of supplier flexibility, dependence, trust, on behavioral loyalty in the context of the supplier-retail superstore relationship. Taking supplier trust as a mediator, this research built a structural model. Data were collected from the manufacturers of consumer food products in Bangladesh, and hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling with AMOS. Out of six hypotheses, three are found to be statistically significant. Particularly, supplier flexibility impacts both supplier trust and retail superstore repurchase loyalty, and supplier dependence has an impact on supplier flexibility. Moreover, supplier flexibility plays a mediating role between supplier dependence and retail superstore repurchase. Supplier flexibility and dependence are important in enhancing retail superstore behavioral loyalty in the developing country context. These constructs are effective when retail superstores show their greater repurchase loyalty, as opposed to showing opportunistic behavior. However, in the presence of supplier flexibility, supplier dependence is effective on retail superstore loyalty when the superstore treats such dependence as a tool to promote integration and induce a high level of performance. This study is limited by the subjective outcomes of the responses and the inconsistency of the association due to the single informant’s reporting. There is a possibility that self-reported data, which generates socially desirable biases, exaggerated the research findings. The present paper advances our understanding of the impact of these important constructs practiced by supplier companies that have an impact on the repurchase loyalty of retail superstores. This endeavor is one of few that considers the developing country context and contributes to research and practice in supplier-retail superstore relational exchange.

This paper provides a comprehensive approach to Bitcoin price, returns, direction and volatility forecasting. It compares ARIMA and GARCH models to neural network (NN) autoregression and Jordan NN in their forecasting performances, using internal and external factors. Robustness of the results is verified across bearish, bullish and stable market conditions. The results are not unambiguous considering price, returns or volatility forecasting, when compared using different performance measures or through different periods. Return and volatility forecasting yields to stable results no matter the model or period observed. NNs in general emerge as optimal for return and direction forecasting, ARIMAX and NNARX for price forecasting, while for volatility forecasting all models yield comparable results. Price forecasting yields the best prediction accuracies, while JNNX performed poorly. However, the inclusion of other machine learning methods and/or different variables as well as recent crisis emerged from war circumstances can be seen as limiting factors.