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This paper aims to shed light on gender differences in firm performance in a period that entails an unprecedented crisis with specific effects on gender roles, i.e., COVID-19. The analysis focuses on Croatian high-tech manufacturing and knowledge-intensive service sector SMEs. Previous literature indicates that the obstacles the SMEs face may be even more significant for women-owned firms. Specifically, women entrepreneurs find it more challenging to secure social and financial capital. Women often face restrictions on their working hours due to societal pressure and family obligations, and they are rarely well-connected because they are often not members of influential business networks. Literature also suggests that the usual pressures on female working hours have disproportionally increased during the COVID-19 imposed lockdowns, so the general expectation is that women entrepreneurs were not able to cope equally with the changed market circumstances. In this study, we consider a causationeffectuation management framework to investigate how women- and men-owned SMEs used these management styles to address the business challenges in the COVID-19 crisis. Our contribution aims explicitly to answer the invitation made in recent literature to explore how gender influences the effects of the four dimensions of effectuation on firm performance.

Studies show that women are very productive employees, but that as business owners, compared to their male counterparts, they run companies that earn less, grow at a lesser rate, and employ a smaller number of employees. One of the explanations for this discrepancy argues that indicators such as sales, turnover or profit do not measure performance adequately because they are dependent on the size of the firm. Since women often make a conscious decision to keep their companies small, these performance measures may not adequately represent women-owned businesses. We study a panel of micro firms across all industries, from three EU countries of comparable size (Croatia, Slovenia, and Slovakia) in the period 2010 – 2019. Results indicate that female-owned firms have higher values of both turnover per asset and value added per asset. Additionally, results suggest that during recession years, female-led firms show a degree of resilience to these adverse effects, and they manage to increase their turnover per asset by 3 to 4 percent on average, compared to male-led firms. We conclude that although women-owned micro firms tend to have less resources compared to men’s, women can create larger output per asset, suggesting capability to combine those resources in a very effective way.

Several recent papers draw attention to a lack of rigorous research on public policies supporting women entrepreneurs’ competitiveness. This paper evaluates the effect of small business development gender- specific matching grants using a quasi- experimental approach. The grants have a positive effect on firm survival, as well as positive effects on obtaining bank loans, turnover, value added, employment, and total factor productivity. Heterogeneous treatment effects show that the grants increase the chance of young women entrepreneurs’ firm survival and are even more effective for firms owned by mature women. Cost-benefit analysis estimates an increase in value added, which outweighs scheme-induced costs by 80% in the short-run and 170% in the long run.

Svrha ovog istraživanja bila je provesti analizu utvrđivanja mjerodavnog tržišta i izračuna tržišnih udjela u djelatnosti trgovine na malo robom široke potrošnje u Europskoj uniji i Hrvatskoj. Istraživanje je provedeno korištenjem sekundarnih podataka i anketnog istraživanja s uzorkom od 1025 potrošača. Istraživanje je pokazalo da obuhvat mjerodavnog tržišta čine supermarketi, hipermarketi, diskontne prodavaonice, i male klasične prodavaonice. Obuhvat mjerodavnog zemljopisnog tržišta čini u največem broju slučaja lokalno tržište. Veličina tržišta robe široke potrošnje koju uzima ATZN je podcijenjena i stoga su tržišni udjeli maloprodavavača precijenjeni. Tržišni udjeli i indeksi koncentracije znatno osciliraju s obzirom na promjenu obuhvata mjerodavnog tržišta i korištene izvore podataka. Predložene su smjernice za poboljšanje metodologije.

The Science and Technology Project (STP) financed by the World Bank was designed to help Croatia unleash its innovative potential, to enhance public financing for business R&D and foster the commercialization of public R&D. The goal of this research report is to assess the effectiveness of the STP programs RAZUM, IRCRO and UKF. This task is performed by each program separately by means of qualitative and quantitative research. Apart from attempting to asses additionality, this report considers other aspects of the program, like attitude toward the program, satisfaction, motives for application and expected benefits.

Projektni tim EIZ je proveo istraživanje stavova ispitanika (stakeholdera) o kompaniji Ericsson Nikola Tesla te je kroz anketni upitnik razvijena metodologija ocjena dimenzija percepcije kao što su ukupna reputacija kompanije, inovativnost i vizija te partnerski pristup. Rezultat integriranog pokazatelja percepcije visoko je ocijenjen i predstavlja dio ukupne slike ETK- Scorecarda. Ukupna visoka ocjena percepcije stakholdera rezultat je pojedinačnih rezultata ključnih pokazatelja u stavovima kupaca, kreatora javnog mišljenja, te pokazatelja interne komunikacije. Također je izvršena dubinska analiza pojedinačnih stavova stakeholdera da bi se identificirale slabije točke koje bi se u budućnosti mogle unaprijediti. To je bilo osobito važno za segment kupaca kao najvažnijeg stakeholdera kompanije. Studija je osim analize stanja percepcije u 2008. godini predložila mogućnosti unapređenja metodologije i poslovnih rezultata za 2009. godinu.

Ova studija se temelji na istraživanju napravljenom u sklopu EUREKA projekta E! 3865 LEX-INFO The added value of public information – development and implementation of legal information system in Croatia. Cilj projekta je razviti Internet uslugu komercijalnog sustava pravnih informacija u Hrvatskoj koji bi omogućavao pristup svim zakonima, pročišćenim tekstovima, sudskoj praksi, relevantnoj literaturi i ostalim pravnim informacijama po kronologiji. U studiji su sustavno analizirana kvalitativna i kvantitativna obilježja i specifičnosti hrvatskog tržišta pravnih informacija. U ovom istraživanju analizirana je potražnja i veličine tržišta pravnih informacija u elektroničkom obliku, identificirani su i analizirani glavni tržišni segmenti i njihove karakteristike. Zatim su analizirane odrednice kupovnog ponašanja na tržištu pravnih informacija, konkurencija na tržištu pravnih informacija, i percepcije nove usluge. Identificirane su snage i slabosti nove usluge te prilike i prijetnje koje se ukazuju (tzv. SWOT analiza).

Industry-science relationship is considered to be one of the crucial parts of an innovation system because of its positive impact on innovation and commercial performance. Extant studies show that a significant proportion of the products and processes that are currently sold and used could not have been developed without academic research. In order to foster collaboration between companies and scientists, the right set of incentives is needed. The purpose of the incentives is to "make it easy" for the players to efficiently start and carry out the cooperation which ends in a commercially viable result. However the degree to which any chosen incentive is accepted by industry will depend among other things on the intensity of firm’s existing cooperation, on importance of innovation for the firm, and on the level of market support from investors and demand from clients/customers. In this paper we examine a potential set of incentives and explore the degree to which they would be accepted by the industry. We use Potential Method to elicit firm’s preferences for given incentives and we seek to explain the difference in these preferences by the above firm/market factors. The paper is based on a survey of 190 Croatian enterprises performed in 2002.

This paper explores the antecedents and consequences of the amount of time spent on shopping in the Croatian hypermarket setting. The proposed research questions were examined with data collected from in-store inteviews, carried out in a high/low, urban Croatian hypermarket. Data was analysed using regression analysis. Research results show that shopping trip type had the strongest effect on consumers’ expenditure of time, followed by social surroundings and age of respondents. Store atmosphere was positively related to time expenditure at the 0.1 level. However, gender and store traffic were not significantly related to time spent on shopping. Time expenditure significantly and positively predicts the amount of money spent and number of items purchased. For retailers, the importance of these research results may be a better understanding of the drivers and the impacts of time expenditure, which may help in the design of successful retailing strategies for encouraging consumers to spend more time shopping in their stores, with the result that per-customer sales rise.

This paper explores the relationships between situational factors, store penetration, aisle conversion rate and purchasing outcomes for the first time in the Croatian setting. The model proposed was tested with data collected from in-store inteviews, carried out in the high/low Croatian hypermarket setting. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and regression analysis. Research results show that shopping trip type, social surrounding and capture time affect store penetration. Contrary to expectations, there was no relationship between store atmosphere and store penetration. Furthermore, both store penetration and conversion rates were shown to affect purchasing outcomes. Interestingly enought, no. of aisles purchased was the only variable that had the impact on aisle conversion rate. For retailers, the importance of model presented in this paper is in understanding the drivers and the impacts of store penetration and aisle conversion rate. Based on research findings, retailers should focus on both strategies: store penetration strategy to stimulate customers to pass as many aisles as possible, and conversion rate strategy in order to increase no. of aisles that sell. As a result, the sales per customer should increase.

In this paper we consider competitive positioning of 91 leading Croatian companies and relate their competitive standing to their innovation activities and output. The paper is based on data collected in 2001/2002. We consider eight dimensions of competitive positioning and perform cluster analysis on leading companies. Contrary to our expectations that some firms are better at some dimensions while others are better at other dimensions, we find that the division runs uniformly along all dimensions. In other words, some firms are better at everything, while other firms are worse at everything. We investigate how more competitive firms differ from the less competitive firms in terms of innovation activities and output. We find that the more competitive firms are more innovative. They invest more in R&D, have more employees with graduate degrees, and are less bothered by problems related to financing of innovation activities. We find that more competitive firms are more self-reliant when it comes to sources of ideas for innovating. When investigating innovation goals, we do not discover much difference between the two groups of firms, except that more competitive firms are somewhat more interested in using their innovations to win new market segments in the EU. However, we see some significant discrepancies between more and less competitive firms when it comes to factors that influence firm’ s development. Namely, less competitive firms seem to have problems with cost and availability of capital. This indicates that lower innovative output may be caused by firm’ s strategic problems.

This paper explores how shopping trip type influences consumer promotion search, purchases made on promotion and unplanned purchases. For retailers, the importance of model presented in this paper is in gaining knowledge about shoppers’ response to in-store promotion and predicting retail outcomes based on the consumers’ level of promotional purchasing. The model itself was tested with data collected from a consumer survey, carried out in the high/low Croatian hypermarket setting. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, including cross tabulation analysis and one-way analysis of variance. Research results show that the type of shopping trip undertaken by consumers (i.e. whether the trip is major or fill-in shopping trip) does explain differences in actual spending, unplanned spending, and purchases of promoted items. As compared with fill-in shoppers, major shoppers did purchase more items and spent more money on their shopping trip. There was significantly higher proportion of major shoppers who spent more than planned and made a purchase of promoted item as well. Contrary to expectation is the finding that consumer promotion search was rather low across all five analyzed promotional devices regardless of shopping trip type undertaken.

This paper applies Belk's taxonomy (1975) to examine the impact of situational factors on shoppers' purchasing outcomes in the Croatian hypermarket setting. It explores how store environment, social surrounding, temporal perspective, shopping task and antecedent situational dimensions influence the amount of money spent and number of items purchased. The model itself was tested with data collected from a consumer survey, carried out in the Croatian hypermarket setting. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, including one-way analysis of variance. Research results indicate that social surroundings, high perceived density and large-scale shopping were factors that significantly contributed to higher level of purchasing outcomes. The longer a shopper stayed inside the store, the more she or he spent. Shopping outcomes were shown to be the highest on Saturday and for shoppers who patronized one or two stores as compared to other days and other shopper types respectively. Contrary to expectations, no statistically significant difference in purchasing outcomes was found across shopper types grouped by store atmospheric responses, travel time to store and time of the day shopping. By using this model, retailers may predict the consumer response to situational factors better and design store strategy that will encourage particular pattern of shoppers’ behaviour.

This paper explores relative importance of satisfaction and demographic factors in building store loyalty behaviour. The model was tested with data collected from a consumer survey, carried out in the high/low Croatian hypermarket setting. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, simple and multiple regression analysis. In general, research results support proposed framework. Conative loyalty was positively driven by satisfaction with shopping experience, household’ s size and age. Females exhibited higher conative loyalty than males, and “ near shoppers” exhibited higher conative loyalty than “ distant shoppers” . Contrary to expectations, income did not predict conative loyalty behaviour. A furhter important finding of this study is that there is a positive link between conative and action loyalty. For retailers, the importance of the model presented is in predicting consumer purchasing behaviour and using this information to design such retailing strategies that will enhace satisfaction, conative and action store loyalty, and contribute to increased sales revenues.

Odnosi između znanosti i gospodarstva smatraju se vrlo važnim dijelom inovacijskoga sustava i jednim od krucijalnih čimbenika nacionalnoga inovacijskog kapaciteta. Dostupne studije pokazuju da zamjetan dio proizvoda i procesa koji su u prodaji ili u upotrebi ne bi bili razvijeni bez znanstvenog istraživanja. Gospodarstvo i znanost mogu imati obostrane koristi od suradnje. U ovom članku žarište je istraživanja na odnosu između znanosti i gospodarstva, promatranog sa stajališta znanstvenika, a koji se temelji na prikupljenim izvornim podacima u Hrvatskoj. U članku se nastoji razviti razumijevanje o determinantama koje utječu na suradnju s gospodarstvom i na zadovoljstvo znanstvenika tim odnosom. Rezultati istraživanja pokazuju snažan interes znanstvenika za suradnju, a motivi koji mogu objasniti njihov interes jesu intelektualni izazovi i dodatni izvor prihoda. Znanstvenici smatraju da se stanovita ograničenja suradnje nalaze više u njihovoj internoj organizaciji nego u vanjskim odnosima s gospodarstvom. Oni su uvjereni da gospodarstvo nije tako zainteresirano za suradnju kao što su to oni sami. Manje su kritični oni znanstvenici koji su već uspostavili veze s gospodarstvom. Industry-science relationship is considered to be a very important part of the innovation system and it represents one of the crucial factors in national innovation capacity. Extant studies show that a significant proportion of the products and processes that are currently sold and used could not have been developed without academic research. Both industry and academia can benefit from this relationship. Research focus in this paper is on interactions between science and the industry from the researchers' point of view based on field study in Croatia. This paper seeks to develop understanding of determinants of collaboration intensity with industry and scientists' satisfaction in this relationship. It explores scientists' motivations to collaborate and perceptions of barriers for collaboration as well as how they perceive the other side in this relationship. Research findings show strong scientist interest in the collaboration with industry. Significant motives that can explain their interest are intellectual challenge and additional income. Scientists find more powerful obstacles in their internal organizations than in external relationship with industry. They are persuaded that industry is not as interested in collaboration as they are. Less critical are those groups of scientists who have already built closer working ties with industry. Die Beziehungen zwischen Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft gelten als äußerst wichtiger Bestandteil des Innovationssystems und als ein Schlüsselfaktor der nationalen Innovationskapazitäten. Verfügbare Studien zeigen, dass ein wesentlicher Teil der im Verkauf oder im Gebrauch befindlichen Artikel oder Dienstleistungen ohne das Zutun der wissenschaftlichen Forschung nicht entwickelt worden wäre. Sowohl Wirtschaft als auch Wissenschaft können von ihrer Zusammenarbeit profitieren. Dieser Artikel richtet seine Aufmerksamkeit auf das Verhältnis von Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft und betrachtet diese Wechselbeziehung aus akademischer Sicht. Mit ins Spiel kommen hierbei Daten, die die Autorinnen in Kroatien gesammelt haben. Die Verfasserinnen bemühen sich um ein Verständnis der Determinanten, die Einfluss haben auf die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Industrie und Wissenschaft sowie auf die diesbezügliche Zufriedenheit der Akademiker. Die Untersuchungsergebnisse zeigen ein reges Interesse der Wissenschaftler an dieser Zusammenarbeit; als Ausschlag gebende Motive dafür gelten die intellektuelle Herausforderung und Nebenverdienstmöglichkeiten. Nach Meinung der Wissenschaftler ist im internen Aufbau wissenschaftlicher Einrichtungen eher nach diese Zussammenarbeit behindernden Barrieren zu suchen als in den äußeren Beziehungen zur Wirtschaft. Sie sind jedoch davon überzeugt, dass die Wirtschaft an der Zusammenarbeit nicht im selben Maße interessiert ist wie die wissenschaftliche Seite. Weniger kritisch zeigen sich Akademiker, die bereits Beziehungen zu Wirtschaftskreisen ausgebaut haben.

Rezultat projekta je statistički model za predviđanje difuzije inovacija u Hrvatskoj. To je model koji je zamišljen kao pomoć managerima u donošenju odluka koje se trebaju temeljiti na predviđanjima budućih adopcija. Model je potpuno opisan teoretski. Funkcioniranje modela je pokazano na primjerima, simuliranim podacima i stvarnim podacima. Model se može koristiti za planiranje uvođenja proizvoda i novih generacija proizvoda, određivanja životnog ciklusa proizvoda itd. Može poslužiti za predviđanje prodaja novog proizvoda prije samog uvođenja na tržište, ako postoje podaci o već lansiranim sličnim proizvodima.

This paper reports on an empirical study that was performed on hundred leading firms in Croatia. The paper attempts to offer some insight on the relationship between product and process innovation on one side, and competitive rivalry and competitive strategy on the other side. Firms are clustered according to reported rivalry intensity and competitive strategy, and these clusters are examined with respect to firm characteristics and with respect to innovation output. This paper presents two main findings. First, more intense rivalry discourages innovation, which confirms prior research findings. Second, there is a inconsistency between competitive strategy and innovation strategy in leading firms in Croatia. In particular, findings in this paper raise doubts about whether the chosen strategy is based on companies’ strengths, and whether the company has full knowledge about what this strategy entails and how to make it work in the long run.

Innovation is considered one of the most important drivers of economic growth. Within transition countries, the significance of innovation is facilitated by several factors. These include exhaustion of growth and productivity improvements based on non-investment reallocations and the integration into the European Union, which states the development of a knowledge-based economy as a crucial policy goal. Furthermore, the capability to innovate successfully is the foundation of sustainable competitive advantage, especially given the turbulent business environments that characterize transition economies. This paper reports preliminary results of the first Community Innovation Survey conducted in Croatia. The survey collects internationally comparable enterprise-level data on inputs and outputs of innovation processes in Croatian companies, covering the period from 2001 to 2003. Key survey findings are summarized and compared to selected countries of Central and Eastern Europe. These include the data on product and process innovation, expenditure on innovation activities, intramural research, information sources for innovation and factors that constrain innovation. Moreover, the relationships between some firm characteristics (firm size and ownership) and innovation are examined. Although the data provide some encouragement in terms of innovation outputs, unfavorable structure of innovation expenditures (especially low levels of R&D expenditures), widespread occurrence of intra-organizational constraints to innovation and failures in commercialization of innovations and/or their integration into business strategies concerns corroborate the assumptions that the movements towards a knowledge-driven economy in Croatia are still quite weak – emphasizing the need for policy improvements. Main obstacles to innovation currently seem to be within companies, rather than in insufficiencies in state support or in the lack of funds for innovative activities, but that is likely to be related to the strong confinement of innovation to equipment purchases. The share of innovative firms increases with firm size. The share of new products in sales does not depend on firm size except for the products that are line extensions (not new for the firm but new for the market), where we detect a decreasing trend.

Krajnji cilj inovacije je poboljšanje poslovanja. Iako se mnogo studija bavilo temom inovativnosti u malim i srednjim poduzećima, analitičko proučavanje poslovnih učinaka inovacijskih aktivnosti je bilo zanemareno. Kako učinci inovacijskih aktivnosti ovise o karakteristikama tvrtke, u ovom radu želimo istražiti o kojim faktorima ovisi postizanje dobrih učinaka. Pri tome razmatramo vlasničku strukturu tvrtke, omjer visoko obrazovanih zaposlenika, te tržište na kojem tvrtka djeluje. Ujedno uzimamo u obzir i varijable kao što su tržišna orijentacija, te varijable koje opisuju "dinamičnost" poduzeća kroz spremnost na uvođenje novih oblika strategije i organizacije. Kroz istraživanje utjecaja navedenih čimbenika na učinke inovacija, naš članak nastoji doprinijeti razumijevanju inovacija u malim i srednjim poduzećima te tako pridonijeti postojećoj literaturi.

Suradnja između gospodarstva i znanstvene zajednice smatra se jednim od najvažnijih dijelova inovacijskog sustava. Kako je inovacijska sposobnost industrije bitno vezana sa stupnjem komunikacije između znanstvenih institucija i gospodarstva, važno je razumjeti zbog čega poduzeća surađuju sa znanstvenim institucijama, koliko intenzivno surađuju te kako ocjenjuju suradnju. U članku je istraženo kako motivi suradnje, te značajke tvrtke vezane uz inovacije i tehnologije utječu na suradnju sa znanstvenicima. Ujedno su istražene različitosti između malih, srednjih i velikih tvrtki. Kako se očekuje da suradnja znanosti i gospodarstva ima povoljno djelovanje na inovacijsku sposobnost poduzeća, ispitano je kako suradnja utječe na odabrane indikatore inovativnosti.

We generalize the Bass model by assuming that the coefficients of inovation and imitation are time varying as functions of time dependent covariates. A minimum chi-square method is proposed for parameter estimation.

There is much talk in Croatia about the capability of Croatian companies to innovate. However, there is a lack of systematic studies on innovations development in Croatia. This paper aims to bridge that gap by reporting on a study that was performed on 100 leading Croatian companies. The paper addresses the structure of innovation in surveyed leading companies, and examines the novelty level of new products and processes. It explores whether firms of different sizes differ in their innovation output, and whether the continuity with which firms perform research activities has any impact on their innovation output. The sources of new product ideas are explored, as well as some preconditions for the new product success. As managing new product development improves the success rate, this paper examines the prevalence of such processes in companies. The impact of the new product development process on the innovation output is explored.

Services have different characteristics than products, and naturally we would expect this to be reflected in innovation development practices of service companies. Although there exist empirical studies that address this issue in developed economies, no study to date investigated this question in a transition country. In particular, this paper explores whether service firms in Croatia are inclined to adopt modern business tools like new product development process, and whether they differ in the use of business functions in product devlopment. The paper is based on an empirical study of Croatian companies performed in spring 2002.

Cilj provedenog istraživanja je bilo uključivanje Hrvatske u Izvještaj o globalnoj konkurentnosti Svjetskog ekonomskog foruma. Podaci prikupljeni ovom anketom u kombinaciji sa statističkim podacima biti će upotrijebljeni u izračunavanju indeksa konkurentnosti Hrvatske. Anketa se provodi u prvom redu stoga što određeni podaci nisu dostupni na drugi način ili je pak riječ o podacima koje je teško kvantificirati. Dobiveni rezultati se mogu upotrijebiti u slijedeće svrhe: (1) kako bi se usporedila pozicija Hrvatske u odnosu na ostale zemlje koje su obuhvaćene ovim istraživanjem, (2) rezultati istraživanja mogu pomoći u otkrivanju područja u kojima su pojedine zemlje slabe te ona područja u kojima su jake prema međunarodnim standardima, (3) rezultati istraživanja mogu stimulirati javni dijalog o područjima koja su istraživanjem obuhvaćena. Istraživanje je provedeno metodom ankete osobnim kontaktom. Anketirani su rukovoditelji poduzeća koja su odabrana u uzorak.