Economic and Business Review (EBR)
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Effect of Work-Family Conflict on Job Satisfaction of Small Enterprise Managers
No full textBalancing priorities and demands of work and family at the same time can be quite hectic and likely to generate conflicts. Workers must find strategies to manage the exigencies of modern living in order to maintain job satisfaction as well as family relationships. This study investigates the effect of work-family conflict’s two directions on job satisfaction, and the moderating role of resilience. The study used a cross-sectional survey method to collect data from 293 small-scale enterprise managers, utilizing a structured questionnaire. Correlation and analysis of variance techniques were used. The results reveal that the work-family conflict has a significant positive effect on job satisfaction. Small enterprise leaders experience enough job satisfaction to better withstand the conflicts that arise from their work roles due to some context-specific factors. As small enterprise leaders’ job role conflicts increase, there is also an increase in resilience to overcome the conflict. Also, resilience positively moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction. Increasing levels of entrepreneurs’ work-family conflict come with increasing levels of resilience. Moreover, resilience also positively moderates the effect of family-work conflict on job satisfaction. It is recommended that organisations and policy-makers should undertake resilience training to equip small enterprise leaders to cope better with stress, be more satisfied and productive
A Qualitative Study of Mindfulness, Sustainable Consumption and Consumer Well-Being and their Interrelationships
No full textConsumers are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental degradation, negative economic consequences and social injustices caused by the unsustainable consumption of clothing products. Overall, therefore, sustainability requires more sustainable production of fashion apparel products as well as more responsible consumption behaviours by individual consumers. To gain a clearer picture of the concepts of mindfulness, sustainable consumption and consumer well-being and their interrelationships, in-depth interviews were conducted with individual consumers. The results of this study indicate a positive relationship between these three concepts as well as an overlap between the concepts of mindfulness and well-being
The Impact of Intangible Capital on the Productivity of Small Firms
No full textDespite the mounting evidence in support of the role of intangible capital on firm performance, some research gaps remain. This paper focuses on the link between intangible capital and firm performance with a particular focus on the effect firm size has on the relationship by studying the population of Slovene enterprises between 2007 and 2020. We find that while intangible assets are positively associated with productivity, the link is by no means linear. Furthermore, micro firms appear to benefit most from investing in intangible assets, while the effect is less robust for small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) and large firms. Amongst different types of intangible assets, the strongest effect on productivity was found for investment in property rights and goodwill, while long-term deferred development costs had a weaker effect on firm productivity
The Role of Human Capital Investments in Business Excellence of Croatian Companies
No full textThe paper analyses human capital investments and their relation to company performance in Croatia. Human capital represents an inevitable element in recognising and measuring an organisation’s values and supporting its business excellence. The results obtained show that training and extra bonuses or salaries are positively correlated with company excellence, as well as show a significant difference in the mean of salaries per employee between high and moderate intensive intellectual capital companies. The differences in company excellence, when human capital expenditures are capitalized in a company’s balance sheet rather than recognized as expenses in the company’s profit and loss account, is confirmed. Companies should pay attention to managing human resources and realizing their importance for business excellence, as well as the importance of appropriate recognition and measurement of human capital in financial statements
Corruption and Non-Performing Loans
No full textThis article empirically evaluates the impact of corruption on the level of non-performing loans (NPLs) using the international bank-level data, spanning over the period 2000–2016 and across 140 countries. We find a positive and statistically significant relationship between corruption and NPLs. We also analyze the channels through which corruption affects NPLs. We find that the relationship between corruption and NPLs becomes more pronounced during and after the global financial crisis and is more pronounced for smaller banks. The association between corruption and NPLs is stronger in countries characterized by a high level of collectivism. The link between corruption and NPLs is higher where the legal environment is weak and where economies are market-based
The Effects of Institutions on Emerging Market Firms’ International Assignment Location Decisions
No full textWe investigate international assignment (IA) location decisions of emerging market firms as determined by the institutional contexts of their home and host countries. Using an institutional perspective, assignment patterns of the entire firm population in Slovenia to either other emerging or developed host countries in Europe are analysed. The findings show that both institutional quality and distance influence expatriation flows in firms from a low quality institutional context. These firms expatriate more to markets with high quality institutions and choose host countries with higher rather than smaller institutional distance for their IAs. We refine institutional theory with respect to host and home country institutional determinants of expatriation decisions by taking into consideration the particular features of emerging markets and their firms – separately and compared to developed markets and their firms
Life Cycle Surplus and Life Cycle Deficit of Immigrants versus Natives
No full textRecently, immigration and its socio-economic aspects have been in the centre of the European Union leaders’ agenda. In this paper, we apply the National Transfer Accounts (NTA) methodology to calculate the complete set of NTA results for immigrants and natives in five EU countries. We find that due to the lower labour income, which cannot be offset by the lower consumption, immigrants experience a shorter independence period and a much lower aggregate life cycle surplus than natives. The identified cross country differences between immigrants and natives could be used as a proxy of the achieved level of integration of immigrants
The Role of Enterprise Europe Network in Export Activities of the Western Balkan SMEs
No full textThe Western Balkan region (WB) small and medium enterprises (SMEs) lag behind the EU-28 counterparts in their export activities. The positive influence of the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) on local business support organisations and the local businesses is identified as a contributing factor to that improvement. To investigate the EEN\u27s role in the export of the WB SMEs in the period 2014–2017, the authors used available statistical data on export from the WB countries. The survey was conducted in three phases, with the samples of 1,463, 222, and 12 companies. Analysed results of the EEN activities in the WB show that EEN had a positive influence on the firms’ performance and their international activities; 67% of supported firms increased their turnover, 62% increased their market share, and the EEN services had a positive impact on the jobs in 52% of the examined firms. The survey results about the expected and actual impact of the EEN services proved a positive impact of the Network on the five indicators: market improvement, cost savings, job creation or maintenance, quality improvement, and innovation. The paper contains important practical implications for the policymakers and the SME managers alike, and the implications mentioned above are generalisable
Consumer Confusion Caused by Nutrition Apps in Product Healthiness Evaluation
No full textRapid developments in technology and connectedness are influencing how consumers access and use nutrition information. However, this information is not always clear and consistent. The inconsistencies in the information provided to consumers can lead them to uncertainty about which data to use (i.e. consider as correct), especially when different sources of information appear similarly qualified and accurate. This paper aims to highlight the impact of inconsistent information on consumer attitudes. The results of an experiment conducted on a sample of 237 consumers indicate that the inconsistent information, when presented to consumers, influences their attitude in a way that it increases feelings of confusion, leading to lower attitude certainty about the product healthiness
What Do We Know about Business Angels’ Decision Making Research Development? A Document Co-Citation Analysis
No full textBusiness angels (BAs) mitigate the financial gap of early-stage ventures and get actively involved in ventures they invest in. Their crucial role in the start-up ecosystem is spurring interest in their decision-making processes when making investments. However, the research about their investment decision making is crumpled. So far, we know the knowledge base about BA decision making comes from a blend of interdisciplinary studies where psychology and finance had a significant impact in pushing the research to new levels. With this study, we review knowledge dyads in the BA decision-making field through bibliometric co-citation analysis