Continuity Under a Different Name: The Outcome of Privatisation in Serbia

Normally, privatisation is seen as beneficial. This paper considers the case of Serbia – a latecomer in the matter – where privatisation was partly a result of exogenous pressures and where the process has been deemed a failure. In Serbia, a sizeable number of privatised firms were bought by bureaucrats and politicians and all firms were subjected to a period of supervision. We argue that the design of this process allowed rent-seekers to conserve their privileges through asset-stripping, which explains the failure. In order to do so, we perform an empirical analysis of the determinants of liquidation, merger and bankruptcy of privatised firms from 2002 to 2015. We construct a novel data set from primary sources, free of the ‘survivorship bias’ and containing proxies for various types of owners, indirect signs of asset-stripping strategy and a broad range of controls. Our results indicate that firms owned by politicians faced significantly higher risks of bankruptcy, especially after the end of supervision.     

Incentive compatibility in non-quasilinear environments

We derive several implications of incentive compatibility in general (i.e., not necessarily quasilinear) environments. Building on Kos and Messner (2013), we provide a (partial) characterization of incentive compatible mechanisms.     

Multilevel Information Presentation Strategy and Customer Reaction: An Empirical Investigation in an Online Setting

This study investigates the use of polyinstantiated information in management of customer relationships. Polyinstantiation can be used to present different information to different customers who are segmented according to some criterion, such as prior purchase behavior. An empirical study shows that presentation of multilevel benefits information affects customer satisfaction with the offer and information quality which, in turn, affect the overall Web satisfaction. This effect is independent of and comparable in size to the effect of customer prior attitude toward the Web and the Internet. Although the present study employs a Web-based retail setting, the relationships between this information presentation approach and measures of user/consumer satisfaction need not be limited to retail scenarios or to online interactions. We discuss the applicability of this technique of information control to different types of interactions between organizations and their constituents.     

Explaining Collective Intentionality

A BSTRACT . The Construction of Social Reality contains interesting suggestions about the ways in which phenomena of we-intentionality derive from beliefs and desires of social agents. This explanatory trust is in deep tension with Searle's general view that we-intentionality is a primitive phenomenon. I propose that we preserve the explanations and reject the general view, and argue for the proposal.     

Identifying and ranking novel indicators of MSMEs innovation potential

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to present the research on the identification and ranking of innovation potential indicators of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The main innovation management challenge is to recognise and measure factors that enable innovations. In that sense, the key 6 criteria and 41 indicators that describe innovation potential of MSMEs have been identified, based on expert judgment and the selected literature review in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. Next, the rank of every indicator based on an expert’s assessment was determined by using Fuzzy AHP approach. A case study was conducted for Serbian MSMEs. The holistic approach, applied in this research for the identification of the innovation potential criteria and indicators, represents novelty and contribution to the literature. The presented procedure of the innovation potential indicators selection and ranking could be used as a bench-marking tool, to help managers to improve innovation capacity of the company.     

Feasibility Frontier—A Method for Aligning Competitive Strategy with the Choice of IT Architectures

This article introduces an approach that addresses the challenge of aligning choices about IT architecture with the strategic goals of a corporation. This takes the form of a framework that captures how managers make IT architecture choices and how those choices impact an organization's competitive position. Based on microeconomic theory, the framework provides a set of conceptualizations for understanding alignment, plus some recommendations on how organizations should approach IT architecture adoption in a way that assures optimal alignment with strategic goals. The most important facilitating factor for the framework is the commitment to complete, accurate, and unbiased cost and quality assessment of business processes and their supporting IT infrastructure.     

Unfair Consumer Contract Terms Under Macedonian Law: How the Old and the New Function in Practice

This article analyses the functioning in practice of the system of substantive regulation of unfair terms in consumer contracts, introduced into Macedonian law as part of the harmonization obligations of the EU accession process. Specifically, the article seeks to establish the possible reasons for the absence of substantial evidence of application of the rules on unfair contract terms in consumer contracts in Macedonian practice. In providing an explanation, the focus is on the transposition of the consumer acquis and the Unfair Contract Terms Directive into national law, the enforcement structure for consumer law, and the relationship with the pre-existing civil law. In sum, the inconsistencies and incompleteness of the transposition, the weak and complex enforcement structure, as well as the unsettled relationship with the already existing civil law rules on similar topics have all contributed to weaken the practical significance of the special law on unfair contract terms.     

Low-cost airlines and airport competition

An important question from the viewpoint of competition analysis in the air transport industry is the extent to which low-cost airlines operating from a secondary airport compete with full-service airlines serving a main airport in a multiple airport region. In this paper we address the issue of the competition between full-service and low-cost airlines serving adjacent airports in the Greater London using econometric estimation of demand structure (own- and cross-price elasticities). Our analysis follows the methodology in (Pels, E., Nijkamp, P., Rietveld, P., 2000. Airport and airline competition for passengers departing from a large metropolitan area. Journal of Urban Economics, 48 (1), 29–45, Pels, E., Nijkamp, P., Rietveld, P., 2003. Access to and competition between airports: a case study for the San Francisco Bay area. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 37 (1), 71–83). It is based on the nested logit model which we use to capture three key dimensions of passenger choice: air fare, surface-access costs and frequency. We obtained estimates of the own- and cross-price elasticities, which was the focus of our interest. On the basis of our understanding of the industry dynamics we find these estimates, especially of the cross-price elasticities, to be on the low side.     

Using the UTAUT model to analyze user intention to accept electronic payment systems in Serbia

Portuguese Economic Journal - This study applies The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to explain the acceptance of electronic payment systems in Serbia. We used extended...