https://www.smjournal.rs/index.php/home <p>ISSN <strong>1821-3448</strong><br />ISSN <strong>2334-6191 (Online)</strong><br />UDC <strong>005.21</strong></p> <p>Publisher <strong>University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Economics in Subotica</strong></p> <p>Commitment to strategic mindset in an organisation on the individual level and understanding the importance of strategic approach predetermines the success of any company. Differences in managerial decisions on the strategic level and their implementation explain decision made by consumers on the market when choosing products of given companies, that is these differences are interpreted as differences in competitive advantage. The source of competitiveness is determined solely on the market. The concept of dominantly externally oriented management, which tries to find the appropriated competitive response and strives to overcome the challenges in the environment, meet new customer needs and properly use available resources implies the required strategic orientation.</p> <p>Strategic management is a set of managerial decisions and activities determining companies’ long-term practices. This concept includes internal and external environment scanning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation and output evaluation and control. Strategic management, therefore, emphasises monitoring and assessing external opportunities and threats in the context of a company’s strengths and weakness. Known as business policies, strategic management includes the main phases of concepts such and strategy formulation and implementation.</p> <p>In addition to the above, another objective of <em>Strategic Management </em>is to encompass subjects defining new technologies as support to decision making in strategic management. Decision Support Systems are interactive software systems analysing large amounts of data and used for making various business decisions. Acceptable research areas may vary, including those in management, business informatics, digital business transformations, business economics, econometrics, decision theory, operative management, database management, and others.</p> <p>The issue dates of publication are 30th March, 30th June, 30th September and 30th December. The language of publication is English.</p> <p> </p> <p>There is NO submission charge.</p> <p>There is NO publishing fee.</p> University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Economics in Subotica en-US Strategic Management - International Journal of Strategic Management and Decision Support Systems in Strategic Management 1821-3448 https://www.smjournal.rs/index.php/home/article/view/413 <p><strong>Background</strong>: Socio-demographic changes increase the need for long-term elderly care. Consequently, providing formal institutional service in elderly care homes is an interesting opportunity for entrepreneurs. However, the entry strategy decision is influenced by numerous external variables.</p> <p><strong>Purpose:</strong> The main goal is to answer what determines market concentration as one of the most important market entry determinants.</p> <p><strong>Study design/methodology/approach</strong>: A linear regression model has been formed and tested on the Croatian elderly care home market, observed on a county level, using data for 2021. Further, a cluster analysis, as a decision-support tool, has been made to assess market characteristics that are more likely to attract new entrants to the elderly care home market.</p> <p><strong>Findings/conclusions:</strong> Results indicate that demand for long-term care services plays a significant role, and the market with more elderly will attract more competitors. When the level of GDP per capita and the unemployment rate are observed together, markets with stronger economies tend to attract entrepreneurs. In other words, it is more likely that someone will open an elderly care home in a densely populated county with individuals that can afford formal institutional long-term care for themselves or family members.</p> <p><strong>Limitations/future research:</strong> The shortcomings are mainly related to the lack of data on prices and quality measures. Further, information on the number of beds in each elderly care home would enable an alternative calculation of the Herfindahl-Hirschman index, while data on service prices and structure of employees as a proxy for quality (medical and non-medical staff) would enable a more reliable comparative analysis of obtained results. Future studies on this subject include variables related to the portion of unemployed females in the market since female family members more often provide informal care, and at the same time, they are more likely to be employed in formal long-term care institutions. </p> Josipa Višić Copyright (c) 2023 Josipa Višić https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2024-03-30 2024-03-30 29 1 10.5937/StraMan2300050V https://www.smjournal.rs/index.php/home/article/view/397 <p><strong>Background</strong>: Although Blockchain Technology (BT) is one of the innovations that has considerable potential to improve business processes and enable new services for potential users, its implementation in supply chain management (SCM) of the automotive industry is only at its beginnings. From the growing number of publications focused on this issue, it is evident that the application of BT would significantly contribute to the development of the automotive industry and improve the supply chain of automotive components.</p> <p><strong>Purpose</strong>: In this regard, the paper aims to analyze the challenges to the implementation of BT in SCM in the automotive industry sector through a systematic review of the literature and precise definition of the advantages and limitations that appear in supply chains after the application of BT.</p> <p><strong>Study design/methodology/approach</strong>: The research is based on the application of systematic literature review methods. The paper presents the results and conclusions of 21 studies based on the search criteria outlined by the Web of Science, Scopus, and SpringerLink index databases.</p> <p><strong>Findings/conclusions</strong>: The results suggest that insufficiently developed technology, lack of clear guidelines for implementation, incomplete standardization, legislative ambiguity, conflicts and insufficient cooperation between chain members appear as the biggest challenges for BT implementation. On the other hand, BT has great potential in reducing costs, providing higher quality products and services, and improving chain visibility in the automotive industry.</p> <p><strong>Limitations/future research</strong>: The analysis of the papers in the above mentioned databases exclusively in English and the absence of empirical research stand out as the most prominent shortcomings. However, the obtained results of this study represent a quality basis for future research, which, judging by the popularity of the issue, will increase in frequency.</p> Vuk Vuković Duc Tran Anh Radenko Maric Abdalla Rashwan Sebastian Henningsen Malgorzata Sliwa Ubiparipović Bogdan Copyright (c) 2023 Vuk Vuković, Duc Tran Anh, Radenko Maric, Abdalla Rashwan, Sebastian Henningsen, Malgorzata Sliwa, Ubiparipović Bogdan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2024-03-30 2024-03-30 29 1 10.5937/StraMan2300044V https://www.smjournal.rs/index.php/home/article/view/428 <p><strong>Background</strong>: Price setting is a determinant of a company's profitability especially in the sector of creative industry (CI) and is intensively discussed in academic and business area.</p> <p><strong>Purpose:</strong> The aim of this research paper is to investigate whether a well-defined and successfully implemented pricing strategy can significantly affect the profitability of companies in the creative industry.</p> <p><strong>Study design/methodology/approach</strong>: This study investigates the differences in interval variables, including financial indicators, number of price management techniques, and price management metrics, between companies that have implemented pricing strategies and those that have not. To assess this, a two-sample t-test was used to compare the variables between the two groups. Since the creative industry is highly heterogeneous, we have analyzed the profitability of creative sub-industries more in detail through ANOVA test. </p> <p><strong>Findings/conclusions:</strong> As it turned out, the analyzed parameters do not differ significantly in their average values, except for the parameter “Gross margin”, where a statistically significant difference in average values was confirmed. Based on the findings of studies conducted by other authors as well as our own analyses, we conclude that assessing CI's profitability relative to other industries is inappropriate and represents only a simplistic view of the industry's performance. It is important to observe the profitability in each subindustry of CI, because the nature of the product (output) is different in each segment of this industry.</p> <p><strong>Limitations/future research: </strong>Despite the initial findings, it was recognized that the research was limited to a single country and a specific industry. To gain further insight into the pricing and profitability of companies in the creative sub-industries and cultural industry, subsequent research should be conducted. It would also be useful to link the topic of pricing and profitability with the theme of revenue models including pricing models, pricing metrics and payment systems.</p> Katarína Remeňová Mária Kmety Bartekova Helena Majdúchová Ľudomír Šlahor Copyright (c) 2023 Katarína Remeňová, Mária Kmety Bartekova, Helena Majdúchová, Ľudomír Šlahor https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2024-03-30 2024-03-30 29 1 10.5937/StraMan2300053R https://www.smjournal.rs/index.php/home/article/view/425 <p><strong>Background: </strong>As one of the world's most important economies, China has faced the problems and challenges caused by geopolitical changes, the consequences of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, financial crises and other challenges in the last decade to the fullest extent. An overview of previous research studies shows the effects of partial elements of economic freedom on the financial performance of China's development. The focus of our research is on a strategic approach to the given problem, taking into account the possibility of modeling and improving the situation in response to new challenges and problems in the future.</p> <p><strong>Purpose:</strong> The focus of the work is aimed at measuring the impact of economic freedoms on foreign direct investment decisions and the financial performance of China's development. Based on that, the main goal of the work is to model and determine new elements for improving the model based on a strategic approach.</p> <p><strong>Study design:</strong> The research revealed that a strategic approach through the elements of economic freedom is an important factor of the model we investigated and represents the improvement of the situation and can contribute to the improvement of the financial performance of China's development.</p> <p><strong>Findings:</strong> Based on the research, we obtained the result of a high degree of direct dependence and a positive correlation of the impact of economic freedom and strategic decisions on foreign direct investment on the financial performance of China's development. Economic freedoms represent a significant influencing factor and provide opportunities for the improvement of a model based on a strategic approach.</p> <p><strong>Limitations:</strong> The limitations of the research refer to the unpredictable state of geopolitical changes in the world, which directly reflect on many factors of the model. Future research directions can be directed towards measuring which countries make up the largest part of China's foreign direct investments, as well as how much their influence is.</p> Dragan Milovanović Nenad Marković Dragana Vujičić Stefanović Dejan Tešić Boško Mekinjić Copyright (c) 2023 Dragan Milovanović, Nenad Marković, Dragana Vujičić Stefanović, Dejan Tešić, Boško Mekinjić https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2024-03-30 2024-03-30 29 1 10.5937/StraMan2300056M https://www.smjournal.rs/index.php/home/article/view/380 <p><strong>Background</strong>: To manage growth opportunities effectively and to make a significant impact on superior long-term performance, it is necessary to analyze firm value and diagnose its determinants. Increasing profit, providing prosperity to the company's stakeholders, and improving company value are the goals of every company’s business.</p> <p><strong>Purpose:</strong> The paper aims to build a model of the company's optimal value by assessing company performance based on financial statement analysis of European companies over the period 2015-2020.</p> <p><strong>Study design/methodology/approach</strong>: The impact of financial indicators such as financial leverage, profitability, size, liquidity, growth, and asset tangibility on company value was thoroughly considered. The empirical research was founded on a sample of 158 Eastern and Western European companies, generating 948 observations. Panel regression analysis was conducted.</p> <p><strong>Findings/conclusions:</strong> The obtained results revealed that debt-to-assets ratio, return on equity, and assets tangibility have a significant adverse effect on company value, whereas the return on assets and firm size have a significant favorable effect. The obtained conclusions should serve as a beneficial tool for the strategy of reaching the targeted market company’s value and ensuring the company's future viability by the market. Hence, stakeholders could assess the perspective of the future company's development and strengthen the importance and influence of financial variables on the company's value.</p> <p><strong>Limitations/future research:</strong> The research limitations, which are also opportunities for future research, are aimed at the investigation of company value indicators at the level of individual European economies or industries. One should look at the company's value factors before and after the Covid-19 pandemic and consider a longer time in the company’s business. Other financial determinants that affect the value of the company could be considered, and the company value could be measured by some other indicators. Also, the influence of non-financial determinants on the company value could be researched. </p> Bojana Vuković Teodora Tica Dejan Jakšić Copyright (c) 2023 Bojana Vuković, Teodora Tica, Dejan Jakšić https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 2024-03-30 2024-03-30 29 1 10.5937/StraMan2300052V