GEA College

V dolgoživi družbi, kjer se delovna doba podaljšuje, postaja notranja trajnost ključna za dolgoročno učinkovitost organizacij. Prispevek uvaja avtorski model 4Q, ki integrira štiri dimenzije inteligenc – racionalno (IQ), čustveno (EQ), duhovno (SQ) in fizično (PQ) – v celostni pristop k razvoju posameznika in organizacijskega sistema. Osrednje orodje modela predstavlja vitalni kvocient (VQ), kazalnik razmerja med obremenitvijo in regeneracijo, ki omogoča zavestno upravljanje psihofizične energije. Teoretična zasnova se naslanja na uvide Scheina, Argyrisa, Druckerja in Csikszentmihalyija, ob tem pa poudarja pomen globokih psihosocialnih procesov za trajnostno organizacijsko kulturo. Avtorski model 4Q krepi pretočnost, notranjo koherenco in prilagodljivost sistema, kar je ključno za delovanje v razmerah stalnih sprememb.

The purpose of our study is to build a valuable regional case by addressing sustainability challenges within the regional context of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Based on this intent, we examined regional sustainability practices and performed a quantitative analysis. We assessed the sustainability knowledge of high school students in BiH using the revised Assessment of Sustainability Knowledge (ASK) test. The study analysed student performance (N = 297) across the environmental, social, and economic domains of sustainability. Results revealed a mixed understanding of basic sustainability principles. Using a one-way ANOVA, we found no significant differences in test scores across years of study. Performance stratification showed that nearly two-thirds of students scored less than half of all points, highlighting substantial knowledge deficits. A comparison of sustainability knowledge representations reveals that students are most knowledgeable about the social domain, followed by the environmental domain, whereas their comprehension of the economic domain is much less developed. Our findings advocate for a more balanced approach to sustainability education that addresses not only the environmental and social but also the economic aspect of sustainability holistically. These findings are crucial for informing and tailoring sustainability education curricula in BiH to specifically target identified knowledge gaps and prevalent misconceptions.

In this paper, which is based on extensive research, the author provides a theoretical outline of the investment ability of companies. He understands investment ability as a type of knowledge that is necessary before the investment itself and also for its implementation. Investment ability is the ability of companies to correctly assess the feasibility and profitability of an investment project, and to define its detailed specifications, the required technology and the most favorable sources of financing, both internal and external. The purpose of this paper is to fill a gap in the field of studying the relationship between resources and investment ability. The author defines investment ability as a relatively new theoretical construct, from the point of view of resource-based theory. The aforementioned theory focuses on the company’s resources and dynamic capabilities and thus offers a suitable theoretical basis for determining how internal factors, which are also observed in the field of the company’s investment activity and which in a way help define its investment ability, represent a source of competitive advantage. In addition to the theoretical definition of a company’s investment ability, the aim of the author’s contribution is to investigate whether it is possible and feasible in practice to develop and/or adapt an instrument for measuring investment ability. Based on a thorough study of human and financial resources as key to defining investment ability, the author identifies a potential set of variables or indicators that can be used to assess and measure the investment ability of companies. The author included these measurement variables in the conceptual model of investment ability, which he developed and tested on the example of Slovenian companies.

This paper aims to provide brief insight into the economic and sustainability challenges that higher education institutions are facing today globally. It provides a theoretical overview of key trends and challenges of higher education, relevant for the development of a sustainable and resilient European economy and society. We support our theoretical proposition by a bibliometric analysis of previous studies dealing with the 21st-century business skills and the sustainability outlook to be produced by the higher education sector. Our main findings are related to a significant rise of researchers’ interest in the topic, along with the multi-disciplinary approach being emphasized, as the academic community seeks how to contribute to the pressing issues of ensuring the integration of sustainability with employers’ requirements, related to new skill profiles, relevant for the European transformation toward a more resilient, digital, green economy and society. We evaluate the proposed course of research and provide recommendations to researchers and other higher education stakeholders interested in promoting this educational sector’s sustainability and relevance in the 21st century.

Abstract Background and Purpose: In the recent period, scholarly interest for family entrepreneurship and succession has been increasing while the question of innovative capability of family SMEs and of innovativeness of founders and successors is relatively unexplored. Little is known about the factors, which are positively correlated, or affect innovativeness of successors in family SMEs. This research explores the relationship between entrepreneurial competences of the founders in family SMEs and innovativeness of their successors. Design/Methodology/Approach: The target group were family SMEs of the first and the second generation – their founders and successors in Slovenia. As our research includes two independent samples with mostly ordinal data, we used univariate (analysis of means, variance, reliability index Cronbach alpha, t-test) and multivariate (simultaneous analysis of more variables, correlation) statistical methods to study the two constructs - entrepreneurial competences of the founders and innovativeness of successors, to test the positive correlation between the two. Results: Results indicate that entrepreneurial competences like creativity, attitude toward risk-taking, attitude toward negotiations, technical knowledge and skills and marketing knowledge and skills of the founders in family SMEs positively correlate with innovativeness of successors. The results of this study indicate that entrepreneurial competences of founders are important factor for fostering innovativeness of successors. Conclusion: This paper links the two studied constructs and presents a valuable contribution for entrepreneurship theory; therefore, the results could be used for a further scientific research as also for practical implications.

Family businesses account for a major share of small-sized firms in several economies. Taking into account the global economic situation this trend is expected to continue. With the goal of better understanding the process of transferring the business to the next generation, which ensures a long-term success, expectations of student’s with family business background were investigated. This particular research addresses the issue of an individual’s perception of entrepreneurship and the related factors that influence individual’s decision on whether to build a career as an employee, a successor of family business or as an independent entrepreneur. Some Western and some South-Eastern European were separately analysed population for the purpose of comparative study. The results show important differences between investigated populations. It has been anticipated that differences are caused by historical, cultural and educational backgrounds. This challenging area is raising a lot of sub-questions for possible future research.

The real benefits of integrating different economic areas and regions into one common economic, monetary, and sometimes also fiscal area are among the most important issues to be resolved because the win-win situation for all participants should prevail unless the Member States or local authorities lose their interest in further participation. In this study, we compare the speed and the real benefits of economic integration between the three groups of Member States that emerged following the last big EU enlargement. The first group is composed of the so-called old EU Member States. The second group represents the countries that achieved full membership in 2004 (the so-called new Member States), and in the third group, there are the countries that are now in the negotiation process for EU membership. We then draw from the experience of these new Member States to derive implications for a possible new round of EU enlargement. The conclusion of this paper is therefore supposed to be some kind of direction for the new candidate countries. The results offer an answer to the question of what degree of convergence the new EU10 Member States reached within certain macroeconomic fundamentals during the period of their accession negotiations.
 
 Keywords: • economic convergence • EU integration • transition economies • integration • EU accession • economic trends

Though the paper focuses on pricing, as background I provide some evidence about loan flows across markets in the form of borrowers' and lenders' propensity to issue outside their natural home market. The data show that borrowers stay home when they can and that they tend to issue in Europe when they must issue abroad. That is, borrowers domiciled in one of the major markets (Europe, the United States, and Asia) almost always issue in that market, whereas borrowers in more remote locations usually issue in the European market. For example, borrowers from Latin America overwhelmingly issue in Europe rather than in the U.S. market.