This issue of Ekonomika preduzeća begins with four inspiring papers in the Economic Growth and Development section. In the first paper, an international team of authors, including V. Dženopoljac, B. Georgievski, S. Cavagnetto and Q. Abidi, observed the relationship between the components of national intellectual capital and human development index. The results of their panel data regression analysis for 12 countries confirmed that intellectual capital has a pivotal role in driving national competitiveness that must not be overlooked by policymakers.The next paper, written by D. Vujović, is dedicated to the impact of innovations on productivity and growth, with special emphasis on the evaluation of Serbia’s innovation system design and performance according to relevant global indices. After an insightful analysis, the author provided some specific and viable proposals for supporting innovation efforts and achieving more tangible outcomes with regard to the nation’s well-being. In the midst of a global energy crisis, L. Madžar in her paper deals with a strategic issue, the analysis of Serbian energy sector and the main trends shaping its productivity. According to the author, raising awareness of the urgency to improve energy efficiency and productivity is a prerequisite for the much-needed green transition, which requires commitment and collective action. The last paper in this section, written by I. Domazet, D. Marjanović and D. Ahmetagić, explored the impact of exports of high-tech products on the economic growth of Serbia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. Although the examples of Serbia and Hungary show that economic growth is possible even without increasing the share of exports of high-tech products in total exports, the sustainability of such growth is something that decision makers must think about in the period ahead.
In the Finance section, a trio of authors, I. Janković, V. Kovačević and I. Ljumović, tackled one of the burning issues of our time, the so-called “green finance”. Namely, the authors analyzed green bonds as relatively new fixed- income instruments in financing environmentally-friendly projects and their performance vis-à-vis ordinary municipal bonds. In the second paper in this section, the group of authors, including M. Slijepčević, N. Popović Šević, S. Popović Pantić and A. Šević, pointed out the role of relational marketing and its influence in the banking sector, particularly when it comes to providing banking services to micro, small to medium-sized enterprises, where the ability to build trust and loyalty is what makes the difference.
This time the Management section is devoted to the ideas for building a better healthcare system. A trio of authors, J. Babić, V. Rajić and T. Rakonjac Antić, examined the effects of the application of ISO standards on financial performance in private hospitals based on the analysis of a sample of 44 private hospitals in Belgrade. The paper provides valuable inputs for a forward-thinking approach to providing more efficient health services.
This issue of Ekonomika preduzeća concludes with the Tourism section. In their paper, V. Vasić, B. Hristov Stančić and B. Zečević investigated the factors affecting the occupancy rates of hotels, applying the dynamic panel analysis on a sample of 49 hotels in Spain observed over a period of 12 years. The findings of their study are quite indicative and could be useful to hotel managers. Based on an extensive empirical research covering 424 restaurants in the capital cities of the former Yugoslavia in the period 2015-2019, in the last paper of this issue B. Živadinović showed how regional cuisine and services look like through the prism of Tripadvisor as one the most influential hospitality websites.