Tamara Backović

Maritime enterprises operate in a volatile and international environment, making them highly susceptible to crises and disruptions. In such conditions, organisational resilience is essential for mitigating impacts, seizing opportunities and maintaining competitive advantage. This study investigates how competitiveness strategies mediate the relationship between organisational resilience and business performance among micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the maritime sector under crisis conditions. An online survey of maritime enterprise managers was analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) with IBM SPSS and AMOS. Findings reveal that organisational resilience has no direct effect on business performance; instead, its influence is realised through competitiveness strategies. Cost leadership, differentiation, focus and hybrid approaches allow MSMEs to leverage resilience into improved market outcomes. The results underscore the need to translate resilience into a clear strategic direction to generate measurable benefits. Differentiation and hybrid strategies, in particular, appear most effective in strengthening market position. The study also identifies corporate reputation and customer loyalty as key resilience outcomes that should be fostered in both crisis and stable periods. This research provides a rare empirical perspective on organisational resilience in the maritime sector, contributing to a limited body of literature and offering actionable guidance for managers.

Despite a general decline in recent years, road traffic accidents remain a significant public safety concern in both Poland and Montenegro. Although accident rates were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the persistent frequency of such incidents underscores the urgent need for further preventive measures to enhance road safety. The aim of this study is to forecast the number of road traffic accidents in Poland and Montenegro for the period 2024-2030. To achieve this, historical data on annual accident counts were obtained from Monstat (Montenegro) and the Polish Police. These datasets were then analyzed using selected neural network models to generate projections for the specified timeframe. The results suggest a potential stabilization in the number of traffic accidents in the near future. This forecast is influenced by several factors, including the steady increase in car ownership and ongoing investments in road infrastructure, such as the construction of new motorways and local roads. It should be noted, however, that the inherent uncertainty in data sampling – used for training, testing, and validating the models – places natural limitations on the precision of the forecasts.

This empirical study aims to examine the trends, practices, and quality of corporate sustainability reporting (CSR) of Montenegrin companies after the introduction of regulatory obligations on non-financial reporting for big legal entities (>500 employees) and in line with upcoming EU Directive requirements, in order to understand development and operationalisation of CSR in Montenegro. We will duly evaluate CSR context and content by reviewing national institutional framework, research and reports, initiatives, and incentives, but also by applying a CSR company-centric approach in analysing their sustainability-related compliance, performance, and deliverables. This will provide us with qualitative and quantitative insight into the current state of CSR disclosures in Montenegro, aiming to drive deductions and conclusions with regard to how sustainability reporting/CSR disclosure is influenced by various company aspects and how companies have implemented CSR recommendations in 5 years (2022 compared to 2017). Comprehensive and comparative analyses should help us to identify CSR progress and perspective in Montenegro, especially concerning reporting limitations, improvements, and recommendations, and to determine CSR potential for enhancing company value and managing non-financial stakeholders’ expectations.

Drawing upon both environmental and dynamic capabilities theory, this paper investigates the impact of market dynamism and selected organizational factors on the innovativeness of SMEs operating in Montenegro, observed through a knowledge management perspective. Empirical research was conducted on a sample of 175 SMEs, and the data gathered was analyzes using structural equation modelling (SEM) and fsQCA analysis. The results obtained highlight the insufficient innovativeness of SMEs, predominantly caused by the organizational characteristics of the company (such as lack of knowledge-oriented leadership and underdeveloped potential absorptive capacity). These characteristics are exacerbated by underdeveloped research and development (R&D) sectors and insufficiently trained human resources personnel who cannot properly assess and use knowledge from external sources and translate it into innovative products and services. The results shed light on the different ways of configuring the internal determinants of SMEs, which could lead to incremental and patented innovation development in strong market dynamism, which tends to characterize open and small economies. The research offers insight into how businesses from transition countries can remain competitive in highly innovative markets.

Since the foundational contributions of Katarina Juselius and Søren Johansen on cointegration, along with earlier works by influential scholars like Clive Granger, the field has witnessed significant developments

The objective of this study is to analyse the constitution of the emerging Montenegrin stock exchange. Four methodological time-series econometric steps are involved: the augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) test, run test, autocorrelation function (ACF) test, and Hurst test. The study utilises a daily data vector from 5 January 2004 to 20 June 2023, with a specific focus on the period encompassing the growth and peak of market stocks in 2007, followed by the significant 2008 financial crisis and subsequent developments thereafter. The analysis culminates on 28 May 2018, which is considered one of the lowest points in the Montenegrin stock exchange market in a comparative time-series assessment. The results of the tests conducted in this study do not provide empirical evidence supporting the random walk theory and its returns on aggregated shocks in the Montenegrin stock exchange market. By reviewing previous empirical studies and presenting new empirical findings, this study confirms the presence of stochastic trends in co-movements in finance, contributing to a deeper understanding of emerging stock exchange markets. Study implications support greater reliance on market efficiency, risk management, and portfolio diversification.

It is no surprise that the digital economy (DE) has raised expectations and it is still raising them. The aim of this study is to implement testing which will indicate how much the digital economy can help the less developed countries to overcome the economic lag. In order to come up with an answer, the study is based on provocative hypotheses which will elaborate on the development paradox by which the digital economy cannot help the less developed countries. The argument that supports the main hypothesis of this study declares that GDP growth is not equivalent to the growth of investment in DE infrastructure and, therefore, DE is contributing to the increase in inequality instead of reducing it. The paradox is confirmed with the implementation of the SEM modelling on high-income countries (HIC) and middle-income countries (MIC). Moreover, the study measured, i.e., determined, the relative importance and impact of each DE component on the economic growth in HIC and MIC countries. According to the results of this research, in MIC the most significant DE factor which has an impact on GDP growth is the investment in education, whereas in HIC countries infrastructure has the leading part when it comes to economic growth. The final part of this study includes a proposition of a set of guidelines relating to the direction of public policy development in order to make the most of DE’s impact on the creation of a fairer and better system and society. Due to the comprehensive range of questions that come from this study, several topics for future research have been recommended.

This paper assesses the ways in which the characteristics of entrepreneurs from transition economies, and the extent to which they participate in making business decisions, affect their propensity to make rational/risky decisions in a work environment. A multicontextual analysis of entrepreneurial decision-making is provided, facilitating a better understanding and the further advancement of entrepreneurship in the transition countries of Montenegro and Serbia. Logistic regression and a Structural Equation Model (SEM) were used to assess data collected from a stratified random sample of 260 entrepreneurs. The results reveal that the demographic characteristics of entrepreneurs have a significant impact on their propensity to make rational/risky decisions. Elderly entrepreneurs with more years of service are more prone to make rational decisions in comparison to younger entrepreneurs, who lack business experience and thus rely on intuition, leading to risky decision-making. Additionally, the results show that the more involved entrepreneurs are in the decision-making process, the more risky decisions will be made; while more employee inclusion leads to business decisions based on rational thinking. The results also reveal that entrepreneurs in transition economies have formed attitudes towards the nature of entrepreneurial activity. Finally, these results reveal that entrepreneurs who consider levels of economic development, national culture, and intuition to be important when making business decisions are more prone to implement risky decisions. Considering the obtained results, this paper provides guidelines for the future research of this issue in transition countries and other developing economies.

This debut work offers a stunning look at real vs nominal prices that consider more than just inflation. The inadequate examination of hospitality price comparison is investigated between two non-neighbouring Adriatic east coast countries – Slovenia and Montenegro – using the euro. Hospitality prices are an essential indicator in hospitality markets, destination marketing and management planning. Using 73 monthly time-series data for the economic crisis period from December 2008 to December 2014, this period covers one shock in a series. One of the key managerial features of cointegrated spatial hospitality price spread was that Montenegro followed Slovenian hospitality prices. Hospitality prices in Montenegro and Slovenia tend to be weakly integrated into the long term and seasonally driven in the short term. In addition, the econometric experimentation has given a theoretical novelty for underpinned and undermined tourism economy modelling in normalities. This state-of-the-art econometric feature is included in a customary vector error correction model (VECM). Robust applied results recognise that hospitality prices in Montenegro are domestic driven and in Slovenia Eurozone driven. This finding is relevant for applied economics on obtaining a normally distributed price model. Its theoretical and managerial implications are vital for hospitality economics, marketing and tourism management.