Modern consumer society uses an increasing number of products to meet its needs, which become waste after use, thus posing a serious problem that threatens sustainable development. Investment in waste recycling, due to a high level of non-financial benefits, is considered sustainable, especially in the End-of-life Vehicles (ELV) and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) recycling areas. The research objective of this paper is to test the sensitivity of the model for sustainable management of recycling projects by applying a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to investment projects of car and refrigerator recycling in the Republic of Serbia. By testing the key risk factors of the above investment projects within the sensitivity analysis, the main aim is to determine the critical value of these variables in terms of the financial and social acceptability of these investment alternatives. The results obtained indicate that state subsidies have the greatest influence on defining the model of sustainable investment, especially in the field of e-waste recycling. The impact of other factors, the price of secondary raw materials and the social cost of CO₂ emissions, is significantly smaller, but should certainly be taken into account when defining the optimal model of sustainable investment.

The objective of this paper is to examine the legal framework for financial reporting and reporting practices in the Republic of Serbia as one of the European transitional economies where financial reporting environment and accounting legislation have been changing rapidly in the last decade. It is a great challenge for the Serbian public companies to offer reliable and high quality accounting information in order to attract external sources of finance, particularly from foreign investors. Transparency and reliability of financial reporting has been and still is a severe problem in Serbia. This study contributes to the existing literature by examining financial reporting transparency in transitional economies and especially by focusing on the extent to which the stage of capital market development affects the quality and quantity of financial reporting. Our study covers listed companies on the Serbian regulated market during the period from 2008 to 2011, thus showing that the practice of financial reporting is primarily determined by the needs of illiquid and thin capital market

The aim of the author of this paper is to examine the relationship between Earning Management (EM) and modified audit opinion among state-owned companies in the Republic of Serbia. The study sample consists of 64 state-owned companies whose financial statements were subject of audit by State Audit Institution in period 2018-2021. To detect EM, the financial statements of these companies for the four-year period 2018-2021 were used. The results of the study indicate that there is no positive relationship between EM and the auditor's modified opinion, i.e. that the difference in the distribution of the modified opinion in state-owned companies in which EM is identified and those in which EM is not identified is not statistically significant. These results initially point to the conclusion that auditors do not take EM into account when forming opinions, and do not send warning signals to users of financial statements. However, if one looks at the participation of the modified opinion on the financial statements of state-owned companies in which EM is identified, and especially the motive of EM, it can be said that the auditors of the State Audit Institution are adequately dedicated to this issue.

Prices applied to internal transactions between the business segments or divisions of a company in transactions between related entities within a group (transfer pricing) can have a significant impact on a company’s competitive advantage. Transfer pricing policy influences the profits of operating segments, resource allocation and the need for segment reporting. The two main approaches to transfer pricing are the tax and managerial approaches. The aim of this research was to test whether multidivisional companies operating in Serbia give more importance to the tax or the managerial aspect of transfer pricing policy. Another research aim was to determine whether segment reporting is more developed in companies in Serbia that have the legal obligation to prepare consolidated financial statements. Both research hypotheses were confirmed using the questionnaire method on a final sample of 52 large and medium-sized companies (out of 1912 large and medium-sized companies operating in Serbia). First, our findings show that tax compliance is more dominant in transfer pricing than the managerial perspective in the Serbian companies analyzed. Second, we found that mandatory consolidated financial reporting and related segment reporting can influence the managerial approach to transfer pricing in Serbian multidivisional companies and groups. Other factors (production orientation of companies, developed responsibility accounting and managers’ bonuses, for example) also encourage this approach.

IFRS 3 have been adopted to increase the relevance of information on business combinations. Consequently, it is expected that information on goodwill will contribute to that goal. By analysing the sample of the most important companies in the Republic of Serbia, this paper identifies several key areas of disclosure regarding recognition, initial recognition, and subsequent measurement of goodwill. All companies listed on the Belgrade Stock Exchange (BSE) which prepare consolidated financial statements are taken for the sample. In addition, the paper includes selected non-listed companies (that are most important for the Serbian economy according to the criteria of revenue, number of employees, and the share in the total GDP) in the sample. The final sample consists of 156 consolidated financial statements of 43 groups in the analysed four-year period (2013-2016). Descriptive statistic is used. The author found a low level of disclosure, which is further accompanied by misapplication of IFRS.

The purpose of this paper is to point out that sustainability reporting is also important for companies which are operating in developing countries, such as Serbia, but they have a lot of challenges on the road to sustainability reporting. The aim of the conducted research is to determine the level of sustainability reporting by the companies based in Serbia, to consider to which extent they are familiar with the sustainability reporting guidelines and to identify the application level of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Guidelines in the preparation of sustainability reports. The research is realized by the method of descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. The results of the study show that the level of sustainability reporting by Serbian companies included in the sample is low and not satisfactory.