This research paper analyzes low productivity of company workforce as the key risk factor to business sustainability of a company, with special attention to small and medium-sized companies. The scope of research involves for-profit, and small and medium-sized companies doing business in Serbia. This paper explores whether poor human resource management, and, more particularly, low productivity of employees represent one of the key reasons for poor business performance and eventually failure of the company. The quantitative part of this research was conducted during 2022, by analyzing 468 small and medium-sized companies with less than 250 employees, who ended their business during 2021. Current theory determines human resource management in companies, the influence of different sorts on overall business performance, and employee productivity and its causal effects on business survival. This study attempts to cover identified literature gaps by analyzing the risk influences of low productivity on the failure of small and medium-sized companies, with special diversification between manufacturing and service-oriented companies. Key findings from this research were defined with the help of statistical learning methods, suggesting direct correlation of low productivity in the case of small services-oriented businesses and medium-sized manufacturing companies. Future work on this research includes extension of the analysis to other countries in the West Balkans region and the comparation of all determined causalities.

Global warming and its negative effect on the environment pose a great threat to the future of mankind. In order to overcome these challenges, EU countries have set the target of becoming climate neutral by 2050, a path defined through the policies of the European Green Deal. The Republic of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina also agreed upon the same goal through the endorsement of the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans. One of the means to achieve this goal is by increasing the share of renewable energy sources. In this paper, we analyze the feasibility, challenges, and potential issues of substituting conventional traffic light signalization with signalization based on renewable energy sources on a national scale. An ad hoc questionnaire was used to collect data from representatives of most of the municipalities in the Republic of Srpska entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina and representatives of the city of Novi Sad in Serbia. In the city of Novi Sad, personal interviews were also carried out to collect additional information. The results of this research show that the implementation of solar-powered traffic lights is economically and environmentally viable. These results will provide the basis for understanding the benefits and challenges in the case of the application of traffic light signalization based on renewable energy sources.

Motivation: Driven by an increasingly competitive marketplace, the savviest businesses invest heavily in corporate innovation as a kind of competitive intelligence that gives a business what it needs to operate with poise and precision. The strategy of investments in innovation by firms can potentially explain the heterogeneity of their income increase based on market success. Such a stimulus for growth has been a motivation for the research question being examined in this paper, namely the link between corporate financing and investment decisions of Serbian firms based on the bank loans as sources of innovation and hence improved enterprise performance. The paper is based on the research of Hottenrott et al. (2014), together with Ferrando & Preuss (2017) and Aerts & Schmidt (2008) concerning the relationship between external finance and business innovation activities. This paper provides information about a bank loan as a financing source that firms use to fund their innovative activities, with the research question whether that has the subsequent impact on the company's performance. The idea of the paper is that investments of enterprises in innovation significantly affect their revenue. Data: Empirical research has been provided by a survey in Serbia in 2017. The sample comprised 152 enterprises, mostly privately owned, of all sizes. Descriptive statistics: Cronbach's Alpha coefficient, regression analysis is used as the research tool and method. The link between business finance and innovation, and furthermore the link between innovation and income of Serbian firms have been investigated. Three groups of factors show that the degree of income and market success of the enterprise increases with the level of investment in innovative activities. These are:  sources of financing and financing conditions as independent variables, and company's income revenues, as the dependent variable. Findings: Firms that use bank loans as financial instruments for innovation activities and investments are more likely to develop new products, methods and processes, and successfully increase their revenues and income based on developing this kind of added value. The findings indicate that tangible asset investment of SME’s is positively related to the use of bank finance, to new product development and to enterprise performance improvement. Contribution: Results of the research show that financial investments in business innovation directly contribute to the business sector performance improvement. It also demonstrates the theory of innovative enterprise, the significance of financing, and the impact of banking on the overall development of the economy. The results point to the need for further research in the area of​​ access to finance, as well as the parallel development of non-banking sources of financing.

Processes in the health sector include diagnostics, treatment, rehabilitation, prevention, education of patients, and all other interactions between qualified medical personnel and patients. Interpersonal processes pertain to the psychosocial aspect of said activities and include variables that describe communication, continuity, patient awareness, and the degree of patient involvement and influence the performance of health institutions in primary health care (PHC). The dimensions of importance for researching the influence of indicators of interpersonal processes on the performance of PHC organizations were identified, taking into account the underlying theory and specifics and characteristics of PHC. This paper studies the influence that patient-centeredness, as a dominant dimension that encompasses interpersonal processes, has on effectiveness, i.e., outcomes presented through health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Data on the factors of importance for this research subject were collected in the Republic of Serbia, while data analysis was carried out using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The research results show a complex relationship between indicators of interpersonal processes, highlight the importance of this group of processes for increasing the effectiveness of PHC organizations, and demonstrate the influence of interpersonal processes on the performance of PHC organizations.