This study explores how small family wineries in the Croatian Split-Dalmatia County integrate social media into their marketing and business strategies, focusing on the interplay between tradition, family identity, and digital innovation. Utilising a qualitative methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with winery owners to explore their use of social media platforms, their sales and distribution strategies, and their perceptions of Croatia’s EU membership. The results show that social media, particularly Facebook and Instagram, serve as highly personalised, low-cost marketing tools, predominantly managed by younger family members and used to convey authenticity, family heritage, and local identity. Despite limited resources and professional marketing expertise, these wineries take an intuitive, do-it-yourself approach and rely on direct customer relationships, storytelling, and experiential offerings to drive loyalty. While EU membership is generally seen as beneficial for tourism and funding opportunities, bureaucratic complexity remains a significant obstacle. This study highlights the importance of leveraging cultural heritage for digital content and emphasises the need for targeted policy support to improve digital competencies and reduce administrative barriers. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how family-run SMEs can gain and sustain competitive advantage by blending tradition with digital marketing practices in a rapidly evolving business environment.

This research was designed in order to investigate the role of important individual and situational factors in shaping entrepreneurial intentions of young adults in the Republic of Croatia. For that purpose, a survey was conducted on the sample of 257 young adults using a questionnaire. In order to test the proposed hypotheses stating that there are statistically significant differences in young adults’ entrepreneurial intentions regarding demographic factors (gender, age, and level of education), prior entrepreneurial exposure, and the perception of prior entrepreneurial exposure, a statistical analysis was performed using the Mann–Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis tests. Overall, the results give partial support for the hypothesis regarding demographic factors and prior entrepreneurial exposure and full support for the hypothesis regarding the perception of prior entrepreneurial exposure. Additionally, CHAID method classification was applied in order to fully grasp the relationship between entrepreneurial intentions and the analyzed factors, and the results clearly indicate that the perception of prior entrepreneurial exposure can be seen as a single best predictor of entrepreneurial intentions.

A stream of research available in the literature focuses on startup success factors, although there is a lack of consensus in determining what these factors are. In general, there are two critical groups of success factors, organizational and entrepreneurial, both considered to be integral parts of internal startup environment. Since the perception of early-stage (incubation stage) and growth stage (post incubation stage) startup entrepreneurs differ significantly they tend to perceive important success factors distinctively. As a result, attributes of success differ considerably. This paper aims at capturing internal startup environment as it is considered to be crucial in shaping startup’s success in contrast to external environment that is more remote and (usually) not manageable. Primary data were collected using an online survey questionnaire and quantitative approach was used; data were analysed using descriptive statistics and Mann-Whitney U test. The final research sample consisted of 70 startups and the findings indicate that the perception of internal environment and its contribution to overall success differs significantly from the perspective of early-stage and growth stage startup entrepreneurs. Out of analysed internal factors, statistically significant differences were identified for prior experience in starting the company and self-confidence (individual’s/entrepreneur’s category factors) and internal startup organization and team-level competencies (organizational category factors). The contribution of this research is evident in identifying important internal factors that determine startup’s success (that aspiring startup founders can benefit from) and providing an insight into the startup community in Croatia, thus contributing to a scarce empirical literature on the topic available. Limitations of the research include sample size and subjective assessment of the success factors, so recommendations for future research include repeating the research on a larger sample, covering the international level and widening a set of key-performance indicators that can be assessed at a higher level of rigour with objective metrics.

Despite its great importance as a crucial aspect of organizational culture, organizational ethics and the implementation of ethics initiatives at all levels of the organization are still largely misunderstood or even neglected, not only in the business world but also in academia. Given the role of universities in educating young people for the labour market and future jobs, the translation of defined and proclaimed ethical policies, norms, and formal documents into desirable ethical behaviours by individuals, departments, and faculties is a sine qua non requirement for any university. This is especially true in less developed countries and emerging economies where the challenge of creating an ethical environment in organizations, corporate or otherwise is even greater. The main goal of the paper is to explore the interrelationship between formalized ethical policies and initiatives and demonstrated ethical behaviours at the organizational level, as well as to further investigate their role in shaping ethical behaviours of academic staff and, subsequently, ethical behaviours of students in an academic setting in a transitional economy. To achieve this goal, empirical research was conducted in 2021 using a specially designed questionnaire on a sample of 115 employees from one of the leading universities in Croatia. A moderated mediation model was designed and the analysis was conducted using PROCESS macro v4.0 for SPSS. The obtained results suggest that the effectiveness of standalone formalized ethical policies and initiatives is questionable in shaping ethical behaviours of academic staff, whereas these policies and initiatives in conjunction with actually demonstrated high ethical behaviours at the organizational level positively influence the ethical behaviours of academic staff. Moreover, the demonstrated ethical behaviours of academic staff plays an important mediating role in the positive impact of formalized ethical policies and initiatives on student ethical behaviours. In fact, demonstrated high ethical behaviour at the organizational level contribute positively to the indirect effects in this model. These and other findings of the research contribute to the relevant literature by providing additional confirmation of the importance of moving beyond formal ethics-related documents to actually demonstrated ethical behaviours in shaping ethical behaviours of individuals, in this case, university employees and students.

Family business is the most common form of business worldwide. Despite the acknowledged importance of family business in the Croatian economy, there are still no formal and reliable statistics on the national level available regarding the prevalence and impact of this ownership structure. However, it is assumed that family businesses in Croatia employ over half of the total workforce and that the majority of small companies are family-owned. Most of the family-owned companies are still first-generation family firms, owned and managed by the founders but transition processes are taking root. Since the very survival of a family business, continuity, and success depend on the transition process, a substantial body of literature focuses on the transition process and factors that will facilitate a successful transition. Therefore, this paper aims to contribute to the existing body of literature by providing a deeper understanding of the transition process specificities in Croatian family-owned companies. In this paper, we analyze differences in the perception of factors relevant to the success of the transition process on the convenience sample of Croatian family-owned companies. The sample included first-generation and second-generation owners and a questionnaire was used as the primary data collection instrument. The results of the statistical analysis show that there are significant differences in the perception of factors relevant to the success of the transition process from the founders' and successors' point of view.

Background/Purpose: An ongoing problem of the ethical transgression of students poses a fundamental threat to the functioning of higher education institutions and translates to their behaviour in the future workplace. The aim of the paper is to examine the relationship between the academic context in higher education institutions in a transitional society and students’ ethical behaviour. Methods: Two-source empirical research was conducted using samples of 235 students and 112 faculty and administrative staff from 12 higher education institutions in Croatia. Data on the ethical infrastructure of higher education institutions and the ethical behaviour of students and employees were collected from both groups. Descriptive statistics were used to provide insights into various aspects of the academic context and the characteristics of students’ and employees’ ethical behaviour. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationships between the academic context and the ethical behaviour of students and employees. Results: Perceptions of students and employees differed on a number of aspects of the academic context in their higher education institutions, while the formal ethical framework, individual-level ethics, and witnessing and sanctioning of unethical behaviour are found to be the factors that play a role in shaping students’ ethical behaviour. Students enrolled in natural sciences-related programmes are less susceptible to the effects of academic context than those studying programmes in other scientific fields. Conclusion: The current state of academic context at higher education institutions in a typical transitional society leaves considerable room for improvement in developing ethical infrastructure and promoting a culture of academic integrity and ethical values. Translating the ‘words’ into ‘actions’ at both organisational and individual levels is a primary goal for these institutions to establish an effective ethical framework and culture, and to be perceived as ethical by their stakeholders.