The aspiration of this study was to examine the impact of foreign direct investments (FDI) and economic growth on environmental degradation in the Balkans for the period 1998–2019. Balkan countries were classified into two groups, high income countries (HIC) and upper-middle income countries (UMIC). Thus, two hypotheses have been set. The effect of FDI on environmental degradation was observed through pollution haven hypothesis (PHH). To examine that connection, we used Pearson correlation for all countries, HIC and UMIC. Furthermore, the impact of economic growth on environmental degradation was tested through the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis. For that purpose, polynomial linear regression was applied. In order to examine the dependence of environmental degradation in relation to all predictors in the model, a multivariate linear regression was used. PHH was confirmed in Serbia, Albania, Croatia, Romania, and Bulgaria, the Balkans as a whole, and HIC, and the EKC hypothesis was rejected. This paper represents a contribution to a very scarce number of studies regarding the impact of FDI and economic growth on the environment in the Balkans, as a whole. The results of this study can be useful to policy makers in the terms of inducting stricter environmental rules.

Our paper analyzes close collaboration between a manufacturer of domestic appliances and consumer electronics and its customers. It reflects on the inclusion of open innovation by users that is presented in the paper on the case of the development of the refrigerator door handle, with an emphasis on design and functionality. The main research question we wanted to answer was whether a buyer (customer/consumer) might actively participate in the process of a new product development. It was interesting to test it in a highly dynamic industry setup since white goods are becoming an integral part of consumers’ life style and not just a mere home appliances used for routine housekeeping tasks. Research sample includes 146 respondents. We applied the conjoint analysis and quality function deployment (QFD) in order to test and understand how customers perceive the different attributes of a new product development process.

This study examines the level of implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in the personalization of hotel services and its impact on guest satisfaction through an analysis of tourists’ attitudes and behaviors The focus of the research is on how personalized recommendations for food and beverages, activities, and room services, delivered by trustworthy AI systems, digital experience, and the perception of privacy and data security, influence overall guest satisfaction. The research was conducted in Serbia and Hungary, using structural models to assess and analyze direct and indirect effects. The results show that AI personalization significantly contributes to guest satisfaction, with mediating variables such as trust in AI systems and technological experience playing a key role. A comparative analysis highlights differences between Hungary, a member of the European Union, and Serbia, a country in transition, shedding light on specific regulatory frameworks and cultural preferences in these countries.

This article provides guidelines for optimizing organizational management styles and achieving a balance between life and work. Contributing to sustainable human development will contribute to the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development. The main purpose of the paper is to determine the relations between the preferences of management styles, working styles and lifestyles, and exposure to stress in the managerial population in order to achieve harmonization. A correlation study was conducted on a sample of 618 subjects using the Blanchard test of situational leadership, the Four-Dimensional Symptom Questionnaire for determining the stress levels, the modified Allport–Vernon–Lindsay Scale of Values, and Julie Hay’s Working Styles Questionnaire. The paper provides insight into the contribution of management styles to the balance of private and professional areas of life, as well as to stress reduction in managers.

Transformational leadership links creative thinking, persistence and energy, intuition and the sense for people's need for organizational culture. It strives for innovation and expresses the sense for vision and meaning. Literature analysis in this field is followed by the research that examines transformational leadership and its coherence with an organisational culture in the international service company operating in Serbia. The participants in his research have perceived the role culture as primary, particularly the culture of rules and procedures. This culture is suitable to people that expect security at work, which could be the main goal in the particular company, having in mind that work instability and insecurity have been a common denominator in the past three decades. However, if a company wants to be innovative, it would have to put more effort into transformational leadership that could not be thoroughly examined in this study. Suggestions for further investigation are given at the end of this study, lack of instruments for investigations are pointed out, with an idea for improvements.

Human resource management (HRM) is directed to managing human potentials of a company in order to achieve organizational goals, and at the same time, goals of employees. One of the very important part of this process is training and development, as a group of activities aimed at improving employees knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA), in order to be more successful in job, but also with the aim of creating a base for further development of an organization as a whole. The main aim of the research was to explore the effects of investment in employees' development, measured by number of training days and percentage of operating costs invested in development and training, on the level of organizational productivity and service quality. The subject of the research is the relationship between two main indicators of employees' development program, and organizational level productivity and service quality. The methodology used in the research obtained the application of two-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) on the data from 160 companies from one Southeast European country, gathered during 2015 and 2016. The results indicated that there is an interaction effect between training costs and number of training days on the combined dependent variables, productivity and service quality in the observed organizations.