The objective of this research is to show an innovative way for processing the collected data and measurement of practice and performances of supply chain by means of transformation of the obtained linguistic values, using the appropriate fuzzy methods, into crisp values of research variable dimensions. The methodology was applied for the measurement of the influence of an independent supply chain practice variable on the dependent supply chain performance variable and the research included the food industry companies. In order to apply the multivariate analysis methods, it is necessary to have the dimensions of the variable, but not the claims. Fuzzy logic enables the weighting of each claim and determining its weight, and determining the research variable dimension value in order to be able to use the multivariate analysis methods. The use of this methodology enables realistic evaluation of the dimensions and the results obtained show a statistically significant influence proving to be suitable for further testing using various statistical methods. The hypotheses about the relationships between supply chain practices and supply chain performances are confirmed.

The goal of this study is to empirically examine the potential impact of supply chain practices on the supply chain performances of the agro-food industry. The constructs of interest are three-dimensional, including supplier partnerships, customer relationships and level and quality of information sharing, thus representing supply chain practices, flexibility, agility and innovation as the main characteristics of supply chain performance. To gain better understanding of the possible impact of the supply chain practices on the supply chain performances of the agro-food industry we use structural equation modelling. The analysis has revealed statistically significant positive impact of customers’ relationships as well as statistically significant negative impact of a supplier partnership on the supply chain performance. From a theoretical point of view, this study has indicated contribution of different supply chain practices on supply chain performances. The results obtained from this study provide practical implications that assist managers in improving supply chain performance and highlight limitations for implementation of supply chain practice for the improvement of business operations.

Since banks and insurance companies are financial institutions dealing with risks in various aspects of their business, it is important to make a general approach to the issue of risk and risk management from the perspective of these institutions. In that regard, we made a short overview of the risks these institutions are faced to as well as the methods they use for risk assessments. In order to limit our research to specific financial markets, we provided the basic characteristics of bank and insurance markets of Southeastern Europe (SEE), presenting the core indicators of development level of these markets and their legal and institutional environment related to new regulation proposed in Europe. We analyzed the level of implementation of Basel and Solvency risk assessment standards in these countries and tried to anticipate direction(s) where these markets are going to move in the coming period.

The need for companies' interconnection and advantages of mutual business cooperation led to the development of supply chain management in the 1980s. Along with the intensified market globalization process, companies have become aware of the need to...

The Western Balkan countries are characterised by a long period of transition to the market economy followed by their intention to integrate into the European Union. There are many benefits encouraging them to integrate and, in this paper, we are going to show the impact of the integration into the European Union on their financial services market, with the focus on the insurance market. Building the higher level of competitiveness through the legal and institutional standardisation will result in development of the insurance markets of these countries in many aspects. The best way to see it is to look at correlation between their level of integration into the European Union and the level of the insurance market development they reached.