The aim of this article is to determine the store (point of sale) which best fits to Slovak consumers. The purpose of the article is to relieve the usefulness and importance of the multi criteria methods of decision making used by Slovak traders to recognize which strategy to adopt to be able to meet the needs of consumers, to achieve the relevant turnover and to succeed in the competitive environment. In the article were used the methods of logical and comparative analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, description, excerption and multi criteria discrete methods. As two different methods were applied (TOPSIS and WSA) and the results were almost the same, the decision-maker can choose which one to use to organize its business activities.

Multi Criteria Models Used in Slovak Consumer Market for Business Decision Making

In recent years, huge efforts have been made to implement ICT innovations in the agricultural sector in order to increase its competitiveness. The question that can be posed is what depends on the successful implementation of ICT innovations among farmers. Numerous scientific papers were published with the purpose of identifying factors that affect acceptance of particular innovation by users. The aim of this paper was to determine whether the farmer innovativeness inﬂuences the acceptance and the degree of using the Internet and social media by farmer. Additionally, statistically significant correlation between the demographic factors of the farmers and their innovativeness was investigated. The research was conducted using survey method. Descriptive statistics, Correlation analysis using Pearson’s correlation coefficients and Chi-square test were used as statistical methods. Obtained results confirmed the initial hypotheses and based on that recommendations for the creation of a marketing strategy for introducing new ICT solutions in the fled of agriculture are made.

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Farmer innovativeness and its impact on internet and social media adoption

DOI: 10.14254/2071789X.2018/11-1/8 ABSTRACT. There is the need to integrate SMEs into the high-value Oil and Gas Sector to enhance socio-economic development of Ghana particularly Job creation and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. This study examined the impact of external business environment on SMEs willingness to invest in the Ghanaian oil and Gas Sector. Using binomial logistic regression analysis we analyzed primary data from 245 SMEs from Ghana during the periods between 2015-2016. The study found that SMEs that had ready access to finance, reliable electrical supply, required technical qualification, no competition from foreign companies, well informed on Oil and Gas investment opportunity were more likely to invest in Ghanaian oil and gas sector. We also find that corruption perception, political stability and training support in the capacity building had no significant influence on SMEs willingness to invest. We suggest that future studies should cover internal firm factors, perceived barriers as well as macro-level factors. Also, the study was limited to Ghanaian SMEs, future researchers may replicate this study in other oil-producing countries in Africa including; Nigeria, Uganda, Angola and South Africa.

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External Environment and SMEs Investment in The Ghanaian Oil and Gas Sector

The subject of paper is export competitiveness of food manufacturing of Republic of Serbia during the period 1996-2016. The analysis of export competitiveness was realised by using the following indicators: Revealed comparative advantage (RCA), Competitiveness growth index (RCA1), Index of net business performance (RCA2), Index of contribution to the trade balance (CTB), Grubel-Lloyd index (GLI) and Michaely index (MI). The results show that RCA values were positive in all years, which speaks of comparative advantage of this industry on the domestic market. Since the RCA1 values were higher than one, they revealed export competitiveness. The positive values of RCA2 during the period 2005-2016 bear witness of contribution of food manufacturing in foreign trade balance of Serbian economy. The average value of CTB index was 3.998 and its positive annual values showed that the contribution of food manufacturing in the total trade balance was positive. The change of GLI values pointed to the loss of ability of the sector to create surplus of national trade balance. Positive annual values of MI confirmed the competitiveness of food manufacturing, but also its insufficient specialization.

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Competitiveness of food manufacturing of republic of serbia

Agricultural loans present unutilized bank credit market segment in Serbia. This is not only missed profit opportunity for banks, but also serious deficiency that slows down the development of agriculture and rural areas. Paper uses FADN, NBS and bank balance sheet data in order to analyse supply and demand side of this credit market segment, with the aim to better understand the conditions for its development. Paper recommends better education of producers and lenders. Banks should better understand the requirements of agricultural producers and risks of the production to be able to create tailored credits. Insurance has very important role in specific risk hedging and can facilitate agricultural loans. There is also a need to adjust the conditions for obtaining subsidized loans, while the land size is considered as a key prerequisite for obtaining loans in the situation of large fragmentation of properties.

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The importance of bank credits for agricultural financing in serbia

Managing reserves of spare parts for agricultural machinery in agricultural farms represents one of the most important activities in securing smooth functioning, especially having in mind the imperative of continuous agricultural production. Aims of this study were to show how efficiency of the agricultural farms as a business subject can be secured by determining timely purchase of spare parts by using a stochastic model of supplies on one side and reduce the time of malfunction of agricultural machinery on the other. Study of optimal inventory level was conducted in agricultural holdings on the territory Banat in 2015 based on data on spare parts purchase and malfunction of agricultural machinery. Acquired data was related to frequency of defects and the need for spare parts, as well as the price of spare parts, where the data was processed with the use of stochastic model of supplies. The optimal number of spare parts for the observed equipment in the observed period was y*=4 with the probability of 85% that this amount of spare parts will be sufficient for all malfunctions on the equipment to be eliminated, while taking a 15% risk that one or two spare parts will be acquired with emergency procurements in case of extraordinary circumstances. The model of managing supplies represented in such a way provides an opportunity to be easily applied in agricultural farms, where the values of an optimal solution would be effectively got with previously chosen values of suitable parameters, thus minimizing total expected costs, which would include fxed costs, expenses caused by unsatisfied requests, where the time of waiting for the observed equipment to be fxed would be taken into account.

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Analysis of optimal costs for reserves of spare parts for agricultural machines

Increasing effciency during realization of procurements in the defence system imposes the requirement to analyse the market, in order to detect all of its characteristics and to make conclusions which would beneft during planning of budgetary assets by one comprehensive process. Procuring milk and milk products represents a signifcant part of defence system’s procurements which represents that a signifcant segment of the consumer standard of the Serbian Army, which implies the interest of authors to point to the signifcance of the concentration of the supply branch on the realization of procurements on the example of this market. The aim of this paper is to display the state and actual trends on the market of production and processing of milk, defne methodological framework and point to the intensity and terms of competition and their inﬂuence on procurement criteria, especially price in the defence system of the Republic of Serbia.

/pdf/economic-analysis-of-the-influence-of-milk-market-12354ljtug.pdf

Economic analysis of the influence of milk market concentration on procurement efficiency in the defense system

Contemporary capitalism, with all of its contradictions and variability of existence, dominates the present. Even though it retained its basic characteristics of classical capitalism, its peculiarity is present in socially-productive relations that are in mutual contradiction. Modern capitalism is still capitalism. The aim of this paper is to research the relationship between contemporary capitalism and sustainable economy and to give an answer what is necessary for those two to be connected.

/pdf/sustainability-of-the-economic-model-of-contemporary-economy-45sbh9iyrt.pdf

Sustainability of the economic model of contemporary economy

Business environments can be internal and external. In this paper you will see how external business environments affect business enterprises. They can affect business results positively or negatively. Empirical research was conducted on 60 companies in Serbia. The results show that the external environment is not influencing their businesses favorably. The most negative factors are political. In order to eliminate the negative impact of these factors, it is necessary for the government to take certain measures.

/pdf/influence-of-external-factors-on-business-of-companies-in-3hxvpr4k60.pdf

Influence of external factors on business of companies in Serbia

The role and content of the financial function can be seen through the identification of its tasks. They determine the volume and method of organization of the financial function in agricultural enterprises. Hierarchical priorities of tasks, their volume and complexity, the impact on business efficiency are just some aspects that affect its organization. Multi-criteria optimization methods can be used in choosing the organization and setting the model of job specialization within the organizational structure of the financial function of agricultural enterprises. By applying the individual methods that have been applied so far, not all requirements could be fully covered, so in this paper we applied a hybrid optimization model – DEMATEL TOPSIS. The DEMATEL method was used for obtaining the weighting coefficients of the criteria on the basis of which the evaluation of alternatives was performed. The selection of criteria for evaluating the model was based on the analysis of the available literature. Evaluation and selection of models was performed using a multi criteria method - TOPSIS. The paper presents the practical application and sensitivity analysis of the TOPSIS method.

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Milan Mihajlović

Papers

Analysis of optimal costs for reserves of spare parts for agricultural machines

Economic analysis of the influence of milk market concentration on procurement efficiency in the defense system

Sustainability of the economic model of contemporary economy

Influence of external factors on business of companies in Serbia

Application of quantitative models in the organization of the financial function of agricultural enterprises