THE PROFITABILITY DETERMINANTS OF THE GLOBAL PHARMACEUTICAL & BIOTECHNOLOGY COMPANIES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

In today's chaotic, complex, unpredictable, and extremely dynamic business environment, it is more than ever essential to operate in a way that will ensure sustainable operations and demand for companies’ goods or services. Employing contemporary corporate governance, advanced information technology, and adequate financial management are significant foundations for sustaining high profitability and adequate financial stability as crucial objectives that ensure adding value for companies' owners. Covid-19 is an excellent stress test for every entity, as for micro-companies, so for the largest multinational corporations. Nowadays, in the era of the world Covid-19 pandemic, companies challenge to maintain business operations and going concern assumption. However, in every crisis or adverse situation, some companies take enormous benefits of it. Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies can be characterized as the major players during this last, still actual crisis. Their role can be observed from two angles, first as a provider of necessary drugs for curing Covid-19 patients and from the other side, as a developer of effective and efficient vaccine which will ‘save the world’ and brought us back to the ‘old normal’. This paper seeks to investigate financial determinants that are the most significant for the profitability of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The question is how those companies coped with the Covid-19 crisis, and what is the impact on their profitability in 2020 compared to previous operating years? Another question is how is the development of the vaccine financed and are R&D expenses significantly increased in 2020? Therefore, the objective of the paper is to investigate the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the profitability of global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The research covers 52 entities on the global level for the period from 2010 to 2020. Data will be analysed by applying adequate panel data analysis and moderator regression analysis. Keywords: profitability ratios, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, Covid-19

THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES ON TAX EVASION

Measurement of an economic indicator or phenomenon starts by defining it first and determining its components. Tax evasion as a component of the underground economy is a phenomenon that is hard to be observed and estimated because of its hidden nature. To be able to compare the figures for tax evasion from different countries, there is the need for a definition internationally accepted. This paper aims to make a literature review on the phenomenon and to find a definition that is widely accepted. In this area, not only the literature review is important but also the legislation from different countries. We will look closely at the definition of tax evasion given by the legislation of different countries from the EU and the USA. In the literature, there are several methods to estimate the underground economy. There are direct methods (questionnaire), indirect methods (indicator methods), and statistical methods (MIMIC), but all of them have their shortcomings. In the paper, all the shortcomings of each method used in the present are discussed to estimate the underground economy. As a conclusion, we can state that at the present moment there is not a definition internationally accepted for the underground economy, making it hard to estimate and to compare the results from different countries. In addition, the methods used to estimate the phenomenon have advantages and disadvantages. None of the methods is better than the other. When estimating the underground economy, it is advised to use more than one method. At this moment it is safe to say that the link between theory and empirical estimation is still unsatisfactory. Keywords: tax evasion, underground economy

THE CHALLENGE FOR ECONOMICS FROM THE NEW “DIGITAL” ECONOMY: SHARING AND COLLABORATIVE ECONOMY THROUGH THE “PLATFORMS NEOCAPITALISM” OF THE 21ST CENTURY

The so-called collaborative or sharing economy constitutes a multifaceted concept of increasing relevance and evolving in definition that will constitute the focus of our study. This article is presented methodologically as a macro-synthesis of the main trends of the economy, from its local and global spheres, in the convergence that can be glimpsed from the new phenomenon that we are dealing with of neo-capitalism based essentially on digital platforms and media. Some have already advanced it as turbo-capitalism or capitalism 3.0, in increasing expansion from the analysis of massive data from digital platforms. The resulting greater efficiency of decentralization and heterogeneity can be exploited by communities. We claim the need to support the constitution of public support that can constitute the response of the government to the multiple new challenges posed by what we are calling as “platform neocapitalism”, which dilutes countries in a planetary and accelerated scale, unimaginable at the beginning of the present 21st century. Keywords: sharing economy, digital platforms, collaborative economy

THE PRACTICE OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT BEHAVIOURS IN MANUFACTURING COMPANIES WITH ISO 9001

Continuous improvement gained much attention in the literature as one of the principles in total quality management and practice under methodologies such as Lean or Six Sigma. Continuous improvement in organizations represents a comprehensive process that includes involvement of all people on all organizational levels to make improvements throughout the whole organization. Therefore, building and sustaining the organizational CI capability through practicing the CI behaviours leads to achieving better efficiency, effectiveness and business results of the organization. Also applying CI behaviours leads to change in organizational culture which is, in the long run, oriented toward making every day continuous improvements. The purpose of this paper is to present which CI behaviours can be developed in organization and measured according to the Bessant's evolutionary model of continuous improvement behaviour. Also, the goal of the research is to present based on the conducted research, the state of CI practice regarding adopted CI behaviours which will be presented as the development level of CI behaviours that researched manufacturing companies in Croatia with ISO 9001 certificate, have. Keywords: continuous improvement behaviours, kaizen, model

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR MATERIAL AND INFORMATION FLOW OPTIMISATION IN NATURAL GAS SUPPLY CHAIN

Natural gas is third most used fossil fuel and energy resource in the world, with significant increase in its consumption over last 20 years. As a consequence, research in optimisation of its supply chain processes are becoming increasingly significant. This paper aims to develop conceptual framework for material and information flow optimisation in natural gas supply chain and suggests its future use. Based on previous researches on mapping natural gas supply chain, bullwhip effect in natural gas supply chain and simulation models in natural gas supply chain, paper proposes new conceptual framework for material and information flow optimisation in natural gas supply chain. Results of implementation of this framework in natural gas supply chain of Republic of Croatia are presented with all suggestions for improvement explained. Keywords: natural gas supply chain, simulation model, bullwhip effect

THE IMPACT OF OIL PRICES ON INVESTMENT IN CROATIA

If we look at economic growth as a function of labour and capital then, aside from the labour force, investment is a key determinant of capital accumulation and, accordingly, a prerequisite for economic growth and prosperity. During the analysed period (1996:Q1-2015:Q4) investment in Croatia demonstrated pro-cyclically behaviour but showed a higher level of fluctuation then personal consumption or GDP. The aim of the paper is to examine the influence of oil prices on investment during the analysed period using Vector Autoregression (VAR) analysis and to determine the nature of their relationship by permuting four different oil price indicators. The results indicate that investment initially react positively to the growth of oil prices after which their reaction to oil price growth becomes negative (and more pronounced than the initial positive reaction). Contribution of oil price changes to investment fluctuations were also found. Keywords: investment, oil prices

ACCOMMODATION AND FOOD SERVICES SUPPLY CHAINS: AN INPUT-OUTPUT METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

The ratio of direct tourism gross value added to internal tourism consumption varies substantially from country to country. The paper aims to analyze these differences stemming from the variation and structure of their supply chains. The analysis is based on a comparative analysis of the input-output tables of France, Italy, Spain and Croatia in 2005, 2010 and 2015 published by the OECD. The analysis is performed in three steps. In the first step, an analysis based on a technical coefficient matrix is made of the structure of accommodation and food service industries supply chains in four Mediterranean countries. The second step includes the calculation of the industry’s direct import dependence. The third step compares the effects of backward linkages of inputs. Results provide an insight into the factors that determine the different abilities of economies to generate added value and indicate the possibility of increasing the added value of tourism without increasing its physical volume. Keywords: Accommodation and food services, input-output tables, supply chain

DEFINITIONS AND MEASURES OF WORKPLACE LEARNING AND JOB SATISFACTION IN THE CONTEXT OF INDUSTRY 4.0

People obtain more knowledge, information and skills on the job market. Thus, the management of human resources is being more crucial for every organization. The concept of workplace learning is becoming an essential factor for businesses success, especially in the times of crisis. It helps companies to stay competitive on the market and helps them to respond promptly to the challenges caused by rapid changes due to the fourth industry revolution. The concept of “Industry 4.0” represents the fast gains of developed technologies and applications in industries that help with increasing the productivity, but also require the employees to continuously improve and learn in order to be able to integrate with new technological improvements. However, different authors have different definitions of what job satisfaction really is. It is an extensively researched yet a barely understood phenomenon in organizations. Job satisfaction yields to subjective perception of how one feels about work. Thus, various factors, both external and internal, are associated with it. This paper aims to provide the definitions and reviews of active workplace learning measures used in empirical studies in human resource development and most commonly used measures for job satisfaction. The research paper can provide organizations and practitioners with the information on different approaches that can be used to measure and identify employees’ preferences and to help them find a way to satisfy their workers and keep them at their side in this fast-changing work environment. Keywords: workplace learning measurement, job satisfaction measurement, industry 4.0

DE JURE HARMONIZATION OF FINANCIAL REPORTING FOR LISTED COMPANIES: EVIDENCE FOR SELECTED CEE COUNTRIES

Globalization of business and free flow of capital resulted in strong demand for comparable financial reports worldwide. An important element of achieving de facto harmonization of financial reporting is de jure harmonization, i.e. harmonization of regulatory requirements on the country level. Although more than 100 countries have a requirement for use of IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) for listed companies, de facto harmonization is still an ongoing process. De facto harmonization is affected by many influential factors, among which de jure harmonization represents one of the most important factors. For the purpose of the study, the authors developed an index of de jure harmonization (IDJH) based on the EU regulatory framework and evaluated its value for 5 CEE countries (Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Slovenia and Serbia). Empirical findings reveal significant differences in de jure harmonization, related to the country's status in relation to EU integration processes. Keywords: de jure harmonization, financial reporting, CEE countries

CURRENT CHALLENGES ON THE INTERNATIONAL REINSURANCE MARKET

The aim of this paper is to present the analysis of the international reinsurance market. After we have made a literature review, we highlighted a brief history of it and then a brief analysis of the main actors operating in the international reinsurance market. Following this analysis, a top of reinsurance companies was made, then a classification and also the current challenges faced by the global reinsurance market, the Covid-19 crisis, were presented. We have studied the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the companies mentioned before as being part of the top ranking. The results of the study showed that the crisis had a major impact, destabilizing the reinsurance market. Keywords: reinsurance, international market, pandemic