Knowledge Hiding: One of the Primary Reasons behind the Rapid Spread of the Novel Coronavirus COVID-19

The world is battling out the pandemic of Covid-19. The World Health Organization (WHO) is jointly acting upon the same daily, which is evident from the ‘situation reports.’ The pandemic, which saw its origin in Wuhan, has spread across the world within a short span of under two months. While the pandemic has effectively instilled a situation of cordon sanitaire across the globe, the virus seems to show no respite. This study collates different sources and establishes the human tendency of knowledge hiding as the prime reason for the spread of such colossal magnitudes. The study underlines the notion by examining some of the critical cases and situations that have unfolded in the very recent past.

The Unprecedented Lockdown: The consequences of job loss

Various studies have analyzed employees’ perceptions with regards to voluntary turnover and very few studies have attempted to identify and assess the consequences of involuntary turnover on the employees. Thus, this study attempts at analyzing the consequences of any potential involuntary turnover on employees that can take place as a response to the economic crisis that will occur with the COVID-19 pandemic. Factors like role overload, job stress, occupational burnout and Work Family Conflict (WFC) has been identified as the resulting effects of any job losses. Significant and positive relationship was recorded among variables and the relationship between involuntary turnover and WFC and between job stress and WFC were rejected. The Conservation of Resources theory (COR) and the Spillover and Crossover theory were used to better understand the complexities of the matter. The limitations and future work prospects have also been discussed.

Determinants of the effective tax burden of companies in the Telecommunications activities in the Republic of Croatia

The aim of this paper is to identify the determinants of the effective tax burden of companies in the activity division Telecommunication in the Republic of Croatia. The research covers the time interval from 2008 to 2017. Dynamic panel analysis was used to conduct the research. Microeconomic data were obtained from the databases of the Financial Agency, and macroeconomic data from the Central Bureau of Statistics. The results indicate that the effective tax burden of companies in the activity division Telecommunication is affected by the effective tax burden from the previous period, company size, leverage, inventory intensity, profitability and economic cycle. While capital and labour intensity didn`t prove statistically significant. The main limitations of the research lie in the impossibility of generalizing the stated results to all companies from the observed activity, using only one evaluation model, and being a cabinet-type research, without confirmation of the results obtained by companies. The research received several scientific contributions: this is the first study of the determinants of the effective tax burden conducted in the Republic of Croatia; the research covers an entire activity whit different companies sizes, and not as in most previous research, which mainly include only large companies listed on the stock exchange; unlike previous studies that used a balanced sample, and in most cases static panel models, this study used an unbalanced sample and a dynamic panel model.

Platform Work as an Important New Form of Labour in Croatia

Recently, developments in digital technology have fuelled the emergence of online platforms that match the supply and demand of goods and services. In most European countries, platform work is still small, but it is strongly and rapidly developing. The types of work offered through platforms are ever-increasing, as are the challenges for existing regulatory frameworks. However, we still know very little about platform work, and there is a lack of understanding of the challenges regarding the working conditions and social protection of platform workers. Employers’ and employees’ organizations so far have no sharp solutions, and the Croatian government seems to prioritize other political issues. Although stakeholders are usually informed, the discussion about regulating platform employment and its possible widespread persistence has not started yet in the majority of EU countries. Particular attention in this paper is dedicated to the situation and determinants of platform work in Croatia.

Analytical approach to the influence of motivation on the dynamics of heterogeneous employees and expected average costs of efficient work

Motivating employees with different characteristics has a significant effect on company performance. This paper models the relationship between employer and heterogeneous employees working in pairs as a principal-agent problem. Every worker can encounter moral hazard with regard to the stimulation of the employer and the efficient work of co-workers. Employee behavior describes a reaction function based on which the equilibrium of appropriate pairs of employees and their overall effective performance is described. The employer determines the optimal stimulation that minimizes the expected average cost of effective work for each individual group of employees. The total expected average cost of efficient work of the entire company in the short run depends on the distribution of employees with different characteristics. How the attitude of employees towards work in the long run changes is described by replicative dynamics and shows that the stability of the employee population is achieved in two cases where the long-run total expected average cost of efficient work is differentiated by approximately eight percent. This paper describes a new conceptual framework for quantitative analysis of the effects of motivation on the short and long run financial results of an enterprise.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Organizational Performance: Mediating Role of Employee Job Satisfaction

The study assesses the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and organizational performance of the companies listed on Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE). It further investigates the mediating effects of employee satisfaction on the relationship between CSR and OP. The survey data was collected from 246 responses, comprising junior and senior staff, senior level managers who are in charge of the day-to-day running of the companies and they are in the position to provide adequate and sufficient information with regards to the companies. A SmartPLS (version 3.2.3) was used to analyse the data. The findings of the study show that CSR activities significantly and positively influence organizational performance. This influence is found to be pronounced especially when CSR activities are deliberately exercised toward internal stakeholders. A positive relationship was found between CSR and ESAT, while ESAT also influence OP positively.

The Influence of Formal and Informal Education on Students’ Sustainable Development Skills, a Study in Iran

This study aimed to understand the influence of formal and informal education on students’ sustainable development skills. A sample of 567 students studying Humanities, Agriculture, or Engineering at public universities of Iran participated in this study. A survey was used to investigate students’ skills for sustainable development according to different forms of education. Students’ sustainable development skills were assessed including: empathy, participatory skill, systems­thinking, creative thinking, and anticipatory thinking. The results indicated that students had a good level of skills for sustainable development. Differences and similarities were found on students’ skills by different forms of education and learning. The findings confirmed that education is useful to improve individuals’ skills for sustainable development and confirmed the key role of education for sustainable development in addressing sustainable future.

The Contraction of European Economic Distances through Sustainable Tourism in the Pre-Pandemic Period

The current importance of tourism leads us to analyze the extent to which the receipts from international tourism, and tourism in general, influence the capacity of European countries to reduce the development gaps of this sector in the European context and the extent to which the economic growth is sensitive to changes in tourist arrivals, tourism receipts and expenditures. Studying the GDP per capita and the receipts from international tourism for the period 1995-2017, we find that the European tourism has an important role in economy but secondary to capital stock and exports. The methodology used is a sensitivity analysis and a multiple linear regression with two models. The results show that, on short term, the gap in the European tourism sector is explained by the ability to attract income from the international tourism. The European growth of the tourism sector depends to a large extent on the amount of expenditures that tourists are making, on tourism receipts and, to a lesser extent, on tourist arrivals, but in all cases, the connection is a direct and positive one but, even so, the capital stock and the exports continue to play a very important role for the European economy. The analysis suggests that tourism is not a panacea for growth. On the contrary, it is one of the activities that stimulate growth along with investments, technology, or any other form of capital, together with exports and labor market conditions.

Do Exchange Rates Fluctuations Influence Gold Price in G7 Countries? New Insights from a Nonparametric Causality-in-Quantiles Test

In the recent era, gold is considered an essential investment source, a source of hedging inflation, and a medium of monetary exchange. The gold and exchange rate nexus become prominent after events like sovereign debt crisis, subprime mortgage crisis, low-interest rate problem, and global financial market solvency. These events attract the attention of researchers and academician for investigating the dynamics of the relationship between gold and exchange rates, and the majority of the studies discusses the linear dynamics, but the non-linear dynamics are ignored. Therefore, the current research investigates the non-linear dynamics of gold price and exchange rate relationship in G7 countries using the new technique named the nonparametric causality approach. This study uses monthly data from the years 1995(January)-2017 (March). The empirical results show that exchange rate return causes gold prices in four out of G7, especially at the low tails. This study also gives valuable insights for monetary policymakers, gold exporter’s international portfolio managers, and hedge fund managers.

Factors Influencing Organisational Buying Decisions in the Manufacturing Industry: Are Products and Services Procurement Different?

The paper explores factors influencing services procurement decision-making of manufacturing companies, and compares it to factors influencing products procurement decision-making. Data were gathered by survey among manufacturing companies and analysed by using exploratory factor analysis. The comparison between factors influencing services procurement and factors influencing products procurement is made by content analysis. Results prove that six distinct factors influence manufacturing companies when making services procurement decisions: interdepartmental communication, trust in service provider, service provider flexibility, buyer’s price sensitivity, top management support, and service provider competence. When compared to products procurement situation, it can be observed that some of the factors are influential in both purchasing situations, whereas other factors are not similarly important in both purchasing situations. The paper offers an insight to factors influencing buying decisions of manufacturing companies, that can help selling companies to better understand the differences in procurement processes of manufacturing companies in two buying situations: products procurement vs. services procurement.