Ivana Marinović Matović’s scientific contributions

After the downfall of socialist regimes, human resource management systems in transition countries like Serbia were transformed, establishing entirely new employee compensation system. In this paper, the most common benefits and perks in the Serbian financial sector, as well as their significance for the employee satisfaction are explored, with the focus on the effectiveness of its structure. The investigation of differences in impact of benefits and perks on employee satisfaction is performed with respect to gender, education, age, and job position of the respondents. The empirical research is conducted by a survey questionnaire. Results suggest that there are no differences in employee satisfaction between respondents of different genders, and education, while partial differences in employee satisfaction are confirmed with respect to age, and job position. The results indicate that benefits and perks in Serbian financial sector should be better structured, and provide guidelines for the investigation of more favorable total compensation package.

Work motivation represents powerful tool that influence employees’ behaviour to contribute to organizational business success. Motivating managers is particularly complex issue since they intent to use employees’ abilities to the full extent, while they themselves need to be motivated. Many factors influencing manager motivation need to be considered in order to tailor compensation systems to the managers’ needs and expectations. This study investigates the impact of several factors: manager’s gender, age and education on creating an effective compensation package, including the right proportion of its key components: base salary, short and long term incentives, benefits and perks. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted among managers employed in the Serbian banking sector (sample size was 87). Results showed that base salary and short-term incentives had a stronger positive impact on work performance motivation of managers, while benefits, perks, and long-term incentives were weaker motivators. Women were found to be more motivated with base salary and benefits than men, regardless of their age and education. When investigating the motivational impact of different benefits, the analysis revealed age-differences in subsample of female managers, implying that digital tools are more powerful motivators of women over the age of 45. The study is aimed to assist decision-makers to consider different aspects of motivation when developing compensation models for a certain subgroups of managers, giving the emphasis to the strengths and weaknesses of each compensation component.

The crisis caused by coronavirus pandemic has led to major operational changes in manufacturing industry organizations. These organizations have faced the challenges of reducing or suspending the production process, due to restrictions imposed by the state, due to declining demand for their products, as well as due to the fact that their employees cannot do jobs remotely. Focusing on manufacturing industry in the Republic of Serbia, the paper investigates the problems faced by organizations in this sector after the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic. Secondly, the paper examines the impact of Covid-19 crisis on various segments of their business, and the measures these organizations have taken to meet the major challenges that need to be addressed quickly. Finally, recommendations for successful crisis management in manufacturing industry organizations in the Republic of Serbia are derived. Recommendations include alternative tactics and innovative management concepts for overcoming problems, for survival, and preparing for economically viable operations of manufacturing industry organizations after the Covid-19 crisis

Accepting and approaching to global business as an economic development model implies growing variety of business risks. Competition in the global market is increasing, and demands for entrepreneurs to further adapt, and transform their business digitally, are high. Managing the global business environment risks is becoming imperative for organizations that are operating in the global market. Further development of global business, as well as the challenges facing global organizations, will be explored in this paper through the analysis of recent works in the field of geoeconomics and global business. The subject of the paper is to describe the current state and development of global business environment, dominated by the need and ability to jointly create products of global economy by inclusion of world resources. The aim of the paper is to investigate, through the available scientific research, the current conditions for creating global products using common global resources, and to analyse the environmental risks of new global business model in the first quarter of 21st century. The paper examines the challenges that entrepreneurs face in the global business environment, and focuses on the specific business risks typical for entrepreneurs. The conclusion of the paper will provide further guidance to empirically determine the development of global products in the Republic of Serbia by offering its specific resources, thereby making the entrepreneurship in the Republic of Serbia more actively involved in new global business model. Keywords: business environment, global business, geoeconomics, risk management, entrepreneurship