IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/isv/jouijm/v3y2014i1p23-42.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Role of Serbian Higher Business Education in Overcoming the Challenges of SME Managers

Author

Listed:
  • Maja Kocevar

    (Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, Austria)

  • Dietmar Sternad

    (Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, Austria)

Abstract

In this exploratory study, in-depth interviews with Serbian managers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were conducted to identify their main work-related challenges and the extent to which formal higher business education has helped them to overcome these challenges. Serbian SME managers find the main challenges to be related to HR- and marketing-related issues, followed by country-specific problems, such as dealing with bureaucracy, difficulties in obtaining financial resources, and coping with delayed payments. They see considerable deficits in the current system of higher business education, specifically referring to a lack of practice-oriented teaching methods and insufficient cooperation between the universities and the business sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Maja Kocevar & Dietmar Sternad, 2014. "The Role of Serbian Higher Business Education in Overcoming the Challenges of SME Managers," International Journal of Management, Knowledge and Learning, International School for Social and Business Studies, Celje, Slovenia, vol. 3(1), pages 23-42.
    • Handle: RePEc:isv:jouijm:v:3:y:2014:i:1:p:23-42
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.issbs.si/press/ISSN/2232-5697/3_23-42.pdf
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David E. Terpstra & Philip D. Olson, 1993. "Entrepreneurial Start-up and Growth: A Classification of Problems," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 17(3), pages 5-20, April.
    2. Sorin Visinescu & Dan Micuda, 2009. "CHALENGES FACED BY EU SMEs IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS," Romanian Economic Business Review, Romanian-American University, vol. 4(3), pages 187-198, September.
    3. Neil Tocher & Matthew W. Rutherford, 2009. "Perceived Acute Human Resource Management Problems in Small and Medium Firms: An Empirical Examination," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 33(2), pages 455-479, March.
    4. Anton Jamnik, 2011. "The challenges of business ethics - management and the question of ethics," Tourism and Hospitality Management, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management, vol. 17(1), pages 141-152, May.
    5. International Finance Corporation & World Bank, 2012. "Doing Business 2012 : Doing Business in a More Transparent World," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 5907.
    6. DeMartino, Richard & Barbato, Robert, 2003. "Differences between women and men MBA entrepreneurs: exploring family flexibility and wealth creation as career motivators," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 815-832, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Clara Cardone-Riportella & María José Casasola-Martinez & Isabel Feito-Ruiz, 2014. "Do Entrepreneurs Come From Venus Or Mars? Impact Of Postgraduate Studies: Gender And Family Business Background," Working Papers 14.04, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Financial Economics and Accounting (former Department of Business Administration), revised Sep 2014.
    2. repec:elg:eechap:15325_21 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. R. Sandra Schillo & Ajax Persaud & Meng Jin, 2016. "Entrepreneurial readiness in the context of national systems of entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 619-637, April.
    4. Marco Caliendo & Daniel Rodríguez, 2024. "Divergent thinking and post-launch entrepreneurial outcomes: non-linearities and the moderating role of experience," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 62(4), pages 1523-1553, April.
    5. Rana Basu & Dhrubes Biswas, 2013. "A Study On Indian Higher Educational Institute Based Business Incubators," Journal of Enterprising Culture (JEC), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 21(02), pages 199-225.
    6. Wickramasinghe, Vathsala, 2022. "The relationship between formalization of HRM function and HRM intensity in SMEs: An empirical investigation in Sri Lanka," Small Business International Review, Asociación Española de Contabilidad y Administración de Empresas - AECA, vol. 6(2), pages 529-529, December.
    7. Mohamed Ali Marouani & Rim Mouelhi, 2016. "Contribution of Structural Change to Productivity Growth: Evidence from Tunisia," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 25(1), pages 110-132.
    8. James Alm, 2015. "Analyzing and Reforming Tunisia's Tax System," Working Papers 1515, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    9. Zahoor, Nadia & Zopiatis, Anastasios & Adomako, Samuel & Lamprinakos, Grigorios, 2023. "The micro-foundations of digitally transforming SMEs: How digital literacy and technology interact with managerial attributes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    10. Aidis, Ruta & Wetzels, Cécile, 2007. "Self-Employment and Parenthood: Exploring the Impact of Partners, Children and Gender," IZA Discussion Papers 2813, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Rupal Chowdhary & Seema Jhala & Ankit Walia & Rashmi Badjatya, 2018. "Kiddie Junction: The Challenges Ahead," FIIB Business Review, , vol. 7(2), pages 100-104, June.
    12. Azmat Gani & Almukhtar Saif Al-Abri, 2013. "Indicators of business environment, institutional quality and foreign direct investment in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4), pages 515-530, July.
    13. George R. Clarke, 2013. "The Rise of Asia: The 'Flying Geese' Theory of Tandem Growth and Regional Agglomeration by Terutomo Ozawa," The International Trade Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 105-107, March.
    14. Michele Benvenuti & Luca Casolaro & Elena Gennari, 2014. "Metrics of Innovation: Measuring the Italian Gap," Politica economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 1, pages 5-50.
    15. Eugen Dimant & Guglielmo Tosato, 2018. "Causes And Effects Of Corruption: What Has Past Decade'S Empirical Research Taught Us? A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 335-356, April.
    16. Toman Barsbai & Hillel Rapoport & Andreas Steinmayr & Christoph Trebesch, 2017. "The Effect of Labor Migration on the Diffusion of Democracy: Evidence from a Former Soviet Republic," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 36-69, July.
    17. Ana Tur-Porcar & Alicia Mas-Tur & José Antonio Belso, 2017. "Barriers to women entrepreneurship. Different methods, different results?," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 51(5), pages 2019-2034, September.
    18. Dautzenberg, Kirsti & Müller-Seitz, Gordon, 2011. "Technologieorientierte Unternehmensgründungen als Männerdomäne?," Die Unternehmung - Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 65(3), pages 238-262.
    19. repec:dau:papers:123456789/13410 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Kaoru Hosono & Miho Takizawa, 2012. "Do Financial Frictions Matter as a Source of Misallocation? Evidence from Japan," Discussion papers ron246, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan.
    21. Emenalo, Chukwunonye O. & Gagliardi, Francesca, 2020. "Is current institutional quality linked to legal origins and disease endowments? Evidence from Africa," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:isv:jouijm:v:3:y:2014:i:1:p:23-42. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alen Ježovnik (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.issbs.si .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.