Purpose: The growing popularity of green bonds has sparked an ongoing debate about their real impact on the environment. The idea behind green bonds is that they provide environmental benefits, such ...as a reduction in carbon emissions, by financing environmentally friendly projects. The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between green bond issuance and CO2 emissions in the EU-27 from 2013 to 2017 to determine the validity of this theory.
Methodology: Data on green Eurobonds issued in the EU-27 and CO2 emissions in the EU-27 were collected from 2013 to 2017 using the Refinitiv Eikon database. Descriptive statistics and linear correlation were used to investigate the association between green Eurobonds issued and CO2 emissions per capita in the EU-27.
Results: The study found that while green bond issuance increased dramatically, from EUR 5 billion in 2013 to EUR 75 billion in 2017, there was only a small decrease in total and per capita CO2 emissions of 3.7% and 4.6%, respectively. Moreover, no significant relationship was found between them.
Conclusions: The results suggest that while an increase in green bond issuance indicates a trend toward more sustainable investments, it does not necessarily lead to a proportional decrease in CO2 emissions. Therefore, further research is needed to better understand the association between green bond issuance and carbon emissions and to identify the underlying factors that may influence this relationship.
Since today's dynamic and competitive business environment increasingly requires additional level of competence, the project manager is, certainly, a profession whose value and demand is growing. As ...to reach the project objective, the project manager should have an adequate education, which is the reason why the corporations, especially in the Information Technology (IT) industry, are among leaders in investment to project management education and certification. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the identification and understanding of the project management education model in Croatia and explore possibilities for its improvements, especially in the field of the project management in the IT industry. For that reason, through 2018 and 2019, authors conducted the research on availability of project management education programs in Croatia, opportunities for international certification as well as attitudes of the project management professionals in IT sector on the existing education model. The study suggests that there is a growing trend of project managers’ certification, especially in the IT industry, as well as a variety of informal programs for project management education. Simultaneously, there is a lack of project management university study programs. Empirical results show that project management study programs lack the practical segment and are, in most cases, offering only fundamental theoretical knowledge. Therefore, authors, on the basis of the literature review and analysis of IT sector needs assessment, provide recommendations of the domains, to be included into future university study programs.
Cultural institutions and businesses (CIBs) in Croatia are facing financial challenges due to the recent economic crisis and limited state support, as well as the growth of competition that is ...partially the result of the development of new technologies that have made culture more accessible on a global scale. For the purpose of filling the budget gap, CIBs are now forced to “step out” on the market trying to be more competitive in securing alternative sources of funding. The aim of this paper is to determine if CIBs have been successful in this endeavour, and to what level they use and understand the concept of alternative financing, as well to assess their ability and competence in raising funds from these alternative sources. The research was conducted by using a highly structured online questionnaire on a sample of public and privately-owned CIBs registered in Eastern Croatia and semi-structured, in-depth interviews with the CIBs executives. The research results showed that although the CIBs are to some extent using alternative sources of funding, these sources are underutilized and there is a recognized need for increasing the level of knowledge, employment of experts in the field of alternative funding in culture and introducing employee motivation models. The government was found to be one of the most important factors in conducting the activities aimed at providing preconditions, i.e. creating the regulatory framework, education, raising awareness, and motivation of CIBs for increasing the share of alternative sources of funding.
At a time when public funding of culture is being reduced and increasing attention is being paid to profitability, it is essential to apply an entrepreneurial mindset and management principles to the ...guidance and the financing of cultural institutions.This paper focuses on the theatre funding scheme and presents a survey analysing the structure of funding theatres in Croatia by weighting budgetary and commercial funding, as well as analyses possible measures to be implemented in order to improve the theatre funding model. A survey was conducted in 2015, which found that public theatres are predominantly funded by budgetary resources (62.14%), while the most important part of the revenue and income section of private theatres originates from selling their own products and services (43.99%). Theatres believe that budgetary resources still need to remain the dominant sources of funding, but in order to increase the level of operational excellence, a change of direction would be necessary towards one’s own resources, including donations and sponsorships. At the same time, better solutions in terms of increasing tax incentives and tax deductions for both donations and sponsorships would result in an increase in their importance in the financing of theatres.The impact of state action on the funding and operation of theatres is unquestionable, but in theatres there is a need for developing a working knowledge in the fields of management and entrepreneurship in order to gradually reduce dependence, particularly of public theatres, on state action.
Purpose:
Considering the rapid progress of information and communication technology (ICT) and its influence on daily life, it is inevitable that its impact will also be visible in the financial ...sector, especially through efforts to present digital financial services as widely as possible and bring them closer to potential users. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate university students’ smartphone activities, their use and attitudes towards digital financial services, and to build a neural network model capable of distinguishing students according to their awareness of the benefits related to using online financial services.
Methodology:
An online questionnaire was applied to collect data on students’ smartphone activity and their tendency to use online financial services. Depending on the variable type, the Kruskal-Wallis H test and Kendall’s tau-b were used to assess the association between variables, while multilayer perceptron and radial basis function neural networks were used for the creation of the optimal model.
Results:
Participants in this study achieved an average score of 6.56 (SD = 1.27) for smartphone activity, and the results showed that the optimal neural network model obtained had an overall accuracy of 70.73%. However, smartphone activity did not have an excessive effect on the efficiency of this model.
Conclusion:
The obtained neural network model and its sensitivity analysis managed to reveal some hid-den patterns which could be beneficial to educators in terms of improvements of students’ digital and financial literacy as well as to the financial sector in terms of increasing performance and interest of this population in digital financial services.
The purpose of this paper is to identify which economic measures do ICT experts perceive as important for the development of the ICT sector and to explore whether there is a need to introduce special ...developmental measures depending on the international or domestic market orientation. To gain valuable results, a survey on 112 ICT experts was conducted and, along with descriptive statistics measures, a chi square test and association rules were used in the analysis. The results of the primary research indicate variables that need to be addressed in the development of new policies (primary reduction of bureaucratization, taxation and frequency of legal changes) and obviates the need for introducing separate policies for internationally oriented companies.
Each economic entity, institution and individual has the responsibility of contributing to the economic development
in its region. Creating conditions for the development and empowerment of the ...business sector
are activities that in the long run lead to the strengthening of not only certain economic sectors, but the
entire region. In the recent period sources from EU funds for co-financing of capital projects have become
available to investors. Given the uncertainty in business conditions, investors’ poor capitalization, lack of
business profitability and, in terms of profitability and risk, lack of high-quality capital projects, the benefits
of these resources are insufficient and/or inadequately used. The aim of this paper is to analyse the strength
and capabilities of Croatian companies for financing and implementation of high-quality capital projects.
For this purpose, this paper will present the results of research of financial position of selected companies
in 2012. Also, it presents the results of research from 2011 that examined the reality of projections of later
activated investment projects. These results are the basis for a conclusion about the ability of management,
in the analysed region, to make realistic plans and carry out high-quality capital projects.
An assessment of investment justification in terms of risk enables the decision maker (investor) to select,among available alternatives, the one with the most favourable correlation between the ...expected profit and assumed risk. At the micro level, the uncertainty of business success is extremely high in production activities, which is an additional incentive for taking a comprehensive approach to the issue of investment decision-making and the development of risk assessment techniques applicable in this particular segment of industry. Given the complexity of the manufacturing process, the length of the production cycle, market conditions, and entity-specific risks (which are difficult to measure), projects in manufacturing industry require a detailed and comprehensive assessment of specific risk factors and their cost-effectiveness. Nevertheless, since specific risks can be diversified, investment proposal assessments in practice usually do not cover their quantification and analysis. However, the majority of business entities do not have enough active projects in various industries to be able to fully diversify their business and thus minimize the level of specific risks. The impact of specific factors becomes one of the most important elements for business success. This paper analyses how far risk assessment methods regarding specific risks are used in practice. Furthermore, it analyses the significance of specific risks for total investment risk. This study gives new insights into the significance of specific risks to the overall investment assessment and the need for permanent development of traditionally used investment assessment models.
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