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This study focuses on HR practices that foster employee engagement during Covid-19. Companies in transition economies are particularly vulnerable to crisis and downsizing and other recessionary practices are frequently used.

Drawing on the model of caring human resource management, we utilise interviews with human resource representatives of 10 banks in the transition economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We analyse the banks at two different times to demonstrate how and why companies adapt their HR practices.

Our findings show a changing mindset in the deployment of highly context-specific HR practices. Strengthening company culture through a sense of community and communication ensure stability and continuity in work. Rather than layoffs, flexible work has become standard.

By highlighting the interplay between HR practices and employee engagement, we contribute to the discussion on engagement in exceptional circumstances and challenging settings and demonstrate how caring responsibilities “migrate” into HR practices in the professional context of a transition economy.

We propose a context-specific “protective caring approach” to foster employee engagement during crises.

The COVID-19 pandemic is not a foodborne infectious disease, but it has dramatically impacted food safety practices worldwide due to its potential for transmission through contaminated surfaces and food. Accordingly, the Omicron variant seems to have affected food-related activities and behaviours and disturbed food supply networks since its appearance in November 2021. Hence, this paper aims to assess how the Omicron variant impacted food safety knowledge, attitudes and practices amongst adult consumers in five countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and Russia.

The study is based on an online survey. The questionnaire was developed and revised based on previous research on the impact of previous COVID-19 waves on food-related activities in several countries. The questionnaire was distributed through the SurveyMonkey platform from January 15 to February 25, 2022. It consisted of 29 multiple-choice and one-option questions organised into three sections. A total of 6,483 valid responses were received. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25.0 was used to analyse the survey results.

According to the survey findings, food safety practices evolved during the Omicron wave in the studied countries. Firstly, less than half of the sample used a face mask whilst purchasing food. Secondly, regarding food safety knowledge, the survey results suggest that there is still a lack of knowledge in the studied countries. Thirdly, the survey indicates a lack of knowledge amongst the respondents regarding food safety attitudes. For instance, more than a third of the sample (34.4%) are unsure whether the COVID-19 virus can be transmitted through food. These results are surprising and alarming, especially considering that our sample has a higher education than the population of the studied countries.

The main limitation of this research is the sample bias. Survey participants were randomly chosen, enrolled voluntarily and not rewarded. As a result, the questionnaire was self-administered and completed exclusively by people motivated by an interest in the topic. Consequently, our survey does not represent the general population of the studied countries. People with a high degree of education and women, for example, were overrepresented in our sample.

This study is unique in that it is the first to gather information and analyse people’s perceptions of the effects of the Omicron variant on food safety. As a result, the findings of this survey offer a solid basis for future investigations into the impact of the pandemic on food safety in the Balkan region and Russia. This study can help further understand the changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides crucial insights that can be used to guide future decision-making and policy development regarding improving food safety practices. This and other future studies will be a foundation for organisational and government readiness for future shocks, crises and pandemics. The effects of the present Ukrainian conflict on agricultural systems and supply chains throughout the globe (e.g. increased food prices) show that this is timely, urgent and highly required.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between age and entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial intentions considering the mediating role of individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) dimensions (risk-taking, innovativeness and proactiveness).

The data were collected from 782 individuals from Bosnia and Herzegovina’s working-age population using a cross-sectional survey design. Hypotheses were tested via structural equation modeling.

Younger individuals have significantly higher intentions for entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship than older individuals. The mediating role of IEO was partially supported in the case of the relationship between age and entrepreneurial intention as well as age and intrapreneurial intention. While risk-taking and innovativeness partially mediate the relationship, proactiveness does not.

This study takes a comprehensive approach when examining the relationship between age and entrepreneurial/intrapreneurial intentions in a developing economy while considering the indirect effects of IEO dimensions.

Explaining the sources of the differences in social performance among Islamic banks (IBs) is the motivation for this research. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the development of Islamic finance regulation, the development of an Islamic financial system, the proportions of affected Muslim populations and the level of competition, on the one hand, and the social performance of IBs, on the other. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the impact of the development of regulation and the Islamic financial system on the social performance of IBs.

A balanced panel of annual data for 40 banks from 13 countries is applied, spanning 2012–2018. A social performance index with eight dimensions is constructed and measures the social performance of IBs. The index based on qualitative and quantitative data derives from IBs’ annual reports and financial statements. The linear scaling transformation method articulates the quantitative dimensions of the index. In hypotheses testing, the authors use OLS, LSDV, FEM and Random Effect Model to estimate Model (1) and panel-corrected standard errors with Prais–Winsten transformation to estimate Model (2).

This unique research confirms the positive impact of the development of Islamic finance regulation on the social performance of IBs. The results show that the development of Islamic finance regulation is consistently significant on all standard significance levels. IBs’ age and the presence of Muslim populations in the country are also significant in most estimators.

The results of this research highlight a significant value for regulators, shareholders and the management of IBs. Without proper regulation, these banks can hardly operate under the principles and expectations of the Islamic moral economy.

This is pioneering research that explores the development of Islamic finance regulation and market concentration as a determinant of social performance of IBs. Development of Islamic finance regulation has proved significant in all estimated models, which confirms that a new variable has been discovered among determinants of the social performance of IBs.

This paper aims to focus on analyzing the level of corruption of small- and medium-sized enterprises and their economic performance impact in Western Balkan countries. This study uses survey data from Enterprise Surveys (ES) from 2019, a shared project of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank and the World Bank Group. The selected countries are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia. The questions included in the data set contribute to understanding what firms experience in the private sector. Collected data are based on firms’ experiences and enterprises’ perceptions of the environment in which they operate.

This paper measures enterprise performance in terms of sales, employees and fixed assets growth. The vector of independent variables comprises enterprise characteristics such as enterprise age, size, ownership structure, legal status, access to formal banking services, gender ownership and other composed variables. Moreover, to capture the level of perceived corruption by firms, we will focus on the following ES questions: “Is it common to have to pay some irregular additional payment or gifts to get things done with regard to customs, taxes, licenses, regulations, services,” and the “corruption payment” is defined in the form of a dummy equal to one if the enterprise replies “frequently,” “usually” or “always.”

Preliminary empirical research results shed light on the level and effects of corruption on enterprises’ performance. However, the magnitude and statistical significance are different among the countries included in the sample.

Instead of firm-level characteristics, research on corruption frequently focuses on effects dependent on national and institutional characteristics. To better identify the kinds of businesses that are most at risk of corruption, we have selected to focus on differences among firm characteristics in this research. Understanding factors at the firm level is preferred from a policy perspective because these findings assist policymakers to make recommendations.

This study aims to systematically review the health risk assessment of the concentration of heavy metals in Pistacia species globally.

The authors systematically searched PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus and Google Scholar to identify all articles published between 1 January 2002 and 20 August 2022. A total of 33 studies met the authors’ inclusion criteria, and their data were extracted. Additionally, the potential risk to human health was assessed by calculating the target hazard quotient and hazard index for both child and adult consumers.

The estimated daily intake for heavy metals in the included studies ranged from 9.72 × 10^–9 to 7.35 (mg/day) in the following order: zinc (Zn) > mercury (Hg) > iron (Fe) > lead (Pb) > copper (Cu) > aluminum (Al) > nickel (Ni) > chromium (Cr) > manganese (Mn) > cadmium (Cd) > arsenic (As) > selenium (Se) > cobalt (Co). Among the studies that investigated heavy metals in Pistacia species around the world, the non-carcinogenic risk for all species of Pistacia was determined to be less than 1, except for Pb and Hg in Pistacia lentiscus.

The soil near the industrial area contained excessive amounts of heavy metals, which led to the transfer of heavy metals to plants. Owing to the insufficiency of the number of studies that examined heavy metals in Pistacia species, further monitoring and investigations were recommended.

This study aims to propose a novel mirroring digital content marketing (MDCM) framework that extends the current consumer-based digital content marketing (DCM) framework to encompass the provider’s perspective. Relying on the stimulus–organism–response theory, the authors posit that content stimuli influence behavioural engagement responses that, respectively, mirror the motives and self-reported engagement from the consumer-based DCM.

To empirically verify the provider side of the MDCM framework, the authors used one newsletter and one matching website with corresponding 117 weekly data points. Data were drawn from three sources for six countries: newsletter content stimuli, newsletter performance indicators and Google Analytics metrics on matching website performance. OLS and panel regressions were used to analyse the data and generate results.

The results show that content stimuli do explain the behavioural engagement responses of consumers recorded by the provider. However, the effects of the different stimuli are inconsistent: functional stimuli have both positive and negative effects, while social stimuli positively impact the behavioural engagement response. The authors further show that the newsletter engagement response influences subsequent engagement responses across channels (e.g. via the linked news media website).

Further research definitely needs to empirically verify the connection between two sides of the MDCM framework. As proposed by authors, provider-based stimuli are corresponding to the consumer-based motivations, however, which stimuli are triggering which motivations and how they can consequently be translated to both consumer- and provider-based behavioural engagement is still an open question. Different theoretical lenses could be taken in the usage of MDCM framework.

Our observations are relevant for marketers that want to use certain stimuli in their digital content, in particular a content introduced in the newsletter and the website. The authors show that stimuli are indeed related to the behavioural engagement response of consumers and that various stimuli impact engagement differently. Furthermore, the recommendations for the marketing managers of news media are to use priming across the platforms in their Web communication strategies.

This study proposes and empirically tests the provider side of the MDCM framework across two news media channels, focusing on behavioural engagement responses.

The purpose of this paper is to test an architectural studio pedagogy that originates from an experiment of a Summer School collaborative design studio, with participation of students, academicians and practicing architects, from seven Universities and five European countries.

This pedagogical method follows recommended education for sustainable development (ESD) model, by linking formal and informal learning, and targeting development of the key competences needed for promoting sustainable progress: participation and collaboration, along with inter- and trans-disciplinarity. Combining active participant observation method with descriptive survey research, the paper evaluates the perspective of a small sample size of 27 participating students, who worked with 15 professors alternately, during a two-week design studio course.

The results indicate that such a form of non-formal education has positive impact on acquisition of targeted competences, confirming the strategic role that non-formal education has in reaching quality education learning outcomes, and advocating for the adjustments of existing curricula towards a more collaborative educational approach in architectural design.

The modest sample size presents a limitation in reference to generalization of results, neverthless its data are valuable, particularly within the context of maximizing the development of sustainable development goals (SDGs).

This endeavour was a part of an on-going Erasmus + CBHE (Capacity Building in Higher Education) project entitled transforming architectural and civil engineering education towards a sustainable model (TACEESM). Organized non-formal educational model is seen as a testing laboratory that blends a conventional methodology of a design studio with a highly collaborative, international and multi-disciplinary approach.

This study aims to investigate the social and affective impacts of inviting residents of a socially divided, post-war city to “play tourist” for a day, exploring their own backyards with a new intentionality and perspective.

This qualitative research within a transformative worldview uses a creative, place-based approach of role-playing based upon principles of participatory action research.

While each tour was unique, participants’ insights reflected three common themes: shifts in observations and perceptions of place arising from the intentionality of the “tourist” lens, a sense of freedom created by the touristic research opportunity, and the varying abilities of tourism experiences to help build empathy or awareness in a post-conflict setting.

The inventive research approach allows for a unique examination of local tourism-styled explorations, a subject of growing interest that has largely been overlooked in literature, while paying special attention to ways in which a history of conflict may manifest in contemporary urban tourism experiences.

There have been a plethora of social science studies of diasporas and immigrants in the USA. Research on Bosnian-Americans, however, has been relatively sparse. The purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between the first-generation Bosnian American's trauma and its transgenerational effects on the second generation.

Bosnian-Americans are a relatively recent immigrant community in the USA, as most of the first-generation immigrated between 1993 and 2002 due to the Bosnian War and its aftermath. This research paper studies second-generation Bosnians to understand transgenerational trauma and emotions carried from the Bosnian War. Through archival research and extended interviews, second-generation Bosnian-Americans were asked questions about Bosnian-American identity and their psychosocial adjustment including transgenerational trauma.

Analysis of the data shows that in the second generation, the psychosocial effects of the Bosnian War have partially been transmitted from the first generation. Understanding the complex constitution of diasporic second-generation identity is facilitated by connecting it to the traumatic backgrounds, life experiences and struggles of the first generation.

The main observation is that there is a transmission of trauma and emotions from the first generation to the second-generation Bosnian Americans, which can be clearly seen in the participants of this research. Forms of transgenerational trauma (e.g. silence) and transmission of emotions (e.g. trust, anger and emotional unavailability) have been a part of the second generation’s lives, which, in fact, shaped their identities and personalities (From my conclusion section).