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This study seeks to provide further testing of access in the context of government – community relations within the political context of the Republic of North Macedonia. The study analyses relationship cultivation strategy of access and explains how it contributes to achieving trust and relationship satisfaction in government–community relations. This paper also provides insights into the importance of access to achieving positive government–community relations based on mutual trust and satisfaction.

For this research, a qualitative inquiry was conducted, and qualitative in-depth interviewing was used as the main research method. In total, 39 interviews were conducted: 12 interviews with Macedonian civil servants, eight interviews with Albanian civil servants and 19 interviews with Albanians.

The findings of this study showed citizens not to have enough access to government and its institutions. Besides, the results showed access to be crucial to building positive government–community relations based on mutual trust and satisfaction. In particular, discrimination and social distance were crucial in building trust between government and citizens.

The study provided evidence on the importance and contribution of the cultivation strategy of access to government-community relationships in general and to the relational outcomes of trust and satisfaction in particular. The findings supported the initial assumptions that access constitutes an important factor in predicting the government–community relationship quality.

This study aims to investigate what are the capabilities and limits of external audit in detecting frauds in companies operating in the territory of the Republics: Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In total, 51 certified auditors from Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were surveyed to analyze what are the most frequent warning signals of the existence of the frauds auditors encounter during the verification of company’s financial statements.

The study indicated that the auditors of the Republic of Serbia more often encountered groundless overstatement of revenues compared with other countries, while regarding manipulative representation of inventories, the largest mean value and median are still among the auditors of the Republic of Serbia.

Based on the research results, it can be concluded that it is necessary to expand the legal obligation and power of external auditors when, in financial statement auditing, they come to clear findings that indicate fraud. Expansion of external auditors’ powers would reduce their current limitations and expand the domain of action.

Limitations in external auditors’ work prevent the processing of frauds. However, auditors’ analysis of financial statements and pointing to potential irregularities can be a good manner for the early detection and prevention of frauds in company’s operations.

Innovation output around the world is concentrated in very few economies possessing the requisite skills, knowledge and market acumen to capitalize on emerging technologies. Within the broader European Union, Central and Eastern Europe countries persistently lag in innovation rankings compared to their Western Europe counterparts. The existence of cultural barriers to innovation has been offered as an explanation for the lag, in the sense that perceptions about innovation affect innovation performance. The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence-based analysis on whether there are divergent perceptions at the firm level between East and West.

The focus is on four countries with distinct socioeconomic profiles (Germany, Poland, Portugal and North Macedonia) for which innovation data of sufficient granularity exist. Using Probit analysis across the regressors of firm size, sector and innovativeness, a detailed picture of perceptions of innovation emerges naturally.

The analysis demonstrates that there is no discernible East-West cultural divide but rather a palette of shades regarding perceptions of innovation, entrenched in firm-level characteristics. Specifically, firm size colors perceptions of innovation and such perceptions in turn are moderated by whether a firm is involved or not in innovation activities.

A better understanding of innovation culture at the firm level is essential to drive policy interventions aiming to remove barriers to innovation. The results of this study provide sufficient clues for more refined interventions, both internal (“procedures”) and external (“policies”) to the firm, targeting well-defined size segments as well as addressing differently innovative and non-innovative companies.

This paper aims at reflecting on the changing boundaries of public sector auditing. In particular the paper focusses on the opportunities and challenges for performance auditing, for sustainable development auditing and digitalised public sector auditing.

Building from the papers in this special issue, the authors draw on the literature on current development of public sector auditing (such as public sector auditing performance auditing, sustainable development auditing and digitalised public sector auditing) and propose a future research agenda.

The “changing boundaries” of public sector auditing may influence the difficulty for public sector organisations to manage the uncertainties and risks not only associated to corruption but also the public governance development (collaborative, digital and emergency governance). The authors speculate on the role that the “changing boundaries” of public sector auditing can play.

The paper contributes by setting new research avenues for future studies on public sector auditing in a post-new public management context.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of logistics performance on the carbon (CO2) emissions of Balkan countries.

Fixed-effects panel regression analysis is used to estimate the causal relationship between CO2 emissions and logistic performances of Balkan countries. Logistics performance is measured by logistics performance index (LPI) which was published by the World Bank in 2007, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016 and used for ranking countries by means of their logistics performance. LPI is based on six main indicators: customs procedures, logistics costs and the quality of the infrastructure for overland and maritime transport. As a measure of carbon emissions of sampled countries, the natural logarithm of carbon dioxide emission per capita is used in this study.

The results obtained reveal that there is a positive and significant relationship between logistics performance and CO2 performances of the sampled Balkan countries.

This study is based on only 11 Balkan countries. In this sense, the data used in the analysis is limited.

Considering the important geostrategic position of the Balkan region, logistics sector has an important role for the development of the countries in that region. In this sense, the findings of this study may provide useful insights for policymakers to achieve sustainable economic development. Furthermore, as far as the authors know, this is the first study that focuses on the relationship between logistics performance and carbon emissions of Balkan countries.