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This chapter in its first part analyzes the Leader approach in terms of concept, constituent elements, application, and its contribution to rural development and rural entrepreneurship. In the continuation of the text, authors analyze the application of this approach in Serbia, looking at the activities of the ministry in charge and the views of local action groups (LAGs)’ managers on this matter. The aim of this chapter is to present the results and problems Serbia has seen so far in the implementation of the Leader approach for development of rural areas on a local level. The results indicate that the lack of systemic and continuous state support resulting, among other things, in the lack of a financial portfolio for the LAGs, is the main cause of low local entrepreneurial initiatives and projects implemented within the Leader approach. Future steps in the implementation of this approach in Serbia will depend on financial support for the LAGs from all levels of government, as well as from the possibility of using funds within the EU pre-accession assistance for rural development. Also, it will be necessary to launch larger innovative and entrepreneurial initiatives both by LAGs’ managers and all stakeholders involved in local rural development.

The author’s interest in studying this topic was inspired by new extraordinary external influences, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and war operations in Europe, which have a direct impact on economic entities and therefore on the economies of many countries in the surrounding area and beyond. The aforementioned external, unpredictable factors appeared unexpectedly. As soon as they appeared, they caused major disruptions in business operations and a crisis on the market, which could not be influenced beforehand, nor could its occurrence be prevented. The impact of external shocks on economies will vary depending on individual countries’ exposure to Russian energy sources, food security, as well as their own economic structure, geographic location, and the degree of flexibility of their public finances. Empirical findings show that there are relatively significant differences in the reactions to the resulting conditions, between large companies that still take into account the durability and publicity of development indicators and others, which are characterized by the absence of a long-term perspective and its reduction to a set of short-term goals that are sought to be achieved in the framework of the visible future. In addition to the standard theoretical analysis, the authors conducted research by surveying selected business entities in Serbia, which provided an insight into the current state of the company and indicated the necessary directions for changes both at the level of business entities and at the level of the entire economy. Based on the conducted research, the authors came to the knowledge that economic entities can solve economic instability by implementing one or more reorganization models.

Human resources (HR) are undoubtedly one of the most important factors of any organization. That is why making decisions on the HR policy is becoming a very sensitive issue, both when hiring adequate candidates for the job and during the process work, i.e., during training and development of employees who work in the organization. The purpose of this study was to investigate the importance of HR and decisions on the HR policy as the premise for generating the organization’s expected business excellence. The starting assumption of this chapter is that appropriate decisions on the HR policy are predictors of engaging adequate employees and managing their potentials on the right way. The research is directed toward identifying differences in decisions on the personnel policy in organizations from Serbia that have different decision-makers and different management styles, which are directly related to their business success. Apart from the decision-maker, a significant role in profiling an organization’s personnel should also be done by the Human Resource Department, who take part in recruiting, selecting for education, building, and motivating personnel. In order to confirm the starting assumption, the comparative analysis method, the synthesis method, and the multiple comparison and statistical test methods are used.

This paper analyses the role of intellectual capital (IC) as a factor of the financial performance of entrepreneurial firms, which are recognized as the main drivers of economic growth and employment.

The sample consists of 188 business owners from Serbia. The primary data are collected using the questionnaire, while the secondary data come from the annual financial statements of their companies. The elements of IC as independent variables are grouped into three components: human, structural and relational capital; sales revenue and operating profit CAGR (5y) are used as dependent variables, while company size and industry type are used as control variables. Statistical analysis involves factor and regression analyses.

The results reveal that IC components contribute to the long-term financial performance of entrepreneurial firms. Specifically, the following elements have positive effects on financial performance: knowledge of the entrepreneur, process improvement and organisational culture. On the other hand, entrepreneurs’ social skills and tenacity were found to have a negative impact on revenue and operating profit growth, while support from informal networks had a negative effect on the growth of sales revenue.

This study aims to fill a gap in the literature on the impact of IC on the financial performance of entrepreneurial firms.

Due to excessive carbon dioxide emissions, the world is facing environmental devastation. Energy and environmental innovations are considered to be critical tools in combating the growing CO₂ emissions. Developing these innovations requires extremely high investments in research and development processes, where knowledge is generated as one of the important outputs. This knowledge serves as a basis for innovation development and raising awareness among all relevant stakeholders about excessive environmental degradation. One of the significant sources of knowledge is scientific publications. Therefore, the aim of this research is to examine whether increased CO₂ emissions stimulate the scientific community to publish a greater number of papers, as well as whether the knowledge contained in these publications is utilized in reducing CO₂ emissions. The sample consists of G7 member countries. The time frame of the research is 1996–2019. The dynamic properties of the vector autoregression (VAR) models were summarized using impulse response function and variance decomposition forecast error. In most G7 countries, it has been determined that an increase in scientific production in environmental science and energy leads to a reduction in CO₂ emissions. On the other hand, increased CO₂ emissions affect higher scientific productivity in environmental science and energy only in Canada.