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Interlibrary loan and document delivery are important elements of any library system, very much influenced by political and economical background of the state. The article reviews the interlending among the countries in former Yugoslavia and after the dissolution. Introduced are library information systems, interlending activity and the prospects for better interlibrary loan co‐operation.

This chapter compares the historical development and current state of comparative pedagogy (CP) in four Slavonic South East European Countries – Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia. The authors also aim to put the historical background and contemporary developments of CP as a science and academic discipline in their countries on the worldwide comparative education (CE) map.

The chapter starts with a short definition of the two streams of CP development: the practical problem-solving nature of comparative studies; and the development of academic CP as a separate branch of the science of pedagogy. The history of CP in the four countries is divided into four historical periods: (1) 19th century until World War I (1918); (2) interwar years (1919–1941); (3) from 1945 until 1989; (4) from 1989 to the present. The development of CP during each period is examined in both national and comparative aspects and is analyzed within the appropriate political, social, and economic context. Some scientific-pedagogical factors are also discussed, with the goal of providing a better understanding of the specific features of CP in the individual countries and in the region as a whole. On the one hand, the analysis shows common characteristics in CP development, mostly influenced by the fact that the historical development of the science of pedagogy (accompanied by the teacher training tradition and the education system structure) was strongly influenced by German theoretical and practical pedagogy in all SSEE countries. On the other hand, the comparison reveals some differences, especially between Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia.

In this chapter, we investigate the effects of vulnerability on income and employment in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia using a unique 2004 UNDP dataset. Treating the collapse of the former Yugoslavia as a natural experiment, we compare three groups that have been differently affected by the wars and post-war distress: the majority as the benchmark, the ex ante and ex post vulnerable Roma people, and the ex ante equal but ex post vulnerable refugees and internally displaced people (RIDPs). Our findings reveal significant negative effects of vulnerability on income and employment. RIDPs seem to be about as negatively affected as Roma across the four states, which indicate that vulnerability inflicted by relatively recent displacement may have similar effects as vulnerability rooted deep in the past. When we look at education as one of the key determinants of socio-economic outcomes, both groups exhibit similarly substandard educational outcomes of children and significant inertia in intergenerational transfer of human capital. Our findings highlight the need for policies that not only tackle vulnerability as such, but address the spillover effects of current vulnerability on future educational attainment.

Many scholars have characterized political and economic globalization as entailing deterritorialization, a radical decentering of place and the erasing of various kinds of borders. This paper argues instead for an alternative view of globalization as reterritorialization, a process in which meanings of place remain salient (and in some cases become even more pronounced) but are reconfigured. The analysis focuses on transformations of understandings of territory and ownership in coastal Croatia, examining diverse Croatian responses to the privatization of the tourist industry and the speculative boom in vacation properties. In particular, the paper considers how the politics of European integration and Croatia's aspirations for EU membership – together with the heritage of Croatia's recent past of nationalist warfare – shape Croatia's economic transition from a regime of “social property” under socialist Yugoslavia to a neoliberal regime of private property. The chapter also examines the metaphors of fluidity in vogue for describing globalization, using understandings of actual property in (and on) water to reflect critically on conceptual models of globalization.

Under Josip Tito’s leadership, Yugoslavia broke away from Stalinistic central planning in 1948 and developed an economy‐wide system of worker self‐management. Its ideological focus was on leadership development and continuous learning among all employees, replacing owners and state bureaucracy with empowered workers at the helm of Yugoslav firms. Over time, the world’s largest experiment in empowerment went awry, however. A state‐supported neo‐Taylorism with a “thinking tank” and a separate “working tank,” evolved which represented little real empowerment. By the 1980s, self‐management had become an impotent bureaucratic formality behind a democratic facade. The dynamics within the rise and fall of Yugoslav self‐management provide lessons for understanding and managing empowerment efforts today.

This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the foreign direct investment (FDI) decision‐making process, and to explore the roles of management accounting information to that.

An interpretive methodology was preferred, applying the case study method in a Greek company that had engaged in FDIs in the Balkans. In studying FDI decision‐making, the role of context (external environment and organisation) was taken into consideration.

The study reported here reveals that the FDI decision‐making process is cyclical in nature, with information continuously received, processed and used as feedback for subsequent action. This supports the view that the dichotomy between strategy formulation and implementation is a false one.

Although the FDI process should be recognised as iterative in nature, evidence from this study suggests that it can be thought of as comprising two main tasks, each of which makes different uses of management accounting information and reflects different decision‐making concerns. The first task concerns the decision whether or not to invest abroad while, the second task concerns decisions about how the project will be developed.

The implementation of capital investments enables the participation of various organizational actors trying to influence the final outcome of the process in line with their own interests. The recognition of differential political engagement within these two distinct decision‐making phases has implications for understanding capital investment practice and for reflecting on prior empirical evidence in this domain.

Respondents from fifteen countries reported their level of use and involvement with eight products and services: the countries were Argentina, Austria, Australia, Barbados, Canada, Chile, China, Columbia, England, Finland, France, Mexico, Sweden, the United States and Yugoslavia; the products and services were air travel, beer, blue jeans, eating at a restaurant, hair shampoo, going to the cinema, soft drinks and stereo sets. The results indicated that country accounted for eight to 45 per cent of the variation in product and service usage. Among regular product users, country accounts for one to 20 per cent of the variation in involvement levels across products and services.

In 1987, a shared cataloguing system as the common basis for the library information system of the former Yugoslavia was designed. Before Yugoslavia’s disintegration in 1991, the shared cataloguing system was renamed COBISS – the Co‐operative Online Bibliographic System & Services. It later became the synonym for the library information system of Slovenia. Today it connects over 220 Slovenian libraries. It provides the libraries with conditions, necessary for shared cataloguing at a national level, including bibliographies and the automation of local functions. COBISS/OPAC enables the users to access information sources in the wider Internet environment. While COBISS software is used by some of the libraries in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, in Bosnia and Herzegovina too, COBISS/BIH, an independent co‐operative library system, was established in 1998. The COBISS system is an example of how to develop an efficient co‐operative library system as one of the vital segments of the information society in an environment primarily occupied with current problems of transition.

In 1987, a shared cataloguing system as the common basis for the library information system of the former Yugoslavia was designed. Before Yugoslavia’s disintegration in 1991, the shared cataloguing system was renamed COBISS – the Co‐operative Online Bibliographic System & Services. It later became the synonym for the library information system of Slovenia. Today it connects over 220 Slovenian libraries. It provides the libraries with conditions necessary for shared cataloguing at a national level, including bibliographies and the automation of local functions. COBISS/OPAC enables the users to access information sources in the wider Internet environment. While COBISS software is used by some of the libraries in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, in Bosnia and Herzogovina too, COBISS/BIH, an independent co‐operative library system, was established in 1998. The COBISS system is an example of how to develop an efficient co‐operative library system as one of the vital segments of the information society in an environment primarily occupied with current problems of transition.