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Serbian communal services sector reform is of vital significance for reform of the entire public sector. Toward such reform, 2010 saw two drafts of the Law on Communal Services that include creation of a Republic Directorate with the goal of promoting and developing communal services. The author aims to analyze the solutions from the draft regarding the status of this Directorate and its powers essential for effective operation.

This paper analyzes the draft of the Law on Communal Services, as well as the comments provided by management of utility companies and wider professional public concerning drafts of the law. The paper also analyzes other legal acts connected to communal services, such as the current Law on Communal Services, Law on Public Enterprises and Services of Common Interest, Law on Companies and Law on Public Property.

This paper points out consequences resulting from extensive but inefficient power of the Republic Directorate for Communal Services, concerned primarily with prices of communal services and entrusting communal services to such a position.

No literature exists concerning the Serbian Republic Directorate for Communal Services. The author was limited in research sources so the result of the paper is prediction of possible outcomes of establishing the Republic Directorate for Communal Services in the Republic of Serbia.

If while drafting a new Law on Communal Services the view is accepted that directorates have authority, it achieves the purpose for which it was established, economic regulation.

The author in this paper provides insight into some directions in which communal sector reform goes. Given the fact that the draft of the Law on Communal Services foresees the establishment of the Republic Directorate for Communal Services as an entirely new regulatory body, this article focuses on the problems that this body might face in the process of fulfilling its major objectives, predominantly in the economic sphere.

This paper analyzes the communal fund of a school alumni association in South Korea and attempts to expand the understanding of money's social role in maintaining its network. The analysis concentrates on the account book of the 1974 alumni association of Hani High School in Seoul and follows the expenditure traces of its communal fund since 1987. Over the last 30 years, money for the communal fund has been regularly collected at the alumni reunions and distributed on various ceremonial occasions, such as member weddings and funerals. By defining the alumni association as a type of kye, this study explores the correlation between the communal fund's operation and the members' belongingness in the association. Most of them have actively engaged in operating their communal fund. They have applied flexible management regulations, reflecting members' respective financial conditions and life events. In the distribution of their fund, not only economic principles but also moral and normative standards are manifested. The 1974 alumni association and their communal fund demonstrate the symbolic meaning of money and its active role in a community. It also challenges the widespread belief that money is an alienating object in the market society. Indeed, money has morality and the potential to help maintain social ties in the long run.

Using two years of ethnographic fieldwork and 17 in-depth interviews, I examine a college gaming group's identity work. Stigmatized as social isolates, gamers employed oppositional identity work to construct themselves as “communal gamers.” Gaming Council members signified an identity counter to prevailing stereotypes by collaboratively coding “communal” to promote member interaction, affirming communality through joking and member recognition, and policing to enforce proper identity presentations. This study contributes to identity work research by furthering our understanding of identity work as group process and how groups manage identity dilemmas.

The purpose of this study, which draws on the stimulus organism response (S-O-R) theory, is to empirically examine the effect of brand coolness on communal brand connection and brand commitment, while assessing how the latter fosters brand trust and loyalty among smartphone users.

Data are collected from 410 smartphone users in Ghana and analyzed with Smart-PLS utilizing the structural equations modeling technique.

The study's findings show that consumers' perceptions of brand coolness have a positive influence on their communal brand connection and brand commitment. The study also discovers that brand commitment influences brand loyalty, whereas communal brand connection influences brand commitment, loyalty and trust, respectively. Similarly, brand commitment and communal brand connection are identified as important mediating variables in the relationship between brand coolness and both brand loyalty and brand trust.

The study underlines the significance of developing cool brand images and communicating same effectively to current and prospective customers, along with other stakeholders.

The study highlights the fact that properly creating cool brands can lead to increased communal brand connection, brand commitment, and, consequently, brand trust and loyalty.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the conditions and manner in which communal services are performed in Serbia. All public utility companies face significant issues such as unclear ownership, politicized management, insufficient funds for investment, and dominant market positions. These issues are cited as reasons why they are ineffective, chronically illiquid, insufficiently modernized, and unable to offer citizens satisfactory service quality.

The article is based on an analysis of current legislation, especially the Law on Communal Services and the Law on Public Enterprises, and on laws regulating the communal sector. Since this area is in transformation, proposals for new laws are discussed with strategies for restructuring public utility companies and with suggestions from experts on drafts of legislative solutions.

The article points out major issues related to inefficiency of public utility companies, and the reasons why citizens are provided with low‐quality services.

There is a dearth of literature, especially critical literature, on this topic in Serbia. This paper fills this gap partially.

This paper has direct implications for improving performance of communal services in Serbia. Combining all other observations and suggestions, it should intrigue creators of new legislative solutions in this area.

This paper is based on a survey of existing legislation and legislation under review, representing a significant contribution to understanding the issues faced by the communal sector.

Although nowadays more women occupy leadership roles, they still are a minority. Because aspiration is a precursor of advancement, examining conditions fostering female leadership aspiration is important. A neglected perspective is the impact of organizational identification. Identification can be argued to foster leadership aspiration because the essence of leadership is the pursuit of collective interests, and identification motivates such pursuits. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A cross-sectional survey design with an n=400 fulltime employed men and women, working for various organizations was selected.

The initial prediction was that identification is more important to women’s leadership aspiration to the extent that gender is associated with communal orientation, because women tend to have stronger communal orientation with associated greater affiliation needs, and organizational identification can be expected to cater to those needs. The communal orientation by organizational identification interactive influence on leadership aspiration was supported. Also, the indirect effect of gender on leadership aspiration via this interactive influence of communal orientation and organizational identification was supported.

Due to the selected survey approach the data are correlational and as a result no reference to matters of causality can be made. Thus (field) experimental data is needed to confirm these findings.

Within the paper the discussion focuses on the importance of creating an environment that is more conducive to organizational identification and as such speaks to the communal orientation – being more pronounced among women – to act in favor of the organization by aspiring leadership positions.

The presented results depict an important step toward understanding how organizational identification and communal orientation interact and how they interact with women’s leadership aspiration.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptually distinguish between communal and exchange relationship schemata and analyze their dynamic interactions and transformations in multicultural contexts.

Drawing on theories of social capital, social exchange, networks and relational models, the authors propose a framework to conceptualize how the communal and exchange relationship schemata can be transformed, integrated and multiplied under contextual influences, especially in culturally complex settings faced by multinational organizations.

The authors elucidate the dynamic processes of schemata interactions and transformations in relationship management at interpersonal, interorganizational and national levels in a variety of intercultural contexts, including interactions between monoculturals from different cultures and interplay of cultures within biculturals and among multiculturals. The authors explain how schemata integration and fusion can provide competitive advantages in navigating multicultural relationships.

Systematic qualitative and quantitative studies are recommended to further test and refine the proposed ideas regarding the dynamic interactions and transformations of relationship schemata.

This paper presents implications for individuals, country managers and leaders who need to initiate and maintain relationships with culturally different others. The authors highlight the desirability of being aware of one's own relational schema, understanding others' schema, bridging the two schemata as well as fostering integration and fusion of the schemata.

The 2020 global pandemic and various social upheavals around the world highlight the urgency of finding effective mental models to manage relationships. The inclusive and adaptive ways of thinking about relationships can potentially facilitate harmonious connections and conflict resolution.

The authors conceptually disentangle two established relationship schemata and offer a model of their dynamic synergetic transformations.

This study aims to examine the statutory provisions as it concerns the practice of valuation for compensation of expropriated communal properties in Zimbabwe. The primary motivation was to have informed policies that would regulate the practice of landed property assessments for compensation purposes and further contributes to existing compensation debates.

A multiple case study approach was adopted, in which property valuation projects for Chiyadzwa and Tokwe-Mukosi, provinces were selected. These two projects were chosen because they are the most recent property valuation for compensation on expropriated communal properties. Content analysis was used to analyse the statutory provisions guiding property valuation and compensation rates adopted and used during the Chiyadzwa and Tokwe Mukosi valuation projects.

The study found an absence of statutory guidelines on the choice of valuation methodologies, leading to inconsistencies in compensation estimates for the communal properties.

The study dwells on data from the previous assessment of communal properties that triggered discontentment amongst the people to build a framework for future valuations of communal properties.

This study reviewed the existing expropriation and compensation laws and built a comprehensive guiding framework for property valuers to choose appropriate valuation methodologies and procedures for the assessment of expropriated communal properties in Zimbabwe.

The main motivation for this study is to find a lasting solution to frequent court cases and clashes between the government of Zimbabwe and the displaced people.

No study unravels the detailed property valuation processes used in determining the amount of payment for the expropriated communal properties in Zimbabwe. This study built a framework that will serve as a guide to the property valuers in the assessment of compensation for communal properties.

The purpose of this paper is to test whether communal orientation is a moderator of the relationship between the experience of social undermining in project groups and both group member well‐being and group‐directed citizenship behaviours.

A survey was carried out of 184 student nurses from a Canadian university working in 41 groups in the local community on projects designed to deliver care to specific populations. Student nurses worked in project groups for ten weeks. They completed two surveys: one approximately two weeks into group membership; and the other approximately six weeks later.

As predicted, and controlling for survey one well‐being, student nurses who experienced social undermining early in the life of their group reported poorer well‐being at the end of their group membership than their counterparts. Furthermore, communal orientation moderated this relationship, in that this relationship only existed for those individuals high in communal orientation. Counter to this paper's prediction, there was no relationship between the experience of undermining early in the life of their group and student nurses' reports of group‐directed citizenship behaviours later in the life of the group.

All study measures were self‐report. Future researchers should attempt to collect information from other sources.

This paper adds to the literature on workplace aggression by reinforcing how critical it is to consider not only the nature of the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator, but also how individual differences affect the way an aggressive act is perceived.

We investigate the role of gender in linking communicative acts that occur in the interactions of self-managed teams to emergent leadership. Specifically, this study presents a framework that differentiates between agentic and communal task- and relations-oriented communication as predictors of emergent leadership, and it hypothesizes that men and women do not differ in what they say but do differ in how they are rewarded (i.e. ascribed informal leadership responsibilities) for their statements.

Interaction coding was used to capture the meeting communication of 116 members of 41 self-managed teams.

Men and women exhibited the same amount of agentic and communal task- and relations-oriented communication and were equally likely to emerge as leaders. However, men experienced an emergent leadership advantage when engaging in agentic and communal task-oriented behaviors. Agentic and communal relations-oriented behaviors did not predict emergent leadership.

The findings imply that theories could be more precise in differentiating between objective behaviors (i.e. actor perspective) and perceptions thereof (i.e. observer perspective) to understand why women experience a disadvantage in assuming leadership roles.

Although women displayed the same verbal behaviors as men, they experienced different consequences. Organizations can provide unconscious bias training programs, which help increase employees' self-awareness of a potential positive assessment bias toward men's communication.

This research utilizes an innovative, fine-grained coding approach to gather data that add to previous studies showing that, unlike men, women experience a disadvantage in terms of emergent leadership ascriptions when they deviate from stereotypically expected behavior.