The study measures and compares the levels of financial integration in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia between 2000 and 2020. This study aims to determine the impact of industrial index, gross domestic product per capita, trade openness, and corporate tax rate on the level of international financial integration. The statistical methods employed are unit root tests, OLS regression, the Breusch-Pagan test, and the heteroskedasticity test. For the 20-year time span and annual data for each parameter, the results have shown a significant positive correlation between gross domestic product per capita and financial integration for both countries. The results for Slovenia indicate that financial integration is negatively affected by trade openness and corporate tax rates, whereas gross domestic product per capita and industrial production index affect positively. In the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, corporate tax rate and industrial production index affect financial integration negatively, while trade openness affect positively but insignificant with financial integration.

The aim of this study is to investigate the determinants of Germany's OFDI in the last 21 years on the set of top ten Germany’s OFDI destination (United States of America, United Kingdom, China, France, Poland, Mexico, India, Turkey, Spain and Russia (Russian Federation)) by using panel data analysis. The research revealed that Germany’s OFDI are driven by market seeking motives (FDI vertical), and also highlighting the importance of the stable political environment, attractive tax environment, more trade openness, and stable macroeconomic environment of the top ten Germany’s partners for attractiveness of the Germany’s OFDI. It indicates that openness of an economy is statistically significant in attracting FDI.

The robustness of the institutional environment is a requisite factor for the growth and development of a firm. This study is focused on the impact of factors of institutional environment on SMEs’ acquisition and use of licensed technology from abroad. The independent variables considered as the factors of institutional environment are: financial institutions, regulatory institutions, infrastructure, and security, while the dependent variable is the use of licensed technology from abroad. Data from the manufacturing and the service sectors of the economies of Africa and the Middle East are collected from the database of the World Bank Enterprise Survey. The survey employs random sampling to select firms in each country. The firms are stratified based on the number of employees and the geographical region. Questionnaires are administered to firms from 2006 to 2018 through cross-sectional data collection method. By focusing on the scope of research on the two regions and SMEs, the sampled observations are scaled down from 136,887 to 33,977 firms in 53 countries. Although not all the Pearson correlation coefficients of the independent variables with the dependent variable are high, there are satisfactory levels of significance with p-values below 5%. The independent variables in the regression model have a statistically significant impact on the use of licensed technology from abroad. The forecasting power of the regression model, the possible implications from the test results are shown. The limitations of the research and the possible areas for future research are discussed in the last section.

© The Author 2020. Published by ARDA. Abstract The effectiveness of a firm mostly depends on the capability of the managers to obtain flexible credits for the implementation of sustainable innovations. The aim of this study is focused on the impact of access to credit on process innovations in SMEs. Data from the manufacturing and the service sectors of the economies of Africa and the Middle East are collected from the World Bank’s Enterprise Survey database. The survey employs random sampling to select firms in each country and they are stratified based on the number of employees. The sampled observations are scaled down from 136,887 to 33,977 firms covering 53 countries due to the scope of this research. The factors of access to credit are the independent variables of this research: the working capital from a commercial bank, overdraft facility, lines of credit, external auditing of accounts, and working capital from suppliers. The dependent variable is process innovation. The results show that there are significance levels of p-values below 1% although some of the Pearson correlation coefficients of the independent variables with the dependent variable are not too high. The factors of access to credit used in the regression model have a significant impact on process innovation. The findings from the analysis help the policy directions of managers.

This research study is focused on the influence of human capital on innovation in SMEs. The human capital factors are the independent variables: employee’s education, employee’s development, and employee’s challenge, while the dependent variable is product innovation. Data of manufacturing and service firms in the economies of Africa and the Middle-East are taken from the World Bank Enterprise Survey database through a stratified random sampling. A sampled of 33,977 firms are observed in 53 countries. The methodology employed in this study is the quantitative research approach. A pairwise correlation, regression model and forecasting model are used for the analyses of the data. The findings from the analyses show satisfactory levels of significance with pvalues below 1% even though not all the Pearson correlation coefficients of the independent variables with the dependent variable are high. The goodness-of-fit, in terms of R-squared, Root MSE, and mean percentage error, found from the regression of human capital with product innovation is slightly poor. This is due to the loose relation between independent and dependent variables in real life and partly to the data available for this research. However, human capital acquired from skilled and formal training of employees has a more positive and significant influence on SMEs to innovate products. The findings have implications on managerial decisions and governmental policies. The results also give insight into the limitations of the research and areas for further investigations.

The frequent occurrence of stress and job-related-stress in recent times on workers at workplaces has become a trend of worry to: employers, management, employees, organizations, and society as a whole. Stress has a tremendous effect on job satisfaction, production, and workers’ motivation. In this regard, the study methodology of this literature review focused on secondary sources of data. In-depth secondary sources of data was gathered to review trends of both past and current literature and to elicit conclusion and recommendations for future studies. The sources of secondary data include; books, publications on internet, peer-reviewed journal articles, and etc. Furthermore, this research work shows that the presence of this phenomenon among workers has enormous influence on their job efficiency and effectiveness in the workplace. This study concludes that the frequent incident of intense stress on individuals conveys a sequence of disturbing and negative physiological and health consequences. Underlying effect is a reduction in the job performance due to illness, injury, absenteeism, quality control cost, turnover cost, and violence.