Purpose This paper aims to explore buying decision factors and approaches of companies operating in manufacturing industry in Croatia. Design/methodology/approach The data collected by company survey were analysed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, cluster analysis and cross-tabulation analysis. Findings Results show that manufacturers are influenced by six distinctive factors when making purchasing decisions. These are supplier’s flexibility, supplier’s reliability, interdepartmental communication, top management support, routine purchases and buyer’s price sensitivity. Manufacturers can be classified in four different groups according to their buying decision-making patterns. Practical implications This paper provides a set of factors and approaches which might help selling companies and sales representatives understand the purchasing practices of buying company better, and develop adaptive selling approaches accordingly. Originality/value Based on a literature review and field research, an instrument of organizational buying behaviour was developed and tested in the Croatian manufacturing industry. The factors of organizational buying behaviour patterns were identified, and the typology of buying decision approaches applicable for manufacturing industry was developed.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the knowledge, awareness and concern of young consumers towards avoidable and “edible” food waste, and identify groups of individuals based on their attitudes. In addition, this study describes demographic and behavioural characteristics of each group. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected by a questionnaire conducted among university students in Croatia. Factor and cluster analyses were applied to identify the groups of individuals with similar attitudes towards food waste. Findings Results show that there are five factors that represent the knowledge, awareness and concern about food waste of young people – awareness of food waste problem; concern about economic aspects of food waste; health concern; concern about environmental impact of food waste; and awareness and concern about expiration date. Based on those factors, four groups of consumers were identified: consumers concerned about economic effects of food waste; unaware consumers neglecting food waste; well-informed consumers; and fully aware consumers, but not ready to take health risk. Practical implications The results of the study can be used by marketers and policy makers when planning food waste reduction activities to focus their campaigns towards consumer niches, based on the typology of young consumers. Originality/value This study provides a typology of university students based on their knowledge, awareness and concern about food waste in Croatia, as an example of a transition and new EU member state, where the issues about food waste are relatively new and underexplored topic.

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This paper examines the impact of EU enlargement and the global economic crisis on the relative development of the EU countries. This effect is assessed by applying multivariate analysis to the whole set of 28 European countries at three representative points in time. The cluster analysis for the years 2002, 2007, and 2012 grouped the countries according to the range of economic development indicators showing within-EU cohesion before the EU enlargement, after the enlargement wave, and after the crisis. The findings show that a decrease in the development differences after the enlargement was replaced with an increase in these differences after the crisis, thus contributing to the existing debate about the success of cohesion and future of European integration. These results are somewhat worrying for the new member states of the EU as well as for EU membership candidates and their prospective development within the integration.

Background: Industry clusters and their relationship with the organization’s success, competitive advantage and innovations have been gaining research interest for decades, with the recent focus on defence industry.Objectives: The aim is to investigate how Croatian Defense Industry Competitiveness Cluster (CDICC) fosters the knowledge management and innovation performance of its members.Methods/Approach: Survey has been performed on a portion of CDICC members, and responses have been analysed using the factor analysis and the correlation analysis.Results: The results indicate that CDICC actively contributes to knowledge creation and acquisition, innovation performance and market performance of its members. However, the analysis revealed that knowledge storage and knowledge dissemination are not sufficiently supported by CDICC.Conclusions: The current problems with the various aspects of knowledge management within a cluster provide a direction for overcoming possible obstacles for further development of industrial clusters.

Business ethics is a set of rules by which individuals and institutions behave and conduct business in a responsible manner. It involves appropriate constraints on the pursuit of self-interest and profits, particularly when actions affect other stakeholders. Research on financial and other aspects of business ethics includes an examination of personal attitudes which give insight into ways in which people tend to behave as employees, managers, taxpayers and consumers. In this research, the standard ATBEQ questionnaire was extended with five variables covering corporate social responsibility and applied to a sample of business administration students in Croatia. The aim of the research was to identify groups of future managers based on an evaluation of their attitudes on business ethics and corporate social responsibility. The analysis was divided into two parts. In the first part, factor analysis was performed on 35 variables (attitudes) relating to business ethics and corporate social responsibility. Six factors were extracted and factor scores were calculated. In the second part, hierarchical and non-hierarchical cluster analyses were conducted. Factor scores were used as input data for the cluster analysis. Firstly, the hierarchical cluster analysis was run on the calculated factor scores. According to the dendrogram, a three-cluster solution was chosen. The non-hierarchical cluster analysis was then used to improve the results of the hierarchical cluster solution. Finally, these clusters (groups) of future managers were characterised according to their attitudes on financial and other aspects of business ethics and corporate social responsibility.

Abstract. Croatian business surveys (BS) are conducted in the manufacturing industry, retail trade and construction sector. In all of these sectors, manager´s assessments of liquidity are measured. The aim of the paper was to form a new composite liquidity indicator by including business survey liquidity measures from all three covered economic sectors in the Croatian economy mentioned above. In calculating the leading indicator, a factor analysis approach was used. However, this kind of indicator does not exist in a Croatia or in any other European economy. Furthermore, the issue of Croatian companies´ illiquidity is highly neglected in the literature.The empirical analysis consists of two parts. In the first part the new liquidity indicator was formed using factor analysis. One factor (representing the new liquidity indicator; LI) was extracted out of the three liquidity variables in three economic sectors. This factor represents the new liquidity indicator. In the second part, econometric models were applied in order to investigate the forecasting properties of the new business survey liquidity indicator, when predicting the direction of changes in Croatian industrial production. The quarterly data used in the research covered the period from January 2000 to April 2013. Based on econometric analysis, it can be concluded that the LI is a leading indicator of Croatia's industrial production with better forecasting properties then the standard liquidity indicators (formed in a manufacturing industry).

The aim of this paper is to classify the post-transition OECD countries according to the Gini coefficient for income inequality, the S80/S20 ratio, the income share of the bottom 40% of the population, educational attainment – tertiary education, and labor force participation rate using factor and cluster analyses. Factor analysis resulted in two extracted factors, and factor scores were calculated. Hierarchical and non-hierarchical cluster analysis was performed on factor scores to classify eight posttransition OECD countries and three candidate countries. The research question of this paper is to investigate whether there are similarities/differences between existing members and candidates for membership in the OECD, among the selected post-transition countries of Europe, in the context of income inequality. Based on the dendrogram obtained by the hierarchical Ward’s method, a three cluster solution was selected. The non-hierarchical k-means method for the three-cluster solution clustered Croatia with Bulgaria and Romania. These three countries are OECD candidate countries. Our findings confirm that the three candidate countries remain behind because of historical reasons and the non-implementation of structural reforms.