Optimal acquisition strategy represents challenge for business world and academia. Academia tries to identify all factors and perspectives influencing success of acquisition strategy. The business reality is that most of M&As do not accomplish prearranged synergies and effects; therefore, the objective of this paper was to analyze the impact of key organizational variables on the success of acquisition strategy. The aim of this paper was to determine the impact of strategy, organizational structure, and corporate culture in the change process in target company. To this end, success of target company is defined by comparison of business performance prior and after the acquisition process by using financial indicators. Empirical research was conducted on the sample of target companies in Republic of Croatia in the period from 1998 until 2006. Data was collected via questionnaire followed with business performance analysis for the period of three years after the transaction's execution. Empirical research has confirmed a statistically significant correlation between the radical change in the target's strategy and its performance after the takeover. Likewise, research confirmed statistically significant correlation between changes in organizational structure and target's performance after the takeover and statistically significant correlation between larger change in corporate culture and target's performance after the takeover. Scientific contribution of this paper was the verification of importance of changes in strategy, organizational structure, and corporate culture for successful change management in target companies.

Article studies the absorption of European funds in Romania for the two post-accession periods: 2007-2014 and 2014-2020 and highlight the situation in Romania regarding the amount and evolution of European funds received (in relation to its contribution to the EU budget), the structure of these funds, the evolution of the absorption during the two intervals by program type and Romanian areas of development as well as difficulties encountered and the solutions adopted to overcome them. The analysis is based on primary statistical data provided by the Romanian Government and the European Commission, as well as studies and reports on national particularities and problems of absorption of European fund in Romania. In addition, a qualitative analysis of legislative and institutional framework aims to point out weakness and causes that hindered the absorption of funds. Paper highlights the increase of funds absorption in the current financial framework compared to the previous and emphasizes weaknesses in the Romanian institutional framework. The fact that many of the difficulties manifested in the first stage after adhesion were counter through appropriate solutions, enable better management of funds, which places Romania to the EU average in terms of rate of absorption. These solutions concern the improvement of administrative capacity (information, transparency, implementation, relationship with beneficiaries).

Surveillance of government deficit and debt data is a very important issue from the point of view of national policy makers, as well as international financial and statistical organizations. Deficit and debt developments in EU member states has been regularly (twice a year) monitored by Eurostat, which collects and publishes so called excessive deficit procedure (EDP) statistics on government deficit and debt. The European Commission uses the EDP statistics to assess whether EU Member States' government deficits and debt levels comply with the relevant EU legislation (according to the Maastricht Treaty criteria, government deficit should be less or equal to 3% and government debt less or equal to 60%) of GDP. Deficit and debt data are published mostly in relative terms, i.e. compared with the nominal GDP and compiled according to the ESA2010 methodology. In simplified theory, annual government deficit/surplus should be equal to change in the level of government debt at the end of the actual year and at the end of the previous year. In reality, this is not true due to the impact of the stock-flow adjustments (SFA), which explains the difference between the change in government debt and the government deficit/surplus for a given year. Main aim of this paper is to identify the main factors contributing the changes in government debt other than deficit/surplus (SFA) in Croatia during the period 2010-2017. Those factors are divided into three main categories: net acquisition of financial assets (further broken down by financial instruments), adjustments (for coverage, valuation and exchange rate changes) and statistical discrepancies (reflects differences arising from the use of various data sources). Second, not less important aim of paper is to identify size and impact of the particular SFA factors on changes in debt level during the observed period in Croatia, and based on results obtained, short recommendations for Croatian policymakers will be outlined.

Romania became a member of the EU in 2007 and thus gained the preconditions for achieving economic growth and long-term stability. Romania has not fully exploited all benefits of EU membership and is still in the group of the least developed member states. However, recent reports points to accelerated economic growth and improvement of economic performances of Romanian economy. In current situation, special emphasis should be placed on further stimulation of investments in research and development and their products. Such an orientation will result in achieving economic growth and improvement of the national competitiveness.

Theoretical background on mergers and acquisitions and consultants' role during various phases of transaction are shown in this paper. Business consultants are proven to have a significant role in M&A processes and their knowledge is verified as very important for transaction success. By using data from Mergermarket database for the financial sector in the European Union and countries in South Eastern Europe in period 2008 -2011, authors analyze business consultants' activity and point out their importance for M&A process.