No abstract

Similar recent history (former communist economies), geographical position (central Europe), relatively small size (except Poland), political systems (parliamentary democracies) and EU membership define Visegrad countries as the perfect group to compare with Slovenia. When we analyse the stock of inward foreign direct investments (IFDI) in comparison to GDP in Slovenia and all Visegrad countries, noticeable differences appear. With 30.5% (December 2016) the stock of IFDI in Slovenia was much lower than the comparable data for Poland (39.4%), Slovakia (48.8%), Czech Republic (60.0%) and Hungary (64.3%). Also the trend of the IFDI share of GDP shows that the differences between Slovenia and Visegrad countries will not diminish noticeably in the forthcoming years. We try to verify whether the explanation of this phenomenon can be realized with the help of well-known cross-cultural models. In other words, is there a country-specific cultural dimension which influences whether Slovenia receives less IFDI than the Visegrad countries? In what ways is this dimension an influence on Slovenia receiving less IFDI? We conclude that the lack of IFDI has to be attributed to Slovenian particularities rather than significant cross-cultural differences when compared to Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The role of lay employees in the Catholic Church has grown over the past few decades. As a consequence, the overall quality of human resources management (HRM), which includes the process of hiring, has become crucial within Church organisations. After an overview of the general theoretical findings about the process of hiring, we continue by presenting a survey executed among members of the Slovenian Bishops' Conference about value orientations concerning the hiring of lay persons within the Slovenian dioceses. The survey results were unexpected. We attempt to explain them within the scope of possible differences between the general HRM theory findings and research focused exclusively on the Church. Our conclusion is that, as a rule, Church practice does not follow the principle of creating a large pool of possible candidates for the job. Rather, it depends on more personal, individual invitations communicated to previously selected applicants.