The research has been conducted in four countries (Spain, Italy, France and North Macedonia) with an aim to update the need analysis of trainers needs/gaps and to investigate the readiness of the trainers, needs and expectations on andragogical framework. It is part of the Intellectual Output 1 of the project Let’s Digital which covers Trainers’ social, professional and andragogical update needs research and creation of the competencies framework for trainers of migrant women.

You can download the report from teh following LINK

The private sector in the Balkan Mediterranean Region (Albania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Greece) is characterized by dominance of micro enterprises. The total number of Micro Enterprises (1-9 employees) is 1.427.303 for 2016, with the highest number of 764.471 located in Greece. SMEs (10-250 employees) correspond to 77.929 in 2016, with 28.816 located in Bulgaria. Large enterprises correspond to 3.159 for 2016, with 1.690 of them located to Albania (above 250 employees), as well as the foreign controlled enterprises, which total number is 6.764, with 4.024 located again in Albania. ....

The Report on the Innovators – Type, Context and Business Practice in the Balkan Mediterranean Area can be downloaded here.

 Skopje Planning Region is a leading economic performer and innovator at national level; however, despite these findings, the regional performance and innovation capacities lag behind EU regional average.

-  More than 50% of the national GDP is generated in the Skopje Planning region. The region had 0.5% average annual growth of the GDP per capita in the period 2010-2016
-  The population is aging.- The unemployment rate decreased from 36% in 2010 to 22.3% in 2017. Majority of the new employment was generated in manufacturing,
    construction and services, and the public administration.
-  Skopje planning region is an administrative and business centre, attracting the most educated labour force. 
-  The business entities operating in the Skopje planning region generate more than half of national exports and more than half of national imports.
 - In the period 2010-2016 the number of small enterprises (number of employees between 10-50) along with the number of large enterprises (more than 250 employees), increased. Although the absolute numbers are not impressive, the trend marks the beginning of an important change in the structure of the  private sector. It is a move towards SMEs and large enterprises, which are more efficient  in the use of the available resources compared to the microenterprises.

The Report on the Innovation Potential and Dominant Emerging Industries: Skopje Planning Region can be downloaded here.

After decades of liberalization of trade and capital, in the beginning of the new millennia, the focus is placed on the liberalization of movement of labor.  These developments favor the mobility of young people in search of education and jobs outside of their birth countries. At the same time, these trends are also recognized as a tool for transfer of knowledge and skills across the nations favoring a more equal distribution of global wealth. The future looks promising, and yet distant, as many times, the international mobility of young people is challenged by the access to finances.

Today there is an emergence of two different paradigms when it comes to the role of higher education providers in the society. The first one, mainly present in the Anglo-Saxon countries (UK, US) perceives the higher education from a market point of view where students are recognized as the creators of demand.  As a result, the cost of the Higher education is predominantly borne by the students, while the highest burden is placed on the shoulders of the international students.The US and the UK higher education systems are the main proponents of this paradigm. As a result, the available financial mechanisms for supporting international mobility of students in these countries are limited. 

In contrast, the EU brings a new paradigm of the role of higher education institutions in the society, while current data support the sustainability and longevity of this paradigm. This paradigm sees students as the material, which is transformed during the process of higher education.  Students are not the market; they are the product, while the market is the employers, the society at a large. The strong state support of the higher education in almost all EU countries accompanied with the Bologna process and the mechanisms under Erasmus + programme, remove many of the obstacles for financing the international mobility of students. Data indicate that these mechanisms are effective; the main issue however is, whether the product, i.e. the student skills meets the demand of employers.

CKM report on the global trends of the international mobility of students can be downloaded from the following link

There is no doubt nowadays that the source of competitive advantage of countries is the innovation potential of their economies; however, innovations are not only seen at micro level i.e. at organizational and industry level; they are also sought in the way countries govern and strengthen their economies. The study on the business environment and the national innovation potential of FYR of Macedonia, explores the macro and micro determinants of country’s innovation potential in the period 2010-2017.

You can download the study here.

National Innoscores can be downloaded here.

In the contemporary world characterised with liberalised markets, interconnected economies, and intensive use of new technologies,  the state of constant changes is the new status quo. For an economy to sucesfully face the challanges associated with the constant changes  it needs to develop a competitive advanatge based on innovations and knowledge in sectors which produce higher value.

The main aim of the analysis is to make a snap-shot of the current governemnt policies and programmes in the sector of innovation and competitivness   in Republic of Macedonia with a special focus on the innovation, to review all current activities and measures, to identify and reccomend measures for improvement. 

The Study can be downloaded at the following link

This publication presents results from the Innovation Survey of firms operating in Macedonia, carried out by Knowledge Center from Macedonia and brainplus from Austria. The survey covers innovation activities of Macedonian companies in the period 2010-2013.

The study can be downloaded at the following link.

Bogdanovska Gj., Andrijana

Recommended Reference: Bogdanovska Gj., A. (2013).Knowledge Management as a Competitive Advantage of Companies. Proceedings of the 10th Conference on intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning - ICICKM 2013, George Washington University, USA

 

ABSTRACT:

By merging existing theory, discussion and research in the areas of strategic and knowledge management, the paper argues in favor of the basic assumption of all schools on strategy – competitive advantage results into a superior performance of contemporary companies. Causation, however, can only be justified when knowledge management is introduced as a moderator in the equation. Although recognized as an important resource as early as 1950s, knowledge did not gain in strategic value until the emergence of the Resource Based View on Strategy in the 1990s. Realizing that knowledge is a dynamic capability and that today’s knowledge although protected, is not a guarantee of tomorrow’s success, contemporary organizations approached knowledge management as a system comprised of four knowledge management processes: creation, organization, dissemination (transfer and sharing) and use (applicability), open to the influence of the wider external and internal environment considered through the social and technological context of organizations. By focusing on the internal context, the paper presents an empirical model which can be tested in different environments. The internal context reflects the influence of three predominant KM platforms: structure, culture and technology. In the process, technology is recognized as a main enabler for capturing, storing and distributing codified knowledge, while organizational structure that fosters KM processes as flexible, lean, team based and customer oriented. In regards to organizational culture, adaptive and flexible cultures are recognized as supportive to knowledge generation; while stable and hierarchical cultures supportive to knowledge storage in organizational routines. At the end, the effectiveness of KM as a competitive advantage is approached through identifying superior financial and non-financial performance.

 


Bogdanovska Gj, Andrijana, Djurovic, Branko

Recommended reference: Bogdanovska Gj., A. and Djurovic, B. (2013). Obstacles to Knowledge Sharing in Project Environments. Proceedings of the 10th Conference on intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning - ICICKM 2013, George Washington University, USA.

 

ABSTRACT:

Although knowledge has been recognized as a strategic resource of companies as early as the middle of the past century, it is actually the organizational school on strategy which lifted its significance to strategic relevance at the beginning of the 1990s. What once was the predominant view on knowledge focused on knowledge exploitation and protection, rapidly changed towards the importance of internal capabilities for strategically coordinating knowledge re-sources. As a result a new concept emerged focused on managing knowledge made out of an agreed set of processes: (1) generation, (2) organization and storage, (3) transfer and sharing and (4) application. The organizational view on knowledge proved to be too limited to cover the complexities of its actual use. In a global world of interconnected economies, increased competition and a micro-environment rapidly favoring inter-organizational synergies, accompanied with radical internal changes in organizational structure of companies where the traditional hierarchical structure has been rapidly replaced with project based matrix-es, superior knowledge was no longer created in closed environments, rather it increasingly depended on the process of sharing knowledge which occurs in inter and intra-organizational teams. In majority of the cases these teams are project teams. Researchers so far have tackled the knowledge sharing mechanisms which arise in these hybrid environments; however, there is a gap in literature regarding the obstacles to knowledge sharing. The critical analysis identifies the most common obstacles to knowledge sharing with and within project teams grouped into three specific categories: organizational, technological and individual/people related barriers. Organizational obstacles cover parent company’s organizational structure, culture, lack of project leadership and/or poor project management practices – all factors which create a lack of trust among team members and hinder the sharing of tacit knowledge. Technology obstacles are related to the lack of IT platforms for collecting and disseminating explicit project knowledge and lessons learned as well as the lack of strategic alignment of technology with the existing absorptive capacity of project team members. Individual factors cover the lack of motivation to share or receive knowledge, the poor communication skills, the gap in experience among project members and the low absorptive capacity of knowledge receivers in general. The paper therefore provides a good categorization of the obstacles which can be further adjusted and explored with empirical research on the subject. 


Bogdanovska Gj., Andrijana

Recommended Reference: Bogdanovska Gj., Andrijana, The Relationship between Trade and Industry Structure – EU New and Old Countries (July 11, 2011). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/paper=1942309

 

ABSTRACT

The study is a bi-directional study on the correlation of the trade and industry structure; two factors with a strong impact on the economic growth of countries. The analysis consists of extensive and detailed research on literature used in the development of the model which is tested empirically with data from the EU new and old member countries. It is a quantitative, inferential study with a general use of descriptive statistics.

The results indicate that from the new EU states, Bulgaria is an absolute winner, with a move of the economy into the higher value-added sectors. Slovakia is a relative looser, while from the old EU member states, Spain has benefited the most from the EU enlargement.

The findings emphasize an existence of a connection between the two variables when the gravity model is used. It supports the findings of the previous empirical research in the area.