Organizacija, volume I letnik 41, number I številka 3, May-June I maj-junij 2008
Content/Kazalo 3/2008
RESEARCH PAPERS
81 ANASTASIA A. KATOU
91 DAMJANA JERMAN, GORAN VUKOVIČ, BRUNO ZAVRŠNIK
Innovation and Human Resource Management: the Greek Experience
How Public Relations Impact on a Company's Effectiveness
99 ANDREJKA MEVC, MILAN PAGON
108 OZLEM AYDIN, FATMA PAKDIL
116 DANIJEL BRATINA, ARMAND FAGANEL
Corruption in Public Administration Units and Organizational Measures to Prevent and Fight Corruption
Fuzzy SERVQUAL Analysis in Airline Services
Forecasting the Primary Demand for a Beer Brand Using Time Series Analysis
SUPPLEMENT/DODATEK RAZPRAVE
A155 TANJA ARH, ROK KOKALJ, DEJAN DINEVSKI, BORKA JERMAN BLAŽIČ
Pregled stanja na področju e-izobraževanja
v Sloveniji
POVZETKI DONATORJI
A168
A175 A177
BOŠTJAN AVER, SIMON ČADEŽ
Participacija poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa: medpanožna primerjava
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UREDNIK / EDITOR
Jože Zupančič, Univerza v Mariboru, Fakulteta za organizacijske vede
SOUREDNIKA / CO-EDITORS
Marko Ferjan, Univerza v Mariboru, Fakulteta za organizacijske vede
Boštjan Gomišček, Univerza v Mariboru, Fakulteta za organizacijske vede
UREDNIŠKI ODBOR REVIJE / EDITORIAL BOARD
Rado Bohinc, Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija
Roger Blanpain, Catholic University of Leuve, Belgium
Franc Čuš, Univerza v Mariboru, Slovenija
Daniel C. Ganster, University of Arkansas, USA
Jože Gričar, Univerza v Mariboru, Slovenija
Werner Jammernegg, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria
Marius Alexander Janson, University of Missouri, USA
Milton A. Jenkins, University of Baltimore, USA
Miroljub Kljajic, Univerza v Mariboru, Slovenija
Hermann Maurer, Technical University Graz, Austria
Matjaž Mulej, Univerza v Mariboru, Slovenija
Milan Pagon, Univerza v Mariboru, Slovenija
Bjorn Pappe, Technical University Aachen; Germany
Dušan Petrač, NASA, USA
Hans Puxbaum, Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Vladislav Rajkovič, Univerza v Mariboru, Slovenija
Henk G. Sol, Technical University Delft, The Netherlands
Velimir Srica, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Paula Swatman, University of South Australia, Australia
Brian Timney, The University of Western Ontario, USA
Maurice Yolles, Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom
Douglas Vogel, City University of Hong Kong
Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber, Middle East Technical University, Turkey
Stanislaw Wricza, University of Gdansk, Poland
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Innovation and Human Resource Management: the Greek Experience
Anastasia A. Katou
Department of Technology Management, University of Macedonia, 540 06 Thessaloniki, Greece, akatou@uom.gr
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the pathways leading from innovation to organisational performance by using structural equation modelling. Specifically, we used this analytical tool to test a research framework that is constituted by a set of causal relationships between organisational contingencies, innovation, HRM policies (resourcing, training, rewards, relations), HRM outcomes (skills, attitudes, behaviour), and organisational performance. Employing data from organisations operating in the Greek manufacturing sector, results indicate that the impact of innovation on organisational performance is positive and mediated through HRM policies and HRM outcomes, and moderated by organisational context (management style, organisational culture).
Key words: Innovation strategy; HRM policies; Causality; Structural equation modelling; Greek manufacturing
1 Introduction
Although much has been written separately about the concepts of innovation and human resource management in improving organisational performance, the combination of the two in improving organisational performance has received less systematic attention in research literature (Looise & Riemsdijk, 2004). Taking into account that innovation is frequently defined as "deliberate and radical changes in existing products or services, processes or the organisation in order to reach competitive advantage compared with competitors" (Looise & Riemsdijk, 2004: 278), most literature in innovation is concentrated in the so-called 'technical innovation', considering the changes that refer to existing products or services, and processes, only (Looise & Riemsdijk, 2004). Moreover, although HRM is usually defined as "all management decisions and activities that affect the nature of the relationship between the organisation and its employees" (Beer, Spector, Lawrence, Quinn Mills, & Walton, 1984:382), the majority of the literature in HRM distinguishes employee resourcing, development, rewards, and relations as the four key areas of HRM policies and practices.
Within the resource-based view of the firm, which advocates that an organisation can gain competitive advantage by attracting and retaining best human resources, universalistic and contingency HRM-performance linkage models have been either theoretically or empirically developed. The universalistic model suggests that a specified set of HR practices (the so called "best practices") will always produce superior business results whatever the accompanying circumstances. The contingency model
argues that an organisation's set of HRM policies and practices will be effective if it is consistent with other organisational strategies. However, there is no consensus amongst researchers regarding which model is the predominant one (Wood, 1999).
Specifically, the relationship between innovation strategy and HRM in improving organisational performance has been generally studied from a contingency perspective (Jimenez-Jimenez & Sanz-Valle, 2005). The contingency perspective in this case advocates 'sequence', supporting that innovation strategies are followed by HRM policies in determining business performance. According to this sequence business performance will be improved when the right 'fit', or 'mach', between innovation strategies and HRM policies and practices is achieved. However, some authors have analysed the reverse sequence, advocating that HRM policies are followed by innovation strategies in determining business performance (Daman-pour, 1991). Contrary to the contingency perspective, the universalistic perspective advocates 'independence', supporting that innovation strategies and HRM policies are mutually independent in determining business performance.
In analysing the impact of HRM on business performance each of the HRM-performance linkage models developed complements the others by adding constructs, variables or relationships (Alcazar, Fernandez, & Gardey, 2005). A serious limitation that recent reviews of the literature points out is that the link between HRM and business performance is considered like a 'black box', i.e., lack of clarity regarding 'what exactly leads to what' (Gerhart, 2005; Alcazar et al., 2005). In empirically investigating
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these models most studies were based on cross-sectional data and the analysis employed was either 'hierarchical regression models' or 'competing regression models' without proving causality. Thus, Fey, Bjorkman & Pavlovska-ya (2000) exhorted researchers to use 'structural equation modelling' (SEM) to illuminate the 'black box' (Wright, Gardner & Moynihan, 2003) between HRM systems and business performance. This is because the use of SEM is particularly appropriate when testing direct and indirect relationships between HRM policies and business performance and when testing theoretically derived paths among various exogenous and endogenous variables.
Considering the discussion above and that HRM is scarcely included in innovation strategy studies (Laursen & Foss, 2003) the primary research questions of this paper are:
1.	What impact, if any, does innovation strategy and human resource management have upon organizational performance?
2.	What is the causal path of this relationship?
3.	What is the contingency framework of this relationship?
A supplementary goal in this paper is to empirically investigate the research questions by employing the structural equation modelling methodology, instead of the usual regression equation methodology. Considering further, that there are no studies that test theoretically derived paths among various exogenous and endogenous variables in the Greek context, an attempt has been made in this paper to investigate how innovation strategy and human resource management policies influence organisational performance in the Greek context.
2 Research Model and Hypotheses
From the discussion in the preceding section, three models may be identified relating innovation strategy, HRM policies, and organisational performance: the contingency model, the reciprocal contingency model, and the univer-salistic model. Specifically:
Contingency model: The underlying assumption of this model is that innovation strategy is the guiding force for developing specific HRM policies that will have a positive impact on organisational performance. Lists of employee resourcing, development, rewards, and relations HRM policies, connected with innovation strategy, have been proposed by Jimenez-Jimenez & Sanz-Valle (2005). Thus, innovation strategy determines HRM policies that are followed in an organisation.
Reciprocal contingency model: The underlying assumption of this model is that innovation strategy will have a positive impact on organisational performance if it has been formulised in relationship with some specific HRM policies that have already been developed in the organisation (Damanpour, 1991; Jimenez-Jimenez & Sanz-Valle, 2005; Zhao & Liu, 2006).Thus, HRM policies determine innovation strategy that is followed in an organisation.
Universalistic model: The underlying assumption of this model is that the formulation of innovation strategy does not depend on the formulation of HRM policies in an organisation, and vice versa, the formulation of HRM policies does not depend on the formulation of innovation strategy in an organisation. Thus, innovation strategy and HRM policies are completely independent in determining organisational performance.
Considering furthermore that regardless the innova-tion-HRM-performance linkage model followed, literature highlights that the organisation's innovative behaviour depends on the organisational context of the firm described by factors such as management-style (with respect to centralised or decentralised decision making) and organisational culture (with respect to task-oriented forms followed) (Damanpour & Gopalakrishnan, 1998; Murphy & Southey, 2003), Figure 1 presents the three innovation-HRM-performance linkage hypothesised causal models.
The hypotheses that go after the three models may be stated as follows:
(a)	Contingency model:
HC:1 Organisational context factors moderate innovation strategy.
HC:2 Innovation strategy is positively related with HRM policies.
HC:3 HRM policies are positively related with organisational performance.
(b)	Reciprocal contingency model:
HR:1 Organisational context factors moderate HRM policies.
HR:2 HRM policies are positively related with innovation strategy.
HR:3 Innovation strategy is positively related with organisational performance.
(c)	Universalistic model:
HU:1 Organisational context factors moderate innovation strategy.
HU:2 Organisational context factors moderate HRM policies.
HU:3 Innovation strategy is positively related with organisational performance. HU:4 HRM policies are positively related with organisational performance.
Although various lists of HRM policies that the innovating organisations should employ have been proposed, still, there is no consensus both in theoretical and empirical literature about the number and the type of HRM policies to be included in these lists. Specifically, there is a compromise that recruitment, performance appraisal, and incentives may constitute important HRM policies for innovating organisations, and there is no agreement if training and development, career paths, flexible contracts, and employee participation, represent important HRM policies for innovating organisations (Jimenez-Jimenez, & Sanz-Valle, 2005).
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(b) Reciprocal Contingency Model
(c) Universalistic Model
Figure 1: Innovation-HRM-Performance linkage hypothesised causal models
However, irrespectively of which specific HRM policies should be included in a relevant HRM list, the core philosophy of the Becker & Huselid (1998) HRM-perfor-mance linkage model, which has been categorised as the "most logical and definite model of the processes through which HR practices affect firm performance" (Wright et al., 2003:25), suggests that the HRM policies of resourcing and development have an impact on employee skills, that together with employee rewards influence employee attitudes, that together with employee relations affect employee behaviours, which are subsequently translated into improved organisational performance. This HRM poli-cies-HRM outcomes linkage hypothesised causal model is presented in Figure 2. Thus, the hypotheses that accompany the model in Figure 2 may be stated as follows:
Figure 2: HRM policies-HRM outcomes linkage hypothesised causal model
H1:
H2:
H3:
H4:
H5:
H6:
Employees' resourcing is positively related with employees' skills.
Employees' development is positively related with employees' skills.
Employees' skills are positively related with employees' attitudes.
Employees' rewards are positively related with employees' attitudes.
Employees' attitudes are positively related with employees' behaviour.
Employees' relations are positively related with employees' behaviour. Incorporating the model presented in Figure 2 in the block indicated by HRM in the models presented in Figure 1 respectively, the basic characteristics of the three models proposed in Figure 1, may be available as follows:
Contingency model: Organisational context moderates innovation. Innovation affects resourcing, development, rewards, and relations. These HRM policies in conjunction with skills and attitudes influence behaviour. Behaviour affects organisational performance.
Reciprocal contingency model: Organisational context moderates resourcing, development, rewards, and relations. These HRM policies in conjunction with skills and attitudes influence behaviour. Behaviour affects innovation. Innovation affects organisational performance.
Universalistic model: Organisational context moderates resourcing, development, rewards, and relations. These HRM policies in conjunction with skills and attitudes influence behaviour. Behaviour affects organisational performance. Organisational context moderates innovation. Innovation affects organisational performance.
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Table 1: Characteristics of all the variables used in the study
Variable /	Items and dimensions	Cronbach	Percent of va-
Construct		Alpha	riance explained
Innovation	• Innovation processes	0.55	53.9
strategy	•	Improvement of goods •	Wide range of goods [Measured on a Likert-scale ranging from l=not very important to 5=totally essential]		
Organisational performance	•	Effectiveness •	Efficiency •	Development •	Satisfaction •	Innovation results •	Quality [Measured on a Likert-scale ranging from l=very bad to 5=very good]	0.93	74.1
Skills	•	Competences •	Co-operation between management and employees •	Co-operation among employees [Measured on a Likert-scale ranging from l=very bad to 5=very good]	0.91	84.2
Attitudes	•	Motivation •	Commitment •	Satisfaction [Measured on a Likert-scale ranging from l=very bad to 5=very good]	0.90	83.8
Behaviour	•	Retention (counterpart of turnover) •	Presence (Counterpart of absenteeism) [Measured on a Likert-scale ranging from l=very bad to 5=very good]	0.83	85.8
Resourcing	•	Recruitment •	Selection •	Separation •	Flexible work arrangements [Measured on a Likert-scale ranging from l=not at all effective to 5=highly effective]	0.80	63.2
Development	•	Training and development •	Monitoring training and development •	Careers •	Work design •	Performance appraisal [Measured on a Likert-scale ranging from l=not at all effective to 5=highly effective]	0.88	67.2
Rewards	•	Job evaluation •	Compensation •	Promotion •	Incentives •	Benefits [Measured on a Likert-scale ranging from l=not at all effective to 5=highly effective]	0.87	65.2
Relations	•	Participation •	Involvement •	Communication •	Health and safety [Measured on a Likert-scale ranging from l=not at all effective to 5=highly effective]	0.82	65.1
Organisational context	•	Management style [Measured on a Likert-scale ranging from 1= heavily centralised to 5=highly decentralised] •	Organizational culture [Measured as 1 = power-oriented, 2 = role-oriented, 3 = project-oriented, 4 = fulfilment-oriented]	0.60	71.7
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3 Methodology
Sample
A large questionnaire survey in 23 sector industries in the Greek manufacturing sector was carried out between March 2002 and September 2002. A sample of 600 Greek organisations was used from the main Greek directory ICAP (2001). The sample was obtained by employing the stratified methodology. The strata were the 23 manufacturing sector industries including organisations with more than 20 employees. 20 percent of the approximately 3000 organisations were randomly chosen from each stratum of the directory. One hundred and sixty nine (169) usable self-administered questionnaires were received, a response rate of approximately 28 percent. Measures
Table 1 presents the dimensions of all the variables used in the study. For the classification of these variables I followed Katou and Budhwar (2006; 2007). Consistency of the survey instrument
Construct internal consistency was checked computing Cronbach alphas. The figures in Table 1 indicate that the survey instrument is a reliable instrument for checking the model presented in Figure 1, because the vast majority of Cronbach alphas are much higher than 0.70 (Nunnally, 1978). Construct validity was examined by evaluating the percent of the total variance explained per dimension obtained by applying confirmatory factor analy-
sis using varimax rotation and eigenvalues greater than one. The percent of total variance explained values reported in Table 1, are much higher than 50.0% indicating acceptable survey instrument construct validity (Hair, Anderson, Tatham & Black, 1995).
Statistical analysis
To test the raised research questions of the proposed framework the methodology of 'structural equation models' or 'latent variable models' was used, that is much more powerful in investigating causal relationships between categorical variables than regression analysis (Hair et al., 1995).
4 Results
We tested the theoretical models presented in Figure 1 using the structural equation modelling (SEM) via the Statistical Package LISREL (Linear Structural Relations) and the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) (see Joreskog & Sorbom, 2004). We used MLE because tests of departure from normality, skewness and kurtosis for all variables used were all within acceptable statistical limits (Hair et al., 1995).
We assessed the overall model fit employing the chi-square test and the normed-chi-square test and examining the root mean squared error of approximation (RMSEA), the comparative fit index (CFI), and the nor-
CM-Square= 1925.99 df = 617 p-value = 0.000 Normed Chi-Square = 3.121 RMSEA = 0.109 CFI=0.94 NFI=0.92 + p < 0.20, ++ p < 0.10, ' p < 0.05, »• p < 0.01, *«« p < 0.001
Figure 3: Estimation results of the contingency model
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Wide range of „0.76"' Q.15*] goods
Benefits
0.81"* Participation
Chi-Square = 1948.66 df = 617 p-value = 0.000 Normed Chi-Square = 3.158 RMSEA = 0.110 CFI = 0.94 NFI = 0.92 + p < 0.20, ++ p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, " p < 0.01, "« p < 0.001
Figure 4: Estimation results of the reciprocal contingency model
Chi-Square = 1877.57 df = 616 p-value = 0.000 Normed Chi-Square = 3.048 RMSEA = 0.108 CFI=0.94 NFI=0.92 + p < 0.20, ++ p < 0.10, ' p < 0.05, " p < 0.01, ♦" p < 0.001
Figure 5: Estimation results of the universalistic model
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med fit index (NFI). The path diagrams for the estimated Innovation-HRM-Performance linkage models proposed in Figure 1, indicating all the causal relationships between the variables involved, are presented in Figures 3,4 and 5 for the contingency, reciprocal contingency, and the uni-versalistic model, respectively. In these figures the boxes represent exogenous or endogenous observed variables and the circles represent the related latent variables. The light arrows indicate the observed variables that constitute the related latent variable and the bold arrows indicate the structural relationships between the corresponding variables. The figures that are assigned to each arrow show the estimated standardised coefficients.
In view of the results for the contingency, reciprocal contingency, and universalistic models presented in Figures 3, 4, and 5 respectively, the statistics suggest that the estimated models possess a satisfactory degree of fit with the data. Furthermore, considering the significance of the estimated standardised coefficients of the structural equations, it is seen that the vast majority of the hypotheses for the three models are supported, and only hypotheses H6 and HU:3 for the universalistic model are not supported. However, comparing the results in Figures 3 and 4 it may be supported that the contingency model is preferable than the reciprocal contingency model, because the values of the Normed Chi-Square and the RMSEA of the contingency model are slightly smaller than the corresponding values of the reciprocal contingency model. Furthermore, the "improvement of goods" construct in the innovation latent variable in the reciprocal contingency model is significant at a 0.10 level, whilst the same construct is significant at a 0.05 level in the contingency model. The results in Figure 5 do not support the universalistic model, because the direct effects of innovation on organisational performance and employee relations on employee behaviour are not significant.
5 Discussion and Conclusions
In the present study we have adopted the structural equation modelling methodology, which is much more powerful than hierarchical or competing regression analysis, in investigating causal relationships between categorical variables. Furthermore, the proposed and tested conceptual innovation-HRM-performance linkage framework put some light into the 'black box' mediating innovation strategy and organisational performance, by also considering the moderating effects of organisational context variables such as managerial style and organisational culture. Thus, the contribution of this study is two-fold. First on the analytical level, adopting a more sophisticated method of analysis, and second on the conceptual level, introducing an innovation-HRM-performance linkage model.
Specifically, the study provides support for the contingency perspective. Analytically, Table 2 shows the direct, indirect and total effects of statistically significant relationships expressed in the tested contingency model. Results shown in Table 2 reveal that innovation strategy is
positively influenced by the 'organisational context' variable. This means that the more heavily decentralised the management style is, and the more fulfilment - oriented (i.e. emphasis on expertise and orientation toward the person) organisational culture is, the more positive is the influence of organisational context variables on innovation. Furthermore, although there is no any direct impact of organisational context on the other mediating variables of the model, total effects indicate that all variables are strongly and positively influenced by organisational context variables. This result seems to be very important because it reveals that the internal environment of the organisation influences innovation strategy, the HRM policies, the HRM outcomes, and organisational performance (Murphy & Southey, 2003). Moreover, it is worth mentioning that the variables of employee retention and presence fit into the model, supporting the findings of other researchers such as Boselie, Paauwe & Jansen (2001) and Fey et al. (2000), who advocate that they affect organisational performance. With respect to the latent variable of 'organisational performance' it is seen that all the variables used to constitute this construct fit properly into the model.
It is seen in Table 2 that behaviour is strongly and positively related to attitudes. This direct relation between attitudes and behaviour (0.94) is transferred to organisational performance, depicted by the total effect of behaviour on performance (0.87) that is almost equal to the total effect of attitudes on performance (0.82). This result supports the job performance theory, advocating that it is employee's attitudes that have an impact on the behaviour of employees that subsequently has an impact on organisational performance (Wright et al., 2003). The policies of resourcing and development provided an equivalent direct effect (0.44) on skills, which subsequently it is translated to increased organisational performance (0.25) through attitudes and behaviour. Similarly, the policies of rewards and relations provided direct effects on attitudes (0.32) and behaviour (0.11) respectively, which subsequently they were translated to increased organisational performance (0.26 for rewards and 0.10 for relations) (Wright et al.,2003).
Moreover, the results shown in Table 2 reveal that organisational performance is positively influenced (0.79) by innovation strategy. This result verifies findings of Jimenez-Jimenez & Sanz-Valle (2005) and Zhao & Liu (2006). Considering that the loading factor of the innovation processes construct is double in size than the loading factors of the other two constructs, it means that innovation processes have a more influential role in determining organisational performance than improvement and wide range of goods. Furthermore, the results shown in Table 2 reveal that innovation directly and positively affects resourcing (0.85), development (0.96), rewards (0.97), and relations (0.94). It is worth noting that innovation indirectly and positively influences behaviour (0.91), attitudes (0.86), and skills (0.80), indicating thus that the further from organisational performance the HRM outcomes are the lower their influence on organisational performance.
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Table 2: Standardised total, direct and indirect effects
Descriptions		Direct	Indirect	Total
		effects	effects	effects
Organisational context	• Organisational performance	0.00	0.59	0.59
Organisational context	• Behaviour	0.00	0.67	0.67
Organisational context	• Attitudes	0.00	0.63	0.63
Organisational context	•Skills	0.00	0.59	0.59
Organisational context	• Resourcing	0.00	0.63	0.63
Organisational context	• Development	0.00	0.71	0.71
Organisational context	• Rewards	0.00	0.72	0.72
Organisational context	• Relations	0.00	0.70	0.70
Organisational context	• Innovation	0.74	0.00	0.74
Behaviour	• Organisational performance	0.87	0.00	0.87
Attitudes	• Organisational performance	0.00	0.82	0.82
Attitudes	• Behaviour	0.94	0.00	0.94
Skills	• Organisational performance	0.00	0.56	0.56
Skills	• Behaviour	0.00	0.64	0.64
Skills	• Attitudes	0.69	0.00	0.69
Resourcing	• Organisational performance	0.00	0.25	0.25
Resourcing	• Behaviour	0.00	0.28	0.28
Resourcing	• Attitudes	0.00	0.30	0.30
Resourcing	•Skills	0.44	0.00	0.44
Development	• Organisational performance	0.00	0.25	0.25
Development	• Behaviour	0.00	0.29	0.29
Development	• Attitudes	0.00	0.30	0.30
Development	•Skills	0.44	0.00	0.44
Rewards	• Organisational performance	0.00	0.26	0.26
Rewards	• Behaviour	0.00	0.30	0.30
Rewards	• Attitudes	0.32	0.00	0.32
Relations	• Organisational performance	0.00	0.10	0.10
Relations	• Behaviour	0.11	0.00	0.11
Innovation	• Organisational performance	0.00	0.79	0.79
Innovation	• Behaviour	0.00	0.91	0.91
Innovation	• Attitudes	0.00	0.86	0.86
Innovation	•Skills	0.00	0.80	0.80
Innovation	• Resourcing	0.85	0.00	0.85
Innovation	• Development	0.96	0.00	0.96
Innovation	• Rewards	0.97	0.00	0.97
Innovation	• Relations	0.94	0.00	0.94
In terms of mediation we found that skills, attitudes, and behaviour serially mediate the relationship between HRM policies and organisational performance. This finding coincides with Delery & Doty (1996) who argued that HRM policies influence organisational performance by creating a workforce that is skilled and has the right attitudes and behaviour. It also partially supports Guest (2001) for satisfaction and commitment, Boselie et al. (2001) for satisfaction and motivation, Horwitz (1999) for obtaining competencies in an ever-expanding collection of skills, and Paul & Anantharaman (2003) for competence and commitment, arguing that these HRM outcomes affect organisational performance. Furthermore, our results support Purcell, Kinnie, Hutchinson, Rayton, & Swart (2003) who advocate that employee commitment and motivation are important mediators between training and firm performance.
Furthermore, in terms of mediation we found that HRM policies mediate the relationship between innovation and organisational performance. However, it is worth mentioning here that although Becker & Gerhart (1996)
have identified only three HRM policies that influence organisational performance to be common among various empirical studies, we decided to include in this study as many HRM policies as possible, considering that the proposed research model is tested for the first time in the Greek context using structural equation modelling. Employing the factor loadings of the HRM policies of the estimated contingency model presented in Figure 3 we may make inferences concerning the fit between innovation strategy and HRM policies. Thus, from the resourcing latent variable it is seen that recruitment (0.91) and selection (0.87) have the highest loadings, in contrast with flexible work contracts that have the lowest loading (0.48). This result may support the findings of Raghuram & Ar-vey (1994) who found that there exists a fit between innovation and recruitment and the result of Storey, Quintas, Taylor, & Fowle (2002) who found that there is no fit between innovation and flexible work contracts. With respect to the training and development latent variable it is seen that training (0.80) and careers (0.84) have the highest loadings, although the loadings of performance appraisal,
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work design, and monitoring training are also high (0.78). This result may support the findings of Ding & Akhtar
(2001),	Mark & Akhtar (2003) and Zhao & Liu (2006) who found that training fits with innovation, the result of Petroni (1999) who found that broad career paths maintain innovation, and the result of Mark & Akhtar (2003) who stress the importance of performance appraisal in innovation. With respect to the rewards latent variable it is seen that benefits (0.81) and promotion (0.80) have the highest loadings, although the loadings of job evaluation (0.79), compensation (0.78), and incentives (0.77) are also high. This result may support similar findings of Laursen
(2002)	and Laursen & Foss (2003).With respect to the relations latent variable it is seen that communication (0.87) has the highest loading, although the loadings of participation (0.77), and involvement (0.77) are also high. This result may support similar findings of Damanpour (1991) for communication, and Damanpour (1991), Hurley & Hult (1998), and Mark & Akhtar (2003) for participation and involvement.
Summarising, we may say that although past research has demonstrated that there exists a relationship between innovation strategy and organisational performance (Da-manpour & Gopalakrishnan, 1998; Jimenez-Jimenez, & Sanz-Valle, 2005), it has neglected to investigate the mediating mechanisms, usually called the "black box", through which HRM policies are hypothesised to affect organisational performance (Gerhart, 2005). The results of this study support that innovation strategy positively affects organisational performance of Greek manufacturing companies. Specifically, the relationship between innovation and organisational performance, is serially mediated through the HRM policies of resourcing, training and development, rewards, and relations, the HRM outcomes of skills, attitudes and behaviour, and is moderated by organisational context. Moreover, there is a fit of innovation strategy with the HRM policies of recruitment, selection, training, careers, monitoring training, work design, performance appraisal, benefits, promotion, job evaluation, compensation, incentives, communication, participation, and involvement.
The conclusions above, nonetheless, should be treated with caution. This is mainly because a single respondent from each organisation provided information on innovation strategy, HRM policies, HRM outcomes, organisational context, and perceived measures of organisational performance, respondent bias may have set in the form of upward or downward reporting of the measures (Katou & Budhwar, 2007). In spite of such limitations, the study makes some important contributions. It tests theoretical assumptions in smaller firms and in a non- USA/UK context. It provides support to the fit perspective between innovation and HRM, and the mediation perspective. The study supports for the use of HRM policies, and HRM outcomes as mediating variables between innovation and organisational performance.
Considering the limitations of the study we may propose paths for future research. Specifically, in this study we tried to explore the question of causality using cross-
section data. However, causality can only really be tested with data collected at different points in time. Thus, the field would greatly benefit from some time-series or longitudinal studies in the future (Katou & Budhwar, 2006). Further, considering the pace of globalisation and competition, there is a strong need for investigating whether innovation strategy fits with specific HRM policies that allow organisations to improve their performance (Jimenez-Jimenez, & Sanz-Valle, 2005).
6 References
Alcazar, F.M. Fernandez, P.M.R. & Gardey, G.S. (2005) Researching on SHRM:An analysis of the debate over the role played by human resources in firm success. Management Revue, 16: 213-241. Becker, B.E. & Gerhart, B. (1996) The impact of human resource management on organisational performance: progress and prospects. Academy of Management Journal, 39: 779801.
Becker, B.E. and Huselid, M.A. (1998) High performance work systems and firm performance: A synthesis of research and managerial implications. In: G.R. Ferris (ed.) Research in personnel and human resources. Stamford, CT: JAI Press. Beer, M., Spector, B., Lawrence, P.R., Quinn Mills, D., & Walton, R.E. (1984) Managing human assets. New York: The Free Press.
Boselie, P., Paauwe, J. & Jansen, P. (2001) Human resource management and performance: lessons from the Netherlands. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 12: 1107-1125.
Damanpour, F. (1991) Organizational innovation: a meta-analy-sis of effects of determinants and moderators. Academy of management Journal, 34(3): 550-590. Damanpour, F. & Gopalakrishnan, S. (2002) Theories of organisational structure and innovation adoption: The role of environmental change. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 15(1): 1-24. Delery, J. & Doty, D.H. (1996) Modes of theorizing in strategic human resource management: test of universalistic, contingency and configurational performance predictions. Academy of Management Journal, 39(4): 802-835. Ding, D.Z. & Akhtar, S. (2001) The organizational choice of human resource management practices: A study of the Chinese enterprises in three cities in the PRC. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 12(6): 946-964. Fey, C.F., Bjorkman, I. & Pavlovskaya, A. (2000) The effect of human resource management practices on firm performance in Russia. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 11:1-18. Gerhart, B. (2005) Human resources and business performance: Findings, unanswered questions, and an alternative approach. Management Revue, 16: 174-185. Guest, D.E. (2001) Human resource management: when research confronts theory. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 12(7): 1092-1106. Hair, F.,Anderson, R.,Tatham, R. & Black,W. (1995) Multivariate Data Analysis with Readings. (4th ed.). London: Prentice-Hall.
Horwitz, F.M. (1999) The emergence of strategic training and development: the current state of play. Journal of European Industrial Training. 23/4/5:180-190.
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Hurley, R.E. & Hult, G.T.M. (1998) Innovation, market orientation and organisational learning: An integration and empirical examination. Journal of Marketing, 62: 42-54.
Jimenez-Jimenez, D. & Sanz-Valle, R. (2005) Innovation and human resource management fit: An empirical study. International Journal of Manpower, 26(4): 364-381.
Joreskog, K.G. & Sorbom, D. (2004) LISREL 8.7 for Windows SComputer SoftwareC. Lincolnwood, IL: Scientific Software International, Inc.
ICAP. 2001. Electronic Data Base. Greece.
Katou, A.A. & Budhwar, P.S. (2006) Human resource management systems and organizational performance: a test of a mediating model in the Greek manufacturing context. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 17(7): 1223-1253.
Katou,A.A. & Budhwar, P.S. (2007) The effect of human resource management policies on organizational performance in Greek manufacturing firms. Thunderbird International Business Review, 49(1): 1-35.
Laursen, K. (2002) The importance of sectoral differences in the application of complementary HRM practices for innovation performance. International Journal of the Economics of Business, 9(1): 139-156.
Laursen, K. & Foss, N.J. (2003) New human resource management practices, complementarities and the impact on innovation performance. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 27: 243-263.
Leede, J. de & Looise, J.K. (2005) Innovation and HRM : Towards an integrated framework. Creativity and Innovation Management. 14(2): 108-117.
Looise, J.K. & van Riemsdijk, M. (2004) Innovating organisations and HRM: A conceptual framework. Management Revue, 15(3): 277-287.
Murphy, G.D. & Southey, G. (2003) High performance work practices: perceived determinants of adoption and the role of the HR practitioner. Personnel Review, 32(1): 73-92.
Nunnally, J.C. (1978) Psychometric theory. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Paul, A.K. & Anantharaman, R.N. (2003) Impact of people management practices on organisational performance. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 14: 12461266.
Petroni, A. (1999) Career route preferences of design engineers: An empirical research. European Journal of Innovation Management, 2(2): 63-70.
Purcell, J., Kinnie, N., Hutchinson, S., Rayton, B. & Swart, J. (2003). Understanding the people and performance link: Unlocking the black box. London: Chartered Institute of People Development.
Raghuram, S. & Arvey, R.D. (1994) Business strategy links with staffing and training practices. Human Resource Planning, 17(3): 55-73.
Storey, J., Quintas, P., Taylor, P. & Fowle, W. (2002) Flexible employment contracts and their implications for product and process innovation. International Human Resource Management, 13(1): 1-18.
Wood, S. (1999) Human resource management and performance. International Journal of Management Reviews, 1: 367413.
Wright, P.M., Gardner, T.M. & Moynihan, L.M. (2003) The impact of HR practices on the performance of business units. Human Resource Management Journal. 13: 21-36.
Zhao, Y.L.Y. & Liu, Y. (2006) The relationship between HRM, technology innovation and performance in China. International Journal of Manpower, 27(7): 679-697.
Anastasia A. Katou is a teaching fellow in the Department of Technology Management at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece. Her research interests include human resource management, organizational behaviour, and business strategies, with a focus on organisational performance. She received a BA and an MBA from the University of Sunderland, U.K., and a PhD and a PgD from the Cardiff University, Wales, UK.
Inoviranje in management človeških virov: Grški primer
Cilj tega prispevka je raziskava načinov, ki vodijo od inovacije do organizacijske učinkovitosti s pomočjo modeliranja s strukturno enačbo. To analitično orodje smo še prav posebej uporabili za testiranje raziskovalnega okvira, ki ga predstavlja vrsta vzročnih odnosov med organizacijskimi možnostmi, inovacijami, politikami managementa človeških virov (viri, usposabljanje, nagrajevanje, odnosi), rezultati managementa človeških virov (veščine, drža, obnašanje) in organizacijsko učinkovitostjo. Z uporabo podatkov organizacij, ki poslujejo v grškem proizvodnem sektorju, smo prišli do rezultatov, ki kažejo, da obstaja pozitiven učinek inoviranja na organizacijsko učinkovitost. Ta je posredovan prek politik in rezultatov managementa človeških virov, a je ublažen v organizacijskem kontekstu (stil managementa, organizacijska kultura).
Ključne besede: strategija inoviranja, politike managementa človeških virov, vzročnost, modeliranje s strukturno enačbo, grška proizvodnja
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How Public Relations Impact on a Company's Effectiveness
Damjana Jerman1, Goran Vukovi~2, Bruno Zavrsnik3
1intereuropa Ltd. Co., Vojkovo nabrežje 32, 6000 Koper, Slovenia, damjana.jerman@intereuropa.si 2Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Maribor, Kidričeva cesta 55a, 4000 Kranj, Slovenia,
goran.vukovic@fov.uni-mb.si 3Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor, Razlagova 20, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia,
bruno.zavrsnik@uni-mb.si
The role of public relations is dealing with the identification of organization's strategic public and developing communications programs for building solid, open and trusting relations with them. Many companies have taken a limited view of the impact that public relations can have on company's overall effectiveness. This paper consists of two parts: the theoretical framework for the role of public relations in the overall effectiveness of the company and an empirical analysis based on the primary data collected. We classified and analyzed different public relations factors (i.e. factors related to managing and implementing public relations) that influences the effectiveness of the company. We explored the correlation between public relations and a company's effectiveness and argued that public relations factors play a critical role in that effectiveness. We used linear regression and we found a significant linier relationship between the independent variable (public relations) and the dependent variable (company effectiveness).
Key words: Public relations, Public relations function, Company's effectiveness, Public relations strategy, Public relations agency
1 Introduction and theoretical backgrounds
Any company can develop a public relations program regardless of their public relations budget or number of staff. The key to implementing a successful program is to incorporate measurements and analysis from the beginning. Overall measurement of public relations programs should provide a holistic view of public relations compares with corporate goals and objectives.The company's effectiveness as a philosophy and as a result of communication activities has been explored by innumerable authors (McArthur and Griffin, 1997; Schultz and Kitchen, 1997; Low, 2000; Pickton and Broderick, 2001; Zavrsnik and Jerman, 2006). Company effectiveness and related performance is a robust and ongoing necessity for business. Have companies become so good at implementing public relations to achieve effectiveness? Moreover, an even more important issue concerns the ability of public relations to connect effectively with key stakeholders who could impact on organisational performance.
Public relations make an organization more effective when it identifies strategic constituencies in the environment and then develops communication programs to build long-term, trusting relationships with them. Partici-
pation in strategic management provides the integrating link for public relations to enhance organizational effectiveness. To provide its unique contribution, however, public relations must be separate from other management functions. However, communication programs should be integrated or coordinated by a public relations department and they should have a matrix arrangement with the other departments it serves.
There is ample evidence that the century-long domination of mass media advertising and advertising agencies in marketing communications is coming to an end. Marketing budgets are being shifted away from traditional advertising to behaviour-oriented disciplines such as consumer promotion, direct marketing and direct-response advertising (Nowak and Phelps, 1994).
They have always known that public relations - in the form of trade and business media relations, case histories, thought-leadership campaigns and industry conferences -deals effectively with hard news and detailed information. What is new, however, is the emerging power of public relations to drive the marketing communications machine, especially when the core message is value. Smart marketers will examine how their competitors publicize their accomplishments, what messages they deliver, which statistics they cite and which influences advocate their po-
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sitions - and then incorporate that information into their public relations strategy (Shadle, 1998).
As with many aspects of our society, the pace of change in public relations has been increasing in the recent decades. Some of the changes over the last decade are continuations of trends that began earlier. Beginning in the 80's, many corporations drastically reduced their in-house public relations staff and began using outside agencies more. Public relations consulting has expanded considerably and the largest agencies have grown even larger (Stevens, 2001:19).
Grunig and Hunt suggested a useful way of looking at public relations history. They suggested the four models of communicational relationships with the public: press agentry/publicity model, public information model, two-way asymmetrical model and two-way symmetrical public relations. The press agentry/publicity model is the kind of activity that people associate with public relations. The aim of this type of model is to secure coverage for a client. The public information model provides information for people, doesn't seek to persuade the audience and tends to rely on one-way communication. Two-way asymmetric public relations introduce the idea of two way communication, but only asymmetrically because the intended change is in the audience's attitudes rather than the organization's practices. Two-way symmetrical public relations is a the more equal communication, where each part is willing to alter their behaviour (Theaker, 2001).
Today's public relations industry can be described as a mature profession in which practitioners and academics work together to better understand the role of public relations and to debate and clarify the many practical and philosophical issues that arise when defining the relationship between an organisation and its public. At the same time, public relations practitioners, armed with output from academia, actively engage with dominant coalitions in a range of organisations to position public relation as a strategic management discipline and to contribute positively to the achievement of organisational goals while being sensitive to the aspirations of the relevant publics (Ferjan, 2002; Moncur, 2006).
The use of contemporary public relations in Slovenia can be traced back to the 1960s, which was the "liberal" period in the communist Yugoslavia. The first public relations agency was established in the 1989 and 10 practitioners formed the Public Relations Society of Slovenia (PRSS) in the 1990. In the 1993, the PRSS became a full member of the European confederation of public relations society. In the 2000, the PRSS (the Slovenian board of IPRA) endorsed by the PRSS celebrated its 10th anniversary (Sriramesh and Vercic, 2003).
2 Public relations as vital component for company's effectiveness
Lots of different systems have been invented for competitive reasons, each claiming to be a better form of public relations measurement. Public relations program evaluation plays a significant role in demonstrating effectiveness (Dozier, 1990; Fairchild, 2002), and organizational impact (Radford and Goldstein, 2002). As there is no method for measuring effectiveness, practitioners select from an array of different methods and models to demonstrate their effectiveness. Evaluation models can be categorized into those focusing on a specific public relations process, such as media evaluation, or those accommodating an integrated planning approach or impact model (Xavier et al., 2005).
Broader outcome measures concern whether audience target groups actually receives the messages directed at them, were aware of the message, understood it, retained and even acted upon its meaning. There is a debate as to whether the communication materials and public relations expertise result in opinion, attitude and/or behaviour changes among target publics (Phillips, 2001).
A lot of research about the measure of reputation has been done by the academics. They have explored the relationship between reputation and commercial performance. The Reputation Institute1 has tackled the measurement of reputation and provides some interesting benchmarks.
Based on a number of published lists of the most admired companies, six sets of criteria or themes have been identified that appear to dominate the construction of the reputation rating published by social monitors (Phillips, 2001; 228-229): (1) financial performance, (2) product quality, (3) employee treatment, (4) community involvement, (5) environmental performance and (6) organizational issues.
Integrated marketing analysis also includes public relations return on investments. A statistical model permit public relations to understand how media coverage interacts with advertising, promotions and other forms of marketing communications to affect awareness, brand loyalty and sales (Weiner, 2000).
Other public relations performance measurements can derive from how public relations is managed. Senior public relations professionals participate in the strategic decision processes of an organisation and counsel other managers participating in that process about the consequences of potential decisions for the public. In effect, they bring the voices of the public into strategic decision making by researching and listening to the public before decisions are made. Excellent public relations departments then strategically plan, administer and evaluate
1 The Reputation Institute is a private research organization http://www.reputationinstitute.com/sections/who/who.html
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public relations programmes to communicate with these publics, both before and after management decisions are made, so that the organisation can build and maintain good, long-term relationships with them (Grunig and Grunig, 2002).
Excellent public relations units do not under-empha-sise the traditional technical skills of public relations -such as writing and preparing materials for the media and publications, writing speeches, working with the media or developing audio-visual materials and websites. Public relations departments must serve a managerial role as well as a technical role in their organisations. Public relations units play an important role in the strategic management of their organisations. They identify critical publics that affect or are affected by management decisions and who can create issues and crises for the organisation (Grunig and Grunig, 2002).
If public relations is to progress as a strategic management discipline, it is essential that it links to both the wider organisational strategies and to the wider domain of business studies. From observation, this kind of public relations is seldom seen by dominant coalitions as a strategic management discipline and public relations is ignored in business studies literature. A systems theory approach is applied to develop a framework in which public relations strategy is intrinsically linked to the various levels of business strategy (Moncur, 2006: 97).
3 Research questions and methodology
3.1	The purpose of the research
The main thrust of the paper concerns public relations factors affecting company effectiveness, which can be viewed as a factor related to managing and implementing public relations.
3.2	Hypothesis
The dominant proposition of this paper is that public relations may be playing a greater role in terms of emphasis in corporate performance and effectiveness. Empirical evidence will be presented supporting this enhanced role within a company's effectiveness level. Accordingly, we make the following hypothesis:
H: There is a correlation between public relations and company effectiveness.
3.3	Variables
For the purposes of our research, the following measures for constructs were developed, drawing on the conceptual work in the context of public relations and company effectiveness.
Public relations description
The public relations scale covers the following statements: the primary function of public relations is to increase the company's reputation, the public relations office takes part in the strategic decisions in our company, the public relations office holds consultation with the managing board or the top management of our company, we are planning all public relations activities in our company and public relations build and manage relationships with the company's strategic publics. The public relations construct consists of interval scale questions. Answers were given on a Likert-scale format (7= I strongly agree and 1= I strongly disagree).The reliability of the construct was assessed using a Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient. The measure had 9 items and reported an Alpha of 0.8629.
Company effectiveness description
The company effectiveness construct can be operatio-nalized in different ways. Many authors agree that public relations has an impact on company's effectiveness (Mc-Arthur, Griffin, 1997; Schultz and Kitchen, 1997; Low, 2000; Pickton and Broderick, 2001). We used a multi-item measure containing eleven items to investigate company effectiveness in the areas of financial, marketing and other types of company effectiveness (Churchill, 1979). This variable was composed of three types of company effectiveness: market, financial and other types. We calculated the mean score for each type as a sum of all the mean score averages. The company effectiveness construct consists of interval scale questions. Answers were given on a Li-kert-scale format (7= I strongly agree and 1= I strongly disagree). The concept of company effectiveness reported an Alpha of 0.8535.
Therefore, measurement scales for the public relations and company effectiveness constructs demonstrated a relatively high degree of reliability.
3.4 Data gathering and the characteristics of the sample
The main research instrument for the empirical investigation - e.g. the questionnaire - was developed based on the derived theoretical basis. The covering letters accompanying the questionnaires were mailed to the corporate directors, marketing directors or directors of 1000 Slovenian enterprises. We choose the convenience sample. The survey was conducted in December, 2006 and January, 2007. A total of 200 useful responses were received and that gave a response rate of 20.0%. The results presented in this paper are related to the sample of 200 respondents. The collected empirical data were processed using SPSS 10.0, with an emphasis on descriptive statistical analysis.
The relevant data on the companies were mainly provided by the marketing directors (28.3% of cases), followed by company's directors (26.3%), members of the top management (18.7%), business consultants (9.6%) and head executives (6.1%). Members of the managing boards, heads of public relations offices and counselling
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specialists provided 2.5%. Other respondents appeared in 3.5% of cases.
Company size was determined from the number of employees. The sample consists of 45.8% small companies, 31.9% middle sized companies and 32.3% large companies. The companies included in the sample are distributed according to industries as follows: 41% of the respondents belong to production oriented companies, 30% to service oriented companies and 24.5% were trade oriented companies. The sample also consists of 1.5% institutions, 0.5% government organizations and 2.5% of companies chose the answer »other«.
3.5 The research instrument
Both the constructs (e.g. public relations factors) and company's effectiveness were measured on a Likert scale. The respondents had to indicate their agreement with the statements on a 7-point Likert scales (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). Despite the fact that the Li-kert-type measure does not claim to be more than an ordinal scale, it has, nevertheless, been accepted as a means of achieving quality interval measurements and there are several arguments favouring all the different positions on this issue (Avlonitis and Papastathopoulou 2000).
4 Empirical findings
4.1 Public relations practice in Slovenian companies
One of the goals of our research was to find out if companies had developed its own public relations function. The data shows that 42.3% of companies are using external public relations agencies and the remaining 57.7% of companies have their own in-house public relations office.
When asked how many employees in the company deal with public relations, we received the following answers: In the largest share of companies (46.4%) the public relations activities are performed by 1 employee - followed by 25% of companies which have 2 employees. In 14.8% of cases, 3 employees work in the field of public relations and in the remaining 6.6% of companies, 4 employees performed public relations activities. The data presented in the research is confirming that public relations activities are performed in the companies, though the public relations function is organized as a separate department or as part of the marketing or sales department.
When asked which department performed the external communication functions in their companies, respondents give the following answers: the public relations department (3%), the marketing or sales department
Statements on public relations	Mean scores	SD
The primary function of public relations is to increase the company's reputation.	5.93	1.44
Top management of our company has complete trust in the public relations strategy of our company.	5.73	1.30
The public relations strategy arises from the corporate business strategy.	5.57	1.30
The public relations office holds consultation with the managing board or the top management of our company.	5.43	1.98
Public relations build and manage relationships with the company's strategic publics.	4.90	1.92
Public relations implementation is centralized in our company.	4.88	1.91
Control of public relations activities is centralized in our company.	4.79	1.85
We are planning all public relations activities in our company.	4.76	1.92
The public relations office takes part in the strategic decisions in our company.	4.51	2.12
Table 1: Mean scores of the statements on public relations
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Table 2: The mean scores regarding the different types of company effectiveness
Type of company effectiveness	Mean scores	SD
Other types of company effectiveness	5.04	1.22
Market effectiveness	4.91	1.40
Financial effectiveness	4.47	1.50
(42%), no department because the president of the managing board or director attends to this personally (25%), and nobody (30%).
The respondents also indicated that in 61.2%, the total communications budget goes towards marketing communications and the remaining 38.8% goes towards public relations.
4.2 The impact of public relations on company effectiveness
For each statement on public relations, the average value and the standard deviation have been calculated. The re-
suits in Table 1 show that the mean scores achieved for the public relations statements are 4, 5 and more, so we can conclude that the respondents agree with the statements on public relations. The standard deviation results show that many scores are on the interval between 1.30 and 2.12 from the mean.
The results in Table 2 show that the mean scores of the different types of company effectiveness are in the interval between 4.50 to 5.04. And also the standard deviation results show that many standard deviation scores are achieved on the interval between 1.22 and 1.50 about mean.
One of the objectives of the paper concerns the correlation between different statements of public relations
Table 3: Correlation matrix between public relations and company's effectiveness
Company's effectiveness measure	Correlation	
	r	P
Top management of our company has complete trust in the public relations strategy of our company.	0.378(**)	0.000
The public relations strategy arises from the corporate business strategy.	0.384(**)	0.000
The control of public relations activities is centralized in our company.	0.326(**)	0.000
The public relations implementation is centralized in our company.	0.225(**)	0.000
The primary function of public relations is to increase the company's reputation.	0.263(**)	0.000
The public relations office takes part in strategic decisions in our company.	0.222(**)	0.002
The public relations office holds consultation with the managing board or the top management of our company.	0.245(**)	0.001
We are planning all or public relations activities in our company.	0.361(**)	0.000
Public relations build and manage relationships with company's strategic publics.	0.279(**)	0.000
** The correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
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lation coefficient between the dependent and independent variables equals 0 (H0: Rxy = 0).
Alternative hypothesis H2: There is a positive correlation between the dependent and independent variables, e.g. The correlation coefficient between the dependent and independent variables is significantly higher than 0 (H: Rxy > 0).
For the correlation tested, we selected the regression model with the highest significance, i.e. the model with a significance closest to the significance level of 5%. To investigate the hypothesis, entering all the variables in a single block, we found that the proposed model explains a significant percentage of the variance in company effectiveness. Table 4 shows that 17.4 per cent of the observed variation in company's effectiveness is explained by the one independent variable i.e. public relations (R =0,170; adjusted R2=0,174).
Although the empirical results do not provide a high level of support for the conclusion, we believe that the positive correlation between public relations and the effectiveness of its company can be still accepted on the basis of the available data. Such a result is in accordance with the findings of other authors (Spanos, 2001).
The results in Table 5 indicate that we can reject the null hypotheses that the coefficients for customer service (Beta = 0.417, t =6.455, p =0,000) are 0. The beta weight (Beta = 0.417) shows that public relations has a significant influence on a company's effectiveness.
4.3 Managerial implications
We have argued and documented empirically that public relations has a significant impact on a company's effecti-
Table 4: The correlation between public relations and company effectiveness
Independent variable (x)	Dependent variable (y)	R2	Adjusted R2	Model	(Sign.) a
Public relations	Company's effectiveness	0.174	0.170	Lin: y = 3,340 + 0,331x	0,000
Table 5: The results of regression coefficients
	Unstandardized Coefficients		Standardized Coefficients	t	Sig.
Model	B	Std. Error	Beta		
(Constant)	3,340	0,273		12,222	0,000
Public relations	0,331	0,051	0,417	6,455	0,000a
a Dependent variable: Company's effectiveness					
and the company's effectiveness. Accordingly, we build the hypothesis as follows:
Null hypothesis Hq: There is no correlation between public relations and the company's effectiveness. Alternative hypothesis Hj: There is a correlation between public relations and the company's effectiveness.
The test statistic presented in Table 3 exceeds the critical value so we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is indeed a significant correlation between all the tested public relations statements and company effectiveness.
Because the pair-wise correlation is found to be significant, the relationship between the variables will be investigated by producing a regression model in the form of a linear equation. The independent variables (public relations statements) have been constructed on the basis of questionnaire items that detect the distinct potential impact on company effectiveness. It is important to note that all the variables have been measured on a seven-level Li-kert scale. For each independent variable, the average value and the standard deviation have been calculated.
We would like to test if the regression model with one predictor variable (e.g. public relations) is significantly related to the criterion variable Y (e.g. company effectiveness)? We test the equivalent null hypothesis that there is no correlation in the sample between the dependent and independent variables, but we found a significant level in the impact of public relations on the company's effectiveness. According to this, the null hypotheses that we tried to reject using regression analysis, could be formulated as follows:
Null hypothesis H0: There is no correlation between the dependent and independent variables, e.g. The corre-
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veness in the sample of Slovenian companies. Additionally, each company may choose to have a unique public relations strategy but should consider its unique characteristics when developing successful public relations programs. We identified these characteristics as public relations factors that can affect the company's effectiveness. Knowing these characteristics when developing public relations programs can provide competitive advantages. This article examines the important contribution that public relations practice provides for a company's overall effectiveness. And finally, with public relations we are able to improve the company's productivity, achieve high quality services and products and, consequently, these will lead to overall effectiveness of the company.
5 Conclusion
The purpose of this paper is to provide additional insight into some of the theoretical and managerial issues surrounding the design, implementation and evaluation of public relations programs in the changing environment. We approach this task from the organizational point of view - primarily from the perspective of how a company's effectiveness is affected by public relations. The paper consists of two parts: the theoretical framework for the role of public relations in the overall effectiveness of the company and the empirical analysis, based on the primary data collected. This paper presents the results of a study that examines the factors of public relations affecting effectiveness in the sample of Slovenian companies.
Next, we discuss the development and current status of the public relations profession in Slovenia. Public relations consulting has expanded considerably and the largest agencies have only grown even larger. Data shows that 42.3% of companies are using external public relations agencies and the remaining 57.7% of companies have their own in-house public relations office. Therefore, we add that an integrated marketing communications program should be coordinated through the broader public relations function.
This study helps explain the impact of public relations on the company's effectiveness. Managers in the responding companies assessed the public relations issues in their companies and their impact on the company's effectiveness. The study confirms that there is an association between all the statements on public relations and the company's effectiveness. A statistical test supported the hypothesis that a positive correlation exists between public relations and company effectiveness. With the statistical test, we can confirm a positive correlation between public relations and company effectiveness and we can suggest that public relations does influence the company's effectiveness.
This paper provides a perspective of how to analyze the factors affecting the overall company effectiveness. The guidelines that emerge from this approach should be particularly relevant for public relations managers in industry.
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Xavier, R., Johnston, K., Patel, A., Watson, T., & Simmons, P. (2005). Using evaluation techniques and performance claims to demonstrate public relations impact: An Australian perspective, Public Relations Review, 31(3): 417-424.
Završnik, B., Jerman, D. (2006). Vpliv marketinških sposobnosti na porast inovativnosti v organizacijah, Organizacija, 39 (6): 373-377.
Damjana Jerman received a Master of Science Degree in Marketing from the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Maribor in 2003. She is a Doctoral Student at the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana and she is going to receive a Ph.D. in a few months. After graduating, she started her career in 1997 in the leading Slovenian logistical company Intereuropa Ltd. Co., where she oversees the management of marketing communications. From 2006 she has been Head of the Public Relations Department. She is primarily responsible for public relations and managing marketing communications programs. She is author and co-author of papers in various journals and conference proceedings.
Goran Vukovic is an employee of the Faculty of Organisational Sciences at the University of Maribor. He is employed
as head of the center for education and consultancy and head of the Moderna organizacija publishing house. He is a qualified university teacher in the area of human resources and is a senior university teacher in the area of »Marketing in Education«. He also has more than fifteen years of work experience in the area of functional education and consultancy. Dr. Vukovi~ is a consultant in the areas of human resources and organization in the profit and non-profit sectors of the economy. Furthermore, he is the author of many authentic scientific papers, co-author of many books, editor, critic, member of the editorial board for the journal »Organizacija« and a member of the editorial council for the journal »Iskanja«.
Bruno Zavrsnik is Professor of Marketing at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor. He received his PhD in Marketing from the same University. He teaches a variety of courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels at the Faculty of Economics and Business. His research interests include empirical and theoretical issues in B2B marketing communications, the effectiveness of purchasing, retail strategy and implementation. He has published articles in local and international journals.
Kako odnosi z javnostmi vplivajo na učinkovitost podjetij
Vloga odnosov z javnostmi je identifikacija strateških javnosti organizacij in oblikovanje komunikacijskih programov za graditev stabilnih, odprtih in zaupanja vrednih odnosov z njimi. Kakovost teh odnosov je pomemben kazalec dolgoro~nega prispevka odnosov z javnostmi k organizacijski uspešnosti. Mnoge organizacije se zelo malo ukvarjajo z vplivom odnosov z javnostmi na celotno u~inkovitost same organizacije. Naš prispevek je razdeljen na teoreti~ni in empiri~ni del.V teoreti~nem delu predstavljamo spremenljivke odnosov z javnostmi, ki vplivajo na uspešnost organizacije. S pomo~jo empiri~ne raziskave na vzorcu slovenskih podjetij smo ugotavljali odvisnost uspešnosti podjetij od posameznih dejavnikov odnosov z javnostmi. Raziskali in analizirali smo razli~ne dejavnike odnosov z javnostmi (t.j. dejavnike povezane z upravljanjem in izvajanjem odnosov z javnostmi), ki lahko pomembno vplivajo na u~inkovitost organizacij. Ugotavljali smo korelacijo med njimi ter s pomo~jo linearne regresije ugotovili statisti~no zna~ilno korelacijo med neodvisno spremenljivko (odnosi z javnostmi) in odvisno spremenljivko (uspešnost organizacije).
Ključne besede: odnosi z javnostmi, funkcije odnosov z javnostmi, u~inkovitost podjetja, strategije odnosov z javnostmi, agencije za odnose z javnostmi
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Corruption in Public Administration Units and Organizational Measures to Prevent and Fight Corruption1
Andrejka Mevc1, Milan Pagon2
1Splitska ulica 46, 3320 Velenje, m.mevc@siol.net 2University of Maribor, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Kidričeva cesta 55a, 4000 Kranj milan.pagon@fov.uni-mb.si
This paper presents the results of a study that investigated the attitudes of civil servants in public administration units in Slovenia regarding corruption at work. The results show that civil servants employed in public administration units take corruption seriously. The employees' perceptions of corruption and their willingness to report the offender are closely connected to their opinion on how others - their colleagues - perceive it (i.e., how serious they find corruption and whether they are willing to report the offender). There are important gender differences regarding the perceptions of corruption, as well as differences in the function they have and their membership in organizational units. The authors conclude that it is necessary to develop and strengthen the feelings of the employees' security and increase the link between perceiving corruption and one's own judgment of the seriousness of corruptive behaviour, as well as to decrease the tolerance regarding corruption.
Key words: administrative corruption, corruptive behaviour, code of silence, anticorruptive measures, offender, management, civil servant, public administration unit.
1 Introduction
The phenomenon of corruption is present in Slovenia. According to some authors (e.g.,Tratnik Volasko, 1999), Slovenia is considered to be one of the less corrupted Eastern European countries. Nevertheless, the question remains: is that consistent with the truth? There have been very few research studies done in the field of corruptive behaviour and there have been even fewer studies conducted with regard to administrative corruption. Corruption in Slovenia needs to be researched more and in detail and any possible defects and deficiencies in political, economic, legal and other systems should be determined. Administrative corruption is not the problem of an individual - it is an organizational problem for each and any organization. The management needs to be trained and qualified in order to take correct preventive measures so that corruptive behaviour does not occur and, if it has occurred, they need to be efficient in dealing with the consequences.
The definition of the term corruption differs considerably around the world. Some researchers consider it in a broader and others in a narrower sense. It is the same
when it comes to considering the term corruption among countries. That is why it is difficult, if not impossible, to compare the data of different countries and their research. Great caution is needed when it comes to such comparison and it is important to determine what the term corruption actually means when we present certain data.
In the Civil law convention on corruption, the term corruption is defined as a »direct or indirect claim, offering, gift or acceptance of a bribe or any other illicit benefit or promise which disturbs the correct performance a duty or treatment required by the receiver of the bribe, illicit benefit or a promise.« (2003, p. 634).
Haberfeld, Kutnjak Ivkovich, Klockars and Pagon (1999) and Pagon and Lobnikar (2001) stress that corruption needs to be understood in its original, natural meaning (depravity, perversity, dishonesty).Authors Haberfeld et al. state that corruption is very difficult to detect and is even more difficult to prove. It is characteristic of a corruptive relationship that there is no impaired party that would feel the need to report an offence.That is why detecting and adducing evidence to prove corruption is an extremely difficult task. In this article, corruption is understood as defined in the Civil law convention on corruption (2003).
1 The article is based on the master's degree thesis, which was successfully defended by Andrejka Mevc under the supervision of Dr.
Milan Pagon at the Faculty for Organizational Sciences of the University of Maribor.
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Electronic databases were checked (PsyicINFO Database, NCJRS Abstracts Database, Academic Search Premier Database, Social Science Research Database) but studies dealing with the narrow topic of administrative corruption on a local level or are comparable with administrative corruption in public administration units were not found. There are no studies we know of dealing with corruption in public administration units in Slovenia. Jager (2001) states there were three known international victimological studies (1992,1997 and 2001), an international research on ethics in business and three studies dealing with corruption in the police force.2 All of them were carried out between 1992 and 2002. In the Slovenian police force, the factors of deviant, antisocial behaviour were researched by Lobnikar, Pagon, Duffy and Ganster (2000) as well as Lobnikar, Pagon and Ovsenik (2004). In their papers, they did not deal with directly corruptive behaviour but with broader forms of deviant behaviour on the part of Slovenian police officers: deviant behaviour towards other employees, deviant behaviour to gain benefits for themselves and deviant behaviour towards organizational rules, as well as the frequency and causes of violence and three forms of aggressive behaviour at work in Slovenian police force: aggression, violence and revenge. The results show that deviant behaviour is influenced by interpersonal and organizational factors, followed by the personal characteristics of individuals and, at the lowest level of the scale, are demographic factors of the employees. According to gender, malicious rumours about females spread twice as much as those about males. General studies on corruption in the private sector were financed by the previous Office for the prevention of corruption of the Republic of Slovenia and the present Committee for the prevention of corruption. Public opinion studies on corruption have regularly been carried out over the last five years, since 2002 (University of Ljubljana, Faculty for social sciences - Institute for social sciences, the Centre for public opinion and mass communication, 2002, 2003,2004 and 2006, Aragon d.o.o., 2006). Accepting a bribe in public services is shown as »the utmost visible and characteristic« pointer of corruption. The opinion on corruption in public services is mainly formed by media reports and, to a small extent, from personal experience with corruption. Throughout the years, the answers point to a relatively low spread of corruption in Slovenia but it tells us nothing about the relative corruption in particular segments and it does not consider the »systematic exclu-siveness« of the majority of respondents. Evaluation of the spread of corruption has been based on the media. Studies were carried out on corruption in the private sector (GfK Gral-Iteo, market studies d.o.o., 2002, 2004 and 2006). According to the Slovenian economists who took part in the research, there was evidently less corruptive behaviour in 2006 than in 2002. The opinion on corruption is based in general on small talk, as well as on the media
and various sources. The situation in the Slovenian economy has improved in comparison with two other measurements / surveys. The majority of companies believe that joining the European Union did not bring major changes for companies. They strongly believe that the situation of the particular branches has neither improved or deteriorated. According to the data from the research, corruption does not present such a significant problem as it did in 2004. Compared to the opinion from the research, the situation has improved and the public opinion of the range of corruption and bribe-taking in public services has also improved. Conviction of corruption among civil servants is not based on the media as in the previous studies, but more on experiences of those who the people questioned trust. The stated company (GfK Gral-Iteo, market research d.o.o., 2001 and 2004) did the research on corruption in Eastern and Central European countries. Also, in 2002, 2003, Transparency International carried out international victimological studies in Slovenia.
The results of the studies (Pavlovic, 1998, Pavlovic, 1999a, Pavlovic, 1999b, Pavlovic, 1999c, Urad vlade RS za statistiko, 1998) show that criminality in Slovenia ranges around the European average. Data on the corruptibility of officials exceeds the European average but they do not reach the level that would justify the agitation present in the media. Comparing the level of victimization and corruption, we have a slightly worse position than the other developed European countries but a better one compared to other transitory states in Central and Eastern Europe. Slovenian entrepreneurs know the basic ethical values that should take place in a free market but, being under economic and everyday pressure, they tend to use unethical »short cuts«. The problem of ethical treatment of management from the social psychological and com-municological point of view is dealt with in the paper by Pagon and Lobnikar. They have found out that managers take wrong notions of the sense and use of ethics, the prevailing philosophical attitude towards the issues of ethics, lack of ethics education and training, and exaggerated emphasis on macro-ethical issues. Studies of police force corruption show that there are certain similarities and differences among the countries involved in the research. In general, American police officers showed less tolerance towards corruptive behaviour in comparison to Slovenian, Polish and Croatian police officers. (Haberfeld et al.)
2 Method
2.1 The aim of the research
The aim of the research was to establish how seriously civil servants in public administration units in Slovenia take
2The researche were carried out by researchers Haberfeld and coauthors; Kutnjak Ivkovich, Klockars, Lobnikar, & Pagon (2000); Kut-njak Ivkovich, Pagon, Klockars, & Lobnikar (2002). They researched police force corruption.
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administrative corruption, the level of acquaintance with organizational regulations that deal with corruption, if there is a silence code and how strong it is in protecting civil servants who violate regulations and what the standpoints of civil servants are towards disciplinary measures in the workplace. On the basis of our findings, we suggest organizational measures to prevent and fight corruption in public administration units.
2.2 The sample
In our research we surveyed a population of civil servants from Slovenian public administration units. The sample consisted of 351 civil servants. The majority was represen-
ted by women (almost 82.0%) with secondary, high vocational or university education (together, 74.4% of those questioned) employed in administrative or technical posts (together, 84.9% of those questioned). On average, the respondents were middle aged (the average age was 42.7 years), with average work experience of 21 years and 15,5 years experience in public administration. The sample consisted of civil servants from 18 public administration units in Slovenia.
2.3 Instruments
A questionnaire was used in the research. We made use of a questionnaire used previously by Haberfeld et al.
Case 1	A member of the exam committee works in his free time as a driving instructor on the basis of a work contract in a driving school but not in the area of his exam centre. He only drives in his free time and never when he is at work.
Case 2	A civil servant in charge of economy routinely accepts perfume, coffee, a shawl, a candy box, a free snack, a bunch of flowers or other presents of low value from customers in the course of the proceedings. She never demands these presents and is careful not to abuse the generosity of people who bring the presents.
Case 3	In the course of a car maintenance check up, a car mechanic civil servant finds a few minor irregularities. He agrees with the owner of the car to ignore them in the record. In return, he receives a sum of money that amounts his daily pay.
Case 4	A civil servant responsible for public order is very popular in the area of a public administration unit where he works. Customers bring him presents of lower and higher value for Christmas, new year (calendars, notebooks, pens, food, drinks, even an expensive watch, necklace etc.)
Case 5	A civil servant in charge of procedures referring to lost and found objects has among these objects a watch worth two days pay. He doesn't show the watch in the public auction but takes it home instead.
Case 6	A referee for driving licences finds out that his friend who is employed in a tourist agency does not have a valid medical certificate which is needed to renew a driving licence. He urgently needs to go on a business trip and the referee extends his driving licence. In return, the referee gets a free weekend for two on the coast within this tourist agency.
Case 7	A civil servant in the reception office gets paid a tax of 5.000,00 SIT by a customer who forgets to take the receipt and leaves it on the desk. A referee takes the receipt and does not register it at the end of the day. She keeps the money and destroys the receipt.
Case 8	A civil servant responsible for building permits makes a deal with an architect that he would direct the customers to him and in return he would get 5% of the value of each elaboration.
Case 9	A head civil servant demands that an employee grants a customer a licence for a gun even though the customer does not comply with the required conditions to obtain a licence. In return the employee gets a pay rise of 10%. Evaluate the work of the SUPERIOR civil servant.
Case 10	A civil servant granting licences for the usage of properties is very popular and respected at work for his kindness, experiences and excellent knowledge of procedures and regulations. A director can rely on him and trusts him, so he has full power even when it comes to decision making in civil administration procedure. He does his job autonomously and independently. There is a rumour though among the colleagues that sometimes he makes an exception and grants a permit to a customer who does not fulfil all the required conditions. In return he receives money or some other material benefit. There is no evidence that the rumour is consistent with the truth. A colleague later discovers that the referee really does grant licences in cases when conditions are not fulfilled. A superior knows nothing about it. The colleague keeps quiet and says nothing about what he has discovered. He does not inform the superior of his discovery.
Figure 1: Cases, used in the questionnaire
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(1999). The questionnaire is comprised of a variety of factors - variables that we presumed were related to the opinions of civil servants referring to administrative corruption. The factors were classified as general and specific. The general factors are:
■	membership of the inner organizational unit,
■	gender,
■	age,
■	length of work experience,
■	length of work in public administration,
■	function at work,
■	education.
The special factors are:
■	inner perception of the seriousness of corruptive behaviours,
■	perception of the seriousness of the corruptive behaviour of others (colleagues),
■	opinion on violating organizational rules,
■	opinion on the penalty deserved,
■	opinion on the actual penalties,
■	readiness to report an offender
■	opinion on the readiness of others (colleagues) to report an offender.
The questionnaire presents 10 cases or scenarios (Figure 1). Respondents were questioned on what they thought and how they felt about the scenarios. The cases refer to the profitable activities of civil servants in their free time, accepting gifts, accepting a bribe, theft, taking provisions, the corruptive behaviour of superiors, the existence of a code of silence. In the second part of the questionnaire, we stated seven Likart type questions with five level scales and the respondents placed their answer on the scale between the two extremes.
2.4 Procedure
The questionnaire was tested on a sample of civil servants from the public administration unit in Velenje. The survey was carried out in public administration units in: Celje, Domžale, Jesenice, Kamnik, Krško, Ljutomer, Maribor, Mozirje, Murska Sobota, Novo mesto, Pesnica pri Mariboru, Radovljica, Ravne na Koroškem, Slovenska Bistrica, Slovenj Gradec, Slovenske Konjice, Šentjur pri Celju and Žalec. The questionnaires were delivered personally and the superiors distributed them among the civil servants. Later, the questionnaires were returned by mail. For some units, the questionnaires were sent by mail and the subsequent procedure was the same as in the other cases.
3 Results
3. 1 Personal perception of the seriousness of corruptive behaviour
It was discovered that civil servants are in general quite tolerant of accepting gifts and free snacks, but they estimate that other behaviour were either serious (perfor-
ming profitable activities, new year gifts) or extremely serious (bribes, theft, wrongdoings on the part of the superior, not taking prompt measures against the offender). The majority of civil servants (92.4 %) believe that the wrongdoings of the superior belong among the extremely serious corruptive behaviour (case 9 in figure 1). The majority of the respondents take corruption very seriously.
The perception of the seriousness of corruptive behaviour depends on the respondent's age and their experience in the work post. The older the respondent, the more seriously he perceives corruptive behaviour. Even though the years of work experience and the length of work experience in public administration are related, the respondent's perception of the seriousness of corruptive behaviour is not directly linked to the length of his work experience in public administration. A connection among the factors is shown in Table 1.
The respondent's estimation of the seriousness of behaviour is connected to all the special factors included in the questionnaire. The more serious the perception of the behaviour, the more serious is the perception of the behaviour as seen by others (colleagues). If the violation of the rules is considered a serious one, then the penalty should be more severe and, in fact, the penalty really is a more severe one. Then the employees are willing to report an offender. The highest correlation is the one between the respondent's perception of seriousness of behaviour and their opinion on the perception of the seriousness of the behaviour of others (colleagues). Regressive analysis shows that the connection between the respondent's perceptions of the seriousness of behaviour only explains 2% of the variance of their own willingness to report an offender, for all the cases together. The data is shown in table 2.
3.2 Perception of the willingness to report the offender
On average, the willingness to report an offender is placed rather low (3.03). Behaviours that are seen as less serious are less likely to be reported than the behaviours that are meant to be more serious. On average, the least willingness to report an offender is shown for an offender who accepts free snacks and gifts, while a bit more willingness is shown towards offenders who perform some profitable activities and considerably more towards the offender who accepts presents for New Year or Christmas. The majority of respondents would report an offender who stole money and approximately the same amount would report a corrupt superior officer. About a fifth or a third of the respondents would not report an offender.
Older and more experienced respondents are more likely to report an offender. Men are more likely to report an offender than women. Regarding the respondent's function, management is more willing to report an offender in comparison with other employees, regardless of their function. Civil servants are no more willing to report an offender than the technical employees.
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Table 1: Pearson's correlation coefficient among respondent's evaluation of the seriousness of behaviour and other factors
VARIABLE	Personal evaluation of seriousness of behaviour	
	r	P
age	0.18	0.0022
length of work experience	0.15	0.0077
opinion of colleague's evaluation of seriousness of behaviour	0.72	< .0001
violating organizational rules	0.51	< .0001
deserved penalty	0.38	< .0001
actual punishment	0.14	0.0260
readiness to report an offender	0.42	< .0001
opinion on a co-worker's readiness to report an offender	0.25	< .0001
The more serious the respondents feel about the behaviour, the more likely it is that the respondents will report the offender if their behaviour shows violating the rules. They feel that an offender deserves a more severe punishment and he would actually get a more severe one. The more the respondents feel their colleagues perceive certain behaviour as a serious one, the more they are likely to report an offender and they also feel that their colleagues would be more willing to report an offender. The respondents' willingness to report an offender is related most to their perception of whether their colleagues are willing to report an offender and it is also significantly connected to their opinion on how seriously their colleagues perceive the behaviour. The respondents' perception of the seriousness of behaviour is placed lower, in the second position, and the opinion that certain behaviour is an offence is much lower.
According to regression analysis, the strongest factor by far is the one that can explain almost half (43 %) of the variance of one's willingness to report an offender looked upon all cases together - the opinion of the respondents on their colleagues' willingness to report an offender. If the respondent believes that the colleagues are ready to report an offender, there is a stronger possibility that they will report an offender themselves. Other factors that also influence the respondent's willingness to report an offender are: the respondent's gender, opinion on the
offender's deserved penalty, respondent's age and education, opinion on breaking organizational rules, the respondent's own perception of the seriousness of the behaviour of colleagues and the membership of the inner organizational unit. Females are less ready to report an offender than males. Using regression analysis we found out, that gender can explain an additional 5% of variance in respondent's willingness.
All these factors can explain 61% of the variance of respondent's willingness to report an offender. The data can be seen in Table 2.
It is important to recognize that changing one factor necessarily means changing the other factors as they are strongly correlated.
The more serious the respondents feel about the seriousness of the behaviour, the more difficult it gets to explain the differences in their willingness to report an offender on the base of their own estimation of the seriousness of the behaviour. Just the opposite would be expected and logical.
4 Discussion
The results show a low level of integrity in civil servants. If integrity was at a higher level, the respondent's personal perception of seriousness of behaviour should be
No.	VARIABLE	AR2	R2	F	P
1.	judgement on colleague's willingness to report an offender	0,43	0,43	151,72	< ,0001
2.	gender	0,05	0,48	18,16	< ,0001
3.	judgement on the offender's deserved penalty	0,04	0,52	14,95	0,0001
4.	age	0,02	0,54	8,91	0,0032
5.	education	0,02	0,56	8,00	0,0052
6.	Judgement on breaking organizational rules	0,01	0,57	6,75	0,0101
7.	evaluation of the seriousness of the behaviour	0,02	0,59	9,09	0,0029
8.	judgement on the seriousness of colleagues	0,01	0,60	5,09	0,0251
9.	Inner organizational unit	0,01	0,61	3,64	0,0580
Table 2: The results of regression analysis for the dependent variable »Respondent's own willingness to report an offender« for all cases together.
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strongly linked both to respondent's opinion whether behaviour represents breaking the rules and to their own willingness to report an offender. In our opinion, working with human resources in public administration lacks directions to help build up an evaluation system and the integrity of each civil servant. In the future, special attention should be paid to the integrity of the employees in public administration units.
We determined there is a low level of willingness to report an offender among civil servants in public administration units. It is most likely that this is due to a code of silence. Further studies should confirm the existence of a code of silence and, if it exists, the reasons for it should be stated.
A higher level of willingness to report an offender among older respondents is connected to a perception of the seriousness of corruptive behaviour. Younger respondents perceive corruptive behaviour in a milder way in comparison with older respondents, so it is understandable that they are less willing to report an offender. Further studies are needed to define the reasons for the differing perception of the seriousness of corruptive behaviours among older and younger respondents.
A higher level of willingness to report an offender within managing personnel arises, in our opinion, from the nature and content of the management work. Leading and controlling functions are more evident in management than in any other function.
In our opinion, the basic reason for the low level of willingness to report an offender among civil servants is the feeling of safety. Employees do not feel safe and protected enough to dare report offenders. There are several possible reasons for that. In our opinion, they fear that the legal system (organizational rules) does not enable efficient protection. Maybe employees do not trust their superiors. They may have had bad experience. Each individual who needs to make their own decision whether to report an offender or not, weighs reasons for and against the reporting. The decision depends on the reasons that prevail. Employees who report an offender should be protected from revenge, which could be done by creating a secure environment. At the same time, measures should be provided that have a positive and stimulative effect so that it would be easier to make the decision to report an offender.
We found out that women are less willing to report an offender than men. If we want to heighten the willingness to report offenders, we need to pay special attention to the female population.
It is extremely difficult to compare these results with the results of the other studies presented in the Introduction because the research is methodologically different and contains a different sample etc. We believe that the perception of corruption among civil servants in public administrative units is similar in Slovenia and the results of this research confirmed the cognition of previous studies and may serve as their supplement. Comparing the standpoints of police officers and civil servants in public administration units would be inappropriate or, at least,
very difficult because the nature of work is completely different.
Appropriate measures can improve the willingness of employees to report offenders. Pagon and Lobnikar (op. cit.) state that within an organization an environment needs to be created that stimulates integrity and professional culture, which is not tolerant towards corruption. Among the measures to achieve this, the authors state:
Appropriate and transparent work with people.
Employees need to have the feeling that they are treated honestly. Honesty can be ensured by fair relations among employees, clear and unbiased standards of work, the same for everybody and by appropriate solutions of conflict situations. The management's and director's decision making should be transparent, clear and unambiguous. That goes for the human resource policy, systematiza-tion, transference of civil servants, stimulative bonuses and other human resource measures. Evaluation and lessening the risk for corruptive behaviour.
We can change specific work procedures in such a way as to estimate a corruption risk and try to lessen it, especially with those civil servants who belong to an at risk group. We discovered that an at risk group in public administration units consists of younger employees, employees with fewer years of work experience, civil servants and technical staff. Further studies are needed to define risk groups in each public administration unit. The basic aim of our studies is to offer help and guidance and should by no means impose penalty measures. Analysis of risk is recommended to evaluate and lessen corruptive risk. The aim of such analysis is to uncover dangerous or »weak« points that could cause and stimulate corruption. It is evident from experience that corruption exists at points where outside contacts are needed (ex. Contact with customers, suppliers, expert opinions, translating services and field inspections) and, in cases of decision making, where third persons could be in a better or worse position (ex. the delivery of public orders). An analysis of risk presents the basis to foresee practical measures and control mechanisms to locate dangerous areas and neutralize "weak" points.
The attitudes of the highest public administration management and setting a positive example on the part of the public administration management.
The head and other leading staff should take clear standpoints concerning occurrences of corruption and they should inform subordinates and citizens about it. But this is still insufficient. Even in specific cases, one should consistently keep one's word. Consistent fight against corruption is the best example for co-workers.
Principles of taking measures in occurrences of corruption.
Public administration units should elaborate the principles of taking measures for the employees in cases of corruption (possibly concrete ones). Principles should be written and easily accessible by any employee in a public administration unit. Grounds have been stated on the state level with new legislation. We believe that public administration units should define in their inner acts, specifi-
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cally and concretely, how the employees are expected to act in different cases of corruption. The policy needs to be based on zero tolerance. (Pagon & Lobnikar, op. cit.). Permanent anticorruption education and training.
It is extremely important to introduce an employee into the work and all other training, where the employees are acquainted with administrative ethics, code of acting for civil servants and other acts that regulate this field. Regulations should be accepted and signed by every employee when they take up work in a public administration unit and the head should make this perfectly clear to them. In so doing, we ensure the awareness and sensibility of the employees. Anticorruption recommendations should be delivered regularly in obligatory seminars and training, at official discussions and meetings, personal discussions etc. Special attention should be paid to learning organizational policy and the procedures referring to deviant behaviour. Pagon stresses (Pagon & Lobnikar, op. cit.; summarized after Pagon, 2000) that ethical doings and personal integrity represent the strongest weapons against all kinds of deviation.
Plan of integrity.
The plan of integrity elaborated by public administration units is defined by the law for the prevention of corruption (2004) and these are »measures of a legal and factual nature that prevent and suppress the possibilities for the formation and development of corruption in an organ«. The plan estimates factual exposure to corruption, describes work procedures and decision making procedures. They try to define the exposed posts where there is a higher possibility for the occurrence of corruption and certain mechanisms are provided to prevent corruption and plan improvements.
To lower the tolerance limits of citizens.
If citizens start to take administrative corruption as a norm, then it is almost impossible to eradicate it. That is why the public must be made sure that cases of corruption in public administrative units are exceptions and that those civil servants in public administration units disapprove and severely penalize them. At the same time, they need to know that bribing or an attempt to bribe a civil servant is a criminal offence. Pagon and Lobnikar (op. cit.) suggest, that these measures should be taken with a great deal of precaution and inner and outer activities in the media should be well executed. Brochures for employees and citizens could be prepared where it would be clearly stated that the civil servant who accepts a bribe is a criminal who deserves severe criminal penalties and disciplinary reprimands. Inner preventive measures.
Preventive measures are not enough by far to prevent the occurrence of corruption. Inner preventive measures are directed towards detecting, uncovering and punishing employees who violate the regulations. This assignment can be performed by administrative inspectors, the managing staff in public administrative units - administrative managers or other controlling mechanisms.
The results clearly indicate that the problem of corruption in public administrative units should be dealt with most seriously and in a complex way. The measures must be ensured and carried out in all segments of a state and in society in general. This is the only way to fight and prevent corruption.
5 Conclusion
Even though the majority of the employees take administrative corruption very seriously, there is a minority (about a fifth of the respondents) who are more tolerant towards cases of corruption. This group consists of younger employees or employees with fewer years of work experience. Older employees have stricter criteria and take corruptive deeds more seriously. The more seriously it is perceived by co-workers, the more seriously it is perceived by them and vice versa (factors are in the highest possible interdependence). According to regression analysis, the share of variance of one's own evaluation of seriousness, which explains a variability in the willingness to report, is low.
On average, the willingness of employees to report an offender is low. If employees perceive behaviour seriously, it is more likely they will report an offender. There is a strong probability that a code of silence exists and protects offenders. An offender is more likely to be reported by men than women, older employees rather than young ones, employees with more work experience rather than those with less work experience and employees in leading positions more than civil servants or technical posts. A low level of willingness to report an offender stems from the feeling of safety or threatening employees. Employees do not feel safe /protected enough to decide to report an offender in larger numbers. By means of regression analysis, it was found that the highest variance of one's own willingness to report an offender is explained by the employee's opinion on whether their colleagues are willing to report an offender (43%). If employees think their colleagues would report an offender, they are more willing to report an offender themselves and vice versa. All other factors can explicate a considerably lower variance of one's own willingness to report an offender. These are the employee's gender, their opinion on a deserved penalty, their age and education, their opinion on breaking rules, their own perception of the seriousness of behaviour, their opinion on a co-worker's perception of the seriousness of behaviour and the employee's membership in the inter-organizational unit.
The most important finding in this research is that an employee's personal perception of cases of corruption (a personal evaluation of the seriousness of behaviour and a personal willingness to report an offender) is significantly connected to the opinions of employees on how the occurrences of corruption is perceived by others (their co-workers). We believe that the employee's personal perception of cases of corruption should mostly be connected to one's own evaluation of the seriousness of behaviour
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and one's own evaluation of whether certain behaviour means breaking the rules and it should not depend on the opinions and perceptions of co-workers and their evaluation of the seriousness of behaviour and their willingness to report an offender.
This research into corruption in public administration units is an interdisciplinary one and the first in Slovenia. It was limited by a relatively small sample and based on the reports of employees. If we had a chance to actually observe how employees act and react, we may reach different conclusions. Nevertheless we believe that the research represents a contribution to understanding the occurrence of corruption in public administrative units and it suggests some organizational measures to improve the situation. It also represents a suitable starting point and basis for further studies in this field.
6 Literature
Aragon, raziskovanje in načrtovanje, d.o.o.. (2006). Stališča o korupciji 2005, available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/filead-min/kpk.gov.si/pageuploads/pdf/korupcija v sloveniji/Stali sca o korupciji 2005.pdf (29.4.2007). Civil law convention on corruption. Ur.l. RS, št. 8/2003 - Mednarodne pogodbe.
GfK Gral-Iteo, tržne raziskave d.o.o. (2006). Raziskava o gospodarskem in poslovnem okolju, poslovni etiki in neuradnih plačilih na Slovenskem, available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk.gov.si/pageuploads/pdf/korupcija v slo veniji/GRAL KPK 06.pdf (29.4.2007). GfK Gral-Iteo, tržne raziskave d.o.o.. (2001). Korupcijska klima v srednje in vzhodnoevropskih državah (leto 2001), available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk.gov.si/pageu-ploads/pdf/korupcija_v_sloveniji/Gral_Iteo_korupcij-ska_klima_2001.pdf (29.4.2007). GfK Gral-Iteo, tržne raziskave d.o.o.. (2004). Korupcijska klima v srednje in vzhodnoevropskih državah (leto 2004), available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk.gov.si/pageu-ploads/pdf/korupcija_v_sloveniji/Gral_Iteo_korupcij-ska_klima_2004.pdf (29.4.2007). Haberfeld, M. R., Kutnjak Ivkovich, S., Klockars, C. B. & Pagon, M. (1999). Stališča policistov do disciplinskih ukrepov zaradi policijske korupcije: primerjava med Slovenijo, Hrvaško, Poljsko in Združenimi državami Amerike. Varstvoslovje, 1 (1): 13 - 29. Ljubljana: Ministrstvo za notranje zadeve Republike Slovenije, Visoka policijsko-varnostna šola. Jager, M. (2001). Obseg korupcije v Sloveniji in problemi v zvezi z definicijo. Ministrstvo za notranje zadeve Republike Slovenije, Generalna policijska uprava, Uprava kriminalistične policije. Korupcija kot realnost današnjega ~asa (pp. 37-50). Dokument predstavljen na strokovnem posvetu Ministrstva za notranje zadeve Republike Slovenije, Generalne policijske uprave, Uprave kriminalistične policije, Gotenica, maj 2001. MNZ RS, Služba za administracijo, dokumentacijo in grafiko. Lobnikar, B., Pagon, M., Duffy, M. & Ganster, D. C. (2000). Dejavniki deviantnega vedenja slovenskih policistov, Organizacija, 33: 77 - 93. Lobnikar, B., Pagon, M. & Ovsenik, M. (2004). The Frequency and the Causes of Violence and Aggressive Behaviour at the Workplace: The Case of Slovenian Police, Organizacija, 37: 371 - 378.
Kutnjak Ivkovich, S., Klockars, C. B., Lobnikar, B. & Pagon, M. (2000). Police Integrity and the Code of Silence: A Case of the Slovenian Police Force. V G. Meško, A. Anžič et al. (Eds.), Corruption in Central and Eastern Europe at the Turn of Millenium (pp. 85-102). Ljubljana. Open Society Institute Slovenia.
Kutnjak Ivkovic, S., Pagon, M., Klockars, C. B., & Lobnikar, B. (2002). A Comparative View of Public Perceptions of Police Corruption. V M. Pagon (Ed.), Policing in Central and Eastern Europe: Deviance, Violence, and Victimization (pp. 297-310). Ljubljana. College of Police and Security Studies.
Ninamedia, d.o.o. (2002). Raziskava o gospodarskem in poslovnem okolju, poslovni etiki in neuradnih pla~ilih na Slovenskem, available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk. gov.si/pageuploads/pdf/korupcija v sloveniji/ninamedia p orocilo 2002.pdf (29.4.2007).
Pagon, M. & Lobnikar, B. (1996). Problem etičnega ravnanja managementa: socialno-psihološki in komunikološki vidiki, Organizacija, 29: 201 - 206.
Pagon, M. & Lobnikar, B. (2001). Korupcija v policiji: opredelitev in njeno upravljanje. Ministrstvo za notranje zadeve Republike Slovenije, Generalna policijska uprava, Uprava kriminalistične policije. Korupcija kot realnost današnjega ~asa (pp. 85-90). Dokument predstavljen na strokovnem posvetu Ministrstva za notranje zadeve Republike Slovenije, Generalne policijske uprave, Uprave kriminalistične policije, Gotenica, maj 2001. MNZ RS, Služba za administracijo, dokumentacijo in grafiko.
Pavlovi}, Z. (1998). Mednarodna anketa o kriminaliteti oziroma viktimizaciji - Slovenija (Ljubljana) 1992 - 1997, Revija za kriminalistiko in kriminologijo, 49: 257 - 265). International Crime Victimization Survey, ICVS. Ljubljana.
Pavlovi}, Z. (1999a). Mednarodna anketa o kriminaliteti oziroma viktimizaciji - Slovenija (Ljubljana) 1992 - 1997, Revija za kriminalistiko in kriminologijo, 50: 30 - 37. International Crime Victimization Survey, ICVS. Ljubljana.
Pavlovi}, Z. (1999b). Mednarodna anketa o kriminaliteti oziroma viktimizaciji - Slovenija (Ljubljana) 1992 - 1997, Revija za kriminalistiko in kriminologijo, 50: 122 - 130. International Crime Victimization Survey, ICVS. Ljubljana.
Pavlovi}, Z. (1999c). Mednarodna anketa o kriminaliteti oziroma viktimizaciji - Slovenija (Ljubljana) 1992 - 1997, Revija za kriminalistiko in kriminologijo, 50: 234 - 239. International Crime Victimization Survey, ICVS. Ljubljana.
Transparency International. (2002). Press Release: Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2002, available from: http://www.transparency.org/pressreleases archive/ 2002/2002.08.28.cpi.en.html (24.4.2004).
Transparency International. (2003). Press Release: Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2003 / English, available from: http://www.transparency.org/pressreleas-es archive/2003/2003.10.07.cpi.en.html (24.4.2004).
Tratnik Volasko, M. (1999). Korupcija, Ljubljana, Ministrstvo za notranje zadeve, Urad za javno varnost, Služba za analitiko, USS, Sektor za administracijo in grafične zadeve.
Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za družbene vede - Inštitut za družbene vede, Center za raziskovanje javnega mnenja in množičnih komunikacij. (2002). Stališ~a o korupciji, available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk.gov.si/pageu-ploads/pdf/korupcija v sloveniji/CRJMMK porocilo 2002.pdf (29.4.2007).
Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za družbene vede - Inštitut za družbene vede, Center za raziskovanje javnega mnenja in množičnih komunikacij. (2003). Stališ~a o korupciji, available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk.gov.si/pageu-
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ploads/pdf/korupcija_v_sloveniji/CRJMMK_poroci-lo_2003.pdf (29.4.2007).
Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za družbene vede - Inštitut za družbene vede, Center za raziskovanje javnega mnenja in množičnih komunikacij. (2003). Stališča o korupciji, available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk.gov.si/pageu-ploads/pdf/korupcija v sloveniji/CRJMMK poročilo 2004.pdf (29.4.2007).
Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za družbene vede - Inštitut za družbene vede, Center za raziskovanje javnega mnenja in množičnih komunikacij. (2003). Stališča o korupciji, available from: http://www.kpk-rs.si/fileadmin/kpk.gov.si/pageu-ploads/pdf/korupcija_v_sloveniji/Stalisca_o_korupci-ji_06.pdf (29.4.2007).
Urad Vlade Republike Slovenije za statistiko. (1998). Rezultati raziskovanj: Kriminaliteta 1997 - Crime 1997:97 -111.
Zakon o preprečevanju korupcije. Ur.l. RS, št. 2/2004, 92/2005 -sklep US, 97/2005 - odl. US in 100/2005 - sklep US.
Andrejka Mevc graduated in 1996 from University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Sociology, Political Sciences and Journalism. She was granted a Presern prize for her thesis and obtained an MSc degree in information sciences from the Universe of Maribor, Faculty of Organizational Sciences in 2005. She was first employed in Municipality of Velenje, department of defence. Since 1995, she has been employed in the public administration unit in Velenje as a Head of the Department for inner administrative affairs.
Milan Pagon, Doctor of Organizational Sciences and Doctor of Management, is Dean and Professor at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences at the University of Maribor. He is the author of numerous articles and chapters. His main research interests are in the area of behaviour in organizations, especially social undermining, conflict, integrity, corruption and deviant behaviour.
Korupcija v upravnih enotah in organizacijski ukrepi za njeno preprečevanje
V prispevku so predstavljeni rezultati raziskave, v kateri sta avtorja ugotavljala stališča javnih uslužbencev, zaposlenih v upravnih enotah v Sloveniji, o pojavih korupcije na delovnem mestu. Uslužbenci v upravnih enotah v povprečju jemljejo pojave korupcije resno. Uslužbenčevo lastno doživljanje pojavov korupcije in pripravljenost prijaviti kršitelja je v najtesnejši medsebojni povezanosti z njegovim mnenjem o tem, kako pojave korupcije doživljajo drugi - njegovi sodelavci (kako resno jemljejo pojave korupcije sodelavci, ali so sodelavci pripravljeni prijaviti kršitelja itd.). Med uslužbenci obstajajo pomembne razlike v doživljanju pojavov korupcije glede na spol, glede na funkcijo, ki jo uslužbenec opravlja, in glede na njegovo pripadnost notranji organizacijski enoti.
Ključne besede: upravna korupcija, korupcijsko vedenje, pravilo molčečnosti, protikorupcijski ukrepi, kršitelj, javni uslužbenec, upravna enota.
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Fuzzy SERVQUAL Analysis in Airline Services
Ozlem Aydin1, Fatma Pakdil, MBA2
Bafkent University, Faculty of Science and Letters, Department of Statistics and Computer Sciences, 06530,
Baölyca, Ankara, Turkey, ozlem@baskent.edu.tr Bafkent University, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Industrial Engineering, 06530, Baöl^ca, Ankara, Turkey
fpakdil@baskent.edu.tr
This study is aimed at measuring and summarizing the perceived and expected service quality of passengers of an international airline and to provide the passengers' opinions to the decision makers employing fuzzy logic. The appropriate fuzzifica-tion procedure was determined to be the trapezoidal membership function. Using SERVQUAL methodology, the optimal fuzzy interval of the gap scores was determined for each item. The interpretations of these fuzzy intervals were categorized into three areas - optimistic, neutral and pessimistic passenger views - to assist the decision makers in identifying which items of services are satisfactory and which are in need of improvement.
Key words: Airline service quality, fuzzy numbers, fuzzy SERVQUAL scores.
1 Introduction
Today, most airline firms have recognized the importance of service quality. As Ostrowski (1993) said, the delivery of a high quality service become a marketing requirement among air carriers and continuing to provide perceived high quality services would help airlines acquire and retain customer loyalty (Chang and Yeh, 2002). In evaluating quality, understanding the passengers' expectations and measuring the service quality they desire plays a major role. Parasuraman et al. (1985, 1988) developed SERVQUAL for measuring service quality in organizations (Cavana et al., 2007) and since then, SERVQUAL has been used as an acceptable instrument in service quality studies. However, SERVQUAL-based studies of airline service quality are limited. With this as a starting point, this study focuses on measuring airline service quality from the point of view of international passengers using the SERVQUAL model with fuzzy logic. It also demonstrates how an airline firm can utilize a diagnostic tool when managing its service quality based on passenger opinions.
SERVQUAL studies of airline service quality are commonly performed by calculating the mean averages of the passengers' gap scores. As a SERVQUAL questionnaire is built using Likert scaling, the categories are ranked in ordinal scales, which indicates that the calculation of mean scores is not an efficient method of evaluation (Pakdil and Aydin, 2007). For a ranking scale, frequencies or percentages are offered to obtain reliable conclusions.
Nevertheless, if the evaluation is performed by mean averages or standard deviations, the passengers' raw scores should be transformed into quantitative interval scores. For this reason, this study offers fuzzy numbers in the measurement of service quality. Fuzzy quality is an overall comprehensive reflection of clear quality (Yongting, 1996). Yongting (1996) points out that, although fuzzy quality and clear quality are completely different, they can be transformed into each other and are also consistent with each other.
Additionally, fuzzy logic enables analysis using ill-defined sampling or where there is missing data. In survey analysis, including SERVQUAL, it is hard to achieve an optimal sample that includes equally distributed gender, nationality, marital status, educational level and so forth. Therefore, generalizing the findings of a survey is quite risky, as the applicants in the sample cannot sufficiently reflect the quality evaluations of all passengers. Furthermore, a questionnaire itself is a subjective tool and daily variables can affect the results. The passengers' perceptions can change depending on their mood during the response time - or the purpose of the flight can also affect responses while filling in the questionnaire form. Passengers leaving for a holiday would be more optimistic than those ones flying for business purposes (Pakdil and Ay-din, 2007). For this reason, we propose to analyze the responses using imprecision methods. Fuzzy logic is a way to analyze when some defects exist in the data or in the sample. It allows one to obtain results for different types of customers or managers. Fuzzy logic keeps in mind that a
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perception of an item would be different for optimistic and pessimistic passengers. This may also be true for the quality manager of the firm. An optimistic manager would be more easily satisfied with the service quality analyses results than a pessimistic manager. Hence, while a pessimistic (risk averse) manager would improve an item, the other may not perceive a need for any improvement on the same item. For this reason, this study utilizes fuzzy logic to offer different solutions for differently characterized passengers and managers. Although there are some fuzzy related quality studies for airlines (Tsaur et al, 2002; Chang and Yeh, 2002;Wang, 2008), this study is focused on the fuzzy SERVQUAL scores of airline services. This study is an evaluation of just one specific airline firm, whereas former studies depended on ranking alternatives by analyzing three or more different firms.
2 Fuzzy Logic and Fuzzy Numbers
Fuzzy sets were introduced in 1965 by Lotfi Asker Zadeh in order to define human knowledge using mathematical expressions. When the main concern is with the meaning of information-rather than with its measurement, the proper framework for information analysis is possibilistic. Thus implying that what is needed for this analysis is not called the theory of possibility (Zadeh, 1999). Since then, fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic have been widely used in cases of ill-defined or incomplete data and for expressing the satisfaction preferences of personal evaluations. Uncertainty in the model, without the importance of the reason, can be eliminated using fuzzy numbers and crisp intervals can then be provided for decision makers. Crisp intervals are called a-cut sets in fuzzy theory and they reflect the optimal decisions, depending on the risk attitude of the decision maker. Fuzzy numbers are presented with their membership functions.
DEFINITION 1. A fuzzy set A in a universe of discourse X is characterized by a membership function x) which associates each element x in X, with a real number within the interval of [0,1]. The definition of x) implies that the degree of possibility may be any number in the interval of [0,1], rather than just a 0 or a 1. The function value ( x) terms the grade of membership of x in A (Zadeh, 1999; Chen, 2000).
DEFINITION 2. Let A be a fuzzy set and (x) be the membership function for x e A , if flj (x)is defined as below;
i 2 (x) =
( x - a)
(b - a)'
(d - x)
(d - c)
a < x < b
b < x < c
c < x < d
then x is a trapezoidal fuzzy number (Klir and Yuan, 1995). In Figure 1, the trapezoidal number x; x=(a;b;c;d) is presented. For b=c, it is a triangular fuzzy number, where the shape turns into a triangle.
DEFINITION 3. Let A be a set of fuzzy numbers. A a = {x | Ma (x) a and xe X} is called an a-cut set for A. In Figure 1, [xa1, xa2] presents an a-cut set for A .
Figure 1: Trapezoidal fuzzy number.
Figure 1 can be read as; when x is in the [b,c] interval, it belongs to A with a possibility of 1. When x decreases form "b", the degree of belonging is calculated by the x) function. Obviously, for x < a, the belonging is zero. Note that a is the lower limit of set A . Similarly, when x increases towards d, the membership function approaches zero. As shown in Figure 1, Aa (an a-cut interval) is a crisp set.
DEFINITION 4. Assume that T and Y are fuzzy numbers and their a-cuts are [ta1, ta2] and [ya1, ya2]. Subtraction of the fuzzy numbers T and Y, denoted as Z, is also a fuzzy number and it is calculated using the a-cuts. The subtraction is defined as;
Za = [min (ta1 - ya1, ta2 - yj, max (ta1 - ya1, ta2 - yj]
for every a-cut (Lai and Hwanh, 1992).
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3 Fuzzy Quality and Measuring Airline Services with Fuzzy SERVQUAL
Fuzzy logic was first used in quality evaluation by Yong-ting (1996), in analyzing the process capability index. He studied the basic structure of quality in production processes and focused on a "suitable quality" concept rather than deterministic, crisp (non-fuzzy) quality. The study was a pioneer for later fuzzy quality research in production and services. Chien and Tsai (2000) studied fuzzy service quality and proposed a new methodology for evaluating perceptions in the retail industry. They used triangular fuzzy numbers and Hamming distance to overcome the subjective responses to SERVQUAL questions.
In airline services, quality evaluations differ from other sectors. In the airline industry, only the passengers can truly define the service quality (Chang and Yeh, 2002). However, while the service quality is measured via survey,
the responses depend on the customers' own observations and thus the responses change depending on personal opinions. In airline services especially, passengers evaluate the perceived services in a limited time frame - before leaving the plane. Additionally, in some surveys, frequency of flying, nationality, educational level or the gender of the respondents may not be uniform. Moreover, some of these respondents may be first-time fliers, who may not be sure of their expectations or their satisfaction with their first flight. From these starting points, Chang and Yeh (2002) first performed the most significant application of fuzzy survey analysis on airline services. They used triangular fuzzy numbers in defining the evaluations and proposed ranking of airline alternatives among four firms, depending on their performance index. In this study, the nationalities, gender and educational levels of the respondents are distributed unequally, which is the main reason for analyzing the responses using fuzzy logic.
Table 1: Service quality dimensions of the SERVQUAL items
# of Item	Service Quality Dimensions
1	On-time departure and arrival
2	Consistent ground/in-flight services
3	Performing the services right the first time
4	Oualitv of the food and beverage
5	The behaviour of employees inspires confidence
6	Safety
7	Employees have the knowledge to answer mv questions
8	Clean and comfortable interior/seat
9	In-flight entertainment facilities and programs
10	In-flight newspaper, book. etc. facilities
11	The availability of waiting lounges
12	In-flight internet/email/fax/phone facilities
13	Courteous employees
14	Neat and tidv employees
15	Non-stop flights to various destinations
16	Convenient flight schedules and enough frequencies
17	Flight problems ("cancellations, delays, deviations from schedules')
18	The availability of global alliance partners' network
19	Understanding passengers' specific needs
20	Individual attention to passengers
21	The availability of a frequent fiver program
22	The availability of air/accommodation packages
23	The availability of travel related partners ("e.g. hotels, car. rentals')
24	Efficient check-in/baggage handling services
25	Employees are always willing to help
26	Employees handle requests/complaints promptly
27	Handling of delaved/lost/damaged/overweight baggage
28	Employees' foreign language level
29	Employees' approach to unexpected situations
30	The quality of the reservation services
31	Handling fare problems
32	The advertising of the airline company
33	Employees' behaviour to delaved passengers
34	The external appearance of the airplane
	The imape of the airline company
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Hence, fuzzy logic allows the removal of subjective judgments.
Tsaur et al (2002) worked on ranking three different airline firms and used triangular fuzzy numbers in multi-criteria analyses. The study used an Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) to determine the criteria weights, then measured the overall performances of the airlines in terms of fuzzy numbers. Finally, it ranked the firms according to their similarities to ideal solutions.
A few of the previous airline service quality studies analyzed performance with fuzzy logic. They all utilized triangular fuzzy numbers. Triangular fuzzy numbers are more definite than trapezoidal fuzzy numbers for deter-
mining the optimal decision. Triangular numbers give the optimal membership (belonging) degree with a single value, where trapezoidal structures extend this single number to an interval. In this study, we examined trapezoidal fuzzy numbers in order to offer different optimal solution intervals depending on the risk taking attitude of the decision maker. This facilitates the decision processes and leads to more realistic solutions.
3.1 Application
In order to measure the service quality of the airline, a questionnaire was designed based on a 5-point Likert sca-
Table 2: Demographic statistics.
Variable		%
Gender	Male	69.1
	Female	30.9
Age	Less than 21	3.0
	21-30	24.8
	31-40	28.2
	41-50	23.8
	51-60	13.8
	61 or older	6.4
Nationality	Western European	5.0
	Eastern European	1.3
	Japanese	1.7
	Indian	0.9
	Turkish	84.6
	United States	6.5
Education	Elementary school	10.4
	High school	21.1
	University	68.5
Marital status	Married	71.8
	Single	28.2
Average use of airline	More than once a week	3.4
	Once a week	6.4
	Once a month	39.6
	Once a year	17.8
	Less than once a vear	31.5
Purpose of last trip	Business	27.6
	Holiday	18.1
	Business and holiday	39.9
	Other	14.4
Frequently used airlines	United States-based	5.4
	European-based	73.2
	Asian-based	2.4
Who helps selecting airline	Family	10.4
	Friends	2.7
	Myself	59.4
	Travel agency	21.1
	Other	6.4
The most important reason for choosing	Price	25.2
the airline	Past experience	56.0
	Advertisements	4.0
	Recommendation	6.7
	Other	8.1
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le. The first part of the questionnaire contained control variables such as gender, age, nationality, education level, job position and so forth. The second and the third parts included 35 service quality items (Table 1), measuring the passengers' expectations and perceptions. Then, the questionnaire was examined by airline firm experts and their contributions were incorporated into the questionnaire. Next, the questionnaire was pre-tested by 18 academic staff from XXX University, who had flown at least once, to test how comprehensible the questionnaire was and how easy it was to respond to. Finally, some minor changes were made to the questionnaire form and the content validity of the questionnaire was deemed adequate. Cron-bach's alphas were calculated to test reliability and were found to be .89 for both parts.
In applying the questionnaire, firstly a sample size was determined. Based on DeVaus (2000), with a 95% confidence level and a 5% error margin, the sample size was calculated as 385. The sample consisted of passengers on an international airline firm that flies from Ataturk International Airport, Istanbul, to various destinations. The questionnaires were distributed accompanied by a covering letter explaining the objective of the survey and assuring the confidentiality of all respondents. A total of 1000 questionnaires were distributed to the sample and the response rate was 32%. However, a small amount of filled questionnaires were not sufficient to be analyzed. Therefore the actual response rate turned out to be 29.8%. The survey was applied for over two weeks and was performed on three different routes based on cluster sampling. The airline firm preferred to conduct the survey on board, in the last hour of the flight. Participation was voluntary.
In this study, the survey was conducted on 298 passengers. The passengers were categorized as follows; male (69.1%), Turkish (84.6%), married (71.8%) and has at least a graduate degree (68.5%). The other demographic statistics are presented in Table 2.
Firstly, both the perceptions and the expectations of 298 respondents are converted to fuzzy numbers. Evaluations defined using a 5-point Likert type scale of linguistic expressions, are converted to trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. In the expectation section, the scale is presented as {Unimportant, of Little Importance, Moderately Important, Important and Very Important}, while it is {Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Undecided, Agree and Strongly Agree} in the perception part. The scale defined the fuzzy numbers as; Unimportant/ Strongly Disagree = (0,0,0,0); of Little Importance/ Disagree = (0,0.11, 0.19,0.42); Moderately Important/ Undecided = (0.32, 0.41, 0.58, 0.65); Important/ Agree = (0.58, 0.80, 0.90, 1) and Very Impor-tant/ Strongly Agree = (1,1,1,1). These transformations are based on Tsai and Lu's (2006) study, where a 9-point Likert scale was used. As a 5-point Likert scale was used in this study, Tsai and Lu (2006)'s relations between fuzzy numbers and evaluations were adapted using fuzzy arithmetic. Leaving the first, last and medium linguistic terms as the same, the ones between them are redefined using the fuzzy arithmetical means. In Figure 2, graphical representations of the fuzzy evaluations are given.
In Figure 2, an "Unimportant" evaluation implies that the expectation of the item is marked as 1 in the original questionnaire and presented as (0, 0, 0, 0), in terms of a fuzzy number. Similarly, the presentation is same if the perceived item is "Strongly Disagree", where it is also defined as (0, 0, 0,0) as a fuzzy number. When the expectation is "of Little Importance" or the perception is "Disagree", the figure marks the evaluations as (0, 0.11, 0.19, 0.42). The rest of the evaluations for both expectations and perceptions are drawn in a similar way. Additionally, note that "Disagree" is a better evaluation than "Strongly Disagree". Considering these two evaluations, "Strongly Disagree" is indicated with a higher fuzzy number than "Disagree". Although the first components of these num-
Figure 2: Evaluations of the items, in terms of fuzzy numbers.
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bers are "0", the next ones show the superiority of "Disagree" against "Strongly Disagree".
After determining the fuzzy expressions, the SERVQUAL scores of every passenger for 35 items are defined using fuzzy numbers. The mean values of the fuzzy numbers are advisable expressions in personal evaluations while studying with fuzzy numbers (Tsai and Lu, 2006). For this reason, the mean values of each item are calculated based on 298 respondent evaluations as provided in Definition 4. It is obvious that the means are also fuzzy numbers. As the evaluations are defined using trapezoidal fuzzy numbers, the means are also calculated as trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. Next, because the manager addresses customer satisfaction; the limits are calculated for various a-cuts, which imply the risk attitudes, and the results are presented in Table 3.
In Table 3, most of the gaps are negative values, which show that the passengers are generally unsatisfied with their services. In this case, the manager received unsatisfactory results on most of the items.
The table should be read according to the risk attitude of the decision makers (passengers or managers). For a risk averse, pessimistic decision maker, the a-cut is 1 and for the first item, the result indicates that the gap score should be kept in the interval of [-0.321, -0.239] in order to satisfy the pessimistic decision maker. However, because the interval is negative, the manager perceives an unsatisfied result for the first item. If the decision maker is a little bit risk taking, s/he should look at the 0.75 valued a-cut. The rest of the table can be interpreted similarly. For a risk taking, optimistic decision maker, the a-cut is 0, and the optimal gap score interval is calculated as [-0.425, -0.135] for the first item. Conversely, looking at the last
Table 3: Lower and upper gap limits for some a-cuts.
q-cuts
item
a = 0.00 lower
upper
a = 0.25 lower
upper
a = 0.50 lower
upper
a = 0.75 lower
upper
a = 1.00 lower
upper
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 11 12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20 21 22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
-0.425 -0.271 -0.215 -0.317 -0.229 -0.171 -0.190 -0.023 -0.309 -0.388 -0.194 -0.550 -0.213 -0.126 -0.243 -0.320 -0.309 -0.227 -0.123 -0.183 -0.286 -0.150 -0.291 -0.291 -0.264 -0.264 -0.214 -0.229 -0.258 -0.245 -0.169 -0.305 -0.139 -0.239 0.757
-0.135 0.079 0.102 0.127 0.104 0.015 0.149 0.081 0.224 0.163 0.098 0.016 0.098 0.130 0.101 0.080 -0.094 0.211 0.163 0.272 0.188 0.164 0.303 0.006 0.176 0.122 0.045 0.205 0.105 0.102 0.114 0.250 0.186 0.283 0.114
-0.399 -0.238 -0.182 -0.281 -0.198 -0.147 -0.160 0.009 -0.267 -0.350 -0.156 -0.518 -0.182 -0.100 -0.214 -0.284 -0.283 -0.194 -0.087 -0.143 -0.247 -0.112 -0.252 -0.260 -0.228 -0.230 -0.182 -0.194 -0.222 -0.211 -0.133 -0.262 -0.102 -0.199 0.786
-0.161 0.049 0.071 0.090 0.078 0.000 0.120 0.052 0.185 0.124 0.058 -0.016 0.071 0.107 0.071 0.043 -0.122 0.178 0.128 0.234 0.151 0.127 0.268 -0.024 0.140 0.090 0.019 0.174 0.073 0.070 0.079 0.209 0.152 0.247 0.089
-0.373 -0.205 -0.150 -0.245 -0.167 -0.123 -0.129 0.042 -0.224 -0.312 -0.117 -0.487 -0.151 -0.074 -0.184 -0.248 -0.257 -0.161 -0.052 -0.104 -0.208 -0.074 -0.213 -0.228 -0.191 -0.197 -0.149 -0.158 -0.186 -0.177 -0.097 -0.219 -0.064 -0.159 0.816
-0.187 0.018 0.040 0.054 0.053 -0.016 0.092 0.023 0.145 0.085 0.018 -0.049 0.045 0.085 0.041 0.007 -0.149 0.144 0.094 0.195 0.114 0.090 0.232 -0.054 0.104 0.057 -0.006 0.144 0.041 0.038 0.044 0.169 0.118 0.211 0.063
-0.347 -0.171 -0.118 -0.208 -0.136 -0.098 -0.099 0.074 -0.182 -0.274 -0.078 -0.456 -0.121 -0.048 -0.155 -0.213 -0.231 -0.128 -0.016 -0.065 -0.169 -0.037 -0.174 -0.196 -0.154 -0.163 -0.117 -0.123 -0.150 -0.143 -0.062 -0.176 -0.027 -0.119 0.845
-0.213 -0.013 0.009 0.017 0.027 -0.031 0.063 -0.006 0.106 0.046 -0.022 -0.081 0.018 0.062 0.011 -0.029 -0.176 0.111 0.059 0.156 0.076 0.052 0.196 -0.084 0.068 0.025 -0.032 0.113 0.009 0.006 0.008 0.129 0.085 0.175 0.037
-0.321 -0.138 -0.085 -0.172 -0.106 -0.074 -0.069 0.106 -0.140 -0.236 -0.040 -0.424 -0.090 -0.022 -0.125 -0.177 -0.205 -0.095 0.019 -0.025 -0.130 0.001 -0.135 -0.165 -0.117 -0.130 -0.084 -0.087 -0.114 -0.108 -0.026 -0.133 0.011 -0.079 0.874
-0.239 -0.043 -0.022 -0.019 0.001 -0.046 0.034 -0.035 0.067 0.007 -0.062 -0.114 -0.008 0.040 -0.020 -0.066 -0.203 0.078 0.024 0.117 0.039 0.015 0.161 -0.115 0.032 -0.007 -0.058 0.082 -0.023 -0.026 -0.027 0.088 0.051 0.139 0.012
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item, the positive intervals show that, independent of the risk attitude of the decision maker, the passengers are satisfied with the services of the airline. Although s/he is optimistic, the gap should be kept within the [0.757, 0.114] interval. If s/he is pessimistic, the difference between perception and expectation should be within [0.874,0.012].
If the calculated gap score for an item is outside these intervals, two different interpretations can be made depending on the sign of the interval. Assume that the limits are negative, which then means that the manager does not expect to satisfy the passenger on that item. However, if a passenger's gap is below the lower limit of the interval, the passenger perceives the service quality as worse than the manager's expectations. Conversely, if the gap is higher than the upper limit of the interval, the passenger is still unsatisfied with the service, but the result is better than the manager's venture. Note that the manager had already ventured this satisfaction in all levels. Then the result suggests an improvement on that item.
If the interval is positive, it shows that the related item is expected to satisfy the decision maker. Although the decision makers' goal is to preserve the gaps within the given intervals, for positive gaps, passenger satisfaction is lower than desired level if the achieved gap is less than the lower limit. This also calls for an improvement in that item. Conversely, if a gap passes over the positive upper limit, it shows that the satisfaction is higher than the aimed satisfaction level. A high positive gap score implies that the perceived service is higher than the manager's es-timates/ hopes/ expectations. In this study, the results show that the passengers are unsatisfied with the airline in most of the items, but are satisfied with the image of the airline which is the last item.
4 Conclusion
In the competitive airline industry, as in all service-providing institutions, the service quality must be measured using all the aspects of the service provided. In airlines, it is obvious that the most acceptable evaluations can only be done by passengers who have flown the airline at least once.
Questionnaires are the most applicable tools for investigating the passengers' views. SERVQUAL is widely used both for collecting data and understanding the passengers' thoughts. SERVQUAL is a Likert scale based linguistic questionnaire, where calculating the arithmetic means of responses is not meaningful. By using the fuzzy approach, more expressive results can be achieved not just in case of linguistic data, but to cover loss of data. In order to avoid misleading results and their interpretations, fuzzy logic is used in this study.
Although the optimal sample size was determined at the beginning of this research, it turned out to be an inconvenient sampling procedure in the data collection stage. The demographics showed that there were inequalities in some of the basic features of the respondents, such as nationality, gender, marital status and educational level.
For this reason, the results of the evaluations of passengers cannot be generalized. This led us to analyze the SERVQUAL scores using fuzzy numbers. After transforming the raw scores into trapezoidal fuzzy numbers, gap scores are calculated using fuzzy arithmetic and a-cuts are used to calculate the optimal decision intervals for the different types of decision makers. This would allow quality managers to evaluate their services from the viewpoints of the optimistic, pessimistic or regular passenger.
Literature
Cavana, R.Y., Corbett, L.M., Lo, Y.L. (2007). Developing zones of tolerance for managing passenger rail service quality, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management 24: 7-31.
Chang, Y. & Yeh, C. (2002). A survey analysis of service quality for domestic airlines, European Journal of Operational Research 139:166-177.
Chen, C.T. (2000). Extensions of the TOPSIS for group decision making under fuzzy environment, Fuzzy Sets and Systems 114: 1-9. Chien, C.J. & Tsai, H.H. (2000). Using fuzzy numbers to evaluate perceived service quality, Fuzzy Sets and Systems 116: 289-300.
DeVaus, D.A. (2000). Surveys in Social Research. Routledge, London.
Klir, G.J. & Yuan, B. (1995). Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Logic, Prentice-Hall, USA.
Lai, Y. & Hwanh, C. (1994). Fuzzy Multiple Objective Decision Making, Methods and Applications, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg.
Ostrowski, P.L., O'Brien,T.V., Gordon, G.L. (1993). Service quality and customer loyalty in the commercial airline industry, Journal of Travel Research 32:16-24. Pakdil, F. & Aydin, O. (2007). Expectations and perceptions in airline services: An analysis using weighted SERVQUAL scores, Journal of Air Transport Management 13: 229-237. Tsai, H.H. & Lu, I.Y. (2006). The evaluation of service quality using generalized Choquet integral, Information Sciences 176: 640-663.
Tsaur, S.H., Chang,T.Y., Yen, C.H. (2002). The evaluation of airline service quality by fuzzy MCDM, Tourism Management 23:107-115.
Wang, Y., J. (2008). Applying FMCDM to evaluate financial performance of domestic airlines in Taiwan, Expert Systems with Applications 34:1837-1845. Yongting, C. (1996). Fuzzy quality and analysis on fuzzy probability. Fuzzy Sets and Systems 83: 283-290. Zadeh, L.A. (1999). Fuzzy Sets As a Basis For a Theory of Possibility. Fuzzy Sets and Systems 100: 9-34.
Ozlem Aydin is an instructor and Deputy Head of the Department of Statistics and Computer Science, Baskent University, Turkey. She obtained her PhD degree in 2003, in the area of Statistics and Operations Research. She has been teaching and studying Operations Research, Stochastic Processes, Regression Analysis and Quantitative Methods in Healthcare Management in graduate and undergraduate programs. She is taking positions in some national and international projects as consultant, educator and data analyst. Her areas of interest are Fuzzy Theory, Fuzzy Decision
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Making and Queuing Models. She has presented papers in national and international conferences. She has had papers published/accepted in national and international journals.
Fatma Pakdil joined Baskent University, School of Engineering, in September 2003 and earned her associate professor of management degree in February 2008. Before joining Baskent University, she worked at Uludag University, Dept. of Industrial Engineering, as a lecturer for 4 years. She received an MBA degree in 1996 and Ph.D. degree in busi-
ness administration in 2002 from Uludag University. She has researched corporate performance management systems in health care organizations at Wake Forest University, the Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina for her Ph.D. studies in 2001. She worked as a quality director in a private hospital 6 years in Turkey. Her research interests are organization theory, total quality management, human resource management, service quality and quality control. She has published journal articles and has presented her studies at national and international conferences.
Mehka SERVQUAL analiza letalskih storitev
Cilj te študije je merjenje in analiziranje dosežene in pričakovane kakovosti potniških storitev mednarodne letalske družbe in posredovanje mnenj potnikov s pomočjo mehke logike tistim, ki sprejemajo odločitve. Za mehko proceduro je bila kot primerna sprejeta trapezoidna članska funkcija. Z uporabo servqual metodologije je bil za vsako postavko določen optimalen mehki interval razpona zadetkov. Interpretacije teh mehkih intervalov so bile razporejene v tri področja - optimistična, nevtralna in pesimistična mnenja potnikov - s čimer naj bi pomagali tistim, ki sprejemajo odločitve, pri določanju tega, katere storitve so zadovoljive in katere potrebujejo izboljšave.
Klju~ne besede: kakovost letalskih storitev, mehke vrednosti, mehki SERVQUAL zadetki
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Forecasting the Primary Demand for a Beer Brand Using Time Series Analysis
Danijel Bratina, Armand Faganel
University of Primorska, Faculty of Management Koper, Cankarjeva S, 6GGG Koper, Slovenia, danijel.bratina@fm-kp.si, armand.faganel@fm-kp.si
Market research often uses data (i.e. marketing mix variables) that is equally spaced over time. Time series theory is perfectly suited to study this phenomena's dependency on time. It is used for forecasting and causality analysis, but their greatest strength is in studying the impact of a discrete event in time, which makes it a powerful tool for marketers. This article introduces the basic concepts behind time series theory and illustrates its current application in marketing research. We use time series analysis to forecast the demand for beer on the Slovenian market using scanner data from two major retail stores. Before our analysis, only broader time spans have been used to perform time series analysis (weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly data). In our study we analyse daily data, which is supposed to carry a lot of 'noise'. We show that - even with noise carrying data - a better model can be computed using time series forecasting, explaining much more variance compared to regular regression. Our analysis also confirms the effect of short term sales promotions on beer demand, which is in conformity with other studies in this field.
Key words: market research, time series forecasting, beer demand JEL classification: C22, M31
1 Introduction
Despite being a powerful tool, Time series analysis (De-kimpe and Hannsens 1995) is rarely used in research by marketers. As the main reasons for this reluctance, they mention the availability of quality time series, the unavailability of time series analysis software, a lack of knowledge and a reluctance to use secondary data for modeling customers' behaviour. At the same time, they announce that wide use of time series is still to come with advances in information technology, software development and an increasing number of academic studies devoted to the subject.
This article presents uni- and multi-variate time series analysis applied to market research forecasting. We demonstrate how the primary demand for beer can be forecast better when using time series than with regular regression analysis. The rest of the article is organised as follows: first we present the basic time series analysis, starting with univariate ARMA models. Next, we provide some theory on multivariate analysis with special emphasis on the ARMAX models, which are considered as hybrid univariate models. We then analyse demand factors for a well established beer brand in Slovenia, illustrating the power of time series analysis in comparison with regression analysis. The conclusion summarises our findings.
2 Univariate time series analysis
It is assumed that the reader is familiar with basic time series analysis modeling (autoregressions and moving averages), this topic is thus discussed only briefly. Our analysis begins with univariate shock analysis theory and evolves into ARMAX (autoregression, moving average regression with exogenous variables), which is becoming popular among market researchers.
2.1 The Autoregression process
Let yt be the sales value at a given time t. A simple method for analyzing the fluctuation in sales is by using the past levels of sales to determine future:
yt =v + vyt-! + et, t = 1,...., T ,	(1)
where represents a constant, the regression parameter and noise, which it is often assumed to be white noise (where the mean value is 0, the variance is constant over time and has no serial correlation). The model shown in equation (1) is called the AR(1) process - autoregression process of the first order. It can be generalized into AR(n) by:
yt =v+9xy,-i+...+9ny,-n +et, t = i,....,t . (1a)
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In time series analysis, we often write equations with operator notation. Thus the equation (2a) can be written as:
Vp(B)yt =» + st, t = 1,....,T ,where
(p (B) = (1 -pjB-y2B2 - ••• ~PpBp) and B is the
lag operator: Bkyt = yt_k
(2)
The order (n) of an AR process is determined by two functions: the autocorrelation function (ACF) and the partial autocorrelation function (PACF), defined as:
Yk
ACF:
Pk ='
Y o
, where jk =E [(y - m)(yt_k - m)] is
called the autocovariance y, of the order k.
PACF: as the value of the regression coefficient of yt4, when is regressed on y^.yand a constant.The order n of the AR process can also be determined graphically, as by Box and Jenkins, or by using Akaikie's criterion, Schwarz-Bayes' criterion or the maximum-likelihood ratio test (Box and Jenkins, 1979).
2.2 Moving average processes
A moving average process can represent the functional dependency of the endogenous variable on past random shocks, which is formulated as:
yt =^ + st-9et_i, t = 1,...., T
(3)
Equation (4) is a moving average model of the first order - MA(1). The estimated value of the endogenous variable in time is dependent on random shocks that occurred in the past. We can draw several examples from marketing: a promotional budget is often set as a past period budget + additional non-planned expenses occurred in the past period, a sales forecast can be a function of the past forecasts adjusted with the unplanned shocks that occurred in the past, such as a new buyer (additional sales) or new competitor (lost sales) ...
Like the AR processes, the MA processes can also be generalized to n-th order:
yt =v + eq(B)Sí, t = 1,....,T ,	(3a)
where 9q(B) means 1 B-G2B2 -...-9qBq and B is the lag operator.
2.3 ARMA model
An ARMA process is the natural combination of autocorrelation and the moving average processes. It can be written as ARMA(p,q):
9p(B)yt =^ + 9q(B)st t = 1,....,T	(4)
The orders (p and q) can theoretically be determined using PACF and ACF. When using ARMA models to forecast a series, p and q must have a meaning in the re-
search field (i.e. a functional dependency of sales upon past advertising expenditures makes sense, the opposite less so).
2.3.1 Univariate shock analysis
Dekimpe et al. (2005) introduced a model of the time persistency of shocks studying univariate time series (a shock occurs in the endogenous variable). The measure that assesses the impact of a shock in an ARMA(p,q) series over time is defined as the ratio of the AR and MA coefficients of its first difference:
J _gj _02 - ...-Qq
1 ~9i-92 -... ~9p , (5)
A(\) =9q(1)/v (1) =
Equation (5) determines whether a time series is stationary or a trend following a shock. For a marketer, the difference means long term or short term effects.
2.4 ARMAX models
To avoid the complex multivariate time series analysis that comes with techniques like VARMA (Vector autoregressive moving average regressions), a hybrid model of univariate analysis has been introduced by some authors (Wichern 1977, Dekimpe and Hannsens 1995, Bronnenberg et. al 2001), namely the ARMAX (AutoRegressive Moving Average with eXogenous variable) Model. This model includes exogenous variables into the ARMA model, assuming that these variables cannot be dependent on endogenous variables (such as in the VAR models). For marketers these models open a variety of research possibilities (i.e. assessing the impact of any marketing activity on the marketing mix) (Franses 1991). Most marketing activities do not occur at the time of the activity but later. In comparison to multivariate models (VAR, VARX, VARMA) the ARMAX model remains a single equation model, which makes it easier to analyse but looses the generality of the VAR models. This is why Hanssens et al. (2001) call such model the dynamic univariate time series analysis. The model, also called the transfer function, can be written as:
yt = Yiyt-i+Jiyt- 2+...+Ypyt-P + Px +
+ p1+... + Psxt_s + et -9?t_ 1-... ~9qSt q (6)
In equation (3), the variable x represents an exogenous variable while all other elements are ARMA elements. For more than one exogenous variable, the model can be written as:
yt = v+Y1 yt-1+/2 yt - 2+...+Ypyt - p +
+ ÍpT¡B'xt-i +et-9§ t_ 1-...-9qst _q i=1
(6a)
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where the part under the sum is a scalar product of the coefficient vector and the vector 3 of the exogenous variables (x).
The steps of the time series analysis with the transfer functions are the same as for the Box-Jenkins ARM A processes: identification, trial model, parameter identification, diagnosis of the regression model and its residuals through a function called CCF (cross correlation function), which is the equivalent of ACF and PACF in the ARMAX models.
The steps are as follows:
1.	Define the ARMA model for the exogenous variable 1st and store its residuals.
2.	Use the same ARMA model for the endogenous variables and store the residuals.
3.	Compute the CCF between the residuals from points 1. and 2.
Marketers can use the ARMAX model to test how a change in an exogenous variable influence a time series over time. Special cases of such change are discrete events (i.e. regulation changes, competition entry, changes in prices ...). Franses (1991) used this sort of study to assess changes in the demand for beer in The Netherlands due to a change in taxation that occurred in 1984. The method of using discrete events in ARMAX models is called Intervention analysis (Box and Tiao 1976).
3 Estimating the primary demand for beer using time series analysis
The demand for beer has been extensively researched in the past (Bourgeois and Barnes 1979, Franke and Wilcox 1987, Leeflang and Van Dujin 1982). All of up to date research use weekly, monthly or even yearly aggregated data from around 50-100 observations to assess the determinants of beer demand. Our study deals with the daily sales of a leading Slovenian beer brand in a major retail store. We assume that a typical sales promotion of 2-3
weeks can only be dynamically observed using daily sales as a 14-21 day period generates enough data for statistical significance. A weekly sales series would only include few data points for analysis, which is not enough. Monthly data and larger time spans is not appropriate for dynamically studying sales periods. Our data, shown in Picture 1, represents the daily sales of a beer brand dating from 1.1.2005 till 31.12.2006.
Slovenian retail stores are usually open 7 days a week. law enforcement only forbade shops from openings on Sundays between 1.1.2006 and 19.2.2006. Shops also remain closed during national holidays. The time series is broken on these days. To prevent losing the seasonality of the series, we filled in the closed dates with exponentially smoothed average sales of 5 days before the closing date. To avoid increasing the total sales, we decreased the sales prior to the closing day and added the sum of lowered sales to the closing date. Our rationale behind this procedure is that customers would know that a day is approaching with no possibility for purchasing and would stockpile the product. By leaving the series without these changes, the ACF and PACF functions would produce faulty autocorrelations. As there are 5 holidays and 8 Sundays during the above mentioned law enforcement, totalling 13 days out of 700 observations, we estimate that such a process (or any other procedure) could not affect the statistics.
3.1 Analysis of the graph
Picture 1 shows a spike in sales in the periods around New Year, which will be modelled using a dummy variable (NEW YEAR), the value of which is set to 1 between December 29 and December 31 and 0 otherwise.The time series also exerts a double seasonality. One is easily seen in Picture 2 and shows increased summer sales of beer in accordance with other existing models. This phenomenon will be modelled using the average daily temperature each day.
Figure 1: - Daily quantities of beer sold
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Autocorrelation Partial Correlation AC PAC Q-Stat Prot
1	1	1	1	1	Ü 445	Ü 445	144 72	0	000
1	:	[	i	2	0 116	-0 102	154 50	0	000
1	:	1	□	3	0 124	0 143	165 83	0	000
1	:	1	i	4	0 117	0 014	175 96	0	000
1	]	1	i	□	0 068	0 011	179 40	0	000
1		1		i	Ü 308	Ü 349	249 41	0	000
1	i	1	1		Ü 591	0 430	506 99	0	000
1		C	i	8	0 299	-Ü 141	573 15	0	000
1	]	(	i	3	0 060	-0 051	575 79	0	000
1	]	1	i	10	0 083	0 009	580 91	0	000
1	]	1	i	11	0 078	-0 012	585 46	0	000
1	i	II	i	12	0 024	-0 028	585 90	0	000
1		1	□	13	0 283	0 180	645 49	0	000
1	i	1	□	14	Ü 542	Ü 215	864 63	0	000
1	Z	E	i	15	0 250	-0 123	911 44	0	000
1	i	E	i	16	-0 006	-0 103	911.47	0	000
1	P	i	i	17	0 032	-0 004	912 23	0	000
1	i	H	i	18	0 024	-0 036	912 67	0	000
1	i	i	i	13	-0 012	-0 001	912 78	0	000
1	zi	i	□	20	0 265	0 134	965 68	0	000
1	i	i	□	21	Ü 507	0 136	1159 2	0	000
1	Zl	[	i	22	0 224	-0 076	1196 9	0	000
Figure 2: - ACF and PACF functions for the original model
The second seasonal fluctuation we expect from the series is the weekly seasonality i.e. the Sunday sales are similar... Due to daily noise, this is hardly seen with visual inspection. However, by computing the ACF and PACF functions, they can easily be found (Picture 2).
The PACF graph of autocorrelations shows the expected statistical significance for period 7. Spikes at 6 and 8 should also be taken into consideration. Visually, we could assess the unviariate ARMA process to be:
(1 -L7)(1 - vL) yt = ^ + (1 - L7)(1 + 0L) st (7)
Equation 7 would mean that the daily sales can be estimated by taking the sales a week ago and its shocks 8 and 6 days ago. Equation 7 needs to be tested to determine whether its residuals' PACF and ACF show any significance. Picture 3 shows the PACF and ACF functions for residuals showing no statistically important spikes. Equation 7 can formally be written as an ARMA(1,1) process of the differenced time series of order 7.
3.2 Factors affecting primary demand
Primary demand for beer has been researched extensively by Bourgeois and Barnes (1979), Franke and Wilcox (1987), Leeflang and Van Dujin (1982) and Frasens (1991). Authors use the following as exogenous variables: beer prices, outside temperature, advertising expenditures and the consumer purchasing index. According to Bourgeois and Barnes (1976), advertising has little effect on sa-
Lag	ACF	PACF
1	0.116	0.116
2	-0.086	-0.101
3	-0.047	-0.025
4	-0.022	-0.023
5	-0.084	-0.088
6	-0.053	-0.039
7	0.022	0.017
8	-0.004	-0.025
9	0.014	0.015
10	0.043	0.031
11	0.059	0.046
12	-0.055	-0.061
13	0.032	0.061
14	0.044	0.030
15	-0.009	-0.006
Figure 3: - Modified ACF and PACF model
les. Advertising alcoholic beverages is strictly regulated in most EU countries, diminishing its effect on sales. Furthermore, the Slovenian beer market is dominated by two major brands, accounting for more than 90 % of total market (one of the two brands is analysed here). The preferences of consumers for each brand are geographically spread and there is strong loyalty to each of the two brands (meaning that consumers of one brand would rarely try the other). Such strong preferences for either brand make advertising very inefficient for gaining new
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customers. Poor advertising effects have also been confirmed by the marketing managers of both market leaders companies.
All researchers agree that outside temperature is a good estimator for the quantities sold. Most beer is sold during the summer season. This seasonality could be formulated using the difference operator of order 365 (A365), but this would halve our data if we use a two years time series. Thus we model the outside temperature using data from government weather statistics. The highest daily temperature in Ljubljana has been used as exogenous variable.
As mentioned, all the other researchers use a wider time span between two points (at least a week) smoothing out any effects of the holidays. Our research, using daily sales, needs to account for any deterministic spikes that could occur. One such spike is certainly New Year's Eve, which we modelled using a dummy variable.
Sales promotions are a proven tool for short term boosts in sales. They usually have a short term impact that lasts for the period of promotion, but can have a long term impact if applied to a nonstationary time series (i.e. a growing market). The sales promotion will be modelled as a pulse function:
SALESP =
0; t < k 1; k < t < k +1 0; t > k +1
(8)
According to Hanssens et. al., there is a long term effect from SALESP if the operator's order (A) required to differentiate the series to obtain stationarity is greater than 0. The series under observation was on sales promotion from 26.10.05 till 23.12.2005, roughly a month. To test any post-promotion effects, we'll include the terms SALESP(-l) and SALESP(-2) in the regression to see
whether a statistically significant coefficient would confirm any long-term effects. As our time series also behaves stochastically (ARMA), we need to include that behaviour in the regression equation. Putting all the factors into the equations, we get:
yt + Vi yt_i + v7yt_ 7 + ^ - 8+
+ £t + 0ft - 1+0ft - 7+0§ t - 8+
+5NEWYEAR + coSALESPt + co1SALESP t_1+.
ha SALESP t_ 2+XTEMPERATURE	(9)
Using the least-squares methods, the coefficients are calculated and presented in Picture 4.
All the coefficients are statistically significant except for SALESP and SALESP(-l). After eliminating these two variables, SALESP(-2) also becomes statistically nonsignificant, which confirms that no long-term effects are to be expected from sales promotions. Only a two day effect could be seen as too short for any meaningful significance and could catch the post-promotion dip effect (diminishing of sales immediately after the price promotion period due to stockpiling).We have tried to regress the sales by several lagged SALESP, but none has significant statistics. By eliminating the SALESP(-l) and SALESP (-2) terms, we get the equation:
y = 164 + 0.96 • y _i + 0.98 • y _ 7 - 0.96 • y _ g+
+ st -0.84 • st_ 1-0.85 • st_ 7+ 0.68 • st_ 8
+609 • NEWYEAR +132 • SALESP +
+ 4.93 • TEMPERATURE	(10)
Regressor	Coefficient	Std. Error	t-test	prob.
NEWYEAR	624.24	40.45	15.43	0.0000
SALESP	46.51	81.73	0.57	0.5695
SALESP(-l)	-31.89	107.19	-0.30	0.7662
SALESP(-2)	161.35	82.19	1.96	0.0500
TEMPERATURE	5.22	1.08	4.82	0.0000
C	154.35	23.04	6.70	0.0000
AR(1)	0.97	0.01	80.85	0.0000
AR(7)	0.99	0.01	153.68	0.0000
AR(8)	-0.96	0.01	-76.19	0.0000
MA(1)	-0.85	0.03	-32.66	0.0000
MA(7)	-0.83	0.02	-34.77	0.0000
MA(8)	0.70	0.03	20.79	0.0000
R2	0.679744
Adjusted R2	0.674761
Figure 4: - Initial model regression analysis
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Regressor	Coefficient	Std. Error	t-test	prob.
NEWYEAR	609.32	40.16	15.17	0.0000
SALESP	132.33	43.86	3.02	0.0026
TEMPERATURE	4.93	1.07	4.59	0.0000
C	163.98	21.99	7.46	0.0000
AR(1)	0.97	0.01	76.62	0.0000
AR(7)	0.99	0.01	151.03	0.0000
AR(8)	-0.96	0.01	-71.14	0.0000
MA(1)	-0.85	0.03	-30.66	0.0000
MA(7)	-0.83	0.02	-34.56	0.0000
MA(8)	0.69	0.03	19.92	0.0000
R2	0.678121
Adjusted R2	0.674046
Figure 5: - Final model of the ARMAX regressors
The statistics are shown in Picture 5. The demand for the analysed beer is thus dependent on the outside temperature, New Year and the promotional price. R square accounts for 67%. It is interesting to note that sales promotion accounts for a very small proportion of the variance (only 0.8%) and could thus easily be ignored.
It needs to be stressed that the above model is only usable for the time series analysed and could not be generalized to all beer. Also, this brand has only been on promotion once off-season making it impossible to conclude that sales promotion on beer has negligible long term effects.
What is more interesting is to compare our time series analysis with classical regression analysis, thus omitting stochastic trends. We use the least square method with the NEWYEAR, SALESP, TEMPERATURE regressors and a constant to compute the equation:
.y, = 117 + 729 • NEWYEAR +144 • SALESP + + 7.17 • TEMPERATURE	(11)
The statistics are shown in Figure 6. All coefficients are statically relevant, but the explained variance is only
25%. The effect of each single regressor is higher than when using time series analysis, but the relations are quite similar.
4 Conclusion
The article builds a model for forecasting the demand for beer with time series analysis. In the introductory chapter the time series analysis theory is presented with special devotion to univariate time series analysis. Time series are useful for analysing economical variables ordered in series that are equally spaced over time. The Box-Jenkins ARMA model is presented as the basic model for time series analysis, which is upgraded to ARMAX model. Time series techniques are applied to model demand for beer on Slovenian market. It has been shown that this method considerably increases the power of forecasting compared to ordinary regression analysis.
Analysis shows that the primary demand for beer, on a bi-polar market such as Slovenian, is mainly dependent on the seasonality (modelled with outside temperature), price and New Year dummy regressors. Time series analysis determines the true value of the coefficients for these
Regressor	Coefficient	Std. Error	t-test	prob.
NEWYEAR	728.98	57.49	12.68	0.0000
SALESP	144.59	25.41	5.69	0.0000
TEMPERATURE	7.72	0.74	10.49	0.0000
C	117.80	13.51	8.72	0.0000
R2	0.252409
Adjusted R2	0.249315
Figure 6: - Regression analysis without the time series
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variables by introducing autoregressing and moving average factors. It is shown that, by introducing moving average and autoregression factors, the exogenous demand factors' coefficients (temperature, New Year and price) are adjusted (lowered). Autoregression analysis shows a typical weekly seasonality as well as the dependence of the series on the previous day's sales, which is to be expected.
The attempt to show any long term effects of sales promotions fails, confirming the evidence from other empirical studies on such effects. Traditionally, the effects of a sales promotion are measured on a panel of households using behavioural theory to assess any effects of marketing actions on the consumers' brand choice (Keane 1997, Seetharaman et al. 1999). The majority of models show no long term effects from sales promotions. Newer models (using weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly data) and our study (using daily data) uses within-store POS data in a time series framework, showing same results. Daily data is particularly useful for studying the dynamics of the sales function when an affecting factor changes rapidly.
Literature
Autobox, Case studies - Regression versus Box-Jenkis (Times series analysis) Case studies, Available from http://www. autobox.com/pdfs/regvsbox.pdfl (Accessed, 31. January .2007)	"
Bourgeois, J.C., & J.G. Barnes. (1979). Does Advertising Increase Alcohol Consumption? Journal of Advertising Research 4(August): 19-29. Box, G. E. P., & G. M. Jenkins. (1976). Time Series Analysis: Forecasting & Control. San Francisco: Holden-Day. Box, G. E. P., & C. Tiao. (1976). Intervention Analysis with Applications to Economic & Environmental Problems. Journal of American Statistical Association 70: 70-79. Bronnenberg, B. J., & L. Wathieu. (1996). Asymmetric Promotion Effects & Br& Positioning. Marketing Science 15(4): 291-309.
Dekimpe, M. G., & D. M. Hannsens. (1995). The Persistence of
Marketing Effects on Sales. Marketing Science 14(1):1-21. Dekimpe M., D. M. Hanssens, V. R. Nijs, & J. M. B. Steenkamp. (2005). Measuring short- & long-run promotional effectiveness on scanner data using persistence modelling. Applied Stochastic Models in Business Industry 21: 409-416. Franke, G. R., & G.B. Wilcox. (1987). Alcoholic Beverage Advertising & Its Impact on Model Selection. Applied Mathematics & Computation 34 (November): 22-30. Franses, P. H. (1991). Primary Dem& for Beer in The Netherl&s: An Application of ARMAX Model Specification. Journal of Market research 28: 240-245. Hanssens, D. M., L. J. Parsons, & R.L. Schultz. (2001). Market Response Models - Econometric & Time Series Analysis, Boston: ISQM Kluwer Academic Publishers. Keane, M. P. (1997). Modeling Heterogeneity & State Dependence in Consumer Choice Behaviour. Journal of Business & Economic Statistics 15(3): 310-327. Leeflang, P. S. H., & J. J. Van Dujin (1982). The Use of Regional Data in Marketing Models: The Dem& for Beer in The Net-herl&s. European Research 10 (January): 29-40. Maddala, G. S. (1992). Introduction to Econometrics. New York: MacMillian Publishing Company.
Seetharaman, P. B., A. Ainslie, & P. K. Chintagunta. (1999). Investigating Household State Dependence Effects across Categories. Journal of Market research 36(4): 488-500.
Wichern, D., & R. H. Jones. (1977). Assessing the Impact of Market Disturbances using Intervention Analysis. Management Science 24(3): 329-337.
Danijel Bratina is a lecturer at the Koper Faculty of Management (FM), University of Primorska, where he lectures on Marketing, Market research and Services Marketing. His field of study is quantitative market research and brand equity evaluation. He is currently preparing his doctoral thesis on the effectiveness of marketing promotion on grocery sales at the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana. His bibliography consists of several contributions to scientific conferences and one scientific paper. He is editor of the scientific journal Management. He also has managerial experience in international business, where he has been working for Slovenian companies outsourcing projects to the far East.
Armand Faganel is a senior lecturer and doctoral student at the University of Primorska, Faculty of Management Koper (FM). He has acquired 3 years of experience in business as sales manager, marketing manager, director of production unit. His areas of research include marketing, the higher education sphere, intercultural competencies, communication studies and the quality perception of services. His bibliography consists of four scientific papers, one review article, two short scientific articles, two professional articles, 20 scientific conference contributions, three independent scientific component parts in a monograph, etc. He is acting as Head of the Marketing Institute and Head of the Quality and Evaluations Centre at FM. At present, he is lecturing on Marketing, B2B Marketing, Marketing Communications, Consumer behaviour and Industrial products marketing.
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Model povpraševanja po blagovni znamki piva z uporabo analize časovnih vrst
Trženjski raziskovalci pogosto operirajo s podatki, ki so ekvidistančno porazdeljeni v času. Teorija časovnih vrst je primerno orodje za analizo tovrstnih podatkov. Tipično se uporablja za napovedovanje, ugotavljanje vzročnosti pojavov, v trženju pa je največkrat uporabljena pri analizah učinkov diskretnih dogodkov skozi čas. Članek prikaže osnovne koncepte regresijske analize časovnih vrst in predstavi njihovo aplikacijo v trženjskem raziskovanju. S pomočjo analize časovnih vrst postavimo model napovedovanja povpraševanja po znani Slovenski blagovni znamki piva z uporabo POS podatkov z dveh večjih slovenskih hi-permarketov. Naša analiza je prva, ki kot podatke zajame dnevno prodajo blagovne znamke (dosedanje so uporabljale širše časovne intervale - tedenska, mesečna ali celo letna prodaja). Slabost dnevne prodaje naj bi predstavljal visok nivo šuma v podatkih. Čeprav vsebujejo podatki veliko nepojasnjene variance, v prispevku pokažemo, da z uporabo časovnih vrst pojasnimo precej več variance kot z uporabo klasične multiple regresije. Analiza časovnih vrst nam tudi pokaže, da so učinki cenovnih akcij, kot enega izmed dejavnikov prodaje, kratkoročni, ter tako potrdi druge raziskave iz področja analiz učinkovitosti cenovnih akcij.
Ključne besede: trženjsko raziskovanje, analiza časovnih vrst, povpraševanje po pivu
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Pregled stanja na področju e-izobraževanja v Sloveniji
Tanja Arh1, Rok Kokalj2, Dejan Dinevski3, Borka Jerman Blažič1
1 Institut "Jožef Stefan", Laboratorij za odprte sisteme in mreže, Jamova 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija,
tanja@e5.ijs.si; borka@e5.ijs.si 2 Nevron d.o.o., Stegne 21c, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija, rok.kokalj@nevron.si 3 Univerza v Mariboru, Slomškov trg 15, 2000 Maribor, Slovenija, dejan.dinevski@uni-mb.si
Slovenija na področju uporabe informacijsko-komunikacijskih tehnologij v izobraževanju ter v zavedanju pomembnosti e-izo-braževanja zaostaja za drugimi državami Evropske unije. Glede na raziskave, ki so bile v preteklosti pripravljene na tem področju znotraj različnih institucij, lahko povzamemo, da se v Sloveniji pravi razvoj in uporaba e-izobraževanja prazaprav šele pričenja. V prispevku bodo prikazani dosedanji razvoj in pomembnejše iniciative na področju e-izobraževanja, stanje uporabe e-izobraževanja v slovenskih podjetjih, visokošolskih in višješolskih institucijah ter trenutno stanje e-izobraževalne ponudbe na slovenskem trgu. Predstavljen bo osnutek Nacionalne strategije e-izobraževanja 2006-2010, katere glavna vizija je do leta 2013 vzpostaviti učinkovit in v celoti informacijsko podprt nacionalni sistem izobraževanja ter tako zagotoviti trajnostno gospodarsko rast, blaginjo in kakovost življenja vseh državljanov RS, hkrati pa postati sinonim za eno najuspešnejših družb na svetu, temelječo na znanju, stalnih inovacijah in hitrem razvoju.
Ključne besede: informacijsko-komunikacijska tehnologija, e-izobraževanje, Nacionalna strategija e-izobraževanja 20062010
1 Uvod
Širitev Evropske unije, velika dinamičnost sprememb v svetovnem gospodarstvu, hitre tehnološke spremembe, svetovne mreže z obilico informacij in povečevanje pomena znanja so močno spremenile naše vsakdanje življenjsko okolje. Nahajamo se v t.i. informacijski dobi, kjer nam sodobne informacijsko-komunikacijske tehnologije (IKT) in internet ponujajo neskončne možnosti na vseh področjih našega vsakdanjega dela, vplivajo pa tudi na vrsto in način pridobivanja znanj. E-izobraževanje postaja danes vse pomembnejše in pomeni učenje in poučevanje z izkoriščanjem sodobnih informacijsko-komunikacijskih tehnologij. E-izobraževanje pa ne pomeni samo "elektronsko", temveč tudi bolj "ekonomično", bolj "efektivno", oz. "izboljšano" in "izpopolnjeno". E-izobraževanje torej označuje pridobivanje znanja, kjer sodobna informa-cijsko-komunikacijska tehnologija delno ali v celoti nastopa kot posrednik med akterji izobraževanja oziroma izobraževalno institucijo, izobraževalcem in izobraževan-cem. Na tem mestu je treba poudariti, da v strokovni literaturi obstaja veliko različnih definicij e-izobraževanja. Lahko bi celo rekli, da obstaja toliko definicij, kolikor je avtorjev, ki se ukvarjajo z e-izobraževanjem. V ta namen je celotno drugo poglavje tega prispevka namenjeno razjasnitvi nejastnosti v zvezi z opredelitvami tega pojma.
Glede na pretekle raziskave o stanju e-izobraževanja lahko povzamemo, da se v Sloveniji pravi razvoj e-izobra-ževanja in tudi drugih oblik šele pričenja.Trg ponudnikov storitev in produktov e-izobraževanja se resneje oblikuje šele sedaj, prav tako pa podjetja šele sedaj razmišljajo o resnejšem in celovitejšem uvajanju e-izobraževanja.
Pri praktičnem uveljavljanju e-izobraževanja so še vedno v ospredju ZDA, Kanada in Avstralija. ZDA v e-izobraževanju vidijo prvorazredno poslovno možnost, hkrati pa način učenja in usposabljanja, ki je še posebno primeren za zaposlene. Evropska unija se je na te spremembe odzvala razmeroma pozno. Šele v zadnjih nekaj letih so direktive in smernice EU sprožile več uradnih iniciativ (»eLearning Action Plan«, »eLearning Initiative«, »eLearning Programme«, »i2010«, eEurope+), ki dokazujejo, da je vendarle dozorelo spoznanje o nujnosti hitrejšega, odločnejšega in sistematičnejšega prilagajanja izobraževalne politike in izobraževalne ponudbe, kar je vse bolj potrebno zaradi novih družbenih in tehnoloških okoliščin ter zaradi spremenjenih potreb na trgu dela in gospodarskega okolja (Arh, 2005).
Uvedba in razvoj e-izobraževanja sta v prvi vrsti odvisna od tehnološkega razvoja, ta pa od političnega interesa oz. vladnih in regionalnih pobud. Upoštevati je treba celo vrsto dejavnikov, kot so želje, zahteve in potrebe tako izo-braževancev kot izobraževalcev, prilagoditev učnih procesov in učnih gradiv, dodatna usposabljanja, vsebinsko in
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tehnološko podporo, prilagoditev obstoječe regulative in drugo. Vsi ti dejavniki se lahko pojavijo kot pospeševalci ali zaviralci razvoja e-izobraževanja. Da bi bili v čim večji meri spodbujevalci razvoja, posamezna telesa in službe EU sprejemajo različne direktive, smernice in dokumente, katerim bolj ali manj uspešno sledijo vse članice EU. Skladno s temi direktivami mora tudi Slovenija sprejeti smernice, ki jo bodo vodile in spodbujale pri doseganju zastavljenih nacionalnih in ciljev EU. Krovni dokument -Strategija razvoja informacijske družbe v Republiki Sloveniji (si2010) - je bil sprejet konec meseca junija 2007. Strategija razvoja informacijske družbe v RS pomeni krovno usmeritev slovenske vlade na tem področju do leta 2010. Po svoji zgradbi sledi evropski pobudi i2010, v kateri so predstavljene poglavitne strateške usmeritve Evropske unije. Poleg evropskih usmeritev Strategija razvoja informacijske družbe v RS upošteva tudi vse pomembne nacionalne strateške dokumente. Strategija na podlagi ciljev i2010 opredeljuje ustrezna načela delovanja in konkretna področja delovanja, podrobnejšo obravnavo posameznih področij (konkretni cilji, kazalniki in ukrepi) pa prepušča področnim strategijam in akcijskim načrtom, ki jih z vidika države oblikujejo posamezna ministrstva. Nacionalna strategija e-izobraževanja 2006-20101, kot ena izmed področnih strategij, ki je nastala leta 2006 in še čaka na javno obravnavo ter potrditev na vladi, sledi več ključnim nacionalnim ciljem v obdobju 2006-20132, kot so trajnostno povečanje blaginje in kakovosti življenja ali povečanje globalne konkurenčnosti s spodbujanjem inovativnosti in podjetništva ter z učinkovitim vlaganjem v izobraževanje, usposabljanje, raziskave in razvoj. Osnutek Nacionalne strategije e-izobraževanja opredeljuje več strateških področij, katerih ukrepi bodo zagotovili hitrejši razvoj e-izo-braževanja v Sloveniji, povečan nivo znanja med prebivalstvom ter posledično boljšo konkurenčnost tako posameznikov kot celotne slovenske družbe.
V nadaljevanju prispevka so predstavljene različne opredelitve e-izobraževanja, dosedanji razvoj e-izobraže-vanja v Sloveniji in nekaj preteklih iniciativ na tem področju.
2 Opredelitev e-izobraževanja
Opredelitev koncepta e-izobraževanja in nadaljnih pojmov, povazenih z e-izobraževanjem, najprej zahteva natančno definicijo pojma e-izobraževanje. Opredelitev e-izobraževanja je toliko bolj potrebna zato, ker v teoriji in praksi naletimo na precej raznolika in raznovrstna ter neenotna pojmovanja e-izobraževanja. Pojem se je skozi čas precej spreminjal, še vedno pa se vzporedno uporabljajo izrazi kot so: izobraževanje na daljavo (angl. Open Distance Learning), spletno izobraževanje (angl. Web Ba-
sed Training), računalniško podprto izobraževanje (angl. Computer Based Training), tehnološko podprto izobraževanje (angl. Technology Based Learning) in on-line izobraževanje (angl. On-line Learning). Našteti pojmi pa nimajo istega pomena. E-izobraževanje je veliko širši pojem kot on-line izobraževanje, ki je uporabljeno zgolj za uporabo internet/intranet/LAN/WAN izobraževanja, kar pomeni, da izključuje uporabo CD-ROM-a. Spletno izobraževanje lahko opredelimo kot ponudbo formalnega in neformalnega izobraževanja ter usposabljanja, z njimi povezanih aktivnosti, procesov, skupnosti in dogodkov, ki poteka preko uporabe elektronskih medijev, kot so internet, intranet, CD-ROM, DVD, TV, telefon ipd.
S pojmom e-izobraževanje razumemo celovito informacijsko podporo izobraževalnemu procesu (Dinevski, Plenkovic, 2002), torej pridobivanje znanja, kjer informa-cijsko-komunikacijska tehnologija delno ali v celoti nastopa kot posrednik med akterji izobraževanja oziroma izobraževalno institucijo, izobraževalcem in izobraževan-cem. Uveljavljeni angleški izrazi v strokovni literaturi (Lockwood et al., 2001; Keegan D., 1991; Stephenson, 2001) so Open, Distance, Flexible, Distributed e-learning. Vsak ima nekoliko drugačen pomen, čeprav so vsi izrazi precej sorodni. UNESCO (Moore et al., 2002) v splošnem uporablja izraz "Open and Distance Learning", pri čemer ima "Open Learning" nekakšen krovni pomen za vse izobraževalne sisteme, ki sistematično odstranjujejo različne ovire pri dostopu do izobraževanja, pa naj se nanašajo na čas, prostor, starost, spol, tehnologijo ipd. V programih in akcijskih načrtih Evropske komisije je od leta 2000 dalje v uporabi termin e-learning. V slovenščini se v zadnjih nekaj letih večinoma uporablja izraz e-izobraževanje, kot eden izmed prevodov izraza e-learning. V praksi se velikokrat govori tudi o e-učenju, kar seveda izhaja iz angleškega prevoda e-learning. Glede na to, da je učenje povezano z aktivnostjo posameznika, je e-izobraževanje e-uče-nju nadrejen pojem, saj gre za izobraževanje, ki ga s pomočjo informacijske tehnologije izvaja izobraževalna institucija, ki organizira izobraževanje in učečim se nudi podporo.
Enotne, splošno sprejete definicije, kaj je e-izobraže-vanje, ni. E-izobraževanje predstavlja izobraževanje, ki poteka ločeno od mesta poučevanja in zato zahteva specifične tehnike načrtovanja izobraževalnih gradiv, poučevanja (pedagoški koncepti), komunikacije s pomočjo infor-macijsko-komunikacijskih tehnologij (IKT) ter posebne pristope k ureditvi vseh organizacijskih in administrativnih zadev.
Kirschner in Paas (2001) označujeta e-izobraževanje kot učenje, kjer ima internet najpomembnejšo vlogo pri podajanju, podpiranju, upravljanju in ocenjevanju učenja. V literaturi pa se pojavlja tudi definicija »integriranega« e-izobraževanja, ki se v povezavi z bolj konvencionalnimi
1	Ker Strategija še čaka na javno obravnavo ter potrditev na vladi, lahko govorimo samo o osnutku Nacionalne strategije e-izobra-ževanja.
2	Uvod v strateško presojo Državnega razvojnega programa (DRP) na trajnostni razvoj, 2005, http://www.svlsrp.gov.si/index.php7id =1148.
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metodami navezuje na raznolikost med seboj povezanih pedagoških, organizacijskih in tehnoloških sistemov, ki predstavljajo predpogoj za uspešno izvajanje e-izobraže-vanja.
Nekateri strokovnjaki ga razumejo še v širšem smislu kot izobraževanje, v katerem ima pomembno vlogo uporaba sodobne informacijske in telekomunikacijske tehnologije in služi predvsem obogatitvi tradicionalnega, klasičnega izobraževanja. Takšna opredelitev je v teoriji in praksi precej pogosta, a je za naše potrebe preveč ohlapna, saj bi to pomenilo, da so v e-izobraževanje vključeni praktično vsi udeleženci izobraževalnega procesa, ki kakorkoli uporabljajo IKT ne glede na namen in intenzivnost uporabe.
Treba je poudariti, da e-izobraževanje popolnoma ne izključuje tradicionalnih oblik poučevanja. Le-te se lahko pojavljajo kot dopolnilne in v relativno omejenem obsegu. E-izobraževanje se namreč od t.i. kombinacije on-line in off-line izobraževanja (angl. Blended learning) razlikuje po večji pomembnosti e-komponente (npr. integracija računalniške infrastrukture, sistemi za upravljanje e-izo-braževanja, izobraževalna gradiva).
3 Razvoj e-izobraževanja v Sloveniji
Na nacionalni ravni so na področju e-izobraževanja potekale različne aktivnosti že od leta 1996. V tem obdobju so se sredstva vlagala predvsem v informacijsko infrastrukturo (npr. terminalno opremo - osebni računalniki) po slovenskih osnovnih in srednjih šolah, le manjši delež pa je bil namenjen vsebinskim komponentam e-izobraževa-nja. V tem smislu lahko izpostavimo le program Računalniško opismenjevanje (RO)3, katerega rezultat so bile razvite vsebine, vendar brez večje tehnične in druge podpore, predvsem pa brez evalvacije in validacije. Program je leta 2002 zamrl, nadaljevanje financiranja pa se je odražalo znotraj Ciljnih raziskovalnih projektov (CRP), katerih rezultat je bila predvsem teoretična podlaga in strateški dokumenti, ki niso nikoli zaživeli, saj ni bilo zadosti sistematske institucionalne podpore.
V letu 1999 je bil, podobno kot v ostalih državah v zahodni Evropi, ugotovljen vse večji prepad med tistimi učitelji, ki so IKT usvojili kot del življenja in del šole, in tistimi, ki IKT niso uporabljali niti za svoje delo, še manj pa pri delu z učenci. V letu 2000 je bil pripravljen načrt za nov preskok, za katerega kasneje niso bila zagotovljena ustrezna sredstva, še manj pa novi organizacijski modeli za izvajanje informatizacije šolstva na višjem nivoju. Bili pa so zagotovljeni pogoji za vzdrževanje stanja na vseh
treh področjih: izobraževanje učiteljev, opremljanje vzgoj-no-izobraževalnih zavodov ter raziskovanje in razvoj. Proces informatizacije šolstva v Sloveniji in tudi v večini ostalih evropskih držav še vedno živi vzporedno z običajnim življenjem vzgojno-izobraževalnih zavodov (VIZ) in se izvaja parcialno. Projekt informatizacije šolstva je treba podpirati, da ne bi prišlo do stagnacije trenutnih vidnih rezultatov, vendar pa je treba koordinacijo dejavnosti vse bolj prenašati na posamezna predmetna in strokovna po-dročja.4
Sredi devetdesetih let je začela delovati Nacionalna projektna enota (NCP) za študij na daljavo na Ekonomski fakulteti v Ljubljani, ki je poskušala v Sloveniji zagotavljati ustrezne razmere na državni ravni za razvijanje e-izobraževanja kot sodobne in učinkovite oblike izobraževanja. Ustanovljen je bil Center za e-izobraževanje in vse-življenjsko učenje Univerze v Mariboru5, ki nudi svetovalne in tehnične storitve s področja e-izobraževanja in študija na daljavo vsem pedagoškim delavcem Univerze, po dogovoru pa tudi drugim izobraževalnim ustanovam. Naloga centra je zagotavljati strokovnost študijskega procesa na daljavo, transformacijo učnega gradiva in zagotavljanje kakovosti tehničnih storitev pri izvajanju tovrstnih študijskih programov. V tem kontekstu omenjamo še Laboratorij za telekomunikacije Fakultete za elektrotehniko Univerze v Ljubljani (LTFE6).V sodelovanju s podjetjem Iskratel je bil v okviru Laboratorija razvit integrirani sistem za izobraževanje na daljavo ECHO (http:// dl.ltfe.org), ki je uporabljen v različnih ustanovah in podjetjih (Telekom Slovenije, Mobitel, osnovne šole ipd.).
Na Ministrstvu za šolstvo in šport (MŠŠ) so pred poletjem 2006 pripravili analizo stanja informatizacije šolstva. Slovenija je bila ena izmed prvih evropskih držav, ki je leta 1993 zagotovila pogoje za dolgoročni sistematični
preskok na področju uporabe IKT pri poučevanju in uče-nju.7
Državni zbor RS je leta 2002 sprejel direktivo o razglasitvi zakona o temeljnih razvojnih programih na področju izobraževanja in znanosti v letih 2003?2008 (ZTR-PIZ) in se zavezal, da bo za izvajanje zakona namenil skoraj 168 milijard SIT (700 mio EUR). Med razvojne programe spada tudi informacijsko-komunikacijska pismenost, za katero naj bi v teh šestih letih namenili skoraj 27 milijard SIT (112 mio EUR).8
4 Pretekle raziskave o stanju e-izobraževanja v Sloveniji
O stanju e-izobraževanja v Sloveniji je bilo v preteklih letih pripravljenih kar nekaj raziskav. Če se najprej osredo-
3	Slovensko izobraževalno omrežje. Program Ro, http://ro.zrsss.si/, 18. 7. 2006.
4	Analiza stanja informatizacije šolstva (2006). Svet za informatizacijo šolstva.
5	Center za e-izobraževanje in vseživljenjsko učenje Univerze v Mariboru, http://eizobrazevanje.uni-mb.si/, 1.12. 2005.
6	LTFE - http://www.ltfe.org/sola/demo/Os_mat/index.html.
7	Slovensko izobraževalno omrežje. Program Ro, http://ro.zrsss.si/, 18. 7. 2006.
8	http://ai.ijs.si/mezi/sindikat/ztrpiz.htm, 28. 7. 2006.
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točimo na e-izobraževanje v slovenskem šolstvu, je bila leta 2005 pripravljena raziskava z naslovom "E-izobraže-vanje 2005/2006 - visokošolski in višješolski zavodi" (Ve-hovar et al., 2006). Za osnovnošolsko in srednješolsko stopnjo sta bili pripravljeni raziskavi "Stanje in trendi uporabe informacijsko-komunikacijske tehnologije (IKT) v slovenskih osnovnih šolah" (Gerlič, 2005) in "Stanje in trendi uporabe informacijsko-komunikacijske tehnologije (IKT) v srednjih šolah" (Gerlič, 2006). Nekaj rezultatov iz prve raziskave (Vehovar et al., 2006) predstavljamo v nadaljevanju.
4.1 E-izobraževanje v visokošolskih in višješolskih zavodih
V zimskem semestru 2005/2006 je bila med 85 zavodi ter-cialnega izobraževanja v Slovenji izvedena pisemska anketa o e-izobraževanju, na katero je odgovorilo 79 zavodov. Med vsemi 85 zavodi sicer prevladujejo javni zavodi v okviru univerz, kljub temu pa imamo 34 enot tercialne-ga izobraževanja v organizacijah izven fakultet oziroma univerz, 24 zasebnih in 36 višješolskih zavodov.
Enoto opazovanja je predstavljal posamezen visokošolski zavod, za katerega nas je zanimala raba informacijske tehnologije, še posebej uvedba ali uvajanje e-izobra-ževanja. Na vprašalnik je odgovarjal/a prodekan/ja za študijske zadeve oziroma oseba, ki je odgovorna za uvajanje/uporabo e-izobraževanja na zavodu.
Skupno gledano je enak delež zavodov, kjer je vprašalnik izpolnil prodekan za študijske zadeve oz. izobraževanje (46 %) in zavodov, kjer je vprašalnik izpolnil nekdo drug (46 %). Na 8 % vseh zavodov je anketni vprašalnik izpolnil dekan fakultete. Kot zanimivost lahko omenimo,
da imata dva zavoda zaposlene ljudi izrecno za uvajanje/uporabo e-izobraževanja. Ostale metodološke značilnosti, ki opredeljujejo zanesljivost, veljavnost in primerljivost rezultatov so podrobneje predstavljene v dokumentu E-izobraževanje 2005/2006 - visokošolski in višješolski zavodi (Vehovar et al., 2006).
■	Odnos do e-izobraževanja
Dobra tretjina (34 %) zavodov se popolnoma strinja s trditvijo, da je e-izobraževanje strateškega pomena za nadaljnji razvoj izobraževanja v zavodu (slika 1). Na tem mestu je treba poudariti, da e-izobraževanje pomeni izobraževanje, kjer so delno ali v celoti nadomeščena neposredna srečanja s študenti (ure vaj, predavanj, ipd.) z učenjem v elektronski obliki. Kar polovica zavodov se je izjasnila, da so dobro seznanjeni s pomenom in z možnostjo e-izobraževanja pri izvedbi študijskih programov. Zanimivo, s stališča razvoja e-izobraževanja pa tudi nadvse razveseljivo je dejstvo, da je kar 61 % zavodov mnenja, da trditev o neprimernosti e-izobraževanja za njihov zavod, ne drži. Tretjina zavodov je popolnoma prepričanih, da bi si na tem področju želela več nacionalne koordinacije.
■	Visokošolski zavodi glede na e-izobraževanje
Polovica zavodov na samostojnih fakultetah že ima e-
izobraževanje, glede na lastnino je delež tistih, ki imajo e-izobraževanje večji na zasebnih zavodih (33 %), kot na javnih (29 %) (slika 2). Največji delež zavodov, ki z e-izo-braževanjem nadomeščajo neposredne stike s študenti med univerzami je v Mariboru (46 %), nato na Primorskem (40 %), na Univerzi v Ljubljani pa temu področju zaenkrat posvečajo manj pozornosti (le 17 % zavodov na tej Univerzi ima e-izobraževanje). Največji delež zavodov, ki pa o e-izobraževanju niso niti razmišljali je na področju humanistike, morda zato, ker je na teh zavodih študij
Slika 1: Delež zavodov glede na strinjanje s trditvami o e-izobraževanju (Vehovar et al., 2006)
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Slika 2: Delež zavodov glede e-izobraževanja na zavodu - po različnih vrstah zavodov (Vehovar et al., 2006)
drugačne narave in se vodstvu zdi učenje na daljavo težje izvedljivo.
4.2 E-izobraževanje odraslih
Na Andragoškem centru Slovenije so v začetku leta 2006 predstavili rezultate raziskave o pregledu študija na daljavo za odrasle v Sloveniji (Zagmajster, 2006). Podatki so bili zbrani s pomočjo Pregleda ponudbe izobraževanja in učenja odraslih v šolskem letu 2005/2006, baze Andragoš-kega centra, kjer lahko ponudniki izobraževanj predstavijo svoje programe, in s pomočjo raziskave spletnih virov. Razumevanje e-izobraževanja v tej raziskavi temelji na naslednji opredelitvi e-izobraževanja (Zagmajster, 2006):
■	prostorska ločitev učitelja in udeleženca izobraževanja (kar e-izobraževanje loči od tradicionalnega izobraževanja);
■	aktivna vloga izobraževalne organizacije v izobraževalnem procesu (kar e-izobraževanje loči od samostojnega učenja);
■	uporaba elektronskega medija za predstavitev oz. posredovanje izobraževalne vsebine (običajno preko spleta);
■	zagotovitev dvosmerne komunikacije preko elektronskega omrežja (udeleženci izobraževalnega procesa komunicirajo med seboj, z učitelji in drugim osebjem izobraževalne organizacije običajno s pomočjo interneta).
Ta opredelitev obravnava e-izobraževanje kot sodobno inačico študija na daljavo, katerega temeljna značilnost je prostorska ločenost učitelja in udeleženca v izobraževalnem procesu in pri kateri se tako za predstavitev vse-
bine kot za komuniciranje uporablja internet (Zagmajster, 2006).
Izmed ponudnikov, ki so predstavili svoje programe, je največ ponudnikov e-izobraževanja v osrednje-sloven-ski regiji (36,4 %), nobenega pa ni na Koroškem, v Po-murju in na Notranjsko-kraškem. Med predstavljenimi programi prevladujejo programi splošnega neformalnega izobraževanja (79,09 %), sledijo programi za pridobitev izobrazbe (19,09 %), najmanj pa je programov usposabljanja za delo (1,82 %). Med neformalnimi programi prevladujejo e-tečaji tujih jezikov in programi računalniškega usposabljanja, pri javno veljavnih pa poleg višješolskih programov za poslovnega sekretarja in komercialista še višješolski programi za promet, strojništvo, komunalo in elektroniko.
4.3 E-izobraževanje v podjetjih
O stanju e-izobraževanja v slovenskih podjetjih je bila leta 2005 pripravljena raziskava: "Izobraževanje in e-izo-braževanje - podjetja (RIS 2005)" (Vehovar et al., 2005).
Reprezentativna telefonska anketa RIS 2005 je bila izvedena med 713 slovenskimi podjetji v juniju 2005. Odgovarjali so vodje informatike ali direktorji. Stopnja odgovora za velika podjetja je znašala 50 %, za srednja 52 %, za majhna 37 % ter za mikro 33 %. Vprašanje o e-izo-braževanju je bilo postavljeno v najširšem smislu, zato so z ožjega vidika aktivnosti e-izobraževanja nekoliko precenjene. Razmeroma visoke ocene o obsegu e-izobraževa-nja za Slovenijo pa potrjujejo tudi podatki Eurostat. Izhodišče za vzorčni okvir so predstavljala podjetja v poslovnem registru Statističnega urada Republike Slovenije
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veliko srednje majhno m ikro
0%
' 1 1 1											
76%							9%	12% :			
											
66%						17%				10%	
											
51%		10%		15%			23%				
											
41%	19%		28%						13%		
I ! ! ! ! I											
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
■ poznam ■ delno poznam □ sem že slišal □ ne poznam
Slika 3: Podjetja glede na velikost: »Poznate pojem e-izobraževanje oziroma on-line izobraževanje?« (Vehovar et al., 2005; n=34, 86, 39, 32)
izobraževalni programi vaše organizacije
velika srednja majhna m ikro
izobraževalni programi narejeni vtujini
velika srednja majhna m ikro
izobraževalni programi podjetij v Sloveniji
velika srednja majhna m ikro
		
15%	30%	30%
40%	16%	19%
49%	10% H	32%
59%	24%	| 15%
		
24% Eil	39%	27%
41%	11% Hioa	27%
49%	1 o% K	29%
59%	18%	21%
! ! !		
25% Ha	41%	28%
41%	I&i 23%	28%
49%	10% losu	29%
59%	\ 15% I	24%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
■ pozna delno ali sploh ne ■ da, smo se že □ ne, vsndar nas to zanima □ niso in nas ne zanima
Slika 4: Podjetja glede na velikost: »Ali so se vaši zaposleni na tak način že izobraževali? (Velja za podjetja, ki se že slišala za e-izobraževanje (Vehovar et al., 2005; n=33, 73, 41, 34; 33, 71, 41, 34; 31, 71, 41, 34)
(SURS), ki so v bilanci za leto 2004 izkazovala določen promet pri Agenciji za plačilni promet. Osnovne metodološke značilnosti, ki opredeljujejo zanesljivost, veljavnost in primerljivost rezultatov so podrobneje predstavljene v dokumentu Podjetja 2005 - Izobraževanje in e-izobraže-vanje (Vehovar et al., 2005). ■ Poznavanje pojma e-izobraževanje
Poznavanje pojma e-izobraževanje (slika 3) narašča z velikostjo podjetja, saj ta pojem pozna tri četrtine (76 %) velikih, dve tretjini (66 %) srednje velikih ter polovica (51 %) majhnih podjetij. Le pri mikro podjetjih je opaziti, da jih manj kot polovica (41 %) poroča o seznanjenosti s tem pojmom. Delež podjetij, ki so odgovorila, da tega pojma ne poznajo, je najmanjši pri velikih podjetjih, pri podjetjih
srednje in mikro velikosti se giblje okrog ene desetine, največji pa je pri majhnih podjetjih (23 %). ■ Uporaba e-izobraževanja
Zaposleni v velikih podjetjih so se največ e-izobraže-vali v programih lastnega podjetja (15 %), desetina velikih podjetij je svoje zaposlene izobraževala že tudi v tujih programih, nekaj manj (6 %) pa v okviru programov, ki jih na trgu ponujajo različna podjetja v Sloveniji (slika 4). Za srednja podjetja so ti deleži nekoliko višji - izmed podjetij ločenih po velikosti najdemo največji delež (22 %) takih, ki so svoje zaposlene že izobraževala v okviru lastnih programov, prav med srednjimi podjetji - opaziti pa je trend padanja teh deležev v istem zaporedju kot pri velikih podjetjih.
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17%
129%
■	Ponudnki e-izobraževanja za pridobite/ izobrsbe
■	Ponudnki e-tečajevin mentorstva
% 24%	Ponudnki e-tečajev
^ Ponudnki izobraževalnih vsebin
Ponudnki najemasistemaza upravljanje z učenjem
Slika 5: Struktura ponudbe e-izobraževanja v Sloveniji (Arh et al., 2006)
skupaj zasebna šola jami zawd humanisti tei tehnika in nara\oslo^e etonomija (poslovna/tomercialna) družboslcnje in izobraževanje medicina in zdravstvo enota
samostojna ušja šola samostojna visota šola samostojna fakulteta Univerza na Primorslem Uni\erza v Mariboru Univerza v Ljubljani visota šola višja šola
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				3,5 | 3,6	4,0	
						
						
						
						
						
						
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Slika 6: Nacionalna koordinacija na tem področju (Vehovar et al., 2006)
4.4 Struktura ponudbe e-izobraževanja
Na Institutu »Jožef Stefan« je bila v začetku leta 2006 opravljena še ena raziskava (Arh et al., 2006) in sicer o strukturi ponudbe in storitev e-izobraževanja v Sloveniji, katere namen je bil oceniti trenutni položaj trga e-izobra-ževanja v Sloveniji, identificirati različne oblike e-izobra-ževanja in opredeliti strukturo ponudbe e-izobraževanja. Z analizo anketnih vprašalnikov so bile definirane različne kategorije ponudbe e-izobraževanja v Sloveniji. Ugotovljeno je bilo, da prevladuje ponudba e-tečajev in mentorstva ter ponudba specialnih izobraževalnih vsebin, ki so razvite posebej za posamezna poslovna področja (računalništvo in informatika, marketing, računovodstvo, davki in zakonodaja, jeziki, etc). Razmerje med posameznimi
identificiranimi skupinami je prikazano na sliki 5, iz katere je razvidno, da v slovenskem prostoru prevladujejo ponudniki e-tečajev in mentorstva, sledijo ponudniki izobraževalnih vsebin, ponudniki e-tečajev in na koncu ponudniki e-izobraževanja za pridobitev formalne izobrazbe ter ponudniki najema sistema za upravljanje e-izobraževanja.
Raziskava je pokazala, da je Slovenija kljub počasnemu razvoju na tem področju v zadnjih letih napredovala pri ponudbi e-izobraževanja. Predvsem velja omeniti napredek na področju storitev, ki nam ponujajo pridobitev formalne izobrazbe. Eden izmed pomembnejših vzrokov za vedno več ponudnikov za pridobitev formalne izobrazbe je verjetno posledica dejstva, da se formalno v večji meri izobražujejo mlajši ljudje, ki so bolj dovzetni za sodobno informacijsko in komunikacijsko tehnologijo. VedA 161
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Infoimadjsko komuiikacijska infrastruktura
Izobraževalna tehnologija
Slika 7: Predvidena strateška področja osnutka Nacionalne strategije e-izobraževanja (Kokalj et al., 2006)
no več je tudi ponudnikov e-tečajev in mentorstva ter ponudnikov najrazličnejših izobraževalnih vsebin.
Osnutek Nacionalne strategije e-izobraževanja 20062010, ki bo predstavljen v nadaljevanju, se opira na izsledke predstavljenih raziskav. Ne glede na ugotovitve raziskav pa so si najrazličnejši ponudniki in uporabniki e-izo-braževanja enotni, da se e-izobraževanje v Sloveniji sicer razvija, a ne ciljno usmerjeno in koordinirano, rezultati ostajajo znotraj posameznih izvajalcev, temu primerno pa se javna sredstva iz tega naslova porabljajo preveč nena-
mensko in brez vidnejših učinkov. To potrjuje tudi naslednja slika, ki prikazuje, da si visokošolske institucije želijo več nacionalne koordinacije na tem področju.
Glede na raziskave o stanju e-izobraževanja iz preteklih let lahko povzamemo, da se v Sloveniji pravi razvoj e-učenja in tudi drugih oblik šele pričenja. Trg ponudnikov storitev in produktov e-izobraževanja se resneje oblikuje šele sedaj, prav tako pa podjetja šele sedaj razmišljajo o resnejšem in celovitejšem uvajanju e-izobraževanja.
Upravni odbor
Agencija za e-izobraževanje Direktor PodfIlrT,eslužbe
^C" v Predstavniki Javnih In i ....... zasebnih Institucij
«motel
Slika 8: Predvidena sestava medresorske Agencija za e-izobraževanje (Kokalj et al., 2006)
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Slika 9: Obravnavane ciljne učne skupine (Kokalj et al., 2006)
5 Nacionalna strategija e-izobraževanja 2006-2010
Glavna vizija osnutka Nacionalne strategije e-izobraževa-nja 2006-2010 je do leta 2013 vzpostaviti enega najučinkovitejših in v celoti informacijsko podprtih nacionalnih sistemov izobraževanja ter tako zagotoviti trajnostno gospodarsko rast, blaginjo in kakovost življenja vseh državljanov RS, hkrati pa postati sinonim za eno najuspešnejših družb na svetu, temelječo na znanju, stalnih inovacijah in hitrem razvoju. Nacionalna strategija e-izobraževanja sledi vsem petim razvojnim prioritetam Strategije razvoja Slovenije (SRS)9. Še posebej je strategija e-izobraževanja usmerjena v uresničevanje druge razvojne prioritete "Izboljšanje kakovosti izobraževanja in spodbujanje vseživ-ljenjskega učenja".
5.1 Strateška področja
Ker je e-izobraževanje interdisciplinarna veda, katere uspešen razvoj je odvisen od celovitega in usklajenega izvajanja ukrepov tako znotraj različnih strokovnih kot tudi organizacijskih področij, Strategija jasno opredeljuje organizacijska in strokovna strateška področja, ki so prikazana na sliki 7.
Organizacijska strateška področja so: 1. Koordinacija e-izobraževanja
2.	Regulativa
3.	Promocija znanja in
4.	Strokovna strateška področja (organizacija in administracija, učni procesi, izobraževanci in izobraževalci, e-učne vsebine, izobraževalna tehnologija in informa-cijsko-komunikacijska infrastruktura)
Za vsako od strokovnih strateških področij je predvidena posebna ekspertna skupina, ki bo skrbela za strokovni vidik izvajanja ukrepov z namenom kvalitetnega in učinkovitega uresničevanja ciljev Nacionalne strategije e-izobraževanja 2006-2010. Za potrebe uresničevanja ciljev Strategije bo predvideno odgovorna na novo ustanovljena medresorska Agencija za e-izobraževanje, ki jo bodo sestavljale naslednje službe in organi: upravni odbor, direktor in podporne službe, strokovni svet in strokovna delovna telesa (slika 8).
Poleg samih organov Agencije za e-izobraževanje velja omeniti tudi zunanje izvajalce posameznih projektov in začasne neodvisne strokovne komisije za izbor teh izvajalcev v okviru javnih razpisov.
5.2 Ciljne učne skupine
Nacionalna strategija e-izobraževanja je v okviru petih ciljnih učnih skupin usmerjena na izpolnjevanje zastavljenih ciljev za potrebe vseh državljanov RS. Izvajanje strategije bo vključevanje v proces vseživljenjskega učenja ob
9 Strategija razvoja Slovenije, www.slovenijajutri.gov.si.
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Slika 10:Model informatizacije nacionalnega sistema izobraževanja (Kokalj et al., 2006)
podpori e-izobraževanja omogočilo prav vsakemu prebivalcu RS.
Učni procesi se razlikujejo od ene do druge ciljne učne skupine in za posamezna strokovna učna področja. Skladno s tem je različna tudi stopnja vključevanja IKT v učne procese izobraževanja posameznih učnih skupin. Načeloma se stopnja vključenosti veča od predšolske vzgoje do visokošolskega izobraževanja in naprej. Še zlasti v primeru izobraževanja odraslih naj bi bila zaradi časovne obremenjenosti odraslih stopnja podpore IKT pri izobraževanju izjemno visoka oziroma naj bi večina izobraževanja že potekala v obliki e-izobraževanja.
Stopnja vključevanja IKT v poučevanje določene učne skupine je odvisna od cele vrste dejavnikov, kot so digitalna pismenost, dostopnost računalniške tehnologije, didaktična primernost uporabe izobraževalnih tehnologij in podobno.
Ne glede na stopnjo vključevanja IKT v učne procese posameznih učnih skupin pa je obstoječa praksa že pokazala, da uporaba izobraževalne tehnologije povečuje uspeh izobraževanja prek vseh ciljnih učnih skupin, če je le uporabljena pravilno in v pravi meri.
5.3 Vzpostavitev nacionalnega
informacijskega sistema izobraževanja
Vzpostavitev nacionalnega informacijskega sistema izobraževanja je obsežen in tehnološko zahteven projekt, katerega načrtovanje, izgradnja in uporaba posledično zahtevajo izvajanje dodatnih ukrepov in projektov. Projekt se bo začel izvajati kot prvi ukrep izvajanja Nacionalne strategije e-izobraževanja.
Večnivojski model informatizacije nacionalnega sistema izobraževanja sestavljajo tri med seboj povezane
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komponente: (1) nacionalni portal kompetenc - prvi nivo,
(2)	nacionalna elektronska tržnica znanja - drugi nivo in
(3)	nacionalni podporni portal e-izobraževanja - tretji nivo. Te komponente pokrivajo vse načrtovalce, razvijalce, ponudnike in izvajalce storitev izobraževanja tako v javnem kot zasebnem sektorju. Prav tako vse te komponente pokrivajo potrebe po formalnih in neformalnih znanjih vseh ciljnih učnih skupin.
Celovit nacionalni informacijski sistem izobraževanja vsakemu uporabniku omogoča samo enkraten vpis oziroma elektronsko identifikacijo za uporabo storitev vseh dostopnih portalov. Predstavlja centralno vstopno točko vseh ciljnih učnih skupin, ponudnikov in drugih deležnikov, kakorkoli vključenih v ukrepe izvajanja Nacionalne strategije e-izobraževanja.
Slovenija bi z vzpostavitvijo tovrstnega nacionalnega sistema izobraževanja postala ena vodilnih držav pri informatizaciji izobraževanja in posledično država z enim najkvalitetnejših in edinstvenih sistemov izobraževanja nasploh.
6 Strategije uvajanja e-izobraževanja v svetu
Veliko članic EU ima že dalj časa izdelane strategije e-izobraževanja ter posledično namenja veliko pozornosti in finančnih sredstev v ciljno usmerjeno informatizacijo šolstva ter izobraževanje nasploh. S proučevanjem praktičnih izkušenj teh držav pri uvajanju e-izobraževanja in z upoštevanjem obstoječe izobraževalne strukture v Sloveniji, je mogoče proces uvedbe e-izobraževanja bistveno pospešiti, najprej pa sploh izhajati iz ugotovitev tujih držav pri postavitvi nacionalne strategije e-izobraževanja.
Med drugimi, imajo strategijo e-izobraževanja imajo opredeljeno na Norveškem10, Veliki Britaniji11, Irskem12 in Avstriji13. Vse te strategije povzemajo ključne elemente strateških usmeritev v prej omenjenih evropskih dokumentih in direktivah, kot so Lizbonska strategija, i2010, e-Learning Action Plan in eEurope+ ter si prizadevajo za čimprejšnjo vzpostavitev dovolj zmogljivega omrežja IKT z vsemi podpornimi storitvami, s pomočjo katerih bo moč
doseči napredek v poslovanju, izobraževanju in vseživ-ljenjskem učenju.
Skandinavske države veljajo za vodilne na svetu, tako na področju izobraževanja kot tudi na področju izobraževanja s pomočjo IKT. Med seboj so povezane prek portala Nordic Schoolnet14.
Mnoge druge države članice EU so že vzpostavile spletne portale za podporo e-izobraževanju, npr. Virtual School15 na Finskem, Educational Portal16 v Grčiji, School-Net17 na Švedskem ali Bildung v Avstriji18. Cilj teh porta-lov je povezava učiteljev in izobraževalnih institucij, izmenjava informacij, učnih metod in e-učnih vsebin, obveščanje o dogodkih in novostih ter zagotavljanje storitev in metod e-izobraževanja.
Zelo pomemben del strategij uvajanje e-izobraževa-nja so primerno usposobljeni učitelji. Mnogo držav temu namenja veliko pozornosti. V Franciji, Grčiji, Italiji, na Madžarskem, Finskem in Norveškem je osnovno znanje IKT obvezno za vse učitelje. Nadaljnje usposabljanje pa je odvisno od različnih izobraževalnih institucij.
V	Avstriji že od leta 2000 teče veliko nacionalno koordiniranih projektov in aktivnosti v zvezi z informatizacijo šolstva. Izjemno veliko pozornosti se namenja spodbujanju razvoja e-učnih vsebin, nadaljnjemu usposabljanju učiteljev in njihovemu povezovanju. Avstrija je izjemno dober primer celovitega uvajanja e-izobraževa-nja na nacionalnem nivoju.
Na Finskem je Ministrstvo za šolstvo uvedlo program OPE.fi19, ki skrbi za nadaljnje usposabljanje učiteljev za uporabo IKT pri poučevanju. Ministrstvo učiteljem pomaga tudi pri razvoju e-učnih vsebin, ki so brezplačno dostopne vsem zainteresiranim.
V	Franciji je za spodbujanje uporabe IKT med učitelji, za njihovo usposabljanje ter gradnjo in razširjanje e-učnih vsebin pooblaščen The Department of Information and Communication Technology in Education20.
V	Italiji teče projekt Fortic21, katerega cilj je usposabljanje učiteljev za didaktično uporabo IKT. Na Madžarskem izvajajo podoben projekt, The Digital Knowledge Base Project22, katerega pobudnik je Ministrstvo za šolstvo. Poglavitni cilj projekta je usposabljanje učiteljev za uporabo IKT, decentralizacijo gradnje e-učnih vsebin in vključevanje privatnega sektorja v e-izobraževanje.
10	Norveška nacionalna strategija: eNorway 2009 - The digital leap. http://odin.dep.no/filarkiv/254956/eNorway_2009.pdf
11	Britanska nacionalna strategija za e-izobraževanje: eStrategy: Harnessing Technology: Transforming learning and children's services. http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/e-strategy/
12	Irska nacionalna strategija za e-izobraževanje: eLearning research and Development: Roadmap for Ireland http://www.ncirl.ie/down-loads/research_and_innovation/SFI_reportFINAL.pdf
13	Avstrijski portal za e-izobraževanje - Bildung. http://www.bildung.at/statisch/bmbwk/de/startseite.ihtml
14	Nordic Schoolnet. http://www.nordskol.org
15	Insights, http://insight.eun.org/ww/en/pub/insight/misc/country_report.cfm.
16	Educational Portal: grški izobraževalni portal http://www.e-yliko.gr/indexen.htm.
17	The Swedish Schoolnet, http://www.skolutveckling.se/skolnet/english/index.html
18	Avstrijski portal za e-izobraževanje - Bildung. http://www.bildung.at/statisch/bmbwk/de/startseite.html
19	Etalukio, Finski portal za e-izobraževanje, http://www.oph.fi/etalukio/english.html.
20	Vir: Insights, http://insight.eun.org/ww/en/pub/insight/misc/country_report.cfm
21	Italijanski portal Fortic http://www.fortic.net/
22	Vir: Insights, http://insight.eun.org/ww/en/pub/insight/misc/country_report.cfm
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Večina dostopnih podatkov o uporabi IKT pri izobraževanju temelji predvsem na stopnji uporabe interneta v različnih izobraževalnih institucijah. V Franciji ima dostop do interneta že 98 % srednjih šol, 89 % osnovnih šol in 61 % vrtcev. Na Madžarskem naj bi do leta 2005 širokopasovni internet uporabljale vse šole, v Italiji 80 % šol, v Veliki Britaniji pa 95 % srednjih šol23.
Posamezne države članice EU spodbujajo uporabo IKT v izobraževanju s projekti subvencioniranja nakupa računalniške tehnologije. V Italiji so npr. leta 2003 za potrebe spodbujanja uporabe IKT pri učenju vsem otrokom z dopolnjenim 16. letom starosti podarili 175 € za nakup osebnega računalnika, v Franciji pa študentom ponujajo možnost, da si za 1000 € kupijo prenosni računalnik z možnostjo brezžičnega priklopa na internet znotraj študentskega okoliša24.
V	Združenih državah Amerike, deželi z najrazvitejšim sistemom e-izobraževanja, izkoriščanjem njegovih prednosti ter izjemno dobro opremljenostjo z infrastrukturo IKT, se oblikujejo veliki konzorciji za načrtovanje strategij in modelov e-izobraževanja. Med najvplivnejše se uvrša SETDA - State Educational Technology Directors Associations, ki združuje direktorje za izobraževalne tehnologije iz vseh držav članic ZDA, predstavnike U. S. Department of Education in nekaterih največjih ponudnikov storitev e-izobraževanja v ZDA. Namen SETDA je neprestano iskanje novih načinov in metod, kako s pomočjo IKT še bolj izboljšati učinkovitost učenja in poučevanja. Leta 2005 so v ta namen oblikovali šest delovnih skupin, od katerih vsaka pokriva svoje strateško področje proučevanja25.
7 Zaključek
E-izobraževanje se je kot oblika usposabljanja v slovenskih podjetjih, šolah, fakultetah ipd. najbolj razvilo v zadnjih nekaj letih. Razmah različnih oblik e-izobraževanja je v veliki meri tudi posledica porasta ponudbe različnih e-izobraževalnih storitev in sistemov po vsej Evropi ter razpisanih projektov na to temo iz sredstev Evropske unije in strukturnih skladov. Na tem mestu je treba poudariti, da danes tehnologija ni več izključujoči dejavnik, saj so na trgu dostopni že razviti brezplačni sistemi za upravljanje e-izobraževanja. Implementacija in učinkovita uporaba e-izobraževanja je danes odvisna predvsem od pravilnega izbora tehnologije in izobraževalne vsebine.
Pomen raziskav, ki so bile v preteklosti izvedene v Sloveniji in svetu, je v predstavitvi trenutnega stanja e-izobraževalne ponudbe in potencialov, ki se nanašajo na razvoj e-izobraževalnega trga za podjetja, organizacije in visokošolske institucije.
V	Sloveniji obstaja že kar nekaj ponudnikov storitev e-izobraževanja, kar je posledica hitrega razvoja interne-
ta. Obstaja več dokončanih projektov, raziskav, zgrajenih e-učnih vsebin, razvitih izobraževalnih tehnologij in različnih strokovnjakov s področja e-izobraževanja. Kljub temu pa opaznejšega razvoja in uporabe e-izobraževanja še vedno ni mogoče zaslediti. Iz znanih primerov dobre prakse je razbrati, da e-izobraževanje pospešuje doseganje zastavljenih izobraževalnih ciljev. Rezultati dobrih in slabih praks pa žal večinoma ostajajo pri posameznih izvajalcih, ki imajo različne poglede na vlogo, vpliv in samo funkcijo e-izobraževanja.
E-izobraževanje je ena izmed prioritetnih nalog Ministrstva za visoko šolstvo, znanost in tehnologijo, pri čemer je e-izobraževanje mišljeno v najširšem smislu, tako pri sami aplikativni podpori, pripravi digitalnih gradiv, kot tudi v smislu komunikacij in povezav. Glavna usmeritev je strateški dokument i2010, ki je nastal na nivoju Evropske unije in definira bistvene poudarke pri razvoju informacijske družbe. Vloga in glavni namen Nacionalne strategije e-izobraževanja 2006-2010 pa je na državni ravni regulirati, usmerjati in spodbujati razvoj e-izobraževanja v Sloveniji, s ciljem povečanja gospodarske rasti, konkurenčnosti slovenske družbe in kvalitete življenja vseh državljanov Republike Slovenije.
8 Viri in literatura
Arh, T. (2005). Sistemski pogled na tehnološko podprto izobraževanje: evalvacija standardov in modelov upravljanja e-izobraževanja. Magistrska naloga, Fakulteta za organizacijske vede, Kranj.
Arh, T., Kovačič, M. & Jerman-Blažič, B. (2006). Analiza obstoječega stanja na področju e-izobraževanja v Sloveniji. Organizacija, 39(6), str. 393-401. Dinevski, D. & Plenkovic, M. (2002). Modern University and e-learning, Media, culture and public relations, št. 2, str. 137-146.
Gerlič, I. (2005). Stanje in trendi uporabe informacijsko-komu-nikacijske tehnologije (IKT) v slovenskih osnovnih šolah. Maribor: Univerza v Mariboru, Pedagoška fakulteta Maribor, Center za računalništvo in informatiko v izobraževanju. [URL: http://www.pfmb. uni-mb.si/raziskave/os2005/l. 25.5.2006.
Gerlič, I. (2006). Stanje in trendi uporabe informacijsko-komu-nikacijske tehnologije (IKT) v slovenskih srednjih šolah. Maribor: Univerza v Mariboru, Pedagoška fakulteta Maribor, Center za računalništvo in informatiko v izobraževanju. [URL: http://www.pfmb.uni-mb.si/ raziskave/sr2005/l, 25.5.2006.
Keegan, D. (1991). Foundations of Distance Education, Second
edition, Routledge Education, London and New York. Kirchner, P. A. & Pass, F. (2001). Web enhanced higher education: a Tower of Babel. Computers in human behaviour, 17(4), str. 347-53. Kokalj, R. et al. (2006). Nacionalna strategija e-izobraževanja 2006-2010: "E-izobraževanje: pot v družbo najuspešnejših".
23	Vir: Insights, http://insight.eun.org/ww/en/pub/insight/misc/country_report.cfm
24	Vir: Insights, http://insight.eun.org/ww/en/pub/insight/misc/country_report.cfm
25	Toolkit 2005 on Virtual Learning. National Leadership Institute. http://www.setda.org/Toolkit2004/toolkit2005_printversion.pdf
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Lockwood, F. (Ur.) & Gooley A. (Ur.) (2001). Innovation in Open and Distance Learning, Kogan Page, London.
Moore, M. M. & Tait, A. (2002). Open and Distance Learning -Trends, Policy and Strategy Considerations, UNESCO Division of Higher Education, Paris.
Stephenson, J. (2001). Teaching & Learning Online, Kogan Page, London.
Vehovar, V. & Platinovšek, R. (2005). E-izobraževanje - podjetja. Ljubljana: Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za družbene vede, Center za metodologijo in informatiko.
rURL:http://www.ris.org/uploadi/editor/1145954675RIS2005 po djetja e-ucenje final vl.pdfl, 1. 6. 2006.
Vehovar, V. & Pehan, V. (2006). E-izobraževanje 2005/2006 - visokošolski in višješolski zavodi. Ljubljana: Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za družbene vede, Center za metodologijo in informatiko. [URL: http://www.ris.org/index.php-fl= 2&lact=1&bid=1293&parent=13&cat=75&p1=276&p2= 285&id=2881,1. 6. 2006.
Zagmajster, M. (2006). Pregled študija na daljavo na področju izobraževanja odraslih v Sloveniji, Andragoški center Republike Slovenije. [URL: http://www.ris.org/uploadi/edi-tor/1157473788pp.pdf], 1. 6. 2006.
Tanja Arh je leta 2005 magistrirala na Fakulteti za organizacijske vede Univerze v Mariboru z magistrsko nalogo Sistemski pogled na tehnološko podprto izobraževanje: evalvacija standardov in modelov upravljanja e-izobraževanja. Kot raziskovalka je zaposlena v Laboratoriju za odprte sisteme in mreže Instituta "Jožef Stefan", kjer so glavna področja njenega raziskovanja sodobna in inovativna orodja za prenos znanja na daljavo, upravljanje z znanjem, management znanja in organizacijsko učenje. Je članica Izvršilnega odbora Slovenskega združenja za projektni management in tehnična urednica revije Projektna mreža Slovenije. Na Ekonomski fakulteti v Ljubljani trenutno pripravlja doktorsko disertacijo.
Rok Kokalj je kot magister znanosti iz področja analize in načrtovanja informacijskih sistemov leta 2003 zaključil študij na
Fakulteti za organizacijske vede v Kranju. Že kot študent je delal v Središču za elektronsko poslovanje in se pozneje tam tudi zaposlil. Od leta 2000 je eden od ustanoviteljev podjetja Nevron d.o.o., v katerem je zaposlen kot direktor. S sodelovanjem v mnogih domačih in tujih projektih ima bogate izkušnje s področja storitev e-izobraževanja, s katerim se profesionalno ukvarja že več kot osem let. Je velik pobudnik medsebojnega povezovanja pri izvedbi skupnih projektov z domačimi in tujimi organizacijami, kar zagotavlja visoko kvaliteto opravljenega dela in hitro izmenjavo medsebojnega znanja ter izkušenj.
Dejan Dinevski je docent in vodja Centra za e-izobraževanje in vseživljenjsko učenje na Univerzi v Mariboru. Koordinira razvoj informacijske podpore izobraževalnemu procesu in uvajanje vseživljenjskega učenja na univerzi. Je nosilec več mednarodnih in nacionalnih projektov s področja razvoja in uvajanja e-izobraževanja. Je tudi avtor več znanstvenih in strokovnih člankov s področja razvoja informacijskih sistemov na področju znanosti in izobraževanja. Predava na Medicinski fakulteti Univerze v Mariboru in Pedagoški fakulteti Univerze na Primorskem.
Borka Jerman-Blažič je vodja Laboratorija za odprte sisteme in mreže Instituta "Jožef Stefan" in redna profesorica na Ekonomski fakulteti Univerze v Ljubljani. Je članica in predsednica številnih mednarodnih odborov organizacij in združenj, kot so TERENA, ISOC, IETF, AACE, IEEE, predsednica slovenskega združenja za Internet - ISOC-SI ter predstavnica Slovenije v odborih CEN TC304 in ISO JTC1. Objavila je več kot 500 znanstvenih del, strokovnih študij in razprav v domačih in mednarodnih glasilih ter tri knjige, od katerih je eno založilo računalniško združenje Velike Britanije. Za svoje znanstvene dosežke je bila nagrajena z nagrado sklada Borisa Kidriča. Je stalni ekspert Evropske unije za področje informacijsko-komunikacij-skih tehnologij in elektronskega poslovanja in aktivno sodeluje pri izvajanju programa Evropske unije "Človeku prijazna informacijska družba" ter v projektih in programih CEN.
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Participacija poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa:
■	v	■	■
medpanožna primerjava
Boštjan Aver1, Simon Čadež2
1 Vzajemna, d.v.z., Vošnjakova 2, 1000 Ljubljana, bostjan.aver@vzajemna.si 2 Ekonomska Fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Kardeljeva ploščad 17, 1000 Ljubljana, simon.cadez@ef.uni-lj.si
Vloga poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa je bila tradicionalno omejena na posredovanje koristnih informacij njihovim uporabnikom. V zadnjih dveh desetletjih pa se je njihova vloga v podjetjih močno spremenila. Sodobni računovodje niso več zgolj pripravljalci informacij, ampak za razliko od tradicionalnih aktivno sodelujejo v celotnem procesu sprejemanja odločitev. Cilj študije je preučiti stopnjo participacije poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa v večjih slovenskih podjetjih. Rezultati raziskave na podlagi vzorca 193 podjetij kažejo, da so slovenski poslovodni računovodje na splošno relativno močno vključeni v proces strateškega managementa, da pa se stopnja participacije po panogah precej razlikuje. Stopnja participacije poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa je relativno visoka v predelovalnih dejavnostih, trgovini in gostinstvu, relativno nizka pa v dejavnostih oskrbe z energijo, plinom in vodo ter gradbeništvu.
Ključne besede: Participacija računovodij, Strateški management, Strateško poslovodno, računovodstvo, Slovenija
1 Uvod
Na področju poslovodnega računovodstva smo v zadnjih dveh desetletjih lahko priča pravi renesansi (Cravens in Guilding, 2001). S holističnega vidika sta vidni dve glavni smeri razvoja discipline. Na eni strani se zelo hitro razvijajo nove strateško-orientirane računovodske tehnike za obvladovanje stroškov, za potrebe planiranja, kontrole in merjenja uspešnosti ter za ovrednotenje strateških odločitev (Guilding et al., 2000; Ittner in Larcker, 2001; Chen-hall, 2008). Po drugi strani se hkrati z razvojem novih tehnik vse bolj uveljavlja prepričanje, da se naloga sodobnih poslovodnih računovodij ne sme ustaviti zgolj pri posredovanju koristnih informacij, ampak je značilnost sodobnega računovodje tudi aktivno sodelovanje v celotnem procesu odločanja (Oliver, 1991; Bromwich, 2000; Nyo-mori et al., 2001; Korošec, 2003; Parker in Kyj, 2006; Rowe et al., 2008). Nekateri avtorji (Guilding et al., 2000; Hoque, 2001; Roslender in Hart, 2003) menijo, da so spremembe v disciplini tako velike, da jih lahko združimo kar pod okrilje nove discipline, imenovane strateško poslovodno računovodstvo.
Če je Kaplan (1984) še pred dobrima dvema desetletjema trdil, da se poslovodno računovodstvo razvija preveč izolirano od ostalih disciplin in zato izgublja svoj pomen v organizacijski strukturi, se danes tak opis zdi neustrezen (Chenhall, 2008; Rowe et al., 2008). Vse večja konkurenč-
nost in nepredvidljivost poslovnega okolja je mnoga podjetja vzpodbudila, da so v ospredje svoje strategije postavila zadovoljevanje potreb kupcev (Perrera et al, 1997; Guilding in McManus, 2002).Tej strategiji so se prilagodile tudi organizacijske strukture in procesi podjetij. Tradicionalne navpične funkcijske organizacijske strukture so se pričele opuščati, nadomeščajo pa jih »vodoravno« povezane aktivnosti iz verige vrednosti (Chenhall, 2008). V »vodoravnih organizacijah« strateške odločitve sprejemajo managerski teami sestavljeni iz članov z različnih funkcijskih področij, vključno s poslovodnimi računovodji (Baines in Langfield-Smith, 2003; Naranjo-Gil in Hartmann, 2007; Rowe et al., 2008).
Izhajajoč iz opisanih trendov ima študija dva glavna cilja. Prvi cilj je preučiti stopnjo participacije poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa oziroma odločanja v večjih slovenskih podjetjih. V tujini opravljene empirične študije kažejo, da so poslovodni računovodje v ZDA (Fern in Tipgos, 1988) in Veliki Britaniji (Bhi-mani in Keshtvarz, 1999) relativno močno vključeni v različne aktivnosti v okviru procesa strateškega managemen-ta, v Sloveniji pa podobne raziskave še ni bilo. Drugi cilj je preučiti morebitne razlike v stopnji participacije po panogah. Kontingenčna teorija, ki je na področju poslovodnega računovodstva v zadnjem času izrazito prevladala (Naranjo-Gil in Hartmann, 2007), pravi, da morajo biti organizacijske strukture in procesi prilagojeni okolju in spe-
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cifičnim dejavnikom podjetja (Chenhall, 2003; Gerdin, 2005). Ker so empirične študije (Anderson in Lanen, 1999; Mia in Clarke, 1999) pokazale, da je pomemben dejavnik pri oblikovanju primernega sistema poslovodnega računovodstva dejavnost podjetja, želimo ugotoviti, kako dejavnost podjetja vpliva na stopnjo participacije računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa. Iz opredeljenih ciljev izhaja, da je študija eksplorativne narave.
Študija je razdeljena na pet poglavij. Uvodu sledi poglavje, v katerem opišemo teoretični koncept participacije poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega mana-gementa. V tretjem poglavju je predstavljena raziskovalna metodologija, v četrtem pa rezultati raziskave v večjih slovenskih podjetjih. V zadnjem poglavju so podane sklepne ugotovitve in diskusija rezultatov.
2 Participacija poslovodnih
računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa
Poslovodno računovodstvo se je tradicionalno ukvarjalo s pripravo informacij, ki managerjem pomagajo pri planiranju, kontroliranju in sprejemanju odločitev (Kaplan in Atkinson, 1989;Turk et al., 1998). Čeprav obseg poslovodnega računovodstva ni omejen s formalnimi kriteriji, se njegove naloge navadno delijo v tri skupine (Anderson in Lanen, 1999;Turk et al., 1998):
■	ugotavljanje stroškov proizvodov in drugih stroškovnih nosilcev
■	priprava informacij za planiranje, kontrolo in ocenjevanje uspešnosti
■	priprava informacij za ovrednotenje odločitev. Strateški management lahko opredelimo kot proces
managerskih odločitev in aktivnosti, ki določajo dolgoročno poslovanje podjetja in podjetje umestijo v okolje (Porter, 1996; Pučko, 2006). V normativnih učbenikih iz strateškega managementa je ta proces navadno razdeljen na več faz, kot so analiza okolja, razvoj strategije (strateško planiranje), uresničevanuje strategije in strateška kontrola (Hunger in Wheelen, 1996; Thompson in Strickland, 2003; Pučko, 2006). Za strateške odločitve je značilno, da (1) imajo pomemben učinek na podjetje kot celoto, (2) pomembno vplivajo na dolgoročno uspešnost, (3) so tvegane in (4) zahtevajo medfunkcijsko sodelovanje (Papa-dakis in Barwise, 1997; Kramberger in Rosi, 2007).
V drugi polovici osemdesetih let prejšnjega stoletja so mnogi priznani avtorji (Kaplan, 1984; Johnson in Kaplan, 1987; Ashton et al., 1991; Drury, 1992; Palmer, 1992; Bhi-mani in Bromwich, 1992) ocenili takratno stanje poslovodnega računovodstva kot krizno, saj naj ne bi bilo več sposobno tvorno sodelovati pri doseganju strateških ciljev podjetja (Kaplan, 1984; Bromwich in Bhimani, 1994). V grobem bi lahko kritike razdelili v dve skupini. Prvič, tako imenovano tradicionalno poslovodno računovodstvo se je ukvarjalo predvsem z operativnimi problemi, kar ga je postavljalo v podrejen položaj glede na ostale oddelke, na primer trženje (Roslender in Hart, 2003). Druga kritika
pa se nanaša na dejstvo, da je bila vloga računovodij v procesu odločanja tradicionalno omejena na posredovanje koristnih informacij managerjem, ki so sprejemali odločitve, medtem ko pri sprejemanju odločitev niso sodelovali.
Če so poslovodni računovodje v takih razmerah želeli povečati ali vsaj zadržati svoj pomen v organizacijski hierarhiji, so bili pravzaprav prisiljeni razviti »neko višjo« obliko računovodstva (Roslender et al., 1998). Pri tem so jim šle na roko tudi okoliščine. Razvoj informacijske tehnologije je omogočil, da so postale tradicionalne rutinske naloge računovodij v veliki meri avtomatizirane, zato so imeli več časa, da se začnejo ukvarjati z vsebinskimi izzivi. Kot slikovito pravi Oliverjeva (1991), so »dnevi debe-tov in kreditov v računovodstvu minili«.
Hiter razvoj poslovodnega računovodstva v zadnjih dveh desetletjih kaže, da so sodobni poslovodni računovodje spremenjene okoliščine in zahteve vzeli resno in se jim dokaj uspešno prilagodili. Če je bilo tradicionalno poslovodno računovodstvo usmerjetno na posredovanje pretežno notranjih in v preteklost obrnjenih informacij managerjem (Cravens in Guilding, 2001), je področje delovanja sodobnih poslovodnih računovodij precej širše. Danes njihova informacijska usmerjenost sega izven meja podjetja in predvsem v prihodnost (Guilding et al., 2000; Chenhall, 2008), hkrati pa se njihova vloga ne konča pri posredovanju informacij managerjem (Nyamori et al., 2001; Rowe et al., 2008). Približno sočasno z navedenimi spremembami se je začel uporabljati tudi pojem »strateško poslovodno računovodstvo«. Ta naj bi označeval, da je sodobno poslovodno računovodstvo orientirano predvsem na potrebe strateškega managementa oziroma predstavlja odziv računovodij, ki bi tako kot druge funkcije radi sodelovali pri strateških zadevah (Nyomori et al., 2001). Seveda pa to od njih zahteva, da se na novo opredeli tudi njihova vloga v podjetju. Od strateških računovodij se pričakuje aktivno sodelovanje v procesu odločanja, ne več zgolj samo posredovanje relevantnih informacij managementu (Oliver, 1991; Coad, 1996; Bromwich, 2000). Sodelovanje v celotnem procesu sprejemanja odločitev je torej ključna razlika med »tradicionalnim« in »strateškim« poslovodnim računovodjem (Bhimani in Keshtvarz, 1999; Nyamori et al., 2001).
Koncept participacije poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa temelji na tesnem partnerstvu z neračunovodskim osebjem (Oliver, 1991; Palmer, 1992; Bromwich, 2000; Chenhall, 2008; Rowe et al., 2008), v katerem se združijo vse funkcijske sposobnosti podjetja z namenom izboljšanja procesa odločanja. Naravna vloga računovodij naj bi bila koordinacija posameznih funkcij in ravni managementa v podjetju (Parker in Kyj, 2006; Rowe et al., 2008), saj jim dostop do široke baze informacij daje celovit vpogled v poslovanje podjetja, ki ga druge funkcije običajno nimajo. Računovodje so imeli Palmerjevem mnenju (1992) za svojo »novo« vlogo zelo dobro izhodišče. Posedujejo namreč paket finančnih sposobnosti in znanj, dostop do različnih virov informacij in poznavanje finančne strukture podjetja, ki naj bi bil ključen za ovrednotenje različnih strateških alternativ.
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Na novo opredeljena vloga poslovodnih računovodij v podjetjih pa od njih zahteva tudi povem praktične spremembe v vedenju in vzorcih razmišljanja. Potrebne značilnosti, ki »strateškega« računovodjo ločijo od »tradicionalnega«, naj bi tako bile (Oliver, 1991; Coad, 1996; Hočevar in Ogan, 1996): (1) proaktivnost pri analiziranju poslovnih izzivov in sposobnost povezati te izzive s finančnimi in drugimi posledicami, (2) tržna orientiranost, to je sposobnost svetovanja svojim odjemalcem (managerjem), (3) zaradi potrebe po dobrem poznavanju podjetja in okolja, stalna motiviranost k učenju in povečevanju znanja, pogosto na področjih, ki nimajo nobene zveze s tradicionalnim računovodstvom in nenazadnje, (4) zaradi svoje vloge povezovalca, dobre komunikacijske sposobnosti. Ali kot na kratko pravi Coad (1996), strateški poslovodni računovodja je lahko le nekdo, ki se na nerutinske izzive odziva pozitivno in kreativno.
Empirične raziskave o participaciji poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa so redke tudi v tujini. Fern in Tipgos (1988) sta v svoji raziskavi velikih podjetij v ZDA že pred 20 leti ugotovila, da je participacija poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega mana-gementa »presenetljivo velika«, saj več kot 75 % anketiranih računovodij bolj ali manj aktivno sodeluje pri aktivnostih v okviru procesa stateškega managementa (kot so npr. oblikovanje poslanstva, oblikovanje strateških ciljev, razvoj in izbira najboljše strategije, pretvorba strategij v predračune). Podobno študijo sta desetletje kasneje opravila Bhimani in Keshtvarz (1999) med britanskimi velikimi podjetji ter prišla do podobnih zaključkov.
Podjetja se bodo v prihodnosti srečevala s še bolj kompleksnimi izzivi in turbolentnim okoljem, čemur se bo moral prilagajati tudi računovodski sistem. Ker so računovodje izrazili željo po večji vpletenosti v proces strateškega managementa (Fern in Tipgos, 1988; Bhimani in Keshtvarz, 1999; Nyamori et al., 2001), je to zanje hkrati priložnost in obveza. Sestavni člen v procesu odločanja bodo postali le, če bodo dovolj prepričljivi, da v procesu lahko dodajo neko vrednost (Oliver, 1991). To pa je v ve-
liki meri odvisno od njih samih (Palmer, 1992; Roslender et al., 1998; Nyamori et al., 2001).
3 Metodologija raziskovanja
3.1	Raziskovalna vprašanja
Prvi cilj raziskave je preučiti stopnjo participacije slovenskih poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega ma-nagementa. Ker nimamo primerne osnove, na podlagi katere bi utemeljili pričakovano stopnjo participacije, je raziskovalno vprašanje eksplorativne narave. Glede na opredeljeno ključno razliko med »tradicionalnimi« in »strateškimi« poslovodnimi računovodji nas zanima predvsem, ali so slovenski poslovodni računovodje pretežno pripravljalci informacij, ali pa jih lahko uvrstimo med aktivne udeležence managerskih teamov in procesov odločanja.
Drugi cilj je ugotoviti in preučiti morebitne razlike v stopnji participacije po panogah. Anderson in Lanen (1999) ter Mia in Clarke (1999) so ugotovili, da je razvitost poslovodnega računovodstva po panogah različna, zato v skladu z njihovimi ugotovitvami postavljamo naslednjo hipotezo - participacija poslovodnih ra~unovodij v procesu strateškega managementa se po panogah razlikuje. Razlike po panogah želimo tudi podrobneje preučiti, vendar bo zaradi pomanjkanja teoretičnih osnov za postavitev morebitnih hipotez o pričakovanih razlikah ta analiza eksplorativne narave.
3.2	Metoda zbiranja podatkov in postopek vzorčenja
Za zbiranje podatkov je bil uporabiljen anketni vprašalnik, ki je bil poslan v večja slovenska podjetja. Pri izbiri podjetij v vzorec smo izhajali iz baze 500 največjih slovenskih podjetij po prihodkih, ki jo je pripravilo Podatkovno
Dejavnost z SKD oznako	Frekvenca	Delež v vzorcu v %	Delež v vzorčnem okviru v %
A - Kmetijstvo, gozdarstvo	1	0,5	1,0
C - Rudarstvo	2	1,0	0,5
D - Predelovalne dejavnosti	108	56,0	53,1
E - Oskrba z energijo, plinom, vodo	10	5,2	4,4
F - Gradbeništvo	9	4,7	6,7
G - Trgovina	30	15,5	17,8
H - Gostinstvo	6	3,1	1,8
I - Promet, skladiščenje, zveze	13	6,7	5,2
J - Finančno posredništvo	8	4,1	5,2
K - Poslovanje z nepremičninami	4	2,1	2,6
O - Druge javne in oskrbne dejavnosti	2	1,0	1,0
Skupaj	193	100,0	100,0
Tabela 1: Struktura podjetij v vzorcu in vzorčnem okviru glede na dejavnost
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analitično središče Ekonomske Fakultete v Ljubljani (PASEF). V vzorec smo zajeli vseh 500 največjih podjetij, ne glede na dejavnost in lastništvo. Nato smo bazo prečistili in izključili vsa podjetja z manj kot 100 zaposlenimi (cilj tega početja je bil izločiti holdinške družbe, ki z malim številom zaposlenih ustvarjajo visoke prihodke) ter podjetja, za katera ni bilo moč pridobiti kontaktnih podatkov (so prenehala obstajati, so bila pripojena drugemu podjetju, so šla v stečaj, so spremenila ime ipd). Po tem filtriranju je v končnem vzorčnem okviru ostalo 388 podjetij z lestvice 500 največjih podjetij.
Kot del strategije za čim večjo stopnjo odzivnosti smo se pred pošiljanjem vprašalnikov za sodelovanje najprej dogovorili po telefonu. Namen tega početja je bil pridobiti podatke o najprimernejši osebi za anketiranje. V večini primerov smo se s takimi osebami neporedno pogovorili in jim razložili namen raziskave. V pogovorih se je izaka-zalo, da najprimernejše osebe v ciljnih podjetjih navadno opravljajo eno od naslednjih treh funkcij: vodja kontrolin-ga, vodja računovodstva ali vodja finančno-računovod-skega sektorja.
Podatki so bili zbrani leta 2005. Skupaj je bilo prejetih 193 vprašalnikov, kar predstavlja 49,7 % stopnjo odzivnosti glede na vzorčni okvir. Struktura podjetij v vzorcu in vzorčnem okviru glede na dejavnost je prikazana v Tabeli 1 (uporabljena je standardna klasifikacija dejavnosti - SKD).
Kot je razvidno iz Tabele 1, se frekvence po dejavnostih močno razlikujejo. Več kot polovica oziroma 56% vseh podjetij v vzorcu se ukvarja s predelovalno dejavnostjo. To seveda ne pomeni, da je vzorec pristranski, saj je tudi v celotnem vzorčnem okviru delež predelovalnih dejavnosti podoben kot v vzorčnem okviru, in sicer znaša 53,1% (glej zadnji stolpec v Tabeli 1). Na drugi strani vzorec vključuje zgolj eno podjetje (oziroma 0,5%) iz dejavnosti kmetijstvo in gozdarstvo, vendar je tudi v vzorčnem okviru delež kmetijskih podjetij podoben, saj znaša 1%.
3.3 Merski instrument
Za merjenje participacije računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa je bil povzet instrument, ki sta ga Wooldridge in Floyd (1990) razvila za merjenje participacije srednjega managementa v procesu strateškega mana-gementa. Ta instrument je bil izbran zato, ker so pri merjenju participacije želeni razumljivi in procesno nevtralni
instrumenti. Kavčič et al. (2004) namreč navajajo, da se novejša dognanja v računovodski praksi slovenskih podjetij uveljavljajo počasi, zato smo se v vprašalniku želeli izogniti akademsko-znanstveni terminologiji, kot je poslanstvo, planske predpostavke, razvijanje strategije, izbira strategije, uresničevanje strategije ipd.
Instrument je osredotočen na 5 vidikov oziroma aktivnosti v okviru procesa strateškega managementa in predstavlja enodimenzionalni konstrukt participacije. Anketiranim je bilo zastavljeno naslednje vprašanje:
»Prosimo označite, v kakšni meri poslovodni računovodje (kontrolerji) v vaši organizaciji sodelujete pri naslednjih aktivnostih v okviru procesa strateškega manage-menta:
■	identificiranje problemov in predlaganje ciljev
■	iskanje (oblikovanje) alternativ
■	ovrednotenje alternativ
■	podrobnejše analiziranje izbranih alternativ
■	izpeljava ustreznih aktivnosti za uvedbo strateških sprememb.«
Anketirani so ocenili stopnjo participacije za vsako od teh aktivnosti na merski lestvici od 1 do 7, kjer 1 pomeni »sploh ne sodelujem« in 7 pomeni »popolnoma sodelujem«.
4 Rezultati
Stopnja participacije poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa je prikazana v Tabeli 2, in sicer za vsako od petih preučevanih aktivnosti v okviru tega procesa posebej.
Kot je razvidno iz Tabele 2, poslovodni računovodje v Sloveniji relativno najbolj sodelujejo pri aktivnostih ovrednotenja alternativ in podrobnega analiziranja alternativ, najmanj pa pri izpeljavi ustreznih aktivnosti za uvedbo sprememb. So pa povprečja za vseh 5 spremenljivk višja od sredine merske lestvice, kar nakazuje na to, da slovenski poslovodni računovodje dokaj aktivno sodelujejo v procesu strateškega managementa.
Za preučitev medpanožnih razlik smo stopnjo participacije izračunali za vsako dejavnost posebej. Ker je za kakršnokoli posplošitev rezultatov zaželjeno vsaj neko minimalno število podjetij v vsaki dejavnosti, smo se odločili analizirati samo dejavnosti, v katerih je frekvenca podjetij vsaj 8. Ta pogoj izpolnjuje 6 dejavnosti, medtem ko je v preostalih petih frekvenca nižja od 6 (glej Tabelo 1). S ci-
Tabela 2: Participacija poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa v slovenskih podjetjih
Aktivnost	Aritmetična sredina	Standardni odklon
Identificiranje problemov in predlaganje ciljev	4,78	1,60
Iskanje (oblikovanje) alternativ	4,55	1,64
Ovrednotenje alternativ	5,12	1,58
Podrobnejše analiziranje alternativ	5,13	1,63
Izpeljava ustreznih aktivnosti za uvedbo sprememb	4,38	1,64
Merska lestvica: 1 - sploh ne sodelujem, 7 - popolnoma sodelujem.
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ljem čimmanjše izgube podatkov smo se nato odločili še za dve združitvi po naši presoji relativno sorodnih dejavnosti. Prvič, z združitvijo dejavnosti H (gostinstvo) in O (druge javne in oskrbne dejavnosti) smo pridobili še eno skupino, ki šteje 8 podjetij. In drugič, skupini J (finančno posredništvo) smo priključili še skupino K (poslovanje z nepremičninami). To pomeni, da so bila iz panožne analize izključena samo tri precej specifična podjetja iz dejavnosti kmetijstvo (A) in rudarstvo (B).
Stopnje participacije po dajavnostih so prikazane v Tabeli 3. Statistično značilnost razlik po dejavnostih smo ugotavljali s pomočjo analize variance (Chenhall in Lang-field-Smith, 1998). Statistično značilen F-test v zadnjem stolpcu Tabele 3 pove, da se povprečna stopnja participacije vsaj v eni (skupini) dejavnosti razlikuje od ostalih (skupin) dejavnosti. Testiramo torej hipotezo enakih aritmetičnih sredin, vendar pa nam test ne da odgovora na vprašanje, katera aritmetična sredina je različna od ostalih (Hair et al., 1998).
Rezultati v Tabeli 3 kažejo, da je stopnja participacije statistično značilno različna po dejavnostih za štiri izmed petih preučevanih aktivnosti. To je v veliki meri skladno s hipotezo, da se stopnja participacije po panogah razlikuje. Edina aktivnost, pri kateri se stopnja participacije po panogah oziroma skupinah panog značilno ne razlikuje, je aktivnost identificiranja problemov in predlaganja ciljev.
S ciljem podrobneje analizirati razlike po dejavnostih, smo za vsako aktivnost dejavnosti rangirali glede na izmerjeno stopnjo participacije (rangi so v Tabeli 3 zapisani v oklepaju). Kljub temu, da so rangi za vsako aktivnost drugačni, je možno opaziti določen vzorec obnašanja podatkov. V splošnem bi lahko rekli, da je stopnja participacije računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa relativno visoka v treh dejavnostih, ki pri vseh aktivnostih dosegajo relativno visoke range. To so predelovalne dejavnosti (enkrat rang 1, trikrat rang 2, enkrat rang 3), trgovina (dvakrat rang 1, enkrat rang 2, dvakrat rang 4) ter gostinstvo in ostale storitve (dvakrat rang 1 ter po enkrat rang 2, 3 in 5). Na drugi strani je stopnja participacije računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa najnižja v
dejavnosti oskrbe z energijo, plinom in vodo (štirikrat rang 7, enkrat rang 6).Ta dejavnost izrazito odstopa od ostalih, saj prav pri nobeni aktivnosti izmerjena stopnja participacije ne presega sredine merske lestvice. Relativno glede na ostale dejavnosti je participacija nizka tudi v gradbeništvu (enkrat rang 7 ter po dvakrat rang 6 in 5), vendar razen pri eni aktivnosti (izpeljava sprememb) vseeno presega sredino merske lestvice. Nekje blizu povprečja so stopnje participacije v dejavnostih finančnega in nepremičninskega posredništva ter dejavnosti prometa, skladiščenja in zvez.
5 Sklep in diskusija
V zadnjih dvajsetih letih se je vloga poslovodnih računovodij v organizacijskem ustroju močno spremenila. Medtem ko je bila tradicionalno njihova vloga omejena na posredovanje koristnih informacij zainteresiranim uporabnikom (managerjem), se naloga sodobnih poslovodnih računovodij ne ustavi zgolj pri posredovanju informacij. Od sodobnih poslovodnih računovodij se pričakuje dejavno sodelovanje v celotnem procesu odločanja (Oliver, 1991; Palmer, 1992; Bhimani in Keshtvarz, 1999; Nyamori et al., 2001) in aktivna vključenost v strateški managerski team (Baines in Langfield-Smith, 2003; Naranjo-Gil in Hartmann, 2007; Rowe et al., 2008).
Glavna prispevka študije sta dva. Prvi prispevek je preučitev stopnje participacije poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa v 193 večjih slovenskih podjetjih. Drugi prispevek je medpanožna analiza razlik v stopnji participacije.
Pri preučevanju participacije poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa smo se osredotočili na pet aktivnosti v okviru procesa strateškega mana-gementa, in sicer: identificiranje problemov in predlaganje strateških ciljev, iskanje (oblikovanje) alternativ, ovrednotenje alternativ, podrobnejše analiziranje izbranih alternativ in izpeljava ustreznih aktivnosti za uvedbo strateških sprememb. Rezultati raziskave dokaj pričako-
Aktivnost	Dejavnost (glej Tabelo 1 za legendo)							F-test st. znač.$
	F	D	E	G	I	J,K	H,O	
	n = 9	n = 108	n = 10	n = 30	N = 13	n = 12	n = 8	
Identificiranje problemov	4,33 (5)	4,91 (3)	4,00 (7)	4,87 (4)	4,23 (6)	5,00 (2)	5,38 (1)	0,24
Iskanje alternativ	4,11 (5)	4,69 (2)	3,40 (7)	4,57 (4)	4,00 (6)	4,67 (3)	5,50 (1)	*0,09
Ovrednotenje alternativ	4,56 (6)	5,37 (1)	3,80 (7)	5,30 (2)	4,62 (5)	4,92 (4)	5,13 (3)	"0,04
Podrobna analiza alternativ	4,44 (6)	5,25 (2)	4,00 (7)	5,57 (1)	4,77 (5)	5,17 (4)	5,25 (2)	*0,08
Izpeljava aktivnosti	3,11 (7)	4,59 (2)	3,50 (6)	4,66 (1)	4,38 (3)	4,17 (4)	4,00 (5)	**0,04
Tabela 3: Participacija poslovodnih ra~unovodij v procesu strateškega managementa v slovenskih podjetjih po dejavnostih (analiza variance)
$ * F-test je statisti~no zna~ilen pri stopnji tveganja 10 %; ** pri stopnji tveganja 5 %.
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vano kažejo, da poslovodni računovodje relativno najbolj sodelujejo pri aktivnostih ovrednotenja alternativ in podrobnega analiziranja alternativ. Računovodstvo je v osnovi informacijska funkcija, torej podpira management z uporabnimi informacijami in analizami za sprejemanje odločitev. Vendar pa je tudi pri vseh ostalih preučevanih aktivnostih stopnja participacije relativno visoka, saj povsod presega sredino merske lestvice. V skladu s prvim raziskovalnim vprašanjem zato lahko ugotovimo, da sodobnih slovenskih poslovodnih računovodij ne moremo označiti več zgolj kot pripravljalce informacij. Bolj primerna se zdi oznaka, da podobno kot njihovi kolegi v razvitih državah (Fern in Tipgos, 1988; Bhimani in Keshtvarz, 1999) predstavljajo tvoren in aktiven člen v procesu strateškega managementa podjetja.
Za potrebe medpanožne primerjave smo preučevana podjetja razdelili v sedem (skupin) dejavnosti po standardni klasifikaciji dejavnosti. To so (1) gradbeništvo, (2) predelovalne dejavnosti, (3) oskrba z energijo, plinom in vodo, (4) trgovina, (5) promet, skladiščenje in zveze, (6) finančno in nepremičninsko posredovanje ter (7) gostinstvo ter druge javne in oskrbne dejavnosti. Medpanožna primerjava kaže, da se stopnja participacije poslovodnih računovodij v procesu strateškega managementa značilno razlikuje po panogah za štiri od petih preučevanih aktivnosti, kar v veliki meri potrjuje hipotezo, da je participacija po panogah različna.
Gledano na splošno je participacija relativno visoka v predelovalnih dejavnostih, trgovini ter gostinstvu in drugih oskrbnih dejavnostih. Po drugi strani po relativno nizki stopnji participacije izrazito odstopa dejavnost oskrbe z energijo, plinom in vodo. Ne samo, da je participacija relativno nizka glede na ostale dejavnosti, ampak je relativno nizka tudi glede na mersko lestvico, saj prav za nobeno aktivnost ne presega sredine merske lestvice. Relativno nizka je stopnja participacije tudi v gradbeništvu. Anderson in Lanen (1999) ter Mia in Clarke (1999) so ugotovili, da je razvitost poslovodno računovodskega sistema v podjetjih pozitivno povezana z intenzivnostjo konkurence v panogi. Večja konkurenčnost deluje kot pritisk za optimizacijo vseh aktivnosti in procesov v podjetju, vključno z računovodstvom. Taka razlaga se zdi primerna tudi za našo študijo.Verjetno najbolj izpostavljena konkurenci je predelovalna dejavnost, saj večino proizvodnje izvozi. Podatki z lestvice Finance Top 101 za leto 2006 denimo kažejo, da je 10 največjih slovenskih predelovalnih podjetij v povprečju izvozilo kar 83,4 % svoje celotne prodaje (Finance Top 101 - največje slovenske poslovne skupine leta 2006). Tudi v trgovini so v Sloveniji prisotna mnoga tuja podjetja, hkrati pa se slovenski trgovci širijo v tujino in tam soočajo s tujo konkurenco. Po drugi strani je v dejavnosti oskrbe z energijo, plinom in vodo konkurence relativno malo, če sploh. Na nek način bi še vedno lahko govorili o »javnem sektorju«. Podobno velja za gradbeništvo. Slovenska podjetja dobijo skoraj vse večje gradbene posle v Sloveniji, medtem ko so na tujem precej manj prodorni, saj 6 največjih slovenskih gradbenih podjetij v tujini ustvari v povprečju samo 9 % prihodkov (Fi-
nance Top 101 - največje slovenske poslovne skupine leta 2006).
Gledano v celoti bi lahko zaključili, da slovensko poslovodno računovodstvo sledi svetovnim trendom. Slovenski poslovodni računovodje niso več zgolj pripravljal-ci informacij, ampak aktivni udeleženci v procesu strateškega odločanja (Naranjo-Gil in Hartmann, 2007; Chen-hall, 2008). In drugič, stopnja njihovega udejstvovanja v stratešekih zadevah se po panogah razlikuje. Podobno kot v tujini (Anderson in Lanen, 1999; Mia in Clarke, 1999) je relativno nizka predvsem v tistih dejavnostih, kjer je intenzivnost konkurence relativno majhna.
Pri interpretaciji rezultatov študije se je treba zavedati tudi njenih omejitev. Poleg splošno znanih pomanjkljivosti anketnega raziskovanja z vprašalniki je problem v operacionalizaciji preučevanih spremenljivk. Ker Kavčič et al. (2004) navajajo, da se novejša dognanja v slovensko računovodsko prakso uveljavljajo počasi, smo se temu poskušali prilagoditi z uporabo razumljivega in procesno nevtralnega instrumenta (Wooldridge in Floyd, 1990). Prav tako je potrebno upoštevati, da je z izjemo dveh dejavnosti število anketiranih podjetij relativno majhno, kar je pri medpanožni analizi lahko problematično z vidika posploševanja rezultatov. Ne glede na te pomanjkljivosti pa daje študija zanimiv vpogled v sodobno poslovodno računovodsko prakso v Sloveniji.
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Boštjan Aver je predsednik uprave zavarovalnice Vzajemna d.v.z. Magistriral in doktoriral je na Ekonomski fakulteti Univerze v Ljubljani. Kot predavatelj sodeluje na Fakulteti za Management Koper, Univerza na Primorskem, in na Evropski pravni fakulteti v Novi Gorici, aktivno pa sodeluje tudi s Slovenskim združenjem za projektni management. Je avtor številnih znanstvenih in strokovnih člankov s področja financ, računovodstva, kontrolinga in projektnega manage-menta.
Simon Čadež je docent za področje računovodstva in revizije na Ekonomski fakulteti Univerze v Ljubljani. Doktoriral je na Ekonomski fakulteti Univerze v Ljubljani, v času doktorskega študija pa se je strokovno izpopolnjeval tudi na Univerzi Griffith v Avstraliji, s katero raziskovalno tesno sodeluje. V slovenskih in mednarodnih revijah je objavil vrsto znanstvenih člankov, predvsem s področij poslovodnega računovodstva in strateškega managementa.
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Abstracts
Number 3, May-June 2008
Anastasia A. Katou
Innovation and Human Resource Management: the Greek Experience
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the pathways leading from innovation to organisational performance by using structural equation modelling. Specifically, we used this analytical tool to test a research framework that is constituted by a set of causal relationships between organisational contingencies, innovation, HRM policies (resourcing, training, rewards, relations), HRM outcomes (skills, attitudes, behaviour), and organisational performance. Employing data from organisations operating in the Greek manufacturing sector, results indicate that the impact of innovation on organisational performance is positive and mediated through HRM policies and HRM outcomes, and moderated by organisational context (management style, organisational culture).
Key words: Innovation strategy; HRM policies; Causality; Structural equation modelling; Greek manufacturing
Damjana Jerman, Goran Vukovi~, Bruno Završnik
How Public Relations Impact on a Company's Effectiveness
The role of public relations is dealing with the identification of organization's strategic public and developing communications programs for building solid, open and trusting relations with them. Many companies have taken a limited view of the impact that public relations can have on company's overall effectiveness. This paper consists of two parts: the theoretical framework for the role of public relations in the overall effectiveness of the company and an empirical analysis based on the primary data collected.We classified and analyzed different public relations factors (i.e. factors related to managing and implementing
public relations) that influences the effectiveness of the company. We explored the correlation between public relations and a company's effectiveness and argued that public relations factors play a critical role in that effectiveness. We used linear regression and we found a significant linier relationship between the independent variable (public relations) and the dependent variable (company effectiveness).
Key words: Public relations, Public relations function, Company's effectiveness, Public relations strategy, Public relations agency
Andrejka Mevc, Milan Pagon
Corruption in Public Administration Units and Organizational Measures to Prevent and Fight Corruption
This paper presents the results of a study that investigated the attitudes of civil servants in public administration units in Slovenia regarding corruption at work. The results show that civil servants employed in public administration units take corruption seriously. The employees' perceptions of corruption and their willingness to report the offender are closely connected to their opinion on how others - their colleagues - perceive it (i.e., how serious they find corruption and whether they are willing to report the offender). There are important gender differences regarding the perceptions of corruption, as well as differences in the function they have and their membership in organizational units. The authors conclude that it is necessary to develop and strengthen the feelings of the employees' security and increase the link between perceiving corruption and one's own judgment of the seriousness of cor-ruptive behaviour, as well as to decrease the tolerance regarding corruption.
Key words: administrative corruption, corruptive behaviour, code of silence, anticorruptive measures, offender, management, civil servant, public administration unit.
Ozlem Aydin, Fatma Pakdil, MBA
Fuzzy Servqual Analysis in Airline Services
This study is aimed at measuring and summarizing the perceived and expected service quality of passengers of an international airline and to provide the passengers' opinions to the decision makers employing fuzzy logic. The appropriate fuzzification procedure was determined to be the trapezoidal membership function. Using SERVQUAL methodology, the optimal fuzzy interval of the gap scores was determined for each item. The interpretations of these fuzzy intervals were categorized into three areas - optimistic, neutral and pessimistic passenger views - to assist the decision makers in identifying which items of services are satisfactory and which are in need of improvement.
Key words: Airline service quality, fuzzy numbers, fuzzy SERVQUAL scores.
Danijel Bratina, Armand Faganel
Forecasting the Primary Demand for a Beer Brand Using Time Series Analysis
Market research often uses data (i.e. marketing mix variables) that is equally spaced over time. Time series theory is perfectly suited to study this phenomena's dependency on time. It is used for forecasting and causality analysis, but their greatest strength is in studying the impact of a discrete event in time, which makes it a powerful tool for marketers. This article introduces the basic concepts behind time series theory and illustrates its current application in marketing research. We use time series analysis to forecast the demand for beer on the Slovenian market using scanner data from two major retail stores. Before our analysis, only broader time spans have been used to perform time series analysis (weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly data). In our
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Number 3, May-June 2008
study we analyse daily data, which is supposed to carry a lot of 'noise'. We show that - even with noise carrying data - a better model can be computed using time series forecasting, explaining much more variance compared to regular regression. Our analysis also confirms the effect of short term sales promotions on beer demand, which is in conformity with other studies in this field.
Key words: market research, time series forecasting, beer demand JEL classification: C22, M31
Tanja Arh, Rok Kokalj,
Dejan Dinevski, Borka Jerman Blažič
Survey of the State of e-Learning in Slovenia
In comparison to the other European countries and the general status of the development of information-communication technology in education and training, Slovenia has been traditionally lagging behind. In the same sense, the awareness of the importance of e-lear-ning has not been sufficiently recognized. With this in view we can summarize that the concrete activities on the implementation level on the national level
started with the present period. The article thus focuses on the presentation of the past research activities and iniciati-ves dealing with the e-learning market structure in Slovenia and assesment of the current e-learning situation in Slovenian companies and higher educational institutions. The framework of the National E-learning Strategy 2006-2010 is presented, where special attention is given to that part of the strategy aimed at establishing the most effective and ICT based national educational systems with the objective of increasing economic growth and the competitiveness of Slovenian society, as well as the quality of life of Slovenian citizens.
Key words: information communication technology, e-learning, National E-learning Strategy 2006-2010
Boštjan Aver, Simon Čadež
Management Accountant's Participation in Strategic Management Processes: a Cross-industry Comparison
The role of management accountants in strategic management processes has traditionally been limited to information provision for decision makers. In
the last two decades however their role in a company has changed dramatically. Contrary to their conventional counterparts, modern accountants are not just information providers, rather they are an integral part of decision-making processes. The study herein explores the state of contemporary Slovenian management accounting practice concerning accountant's participation in strategic management processes. The survey results based on a sample of 193 large Slovenian companies reveal that Slovenian accountants in general are relatively amply involved in the process of strategic management, however the level of participation varies intensely across industries. The level of participation is relatively high in manufacturing industries, trade and hospitality services whereas it is relatively low in public services and utilities and construction industries.
Key words: Accountant's participation, Strategic management, Strategic management accounting, Slovenia
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Donatorji novogradnje Fakultete za organizacijske vede
ADRIA AIRWAYS - Slovenski letalski prevoznik d.d.
Kuzmičeva 7,1000 LJUBLJANA
ARBORETUM
Volčji potok 3,1235 RADOMLJE
ALPETOUR REMONT d.d.
Ljubljanska 22,4000 KRANJ
ATOTECH - Kemična tovarna Podnart d.d.
Podnart 24,4244 PODNART
AVTOTEHNA d.d.
Slovenska cesta 54,1000 LJUBLJANA
BIGRAD
Kolodvorska 37d, 2310 SLOVENSKA BISTRICA
BRDO - PROTOKOLARNI SERVIS
Predoslje 39,4000 KRANJ
DEDALUS d.o.o.
Dunajska 156,1000 LJUBLJANA
DELO - Časopisno in založniško podjetje d.d.
Dunajska 5, 1509 LJUBLJANA
DOMEL d.d. - Elektromotorji in gospodinjski aparati
Otoki 21,4228 ŽELEZNIKI
DOMPLAN d.d.
Bleiweisova cesta 14,4000 KRANJ
ELEKTRO GORENJSKA
Javno podjetje za distribucijo električne energije, d.d.
Bleiweisova cesta 6, 4000 KRANJ
ELEKTROTEHNIŠKO PODJETJE d.d.
Ulica Mirka Vadnova 11, 4000 KRANJ
EL - VER, Elektroinstalacije Zvonko Verlič s.p.
Streliška 150,2000 MARIBOR
ETIKETA Tiskarna d.d.
Industrijska ulica 6, 4226 ŽIRI
EXOTERM Kemična tovarna, d.d.
Struževo 66,4000 KRANJ
FOTO TIVOLI d.o.o.
Cankarjeva 7,1000 LJUBLJANA
GORENJSKA BANKA d.d.
Bleiweisova 1, 4000 KRANJ
GORENJSKA PREDILNICA d.d.
Kidričeva cesta 75,4220 ŠKOFJA LOKA
GORENJSKI TISK d.d.
Ul. Mirka Vadnova 6,4000 KRANJ
GRADBINEC GIP d.o.o.
Nazorjeva 1, 4000 Kranj
GRATEX d.o.o.
Spodnja Rečica 81,3270 LAŠKO
HIT d.d. Nova Gorica - Hoteli igralnica turizem
Delpinova 7a, 5000 NOVA GORICA
HTG - Hoteli Turizem Gostinstvo d.d.
Partizanska cesta 1,6210 SEŽANA
IBM Slovenija d.o.o.
Trg Republike 3,1000 LJUBLJANA
IBI Kranj - Proizvodnja žakarskih tkanin d.d.
Jelenčeva ulica 1, 4000 KRANJ
ISA Anton Mernik s.p. - Izvajanje sanacij v gradbeništvu
Kolodvorska ulica 35c, 2310 SLOVENSKA BISTRICA
ISKRAEMECO, d.d.
Savska Loka 4, 4000 KRANJ
ISKRA - Iskra avtoelektrika d.d.
Polje 15,5290 ŠEMPETER PRI GORICI
ISKRA - Industrija sestavnih delov d.d.
Savska loka 4, 4000 KRANJ
ISKRA INSTRUMENTI d.d.
Otoče 5a, 4244 PODNART ISKRATEL - Telekomunikacijski sistemi d.o.o., Kranj
Ljubljanska cesta 24/a, 4000 KRANJ
ISKRA TRANSMISSION d.d.
Stegne 11, 1000 LJUBLJANA Izredni študenti FOV JELOVICA d.d.
Kidričeva 58,4220 ŠKOFJA LOKA
JEROVŠEK COMPUTERS, d.o.o.
Breznikova 17, 1230 DOMŽALE
KOGRAD GRADNJE d.o.o.
Preradovičeva ul. 20,2000 MARIBOR
KOMUNALNO PODJETJE GORNJA RADGONA p.o.
Trate 7, 9250 GORNJA RADGONA
KOPIRNICA DEU s.p.
Kidričeva 55a, 4000 KRANJ
KOVINAR d.o.o. Vitanje
Kovaška cesta 12,3205 VELENJE
KRKA, d.d., Novo mesto
Šmarješka cesta 6, 8501 NOVO MESTO
KRKA ZDRAVILIŠČA - Zdraviliške, turistične in gostinske storitve d.o.o.
Germova ulica 4, 8501 NOVO MESTO
LESNA Lesnoindustrijsko podjetje d.d.
Pod gradom 2, 2380 SLOVENJ GRADEC
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LETNIK SAUBERMACHER d.o.o.
Sp. Porčič 49,2230 LENART V SLOVENSKIH GORICAH
LINIJA - Rajko Flerin, s.p., Slikopleskar in črkoslikar
Britof 284,4000 KRANJ
LJUBLJANSKE MLEKARNE d.d.
Tolstojeva 63,1000 LJUBLJANA
LUKA KOPER d.d.
Vojkovo nabrežje 38, 6000 KOPER
MAGNETOMEDICINA d.o.o.
Tržaška cesta 468,1351 BREZOVICA PRI LJUBLJANI
MARMOR HOTAVLJE d.d.
Hotavlje 40,4224 GORENJA VAS
MAT d. o. o.
Orlova 12 a, 1000 LJUBLJANA
MEHANIZMI - Iskra Mehanizmi d.d. Lipnica
Lipnica 8, 4245 KROPA
MERCATOR - TRGOAVTO d.d. - Trgovina, servis
Pristaniška 43/a, 6000 KOPER
MERCATOR - PC GRADIŠČE d.d.
Golijev trg 11,8210 TREBNJE
MERCATOR-OPTIMA - Inženiring d.o.o.
Breg 14, 1000 LJUBLJANA
MERKUR - Trgovina in storitve d.d. KRANJ
Koroška cesta 1, 4000 KRANJ
MESNA INDUSTRIJA PRIMORSKE d.d.
Panovška 1, 5000 NOVA GORICA
MICROSOFT d.o.o.
Šmartinska cesta 140,1000 LJUBLJANA
MOBITEL d.d.
Vilharjeva 23,1537 LJUBLJANA
OBČINA RADOVLJICA
Gorenjska cesta 19, 4240 RADOVLJICA
Opravljanje del z gradbeno mehanizacijo MARJAN RAZPOTNIK s.p.
Krače 8, 1411 IZLAKE
OPTIMA - Podjetje za inženiring in trgovino d.o.o.
Ulica 15. maja 21,6000 KOPER
PALOMA SLADKOGORSKA - Tovarna papirja d.d.
Sladki vrh 1,2214 SLADKI VRH
PIVOVARNA UNION d.d.
Pivovarniška ulica 2, 1001 LJUBLJANA
POSLOVNI SISTEM MERCATOR d.d.
Dunajska cesta 107, 1000 LJUBLJANA
POSLOVNI SISTEM - ŽITO LJUBLJANA d.d.
Šmartinska cesta 154, 1000 LJUBLJANA
POSLOVNO PRIREDITVENI CENTER -GORENJSKI SEJEM Kranj d.d.
Stara cesta 25,4000 KRANJ
POŠTA SLOVENIJE d.o.o.
Slomškov trg 10,2000 MARIBOR
PRIMORJE d.d.
Vipavska cesta 3,5270 AJDOVŠČINA
REGIONALNI CENTER ZA RAZVOJ d.o.o.
Cesta zmage 35, 1410 ZAGORJE OB SAVI
SATURNUS - AVTOOPREMA d.d.
Letališka c. 17, 1001 LJUBLJANA
SAVA - Gumarska in kemična industrija d.d.
Škofjeloška 6, 4502 KRANJ
SIEMENS d.o.o.
Dunajska cesta 22, 1000 LJUBLJANA
SLOBODNIK JOŽE
Generalni častni konzul RS v Kanadi
SLOVENIJALES PRODAJNI CENTRI
Dunajska cesta 22, 1000 LJUBLJANA
SLOVENSKE ŽELEZNICE d.d.
Kolodvorska ulica 11, 1000 LJUBLJANA
SVEA LESNA INDUSTRIJA d.d.
Cesta 20. julij 23,1410 ZAGORJE OB SAVI
SUROVINA d.d. MARIBOR
Pobreška cesta 20, 2000 MARIBOR
TELEKOM SLOVENIJE d.d.
Cigaletova 15, 1000 LJUBLJANA
TERME MARIBOR Zdravstvo, turizem, rekreacija d.d.
Ul. heroja Šlandra 10, 2000 MARIBOR
TERMO d.d. - Industrija termičnih izolacij
Trata 32,4220 ŠKOFJA LOKA
TERMOELEKTRARNA TOPLARNA Ljubljana d.o.o.
Toplarniška 19, 1000 LJUBLJANA
TOVARNA KLOBUKOV ŠEŠIR d.d.
Kidričeva 57, 4220 ŠKOFJA LOKA
TRIMO Inženiring in proizvodnja montažnih objektov d.d.
Prijateljeva 12,8210 TREBNJE
UNITAS - Tovarna armatur d.d.
Celovška cesta 224, 1107 LJUBLJANA
USTANOVA SLOVENSKA ZNANSTVENA FUNDACIJA
Štefanova 15, 1000 LJUBLJANA
ZAVAROVALNICA TRIGLAV, d.d.
Miklošičeva cesta 19, 1000 LJUBLJANA
ZAVAROVALNICA TRIGLAV, d.d.
Miklošičeva cesta 19, 1000 LJUBLJANA
ZVEZA RAČUNOVODIJ, FINANČNIKOV IN REVIZORJEV SLOVENIJE
Dunajska cesta 106, 1000 LJUBLJANA
ŽIVILA KRANJ - Trgovina in gostinstvo d.d.
Cesta na Okroglo 3,4202 NAKLO
ŽITO GORENJKA d.d.
Rožna dolina 8, 4248 LESCE
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Organizacija, letnik 41
številka 3, maj-junij 2008
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Organizacija, letnik 41	številka 3, maj-junij 2008
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