Vanja Simicevic - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Vanja Simicevic

By using structural equation modeling and empirical data on the sample of students from Croatia a... more By using structural equation modeling and empirical data on the sample of students from Croatia and Slovenia, the purpose of this paper is to examine current antecedents of entrepreneurial behavior, i.e. how an innovative cognitive style and attitudes towards entrepreneurship can influence one’s intentions to become an entrepreneur. The results suggest that individual cognition and attitudes towards entrepreneurship, as well as the personal attraction to entrepreneurship, social norms and perceived self-efficacy, can have a positive influence on emergence of entrepreneurial intentions

Large amount of data available in corporate databases creates a need for using different technolo... more Large amount of data available in corporate databases creates a need for using different technologies to find important information which can be used for decision making in business organizations. Data mining is the process of transformation a large amount of data to useful information. In the last several years, data mining techniques have a widespread use in many business areas. Some of the examples are customer relation management, financial fraud and credit risk detection, healthcare management, churn management, and manufacturing. Data mining is based on the usage of machine learning and statistical techniques on the data that is described using different attributes. One of the important data mining applications is credit default. Accuracy of credit default depends on the quality of the data mining process, as well as on the attributes selected for prediction. Goal of the paper is to investigate which approach to selection of attributes for prediction of credit default could yield the best classification accuracy: demographic attributes, behavioral attributes, algorithm selected attributes or combination of demographic and behavioral attributes. In order to full-fill this goal, we used German credit data set available on UCI Machine Learning Repository which contains sample of 1000 debtors classified according to credit default. First, we created four datasets with different attributes (demographic, behavioral, algorithm selected and combination of demographic and behavioral). Second, we applied C4.5 algorithm to four datasets using Weka data mining tool. Third, we compared the results using several measures of classification efficiency.

Profitability of banks is influenced by many factors like size, costs structure, income structure... more Profitability of banks is influenced by many factors like size, costs structure, income structure, and macroeconomic conditions. Profitability is measured net interest margin. Regression analysis of profitability of Croatian banks is conducted with the goal to investigate to what extents different banks'characteristics and macroeconomic conditions influence profitability of Croatian banks. Unconventional methods like decision trees could also be used in order to estimate the factors of banks' profitability. CR&T decision tree method was applied in order to compare the results of the econometric analysis. Both methods implicated that in short term with stable macroeconomic conditions better profitability is accomplished by well-capitalized banks with bigger market share that are also very efficient in operating costs management. These banks are also very successful in transferring costs of non-income assets to their clients.

The paper is focused on connection between children’ s school success, free time variable and the... more The paper is focused on connection between children’ s school success, free time variable and the level of exposure to media contents. The analysis was conducted with ‘ decision tree’ method. Assumption that was started with was that the larger exposure to media contents has more unsuitable influence on school success. The paper put special emphasis on negative influence of watching television, as the most significant media of today’ s world on children in school age period.

Abstract: Application of Business Intelligence (BI) tools have increased in the last few years in... more Abstract: Application of Business Intelligence (BI) tools have increased in the last few years in the firms worldwide with the goal of increased competitive advantage fulfilled. Among BI tools the most important are Reporting, Data Warehousing (DW), On-line Analytical Processing ...

Ekonomski pregled, Jul 16, 2007

Napredak : časopis za pedagogijsku teoriju i praksu, 1996

Ovo empirijsko istraživanje analizira uspjesnost studiranja na Sveucilistu u Zagrebu. Stoga je u ... more Ovo empirijsko istraživanje analizira uspjesnost studiranja na Sveucilistu u Zagrebu. Stoga je u ovom radu provedena ekonometrijska analiza efikasnosti i trajanja studija na odabranim fakultetima Sveucilista u Zagrebu u intervalu od 10 godina. Primjenom Koyckove simplifikacije te uz pomoc specificiranih i ocijenjenih ekonometrijskih modela uocene su osnovne zakonitosti ponasanja analizirane pojave, kao i usporedba s drugim sveucilistima. Analizom dinamike broja upisanih i diplomiranih studenata na 5 odabranih fakulteta SUZG pomocu eksponencijalnog trenda, uoceno je da broj upisanih studenata bilježi prosjecan godisnji postotni porast, dok diplomirani studenti pokazuju prosjecan godisnji postotni pad.

The purpose of this paper is to develop models that would enable predicting student success. Thes... more The purpose of this paper is to develop models that would enable predicting student success. These models could improve allocation of students among colleges and optimize the newly introduced model of government subsidies for higher education. For the purpose of collecting data, an anonymous survey was carried out on the last year of undergraduate degree student population using random sampling method. Decision trees were created of which two have been chosen that were most successful in predicting student success based on two criteria: Grade Point Average (GPA) and time that a student needs to finish the undergraduate program (time-to-degree). Decision trees have been shown as a good method of classification student success and they could be even more improved by increasing survey sample and developing specialized decision trees for each type of college. These types of methods have a big potential for usage in decision support systems.

Zbornik Ekonomskog fakulteta u Zagrebu, 2005

Dr. sc. Zdenka Gogala Dr. sc. Šimičević Vanja KORIŠTENJE STATISTIČKIH METODA U HRVATSKIM PODUZEĆI... more Dr. sc. Zdenka Gogala Dr. sc. Šimičević Vanja KORIŠTENJE STATISTIČKIH METODA U HRVATSKIM PODUZEĆIMA USAGE OF STATISTICAL METHODS IN CROATIAN LARGE FIRMS SAŽETAK: U radu su prikazani rezultati istraživanja čiji je cilj bio utvrditi u kojoj mjeri menadžeri hrvatskih velikih poduzeća koriste statističke metode u poslovnom odlučivanju. Posebno se analiziraju odnos korištenja statističkih metoda i karakteristika menadžera te karakteristika poduzeća. Istraživanje je pokazalo da većina menadžera poznaje statističke metode, ali uglavnom koristi samo jednostavnije metode deskriptivne statistike. Menadžeri smatraju da bi im statistika koristila u njihovu poslu, ali da njezino znanje nije presudno za dobro poslovanje. Istraživanje je pokazalo da menadžeri najviše koriste Excel, a komparativnom analizom statističkog softvera pokazalo se je da upravo tablični kalkulatori imaju najviše prednosti i najmanje nedostataka za poslovnu primjenu statističkih metoda.

Acta Turistica, 2005

Hotel websites are an important marketing channel through which hotels can have a direct influenc... more Hotel websites are an important marketing channel through which hotels can have a direct influence on their own image and sales. The aim of this study was to statistically analyse the websites of high category hotels in Croatia. The research has shown that most high category hotels have websites, and that the characteristics of the hotel (number of stars and the region in which they are located) do not constitute predictors as to whether or not they have a website. Through their web pages, hotels primarily focus on communicating information to their clients and on pre-sales marketing activities. Least attention on their website is given to on-line reservations and after-sales activities. The research has found examples of excellent websites and recommendations are consequently made in this paper to help hotel management make effective hotel websites.

This paper emphasizes the importance of statistical approach to intelligent managerial decision-m... more This paper emphasizes the importance of statistical approach to intelligent managerial decision-making. The research was based on an original empirical survey, conducted on the basis of a random sample of large Croatian firms, aimed at estimating the extent at which Croatian managers use statistical methods. The research results are presented in this paper, and suggestions are given for the promotion of the statistical education in order to increase the level of statistical thinking in Croatian firms.

Ekonomski pregled : mjesečnik Hrvatskog društva ekonomista Zagreb, 2007

Statistical thinking and application of statistical methods have an increasingly important role i... more Statistical thinking and application of statistical methods have an increasingly important role in the process of business management during the last few decades. In order to estimate to what extent managers in Croatian large fi rms use statistical methods and accept the idea of statistical thinking the original survey research was conducted at the random sample of large fi rms. Results of the research indicate that managers in most cases use only basic statistical methods, while more advanced methods are used to the smaller extent. Managers think that knowledge of statistics is important. However, they also think that level of statistical knowledge is not at the most importance for the success of the fi rm. The level of acceptance of statistical thinking is measured by Likert scale questions, and scale of statistical thinking is based on these questions. It is researched to what extent characteristics of the managers and the fi rms infl uence the level of acceptance of the statistical thinking concept.

Mnoge aktivnosti u poduzecu ovise o prognoziranju potražnje. Najcesce se efikasnost prognosticke ... more Mnoge aktivnosti u poduzecu ovise o prognoziranju potražnje. Najcesce se efikasnost prognosticke metode ocjenjuje na temelju njezine tocnosti. Međutim, metoda koja generira najmanje prognosticke pogreske ne mora biti i najuspjesnija sa aspekta uspjesnosti poduzeca. Konvencionalne metode mjerenja uspjesnosti prognostickih modela nisu prikladne za analizu utjecaja metoda prognoziranja na uspjesnost poduzeca. Cilj rada je ispitati mogu li modeli sistemske dinamike biti prikladni za taj zadatak, a u tu svrhu koristi se model sistemske dinamike malog poduzeca.

DAAAM International Scientific Book 2009, 2009

The aim of this paper is to present the benefits of data mining in the field of telecommunication... more The aim of this paper is to present the benefits of data mining in the field of telecommunication. In this research, we will present how cluster analysis can be used as a substitute method for industrial market segmentation in telecommunications instead of the common approach based on the location and the total revenue of telecommunication services invoiced to the user. The goal of data mining analysis was to determine if cluster analysis could be used for finding interesting segments in the business sector of the telecommunication market. The sample consisted of data of the companies that were clients of a telecommunication company. K-means algorithm is applied showing that microsegmentation approach based on data for each individual client gives additional insight into the usual approach to industrial market segmentation.

Business Systems Research Journal, Sep 1, 2017

Background: Interdisciplinary scientific areas regularly develop unique methodologies, yet utilis... more Background: Interdisciplinary scientific areas regularly develop unique methodologies, yet utilise the conventional communication modes to disseminate results of their researches. Objectives: This paper analyses whether a novel, interdisciplinary communication mode can be found in a gradually developing interdisciplinary journal. Methods/Approach: The content of the journal was categorised based on the characteristics attributed to the published papers. Statistical tests were performed to check for the overlapping categories. Results: A number of indicators, related to papers or to their authors, are introduced and quantified. Conclusions: Methodology utilised and data collected serve, on the one hand, as a referent set for treating the content of other interdisciplinary or disciplinary scientific journals, and, on the other hand, as a set for comparison and extraction of universalities or specificities of the journals. Fluctuations accompanying a gradual rise of the considered journal content prevent a definite answer to the question whether there are some emerging interdisciplinary communication novelties.

ENTRENOVA - ENTerprise REsearch InNOVAtion, 2021

The global pandemic of the virus COVID-19 dramatically has impacted Higher Education Institutions... more The global pandemic of the virus COVID-19 dramatically has impacted Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and worldwide. HEIs were forced to switch overnight to online lectures and exams without almost any teachers' and students' preparation and education. After one year of online classes at the University of Mostar (SUM), whether that kind of teaching impacts creativity. In order to find the answer to the research question, the authors used a questionnaire they developed and applied in 2015 to investigate students' perceptions about creativity at the University of Mostar. The research presented in this paper is limited to SUM students who have had online classes since March 2020. The primary research goal is to investigate whether there are any significant changes in students' perceptions of creativity compared to research from 2015. Namely, the authors investigate whether the enhanced use of IT and online platforms (Google Meet, SUMARUM – t...

The goal of the paper is to present the overview of methodology of using credit scoring analysis ... more The goal of the paper is to present the overview of methodology of using credit scoring analysis with software Weka. German credit dataset was used in order to develop a decision tree with J.48 algorithm. We present characteristics of the dataset and the main results with the focus to the interpretation of Weka output. Paper could be useful for the users of Weka that aim to use it for credit scoring analysis.

Highly polished presentations skills became prevalent communication technique in various academic... more Highly polished presentations skills became prevalent communication technique in various academic and business disciplines fields. Presentation competencies became not just preferable, but indispensable for graduates on the employment market. The fear is the main reason, which decreases the presentation’s delivering quality, so the teachers include presentations into curricula from early stages of educations. Scholars continuously develop techniques and methods, which reduce student stress and anxiety during a presentation performance. However, different methods are effective for different types of fears and anxieties. The purpose of this paper is to establish is their connection between different age groups and different types of fear. The research was undertaken on a sample of 495 students from the Faculty of Economics and Business in Zagreb, and the correspondence analysis was used to examine the data. The evidence from this study confirmed that the different age groups are more ...

Electronic money has evolved in one of the relevant ways to achieve electronic payment, that is, ... more Electronic money has evolved in one of the relevant ways to achieve electronic payment, that is, a form of payment with significantly lower online transactions. The idea for the development of the above has consolidated the segment of retaining all the favourable characteristics of cash while eliminating deficiencies. The paper purpose is to discuss the relevance of electronic money or alternative currencies, cryptocurrencies, and to present statistical processing the most 30 influential cryptocurrencies with an emphasis on the most popular cryptocurrency called Bitcoin. We elaborate on the main differences between the virtual currency and electronic money after we present the historical development of cryptocurrencies. In the end, we present the statistical and forecasting analysis of the most important cryptocurrencies.