HOLISTIC APPROACH TO THE POSSIBILITY OF POSITIONING A COMPANY ON THE SOUTH-EAST EUROPEAN MARKET - THE CASE OF HRVATSKA ELEKTROPIVREDA (THE CROATIAN ELECTRICITY COMPANY)

The paper analyses factors and processes crucial to the positioning of the leading electricity company in Croatia (Hrvatska elektroprivreda) as a leader in South-East Europe.
Although leadership in the literature is primarily observed from the individual perspective and relates to the ability of a human resource to govern and supervise the business activities, leadership in the electricity market is conditioned by factors and processes from
the environment, i.e. factors and processes at sectoral, local, regional, national and global level.
The goal of the analysis in this paper is to answer two questions which in the context of the electricity market need to be seen as mutually connected. How can the attractiveness of the croatian market help explain the potential in the Croatian Electricity Company
(Hrvatska elektroprivreda) for the leadership position in South Eastern Europe? What type of the fi rm governance is required in Hrvatska elektroprivreda in order to reach a leading position in the electricity market?
The authors propose a hypothesis that the leadership position of Hrvatska elektroprivreda in the Western Balkans’ market is a result of the attractiveness of the Croatian market (location, region, space). In addition, the authors argue that the leadership position
is conditioned by the organization of the system of corporate governance. The paper evaluates the processes of Croatian accession into the EU, the necessity for overcoming post
war confl icts in the former country, basic economic indicators, the electricity production and electricity consumption values as well as the knowledge creation indicators.
Presently, the Croatian geo-strategic area is attractive enough in order to enable a spill-over of positive effects to neighbouring countries. In the electricity sector, at the company level, a leadership position can be a result of new governance paradigm acceptance,
i.e. quantum management that enables more effi cient handling of current problems of Hrvatska elektroprivreda and a better market perspective in the electricity markets of South-east Europe.