The aim of this research is humor consumption and its extensive use in today's advertising. One of the most prominent features of humor is its convictive nature. A humorous context may increase liking for the source at the same time creating a positive mood. Humor does serve to make the audience laugh, make the viewers happy and create positive mood. In general, humor itself has a permanent presence and a specific role in advertising. However, it should be underlined that humor should be used carefully in advertisements; otherwise it may result in resistance. Using humor is regarded as a win-win situation. While in some cases humor usage depends on the product or brand advertised. In some cases humor is considered not appropriate if attached with some products and particular occasions. ISSN 1941-899X 2016 www.macrothink.org/jmr 2 Results show correlation effect and in fact humor related Ads found as much more effective than those without humor and this effect is apparent, when it comes to highly complex and sophisticated humor. Also the effect of humor is influenced by the type of product advertised. The implications of these findings for the practice of Advertising are discussed in following pages. Journal of Management Research

Strategic planning is an important element for companies growth, gaining competitive advantage as well as further development. However, not many scholars have done researches which emphasize the role of strategic planning in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In Macedonia, SMEs are the major source of the country’s potential economic-growth in terms of their contribution toward the creation of employment and overall economic development. This study is about to find out whether and how strategic planning is employed in the Macedonian SMEs, as well as to explore the main characteristics of the strategic planning process. Data was gathered using online questionnaire method and analyzed with standard tools of descriptive statistics. It aims to work as a reference for the business owners and manager to better improve and utilize the strategic planning tools for their future growth.

Corporate governance and company performance are issues that continue to raise interests of the researchers worldwide, as they provide valuable lessons for vast audience, such as company owners, company leaders, supervisors and policy makers. This study aims towards contributing to the previous literature showing that there is positive correlation between corporate governance mechanisms and company performance. It specifically focuses on the correlation between board independence and internal audit function existence with performance of the companies listed on the Macedonian Stock Exchange, for specific periods 2003-2004 vs. 2014- 2018. In particular, the influence of the board independence and the internal audit function over company performance are investigated through Profit, Return on Equity (ROE) and Earnings per Share (EPS) indicators. The results of the performed research and analysis suggest that corporate governance is important for the company performance, i.e. corporate governance improvements such as board member independence and internal audit function have positive impact on the performance of the companies listed on the Macedonian Stock Exchange. However, given the fact that, other factors apart from board member independence and internal audit function can influence the Profit, ROE and EPS of companies, it is reasonable to assume that the increase of profit and of ROE and EPS indicators may not be connected exclusively with having independent board members and internal audit function. First and foremost, this study is of interest for company owners and leaders; yet, it also provides useful information for supervisors and other policy makers.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the pay perception among the employees in the non-banking financial institutions in North Macedonia and its correlation with employees’ intent to leave their current positions. The data to be analyzed was gathered through anonymous on line questioner consisting of Likert-scale measures. The results show that familiarity with pay differences does not significantly affect employees’ intent to leave. The findings indicate that majority of employees within the Macedonian non-banking financial institutions claim to understand how their pay and pay raises are determined, usually compare salaries and are aware of the industry pay ranges for their job positions. In addition, the majority of employees are neutral on the questions related to pay differences. Nonetheless, this lack of understanding of the pay system does not significantly influence their intention to leave the company they work for. There is no study on the pay perception and employee intention to leave among nonbanking financial institutions in North Macedonia. On the other hand, there is a need of finding the crucial factors for employees’ intent to leave, in order to be able to retain well-trained and trustworthy team, especially taking into consideration the fact that these institutions are frequently facing challenges where employees are leaving their current jobs to join competitors from the same industry.

Marketing as an activity that marked the 21st century is a very important part of the business activities of any organization. Traditional and modern marketing are interconnected despite digitalization as a new process. A good marketing leader is the key to success in many large companies. Leadership is a very broad concept and there are different theories and styles of leadership. This paper focuses more specifically on female leadership styles in marketing, as a concept that is becoming more interesting to study and observe. The study provides an evidence that women leaders in the Republic of North Macedonia dominatly use a participative leadership style, which also means that besides the involvment of the employee in the decision-making process, they show respect, care and empathy for others. The study also shows that there is no differences in leadership styles among the genders, which supports the feminist idea of women being equal to men; thus breaking the business and leadership stereotypes in regards to the women being less valuable in the business environment.