Introduction. In the modern educational space, an intensive digital transformation is currently taking place, which imposes new requirements for teacher competencies. This determines the relevance of setting goals and solving problems in order to develop up-to-date models for improving the qualifications of teachers of vocational education and training (VET). The paper discusses the current state of the development of digital competencies of teachers and teachers of Serbia and Russia in line with the European Digital Competence Framework (DigComp) and the European Digital Competence Framework for Educators (DigСompЕdu). The paper includes an analysis of the peculiarities of vocational education and training systems, as well as the directions of further training of teachers, conducted by participants in the international project “Professional Development of Vocation Education Teachers with European Practices (Pro-VET)”. In order to better understand national contexts, the content of the reports of the participating countries of the project was analysed in the context of the EU policy and strategy for the development of digital competency of VET teachers. In this article, the authors focus on exploring digital competencies required of VET teachers within the European Digital Competence Framework for Educators (DigСompЕdu) to identify digital competencies and development needs of Serbian and Russian VET teachers when working in online learning environments. The aims of the research are the following: 1) to compare the educational needs of Russian and Serbian VET teachers in the development of their digital pedagogical competencies; 2) to identify the theoretical and practical base for VET teachers’ digitally competent development programme design in the context of online learning according to the best European practices in the field of VET. Methodology and research methods. The development of the model was based on learning theories, didactics and practical approaches to soft skills development in online learning environments. The research has been conducted by the means of document analysis, theoretical analysis and synthesis methods, comparative method, modelling method and expert estimation method. Results and scientific novelty. Key aspects of VET teacher training systems in Russia and Serbia are compared and needs in development of digital pedagogical skills of Russian and Serbian VET teachers are identified. A developed model of VET teachers’ digitally competent development programme design in the context of online learning according to best European practices in this fields is represented by two components: structural and functional. The structural component of VET teachers’ digitally competent development model contains: learning theories and didactics, adult learning theories, soft skills development approaches in online learning, learning outcomes development approaches. The functional component of the model contains: national and European educational policy, strategies in the field of digitalisation of education and the development of digital competencies of teachers, European Union policies related to online learning; pedagogical, psychological and didactical design parameters of the content of advanced training programmes in the context of e-learning. Practical significance. The demonstrated model is being tested in the framework of the implementation of the international Pro-VET project supported by ERASMUS+. Methodological approaches, procedure and tools of VET teachers’ digitally competent development are being developed and tested. The application of digitally competent development programmes ensures the transparency of training and allows for the correlation of national and international training programmes as well as the development of academic and professional mobility of VET teachers. The process of designing such educational training programmes in online environment for VET teachers has begun at some universities in Russia and Serbia (participants of the project). The developed online training programmes can be used as a basis to design more quality online courses beyond the Pro-VET project in the sphere of professional development for VET teachers.

Research Question: The paper investigated a relationship between innovation and transformational/transactional leadership, as well as the impact of these two leadership styles on innovation. Motivation: As there are small number of studies that have examined the impact of transformational and transactional leadership on innovations within the hospitality industry and in Serbia, the need for investigation is imposed. The paper draws on methodology and works of Bass and Avolio (1997), Hogan et al. (2011) and Nasution et al. (2011) which are, in this paper, applied to the context of hotel industry. The results of this study will expand theory in this field and it could be used as a significant practical guide for hotel management in order to achieve business improvement. Idea: In today's turbulent business environment the ability of the organization to innovate been the decisive factor of surviving, creating and maintaining competitive advantage on the market and also a critical factor in improving what the organization does. The aim of this research is to determine the predictive effect of transformational and transactional leadership on innovations within hotel industry in Serbia. Data: The study included 512 employees in 57 tree, four and five-star hotels in Serbia. Convenient sampling method was applied. The questionnaire used measured the attitude of the employees towards innovations and transformational and transactional leadership, as well as socio-demographic variables Tools: Data was prepared and analysed using statistical software IBM SPSS 24.0. Statistical data processing methods used in this paper are descriptive statistics, the reliability of the instrument, correlation and regression analysis. Findings: The research results show that both transformational and transactional leadership predict innovations, where transformational leadership style is a stronger predictor and better correlate with innovations. The results show that transactional leaders may also encourage innovativeness, but within the frames of the tasks already set. They can also motivate the employees by using different methods such as stimulative rewards, but that they are primarily focused on task execution. Contribution: The results can be used in making future decisions, measures and standards related to human resources management, as well as the development and promotion of innovative activities in hotels.

This paper aims to analyse the entrepreneurial intentions of tourism students, who represent a significant base of future entrepreneurs and are the drivers of innovations and competitiveness in the travel and tourism industry, which is an important part of the economy of the Republic of Serbia. The study examined whether there are differences in students? entrepreneurial intentions depending on socio-demographic characteristics: gender, place of residence, years of study, and previous work experience, as well as their parents? education and type of employment. The survey was conducted in four higher vocational schools in Serbia on a sample of 330 students of tourism and hospitality management using the Entrepreneurial Intention Scale. The results showed that students had medium intention to start and run their own business and indicate that - among the selected socio-demographic factors - gender, years of study, and prior work experience play an important role in fostering entrepreneurial intentions. Understanding the factors that impact entrepreneurship may contribute to the development of theory in this field, as well as helping paint a clearer picture of how entrepreneurial intentions are formed as a starting point in business.

This paper investigates how inflation and its uncertainty impact GDP growth in eight Central and Eastern European Countries. Inflation uncertainty series are created examining several GARCH models in combination with three different distribution functions, while the nonlinear effect of inflation and its uncertainty on GDP growth is assessed in the Bayesian quantile regression framework. We find that inflation has significantly smaller negative effect on GDP growth than inflation uncertainty, which confirms the Friedman hypothesis. This means that inflation in the selected countries has an indirect impact on GDP growth via inflation uncertainty. We find that countries with smaller economy, such as Latvia and Estonia experience more adverse effect from inflation uncertainty in both upturn and downturn conditions, probably because they are vulnerable to external inflationary shocks. As for the countries with bigger economy, inflation uncertainty shocks diminish GDP growth only in conditions when output growth is very low or negative.

Predicting future movements of tourism demand based solely on the past behaviour of variables such as number of overnight stays is crucial for the development of tourism and mitigation of seasonality. Nowadays, there are many different models that could be used for forecasting. Sometimes, some simpler models could fit better to collected data and, in the other hand, more sophisticated ones are more convenient. In this paper, the exponential smoothing models have been applied on the data that was taken from Republic Statistical Office (RSO). The research was conducted on monthly data relating to the number of overnight stays in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš during the period from January 2000 to December 2013. Based on the selected data, forecasting was made for overnight stays until May 2018. It is concluded that the selected models correspond to the observed data, and the precision of the obtained predictions is determined by comparing the BIC precision measures.