"Everything is in transition, change is the only constant"
Prof. Val Samonis, University of Toronto

Why was the Conference established?

The idea of the Conference was born in the early 1990s. At the time, transition was a broad and widely used term, connected with many different fields and processes in a modern society and economy. Changes in the environment of the modern enterprise are so fast and big that it is exposed to a permanent growth and pressure to change itself, to adjust its means, technology, products and production assortment, human resources, organizational structure etc. in order to survive and perform successful business. Therefore, it may be said that a modern enterprise is in permanent transition, regardless of its size and the part of the globe in which it is doing business.

The period from '80s to '90s has brought a new category: "countries in transition". Even though some developing countries (as Turkey, India, Egypt) would claim that they have been "in transition" for several decades, and many developed countries will point out to their periods and processes of transition, the term "countries in transition" has found its specific application in very distinct category of countries: former communist countries from Central and Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. Comprehensive changes that these countries have been undertaking and undergoing since late '80s cannot be, by their width and magnitude, compared with any other country or group of countries.

Enterprises in countries in transition are experiencing deep and manifold processes of transition: ownership, organizational, legal, structural, etc. The scope and complexity of those changes are probably equal to those transformations at the society (macro) level.

Precisely with the intention to animate the scientific analysis and the research of the processes in the modern enterprise that can be encompassed by the term "transition" the Faculty of Economics of the University in Split has started an international conference on "Enterprise in Transition". The aims of the Conference were:

• To highlight the general features of current transition processes in the economies of former socialist countries;
• To analyze the changes going on in a modern enterprise with special regard to the enterprises in the "countries in transition"; 
• To analyze the transition processes in Croatian enterprises and to identify optimal patterns;
• To suggest reconciliation models for potential contradictions between transition processes in Croatia and abroad.

The history of the Conference

The first International Conference on "Enterprise in Transition" was held in October 1995 in Supetar, on the island of Brač. It was the first conference, on this particular and also emerging subject, organized in Croatia. The aim of the Conference was to encourage professional discussion of transitional problems of enterprises with the goal of providing answers to at least some of them. More than 60 papers (75 authors) from 7 different countries were presented at the Conference.

The second Conference was organized in May 1997, in Brela. It was a logical continuation of the first Conference, which confirmed importance of the subject. The growth of the Conference was supported by more than 150 authors from 19 different countries who presented 110 papers, most of which were concentrated on finding adequate solutions for specific transitional problems.

The third conference was held in 1999 in Šibenik, and by that time it was already considered as one of the largest and most important ones on transitional problems, by the number of participants (more than 200 from 30 countries) and papers presented (145).

In May 2001, the fourth International Conference on Enterprise in Transition was organized in Hvar, on the island of Hvar. More than 200 authors from 30 different countries with 155 papers have contributed respectively to the success and expansion of the Conference. It was held under the auspices of the President of the Republic of Croatia, his Excellency Mr Stipe Mesić and Croatian Chamber of Economy. The organizers are proud that the Conference has their support ever since.

The fifth Conference was held in May 2003, in Tučepi. The Conference expanded even further with 287 authors from over 30 countries and 164 papers presented.

The sixth International Conference on "Enterprise in Transition" was organized in Bol, island of Brač, in May 2005, with over 200 authors and over 110 papers presented.

In May 2005 the Conference celebrated its tenth anniversary. During the first ten years of its existence, it has evolved into an important scientific forum which bears the features of the most significant conference of this kind in southeast Europe.

The seventh conference was also held in Bol, in May 2007. The Conference gathered over 150 participants, and its Proceedings, containing 109 papers, were for the first time indexed in the EBSCO and EconLit bases.

It has tried to tackle many problems and issues of transition. Besides being oriented to the enterprise, the Conference has clearly emphasized the interdependence of the micro and macro approach. Macroeconomic environment has immediate consequences on enterprise behavior, so the Conference has addressed the issues of optimal macroeconomic regulation to foster the enterprises' growth and progress. In addition, the issues of transition models have been discussed on the social level. The globalization process and its challenges have also been discussed at the Conference.

The experiences and debates of the Conference, during its first ten years, clearly point out that it has been difficult, if not impossible, to set the rules which could be applied to all the situations and all the societies. Thus, it has been shown that although many Central and South-East European countries enter the posttransition period, researchers still have a lot of work to do, and that many questions still have not been answered in an adequate and acceptable way.

Within such a framework, the Conference too has reason to continue. Indeed, apart from the important questions concerning the improvement of business performance on all levels, and the ones referring to the ability to create conditions for increasing profit, there are also the ones which refer to the adequacy of the dominant concepts of economic science. Therefore, one has to wonder whether the economists and scientists have done everything in order to think the social reality through at the beginning of the third millennium and whether the obtained achievements are satisfactory.

So far, the Conference has gathered over 700 scientists from more than 45 countries and established an outstanding economic forum. It has helped numerous relationships among the researchers to be born, several international projects have been carried out and the communication between the scientists from Split and Croatia and many significant centers of the economic science has been considerably improved. Plenty of productive friendships have been established, many joint papers have been produced, and lots of cultures and attitudes have met and come closer together.

Bringing together people from different societies as well as promoting scientific dialogue and activities aiming at the public welfare remain the Conference's main interest and mission in its second decade.