Financial Literacy of Managers in Serbian Health Care Organizations as a Path to Sustainability

Jasna Gačić, Stefan Milojević, Snežana Knežević () and Miljan Adamović
Additional contact information
Jasna Gačić: Medical Center Bežanijska Kosa, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Belgrade, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
Stefan Milojević: Audit, Accounting, Financial and Consulting Service Company “Moodys Standards” Ltd., 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
Snežana Knežević: Faculty of Organizational Science, University of Belgrade, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
Miljan Adamović: Pharmacy Institution “Zdravlje Lek”, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 7, 1-26

Abstract: Adequate financial management is of great importance to the health care system. In the contemporary state of affairs, health care is facing numerous limitations due to drastic costs and growing pressures to provide quality health care. In such appalling conditions, the managers of health organizations must build skills and knowledge that go beyond the comfort zone of their clinical competencies. It is necessary to develop their leadership skills. Bearing in mind the importance of financial competencies, the general aim of this paper is to determine the competencies of the managers of Serbian health institutions (private and public sector) in this area. Insufficient attention has been given to how health care organizations’ financial literacy affects their sustainability. For the purpose of this prospective research, a questionnaire was created that surveyed the managers of various health care institutions. The results of this study indicated that managers of health organizations have a relatively modest level of financial knowledge. However, they participate in financial activities to a large extent. This gap between the function they perform and the knowledge they have can potentially harm the well-being of the health care organizations they lead. Managers of organizations in the public sector showed a more active role in the development of business plans and more frequent independent decision making, while managers of organizations in the private sector gave more importance to financial control, negotiation, and internal financial reporting, for the improvement of the management process.

Keywords: financial management; financial literacy; financial knowledge and skills; health organizations; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/7/6113/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/7/6113/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:7:p:6113-:d:1113688

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().