Dissertation

(English) This doctoral dissertation is focused on the research of trends in work organization of companies in the dental industry. Namely, the rapid development of medical knowledge, technique, and technology in the field of dental medicine has changed the appearance and strength of that industry, quantitatively, qualitatively, and financially, in such a way that it has become attractive to eminent investors. Consequently, there is an evident trend of growth of strategic company associations in managed supply chains, in order to achieve the best possible synergistic effects resulting from mutual cooperation of companies. Such dramatic changes in the organization and cooperation of the work of companies in dental medicine have led to the situation that today the market competition takes place between supply chains, in contrast to the previous situation, where small, dental offices with limited resources competed with each other. Current trends also inspired this research, which tries to answer the question, why do companies form strategic alliances and how is their cooperation carried out? In order to get answers to these and many other questions, a model was developed that empirically investigates the relationships between entities in the dental industry of the Republic of Croatia. To determine the nature of the relationship between companies and end users of dental industry services, the application of the concept of supply chain management in companies that provide dental treatment services in the Republic of Croatia was analysed. The research is based on the knowledge that the implementation of the concept of supply chain management, and especially the factors of supply chain management in the dental industry, has not been sufficiently investigated. Precisely for this reason, there is a need to first identify and then analyse more deeply and widely the supply chain management factors that contribute positively to organizational performance and end user satisfaction. In the theoretical model, the relationships of supply chain factors: value creation, technology, information technology and digitization, availability of financing sources on supply chain performance and organizational performance were tested. After test of the proposed model, it was determined that performance technology and relationships between participants in the supply chain strongly and positively influence the performance of the supply chain. Furthermore, value creation, information technology and digitization of processes only partially positively affect the performance of the company's supply chain. It has been confirmed that the availability of financing sources does not statistically affect the performance of the supply chain. In the last stage of model testing, it was proven that supply chain performance only partially affects customer satisfaction, and customer satisfaction does not contributes to organizational performance. The conducted research is the basis for further research in the dental industry in order to identify the influence of other factors that contribute to the success of supply chains. This is supported by the fact that this research has proven that not all factors of the supply chain affect its success, but also that dental medicine is subject to dynamic changes that need to be continuously adapted.