Author(s):
1. Željka Pejić,

Abstract:
The impact of environment on a local government is also evident in the way in which the local government adopts or rejects actions and reactions of its external environment. Benchmarking in this sense enables strategic defining of important back circuits from the environment on which the local government depends. The external environment of a local government implies the effects on social and business plan. Benchmarking in this role may also be applicable as a business and as a social tool, but the optimal application is a strategic approach by which, based on benchmarking, both business and social effects are achieved. For a local government, benchmarking as a strategic tool has importance because of the necessity of the accomplishment of public interest and the implementation of projects on which economy of the local government depends, as well as the development of the local community. In Bosnia and Herzegovina only 17% of local governments apply a model of benchmarking in the processes of strategic planning. Regional centers lead in the benchmarking application, but the study shows that 30% of the local communities which population is up to 20 000 have local governments which apply good practice of local governments from European countries. That percentage is significantly lower for the project implementation processes defined in the strategies of the integrated local development. Benchmarking, as an effective model of learning from better ones is applied in the area of town planning, administrative services and information technologies. As the study, which has been conducted for the purposes of this paper, shows, the development of a local community, and at the same time the development of the local government, directly affects the applicability of benchmarking. It is interesting that benchmarking as a model of learning is more applied by civil servants within municipal services, whereas the local government top management, in other words, municipal mayors and their assistants use benchmarking as a strategic tool in just 6% of the local governments. Local communities in which benchmarking is not applied have significantly lower rate of development, as well as a smaller number of implemented projects from the strategic documents at an annual level. The conducted study is quite relevant, as it shows the extent of the idle capacities and resources in the local governments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by which employment strategic planning becomes effective, which is particularly noticeable in the development of local economy.

Key words:
benchmarking model, local government, strategic planning, local development, local community

Date of abstract submission:
02.09.2013.

Conference:
REDETE 2014 - Researching Economic Development and Entrepreneurship in Transition Economies