IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v17y2025i13p5894-d1688243.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring the Determinants of Energy Vulnerability in Micro-Enterprises: Insights from the Croatian Case Study

Author

Listed:
  • Ivana Rogulj

    (Institute for European Energy and Climate Policy, Kingsfordweg 151, 1043 Amsterdam, The Netherlands
    Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Rijeka, Ivana Filipovića 4, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia)

  • Saša Žiković

    (Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Rijeka, Ivana Filipovića 4, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia)

  • Stavros Spyridakos

    (Institute for European Energy and Climate Policy, Kingsfordweg 151, 1043 Amsterdam, The Netherlands
    Department of Chemical Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University Campus, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece)

Abstract

Micro-enterprises are vital to the European economy, including in Croatia, where they make over 88% of the total number of businesses. Despite their significance, they face substantial energy vulnerability due to factors like small size, limited financial resources, and high energy costs. This paper investigates the determinants of energy vulnerability among Croatian micro-enterprises, employing a survey of 470 micro-enterprises. The study covers firms across all Croatian NUTS2 regions and ensures geographic and sectoral representativeness. Key findings reveal that enterprises with higher energy expenditures relative to revenue are most susceptible to energy vulnerability, which is aligned with our assumption. On the other hand, businesses that own their premises, have more employees, and have been operational longer are more likely to invest in energy efficiency measures, thereby reducing vulnerability. Notably, a significant proportion of micro-enterprises report that energy costs adversely affect their household finances, highlighting the nature of business and personal economic stability. The paper underscores the need for targeted policies and support mechanisms to enhance the energy-related resilience of micro-enterprises, considering their unique structural and financial constraints.

Suggested Citation

  • Ivana Rogulj & Saša Žiković & Stavros Spyridakos, 2025. "Exploring the Determinants of Energy Vulnerability in Micro-Enterprises: Insights from the Croatian Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-21, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:13:p:5894-:d:1688243
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/13/5894/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/13/5894/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Will McDowall & Tobias Reinauer & Panagiotis Fragkos & Michal Miedzinski & Jennifer Cronin, 2023. "Mapping regional vulnerability in Europe’s energy transition: development and application of an indicator to assess declining employment in four carbon-intensive industries," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(2), pages 1-23, February.
    2. Alex Coad & Jacob Rubæk Holm & Jackie Krafft & Francesco Quatraro, 2018. "Firm age and performance," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 1-11, January.
    3. Bird, Stephen & Hernández, Diana, 2012. "Policy options for the split incentive: Increasing energy efficiency for low-income renters," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 506-514.
    4. Eric Scheier & Noah Kittner, 2022. "A measurement strategy to address disparities across household energy burdens," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.
    5. Linda S. Niehm & Nancy J. Miller & Mack C. Shelley & Margaret A. Fitzgerald, 2009. "Small Family Business Survival: Strategies For Coping With Overlapping Family And Business Demands," Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (JDE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 14(03), pages 209-232.
    6. Carlos Herce & Chiara Martini & Claudia Toro & Enrico Biele & Marcello Salvio, 2024. "Energy Efficiency Policies for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-34, January.
    7. Radu Herman & Cornelia Nistor & Nicolae Marius Jula, 2023. "The Influence of the Increase in Energy Prices on the Profitability of Companies in the European Union," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(21), pages 1-16, October.
    8. Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Donati, Cristiana & Spagnolo, Nicola, 2023. "Small and medium sized European firms and energy saving measures: The role of financing," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    9. D'Amico, A. & Ciulla, G. & Panno, D. & Ferrari, S., 2019. "Building energy demand assessment through heating degree days: The importance of a climatic dataset," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 242(C), pages 1285-1306.
    10. Margaritis, Dimitris & Psillaki, Maria, 2010. "Capital structure, equity ownership and firm performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 621-632, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ashbaugh, Melissa & Kittner, Noah, 2024. "Addressing extreme urban heat and energy vulnerability of renters in Portland, OR with resilient household energy policies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    2. Khémiri, Wafa & Noubbigh, Hédi, 2020. "Size-threshold effect in debt-firm performance nexus in the sub-Saharan region: A Panel Smooth Transition Regression approach," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 335-344.
    3. Tice, Julianne & Batterbury, Simon PJ, 2023. "Who Accesses Solar PV? Energy Justice and Climate Justice in a Local Government Rooftop Solar Programme," Ecology, Economy and Society - the INSEE Journal, Indian Society of Ecological Economics (INSEE), vol. 6(02), July.
    4. Baah Aye Kusi & Lydia Adzobu & Alex Kwame Abasi & Kwadjo Ansah-Adu, 2020. "Sectoral Loan Portfolio Concentration and Bank Stability: Evidence from an Emerging Economy," Journal of Emerging Market Finance, Institute for Financial Management and Research, vol. 19(1), pages 66-99, April.
    5. Hossain, Mohammad Razib & Singh, Sanjeet & Sharma, Gagan Deep & Apostu, Simona-Andreea & Bansal, Pooja, 2023. "Overcoming the shock of energy depletion for energy policy? Tracing the missing link between energy depletion, renewable energy development and decarbonization in the USA," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    6. Bae, John & Kim, Sang-Joon & Oh, Hannah, 2017. "Taming polysemous signals: The role of marketing intensity on the relationship between financial leverage and firm performance," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 29-40.
    7. Riaqa Mubeen & Dongping Han & Jaffar Abbas & Iftikhar Hussain, 2020. "The Effects of Market Competition, Capital Structure, and CEO Duality on Firm Performance: A Mediation Analysis by Incorporating the GMM Model Technique," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-18, April.
    8. Xu, Xiaojing & Chen, Chien-fei, 2019. "Energy efficiency and energy justice for U.S. low-income households: An analysis of multifaceted challenges and potential," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 763-774.
    9. George Georgakopoulos & Kanellos Toudas & Evangelos I. Poutos & Theodoros Kounadeas & Stefanos Tsavalias, 2022. "Capital Structure, Corporate Governance, Equity Ownership and Their Impact on Firms’ Profitability and Effectiveness in the Energy Sector," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-10, May.
    10. Meng, Rujing & Ning, Xiangdong & Zhou, Xianming & Zhu, Hongquan, 2011. "Do ESOPs enhance firm performance? Evidence from China's reform experiment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 1541-1551, June.
    11. Stefani, Gianluca & Gadanakis, Yiorgos & Lombardi, Ginevra Virginia & Tiberti, Marco, 2017. "The impact of financial leverage on farms capacity to react in market shocks," 2017 International Congress, August 28-September 1, 2017, Parma, Italy 261156, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    12. Diana Hernández, 2024. "Prisms of Possibility: Biographically situated insights on the transformative potential of sustainable affordable housing," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 52(3), pages 585-595, May.
    13. Sabri Boubaker & Riadh Manita & Wael Rouatbi, 2021. "Large shareholders, control contestability and firm productive efficiency," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 296(1), pages 591-614, January.
    14. Mammadaliyev, Farid & Gilsing, Victor & Knoben, J., 2024. "How do firms adapt their portfolios of external collaborations to changing internal organizational attributes? The moderating role of firm age," Other publications TiSEM 56c854b7-ed86-4830-843e-c, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    15. Domenico Palladino & Flavio Scrucca & Nicolandrea Calabrese & Grazia Barberio & Carlo Ingrao, 2021. "Durum-Wheat Straw Bales for Thermal Insulation of Buildings: Findings from a Comparative Energy Analysis of a Set of Wall-Composition Samples on the Building Scale," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-19, September.
    16. Pilar López-Delgado & Julio Diéguez-Soto & María J. Martínez-Romero & Teresa Mariño-Garrido, 2024. "Acquisition activity: do firm age and family control matter?," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 14(2), pages 447-473, June.
    17. Rhys Andrews, 2022. "Organizational Publicness and Mortality: Explaining the Dissolution of Local Authority Companies," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 350-371, March.
    18. Jia-Hua Tsai & Shiow-Ying Wen, 2013. "Intellectual Capital, Corporate Governance and Firm Performance," Information Management and Business Review, AMH International, vol. 5(10), pages 482-491.
    19. Kebewar, Mazen & Shah, Syed Muhammad Noaman Ahmed, 2013. "The effect of debt on corporate profitability: Evidence from French service sector," EconStor Preprints 73556, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    20. Mário Santos & António Moreira & Elisabete Vieira, 2014. "Ownership concentration, contestability, family firms, and capital structure," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 18(4), pages 1063-1107, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:13:p:5894-:d:1688243. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.