“SECOND CURVE” CONCEPT AS A KEY DRIVER OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE EMERGING MARKETS

Abstract

The paper begins with the understanding that the three-decade-long transition period from a socialist economy to the market one, as an inte-gral part of comprehensive changes in Eastern Europe, both political and ideological ones, re-mains to be a quite problematic and ongoing pro-cess. When it comes to less-developed or transition countries, with a special focus on the Western Balkans, a popular opinion is that the impact of deindustrialization on countries in transition was as painful and radical as the “coming” of soci-alism. Therefore, when addressing the need for a new formula for development, it is a matter of great concern that today’s multipolar world lacks well-established development paradigms, parti-cularly taking into account an obvious stagnation in reforms, i.e. the so-called reform failure. In the authors’ opinion, it is possible to end the crisis in underdeveloped and transition countries only by introducing a “new” order, i.e. by finding a “new” economic development paradigm. In the light of the above, this paper indicates the need to replace the current transitional models of economic transformation with a turn-around strategy that would be based on reindustrialization, i.e. newly created industrial policies. Finally, this would imply the implementation of the “second curve“(the “S-curve”) concept in the change management processes.