This paper aims at analyzing the role of strategic CSR in creating stable long term performance in the automotive industry. The first part of the paper reviews the success factors for the European auto industry and analyses the influence strategic CSR has on these factors. In order to illustrate the relation between strategic CSR activities and the economic performance, the paper presents the strategic evolution of one of the most ancient motor companies on the international scene, namely Peugeot and evaluates the innovative ideas brought into the market, as well as its future prospects. The PSA Group holds a position of European leader in terms of CO2 emissions, with an average of 110.3 grams of CO2/km in 2014. The PSA Peugeot Citroen Group’s strategy is being increasingly oriented towards environmental protection and energy saving.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Industry, Automotive, Raising productivity, Cost/value, Brand distinction, Managerial resources and technology capabilities, Green manufacturing, Product life cycle, Product differentiation
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
Comparisons are concerns of governments seeking other international education policies that increase the chances of economic and social individuals, provide conditions for greater efficiency in schools and help to mobilize the necessary resources to cover unlimited needs which are continuously increasing. All these reasons involve international organizations in education and statistics to make considerable efforts to develop and analyze comparable European and worldly indicators. Efforts in supporting the creation of educational systems that ensure the existence of labor market skills and abilities needed levels of study required by employers. Thus, while it is an increase in the global demand for education (the default will lead to increased supply of educated individuals in the labor market), it becomes particularly important to monitor this demand for skilled workers.
- Type: Case study
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Education system, European indicators, Labor market
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
Within the present paper, we propose to review some of the main aspects documented by the academic research so far with regard to the online purchasing behaviour in the B2B online environment (more specifically, in the case of the small and medium-sized companies). Preliminary conclusions reveal that, at least in the case studies, the dominant feature is that the geographic delimitation creates a potential obstacle when it comes to applying a general principle governing the small and medium-sized enterprises. Despite this, we consider that some theoretical elements can be acknowledged, elements from which future research can start to develop theories and hypothesis aimed at better explaining the phenomenon. Furthermore, the fact that the studies are rarely involving the same sector, makes it impossible to generalise the process.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: E-commerce, B2B, Online purchasing, Literature review
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
This study was drafted with the aim of presenting a version, concerning a set of measures that will be implemented by any corporate firm (and not only), medium size and production capacity, in order to improve the organization marketing, to improve the efficiency of which must have the effect (at least) to maintain market share, maintaining contractual relationships, maintaining trust with creditors, regardless of their nature, improving distribution system etc. When using this version, it will put pressure on any company, but we remember that we implement the proposed measures which one must be carried in conditions of fair and strong competition and that, binding, must be taken into perspective, aspects such as the internationalization of business environments and economic globalization, issues can not be neglected, even if they pertain at distant prospect. We developed this version, after multiple and extensive comparative analysis, on different companies in the corporate environment, in many countries and we have concluded that the proposed measures can meet the requirements to a good extent.
- Type: Case study
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Marketing division, Company, Relations system
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
The implementation of a managerial accounting system represents a genuine initiative for implementing change, this involving the need for change, a vision of change and strategy, and last, but not least, innovation stimulation. In the last decades, the implementation of such a system translated into a broader reform, including the management system used. A management control system, once implemented, tends to attract the manifestation of creative accounting phenomena, especially in times of crisis. Taking these into consideration, the article aims to highlight the importance of the implementation of a modern managerial accounting system in the Romanian firms, as well as to analyse the potential consequences of this process, from the author’s point of view.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Managerial accounting system, Implementation, Goal setting, Rational distribution
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
A distinctive feature of developed economies is the vital role of entrepreneurship as a central pillar of economic growth. In the context of growing number of new businesses, this article aims to highlight the key factors that affect the entrepreneurship in Romania. The authors reviewed several scientific articles and business reports and also primary data collected via direct interaction with young entrepreneurs and students that aspire to become entrepreneurs in Romania. Issues like access to financing, taxes and other administrative barriers and also entrepreneurial skills and education are discussed. Moreover, entrepreneurs’ opinions on measures to improve the entrepreneurial education are listed.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Business education, Survey, Romania
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
Biomass, along with other renewable energy sources (solar, wind power, hydropower, etc.) is the alternative energy to conventional energy sources. The need of alternative energy sources is given by the increase in energy demand associated with the reduction of conventional sources. They are supplemented by society efforts for reducing the global warming. Thus the biomass use is enthusiastically received and supported by numerous development policies. Nevertheless, the use of biomass to obtain energy involves negative effects on society and also on the environment, generating concerns about the ethics of human actions. All these concerns regarding the biomass use can be prevented and ameliorated by a legislative framework that integrates among the economic and environmental, social and ethical principles. Because without a set of ethical principles aimed at fairness between individuals, social responsibility and also intrinsic value of the biosphere, challenges and problems generated by the use of renewable resources will be intensified
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Social challenges, Ethical challenges, Renewable sources, Biomass
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
For a correct functioning of a market, prices represent vital information. As the organic agricultural market is much younger than the conventional agricultural market, the prices for organic agricultural commodities tend to be less transparent than those of the conventional commodities. In Romania there are no published informational bulletins dedicated to organic prices. In order to try to fill in the informational gap, this paper reviews the evolution of prices of wheat on both conventional and organic markets between 2010 and 2015 in Romania and at EU level. Furthermore, the paper discusses the importance of the transparency of prices for the proper functioning of the market and reviews some of the available organic price information in USA and EU.
- Type: Case study
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Romania, Organic prices, Organic market, Wheat
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
In the actual context of accounting nomination and globalization, the requirement for information which reflects the reality and which allows comparison between time and space may be satisfied only by respecting the main accounting principles. These principles, together with accounting policies are the main elements which concur for obtaining a truthful image reflected in financial situations. The elements / items of financial situation are being evaluated according to the main accounting principles, being taken into consideration the limits of accrual accounting. Starting from the diversity of principles and rules that exist within the accounting, this paper aims to form a main problematic frame concerning the principle of the method’s constancy, whose purpose is applying the same registration, evaluation and presentation methods for operations, transactions, and balance sheet elements.
- Type: Case study
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Accounting policies, Accounting principles, Evaluation, Amortization
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
What we do not know yet regards the role of the economy in the post-human (future) society. Does the economy exist in such a society? We believe it does, and we also believe that the economy will not lose its status along with the transition from a society to another. Considering that in the post-human era the individual will live in a virtual space, there will be the so--called (human or non-human) workers who will take care of the maintenance of these virtual spaces. They will be types of economy, something like a hyper-technique, which is capable to interact with the economic and social mechanisms. At the same time, these new features are continuously supported by humans. The aim of this paper is to highlight the role of the economy within a future society. We will present aspects related to genetic engineering, trans-humanism and human enhancement in order to outline the fact that we cannot give up the economy.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Innovation, Technology, Research projects, Individual features, Intelligent agents, Economics
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
In the last two decades, relationship marketing has been a topic of interest for practitioners and researchers who analyze this area. During this period, the development of sustainable business relations represented a strategic priority. From this perspective, relationship marketing is a tool for managers who need to create new organizational structures. The implementing of relationship marketing activities is performed both inside and outside the organization. This article presents the evolution of the concept of relationship marketing in marketing theory and practice from the perspective of intensification of relations between clients and businesses and thus the requirements imposed by the new business environment.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Financial services, Relationship marketing, Managerial approach
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
The paper is dealing with the problems of logistics costs, highlighting some methods for estimation and determination of specific costs for different transport modes in freight distribution. There are highlighted, besides costs of transports, the other costs in supply chain, as well as costing methods used in logistics activities. In this context, there are also revealed some optimization means of transport costs in logistics chain.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Costs, Logistics, Transport, Distribution
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
To enhance the credibility of the information provided to different categories of users, entities make use of services provided by a financial auditor. Thus, auditing also applies to EU-funded projects, being an obligation of the Beneficiary of the project, and it is performed in accordance with ISRS 4400 “Engagements to perform agreed-upon procedures regarding financial information". This standard has a wide scope including, besides the audit of EU-funded projects, the verification of accounts receivable, accounts payable, a financial statement or even a complete set of financial statements. The audit of EU-funded projects is an audit based on agreed-upon procedures, which are established by the Managing Authority or the Intermediate Body. Agreed-upon procedures can be defined as engagements made in accordance with ISRS 4400, applicable to agreed-upon procedures, where the auditor undertakes to carry out the agreed-upon procedures and issue a report on factual findings. The report provided by the auditor does not express any assurance. It allows users to form their own opinions about the conformity of the expenses with the project budget as well as the eligibility of the expenses.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Audit, ISRS 4400, Agreed-upon procedures, European grants
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
In the modern business online marketing communication has become an extremely important phenomenon through its scale and implications on life and society in general. This way the development of the Internet has known a significant worldwide increase in the recent years. Its importance is recognized even by the most approved personalities in literature (Kotler and Keller, 2008), the Internet offering organizations and consumers greater opportunities for interaction and individualization. This article is trying to outline the importance and role of the Internet in communication efforts undertaken by bricolage companies.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Internet, Integrated marketing comunication, Bricolage market, Social media
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
OVERVIEW OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND A THEORETICAL MODEL IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT FOR LOCAL SMES
Most literature on supply chain management (SCM) focuses on large organizations with global operations employing high-level information technology. This creates a gap in the knowledge of how SMEs use and practice (SCM) moreover (SCM) is an area of increasing importance among enterprises and of growing academic interest. It is based on the concept of firms as part of multiple organizations oriented to the provision of goods and services for the final customer. the survival of Small to Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) will be determined by their ability to produce more, at a lower cost, in less time, and with few defects. The use of information technology (IT) is considered a prerequisite for the effective control of today’s complex supply chains. In our research report we first provide a broad over of (SCM) in general for SMEs. We further discuss the evolution of the information technology (IT) in SCM and the performance parameters of the supply chain processes. In this research, the aim is to introduce a special (SCM)theoretical model in general SCM models which is appropriate for SMEs’ structure due to their operation capacity, numerical condition and other features. In accordance with this aim, taking the conditions of this sector into consideration, a two-stage model which is appropriate for structure of SMEs in Romania is proposed. The first stage of the model consists of “supply and production centers” and second stage consists of “product and customer center”
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Supply chain management (SCM), Information technology (IT), Small to Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs)
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
The people that suffered domestic violence should learn to teach themselves, to acquire social experiences and knowledge on their own, to learn how to develop their relationships with other people on the basis of confidence and partnership and be gender sensitive, to learn to collaborate, to make a team successfully, and to learn how to exchange generously their experiences with others. Our training project is built on the non-violence ethics and philosophy. It has a strong ground based on acquiring knowledge through one`s own experience. During each meeting the participants get the power, that is the right to be a competent part in a training dialogue. The participants become active players of the teaching process.
- Type: Case study
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Cognitive appraisal, Emotion, Physiological changes, Cognitive reaction, Biological changes, Response
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
Immigration became one of the relevant economic topics in recent years. Over the centuries millions of people have migrated, despite the physical, cultural etc. obstacles, to other lands in search of better lives for themselves and their children. In the context of development, globalization and labor market mobility, it is necessary to further analyze the determinants and consequences of migration not only on the host country, but also on the sending country. The increased interest and availability of data keeps this subject in the attention of economists all over the world. In this case an increase in immigration became very significant ıssue for policymakers. The aims of this study are to describe immigration growth tendencies and to answer how much is the average growth rate of foreıgn born population. Thus, in order to measure the native and foreign-born unemployed migrants, twenty-seven OECD countries were used in this research paper.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Immigration, OECD, Populatıon, Employment, Unemployment
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
The performance of any brand can be measured by many methods. One of the widely used ways to calculate brand performance is through brand equity. Brand equity can be observed by customer’s perspective as well as financial perspective. This research paper investigates the impact of advertising & promotion, research & development (R&D) and profitability (return on assets) on brand equity. In this research paper data is used from 20 international IT brands for a period of 5 years from 2011 to 2015. The results show that advertising & promotion and profitability have statistically significant impact on brand equity whereas R&D doesn’t make significant impact on brand equity. Based on the findings, it is observed that advertising is having the strongest impact on brand equity.
- Type: Case study
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Brand Equity, Advertising & Promotion, Research & Development, Profitability
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
Benford’s law has attracted many researchers for detecting the fraudulent data and can be used as one of the digital analysis tools for auditing of the accounting data. In this treatise, the accuracy of figures reported in Hungarian Trading Companies’ data are examined through digital analysis technique with the consideration of Benford’s Law. The net sales data from the period of year 2009 to 2014 has been used for detecting the anomalies and to confirm whether the digit-pattern follows Benford’s distribution. Through the obtained results we claimed that the frequencies of first and second digits’ place follow the Benford’s theoretical distribution and exhibits to close conformity. Moreover analysis of the second, first-order and second-order gave a mixed result of close conformity to significant deviation from expected frequency. Also the absolute deviation (MAD) value of first and second digit suggest an overall conformity of the data to Benford’s distribution.
- Type: Case study
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Benford’s Law, Sectoral Analysis, Mean Absolute Deviation
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
One of the most important features of the expansion of education is an increased access to higher education. Educational inequalities appear when the access to education, including higher education is unequally distributed among various groups of individuals. This paper aims to explore main factors that shape the access of individuals to higher education in Romania. I explore micro data on educational attainment in Romania. The main findings show that access to higher education in Romania continues to be mediated by factors such as region, area of residence, gender and family of origin.
- Type: Case study
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Higher education, Educational transition, Education expansion, Educational opportunities
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
Knowledge, qualifications of workforce and human capital became key factors for progress. Human capital flight transfers not only people but work, knowledge, tangible and intangible capital and development potential. In this article, trying to answer whether Romania is a source country for emigration of highly skilled or well-educated individuals (ie human capital flight) I flew over those two dimensions that have traditionally characterized human capital flight namely: shrinking work resource and lossing high educated peoples. Therefore, Romania was faced with decreasing the number of resident population due to the evolution of demographic phenomena with negative projections and declining number of working age population and young educated and highly skilled workers and professionals. This will generate complex problems for economy, labour market, difficulty in finding highly skilled workers, talent shortages etc so it’s critical to monitor the labour migration or brain drain phenomenon.
- Type: Case study
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Human capital flight, Brain drain, Labour migration
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
Nobody is planning to fail, but many companies are failing because of lack of planning. Real business experience showed during the years that crisis can be prevented, avoided or limited. If detected in time, the risks associated with the crisis can be mitigated and the effects can be diminished, with the condition that the actions required are done fast, in a sharp and accurate manner. When it comes, a crisis brings an intense level of pressure and under these conditions there is no time or room for mistakes. Delays, losing focus and lack of planning will bring a company one step away from failure. The right way to deal with crisis, if required measures are not done in time, is to minimize the losses and reposition in the best way possible. Analysing the success stories of some of the biggest and strongest companies in the world, led to an important conclusion: the majority of these companies were in the situation to face huge crises which threatened their ability to survive in certain moments, on their way to success. With the right planning and by setting a proper organisational structure, the negative aspects of the crisis can be turned into benefits and opportunities for the company. The most critical challenge for management is to assess the level of exposure to risk of the company and identify the key points to focus on in order to overcome the crisis and create value. In order to set up a strong plan in dealing with crisis, a business organisation needs reliable, efficient and effective tools and this is what this article is all about.
- Type: Perspective, opinion and commentary
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Lack of Planning, Right Planning, Team, Focus, Crisis, Planning Tools
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
This paper aims to contribute to a constructive debate on human rights. The two World Wars of the last century brought about the creation of the United Nations aimed “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small”. Only three years later the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights was elaborated and promoted by the UN, considered to be the foundation of international human rights law. Today, as globalization brings all closer together in a “global village”, one can see that there are many ways to perceive and guarantee human rights, in different states, but also within different states. Poverty, illiteracy, censorship, cruel treatment and even the lack of guarantee for the right to life are, unfortunately, the norm for many people of the world. Such observations bring up questions regarding the legitimacy, universality and coherence of human rights.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Human Rights, Legitimacy, Universality
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
More and more projects from different industrial sectors developed in transnational environment are becoming more characterized as "complex". In recent years, there has been much discussion and controversy about the complexity of the projects, and, despite what has been written and said in various papers, journals and professional conferences, more confusion than clarification was created, complexity of projects being interpreted differently from one author to another. Most of the literature studied is based on linear, analytical and rational approach, focusing on the size of project management planning and control and actually less on projects that are characterized as taking place and grow into a dynamic socio-human environment in a continuous change. This study represents a critical review of existing theoretical models found in literature, highlighting their limitations. The output of this literature study represents an integration of different approaches concerning complexity under one umbrella to provide a common understanding of the evolution of this concept.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 10th November, 2016
- Keywords: Project, Large, Complex, Complicated, Transnational
- Received: 2nd October, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 7th November, 2016
Emerging Economies from Central and Eastern Europe take steps to ensure growth through tourism. Although they do not have the cultural, historical and artistic potential of the most famous tourist destinations, these economies promote forms of tourism for which they have suitable conditions. For example, Hungary is famous for health tourism, Bulgaria has made progress in terms of coastal tourism and Romania tries to make known the rural area although it has all conditions for practicing a wide diversified range of tourism forms. In this paper we present statistics showing how the tourism industry looks for three Central and Eastern European countries and we do a brief comparative analysis.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Growth, Development, Emerging Markets, Tourism, Sustainability
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
The article contains the results of a case study realized in two distinct areas - the ”Țara Dornelor” and ”Ținutul Neamțului”- in order to explain the characteristic elements which make them look alike or contrarily, differentiate them in terms of ethnographic tourism. There were observed, therefore, the measure and degree in which the tourists' motivation regarding a geographical area is influenced by variables that refer to natural and anthropic potential of the investigated area or contrarily, by variables related rather to socioeconomic features of respondents. The research methodology aimed to the preparing and applying of a questionnaire in the period April 2015 - February 2016 on a representative sample of 300 respondents, especially tourists encountered in those study areas, and the analysis and interpretation of data base were accomplished through parametric and non-parametric tests of descriptive and inferential statistics. The results show the manner in which the tourists' motivation and the periodicity of touristic phenomenon is generally, different from one area to another.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Ethnographic tourism, Țara Dornelor, Neamț County, Touristic demand, Touristic offer
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
One of the most important characteristics of tourism, as an economic and social phenomenon is that it has become a leading sector of the Hungarian economy. The importance of this sector is faithfully reflected by the fact that tourism gives nearly 9% of the GDP. Of course, aim of the enterprises of this type is the liquidity as well i.e. to maintain the short-term solvency that is essential for the long-term successful and smooth operation. The other aim of enterprises is to be solvent for the long-term as well, furthermore, to increase the corporate value and to maximize the ownership value. In our treatise, we have carried out the financial analysis and bankruptcy prediction of those enterprises providing accommodation service which are the biggest from the point of view of employment in the Northern Great Plain region. We think that, due to seasonality, even greater emphasis shall be placed on this area where useful information can be obtained from and the results of bankruptcy model can also provide further useful information and ”problem alerts”.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Accommodation service providing, Solvency, Bankruptcy prediction
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
Consideration of the employees’ health preservation results in direct cost savings at corporate level by decreasing the measure of sick leave and ensuring the continuous and smooth production. Nowadays, ensuring the health of labour force has already become an employer interest, of course, in addition to that it is also the interest of everyone. In our research, we have asked employees of Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises in the framework of questionnaire survey. It was clearly apparent that the physical activity of workers has to be enhanced and their sporting activities have to be supported. According to the results of our research, these types of organizations support the health protection of their employees, moreover in financing form of allowances primarily.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Employees’ health, Physical inactivity, Small medium enterprises
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
In recent years the tourism industry has seen a rise in scope and influences both in the political and economic arenas. The industry has become exposed to risks such as money laundering and fraudulent reporting, demanding the use of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) to reduce differences in financial reporting and increase the attractiveness of the sector for investors. For the purpose of this paper, a sample of 611 equities in the tourism and hospitality business was used in order to understand the state of financial reporting in the sector with an emphasis on the relevance of financial information and other issues such as timeliness and the adherence to a true and fair presentation. The research reveals the enhanced relevance obtained from the use of the IFRS as well as risks for the financial management of the companies.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Tourism, Financial reporting, Relevance, Equity markets
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
In this paper we will try to analyse the cultural tourism. We will start by referring to the complex concepts of tourism and culture and to the synergies existing between them. We will define cultural tourism and present its appearance and evolution as well as its importance as a modern form of tourism. We will present the various types of cultural tourism with their characteristics and the specific features of cultural tourists according to their interests. We will also mention that there are advantages and disadvantages for any kind of tourism depending on the position – local communities, companies or tourists. For the future we will refer to the new partnership between UNWTO and UNESCO.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Culture, Tourism, Cultural Tourism
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
The current challenge of prevention and fighting obesity in children looked at by specialists in the social, medical and psychological areas is also treated by specialists in sport and physical education. Having been underestimated for a long time, overweighting and obesity represents a real threat known by the International Health Organization that classifies it as „global epidemic”. This really is a global problem: there were 1.6 billion overweight people in the world in 2005 (out of a total of 6.671 billion people), out of which at least 400 million are obese and the IHO estimates that in 2015 there were 2.3 billion overweight people out of which 700 million are obese. Obesity among children is more and more often seen at much younger ages with twice to four times the expected weight for an average child. Moreover, in Romania the number of obese primary school children have doubled in the late eight years, as written in a report given by the Institute of Public Health- as Rubin Munteanu, specialist in general surgery.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Obesity, Children, Prevention, Physical activity
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
Lipoprotein(a) is an independent and genetically predominant factor in determining cardiovascular diseases in children and adolescents, given that diet and lipid-lowering agents have no impact on Lp(a) serum levels. Many studies in the literature highlight the atherogenic and prothrombotic potential of lipoprotein(a) in children with a family history of cardiovascular disease and hypercholesterolemia, causing coronary vascular disease, cerebral accident and peripheral arterial diseases. Given this potential, lipoprotein(a) dosage can be involved in the prevention and reduction of cardiovascular risk factors in childhood and adolescence, thus reducing morbidity and mortality.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Lipoprotein(a), Prevention, Risk factors, Cardiovascular diseases, Adolescents
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
This paper investigates the location decisions of foreign direct investments by the most important global multinational companies in Romania. The study covers the top 100 multinational companies, according to Fortune and underline that all of them have the headquarters location in the United States. In particular, this analysis presents the distribution of global companies based on the main industry and major economic sectors. The first company, from the rank 100, that invests in our country is Exxon Mobil (the number two on the list) and has numerous projects in petroleum refining industry in many other countries, because energy sector is one of the most important ones in the global economy.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Multinationals, Foreign Direct Investment, Location choice
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
Taking into account the major impact that international trade has on the economy and on the people’s lives, and considering its effects on the economic growth, the foreign commerce has to be well understood so that the commercial policies have to be well elaborated, implemented and followed. The theories of international trade are extremely important in order to determine the flows, but especially in the anticipation of the evolution of the forces that influences its dymanic. The theories regarding the foreign trade are used also by the big companies, by their managers, in their attempt to identify the most advantageous strategies of internationalizations, on the most promising markets.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: International trade, Trade flows, Theories of international trade
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of social responsibility actions of the main bricolage companies doing business in Romania on their value, and mutually the impact these activities have on various social sectors. CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) is a concept related to the contribution that companies need to have to the development of modern society. Over time, this contribution has been theorized by many different schools of thought. "Responsible" initiatives of companies have been named by a variety of terms: corporate citizenship, corporate philanthropy, corporate societal marketing, community affairs, community development etc. Consequently, currently, to demonstrate that it is "socially responsible", a company must understand the principles of CSR that are internationally promoted and regularly report about the integration of these principles in its activities.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Social responsibility, Qualitative marketing research, Bricolage market, Impact
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
In this paper the author analyzes the dependence between energy and industrial competitiveness before and after the 2008 economic crisis in the European Union. The Europe 2020 strategy aims energy major industrial competitiveness and increasing energy efficiency. But the economic crisis of 2008 led to reduced energy consumption and prices have increased considerably, so prices in the European Union in the energy industry are estimated to be twice higher than in the United States and Russia and 20% higher than those in China. According to the 2020 European Strategy for Sustainable Growth proposed increasing share of renewables to 20% increasing 20% energy efficiency and 20% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions greenhouse (or even 30 %, in favorable conditions) compared to 1990. The economic analysis in this paper are based on statistical quantitative method. Indicators used in this analysis are available on major platforms Eurostat data.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Economy competitive, energy efficiency, renewable energy
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
Under the current conditions of conducting international economic relations, there is a risk of failing to accomplish the monetary policy objectives due to reasons pertaining to the mechanisms that convey shocks cross-border. The conceptual review of object definition, under such conditions, leads to the necessity of attaching to them these risks of unfulfillment; this requires an additional chapter of macroeconomic policy design, chapter that identifies the possible risks emerging from the integrated cross-border regime of the European economies, as well as the possible solutions to absorb such shocks. This implicitly presumes the quantification of the whole phenomenon or risk emergence and of its possible effects, with the view to determine the effort necessary to be undertaken in order to absorb the associated shock.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Equilibrium, Balance, Sustainability, Risks, Monetary
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
The present work tries to underline the effects of the worldwide crisis, and also present certain solutions for solving it. During periods of prosperity, people forget about crisis, neglecting the aspect of designing systems for handling possible crisis. Both the financial crisis and the significant financial tensions are considered rare events. Due to this, the mechanisms of handling the existing crisis at the time it appeared could be improper, certain laws being able to slow the action, or the instruments and formalities in a country may be different, this leading to lack of cooperation between states. At the same time, Romania, being affected by the crisis, causes discussions about its nature, about the methods of surpassing the difficulties and promoting the Romanian society. The present papers outlines certain effects of the worldwide crisis, which can be different from a country to another.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Crisis, Financial Market, Prices
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
The aim of the paper is the taxation system in Romania and European Union. The first part is concentrated on the theoretical and general aspects regarding the European fiscal policies with a focus on the conditions that member states should respect. Our research continues with the comparison between the share of indirect taxes and direct taxes at the EU level. We discovered that there are some fiscal connections between countries with similar economies. At the end, we emphasized the conclusions obtained with our article.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Economic stability, Direct taxes, Indirect taxes, Fiscal system
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
In the field of economy, transactions represent one of the fastest means available for improving any company’s commercial and strategic position in the market. The context of technological developments in recent years and the trend of globalization have largely influenced work in the fields of goods and services. Currently, geographical factors are no longer an obstacle and companies can expand their production without being influenced by state frontiers. International mergers and acquisitions are, most often, joined by a true "cultural shock"] [ Bogdan Anastasia "Fenomene culturale in achizitiile si fuziunile internationale (Cultural Phenomena in International Acquisitions and Mergers)"- Intercultural Management - Volume II, Issue 3/2000, ISSN 1454-9980] and must comply with regulations on competition both nationally and internationally. Since the penalties imposed by authorities in charge of competition regulations are substantial, both internationally and nationally, this means that, when making mergers, one should be very cautious.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Merger, Acquisition, Lucrative companies, Penalty, Competition
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
The foreign direct investments, performed in a transparent manner and for long enough periods of time, represent a motor for the development of national economies. The present paper proposes an analysis of the foreign capital involved in the autochthonous agrifood production with a stress on the area of the agricultural and industrial food processing. Apart from the reports of National Bank of Romania, the necessary information regarding the foreign capital in the Romanian agrifood area are scarce and of a general nature. The undertaken analysis pinpointed predominant speculative aspects of the foreign investments in the agricultural lands in Romania as well as the main circumstantial character of the foreign capital involved in the agrifood processing. In crisis situations or in the absence of some profitable enough opportunities, the foreign investors leave the Romanian market, migrating towards more economically attractive areas. The bringing into effect of some mutually beneficial contracts, that allow the protection of the autochthonous capital, i.e. durable foreign investments and profitable for the national economy must be a priority for the Romanian authorities.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment, Agriculture, Food processing, Romania
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
This paper comes to describe the relation between two representative concepts within the wide literature in the field of regional development and cooperation. As many of concepts that are used in our times, the regional competitiveness and the regional convergence are two notions that have a transdisciplinary feature, a phenomenon that emphasizes the fact that the approaches in the literature are different and are the results of the researches in different field, though approaching the same two aspects. Regional competitiveness regards the ability of one region to compete and develop itself through the products and services it produces and provides, which are the ultimate result of the cooperation between the companies, institutions, socio-political policies within that region, while maintaining or developing the living standards of its population. On the other hand, regional convergence is the result of a series of policies and decisions made by a superior institution, that are designed to reduce the differences between the development level between the economic regions within a certain area.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Regional development, Regional competitiveness, Regional convergence, Policies, Institutions
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
This paper represents a brief though concentrated review on the common aspects that are pursued when dealing and talking about the concept of cluster, also displaying some motivating reasons for the companies, institutions and all related entities to choose and support the clustering process. The clusters represent geographical concentrations of companies that are interrelated, which have developed connections with other organizations, such as professional agencies, governmental agencies, research and development institutions and educational institutions. Possessing their feature of competences concentration poles, they nowadays represent key players on the international economic and competitiveness stage, promoting a series of objectives such as the development of industries, environmental technologies, the reduction of production costs and the most important, the enhancement of the cooperation between the business environment, universities, research and development institutions and governmental institutions.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Cluster, Competitiveness, Cooperation
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
The most significant transformations that globalization produces occur in production. Since the '60s, a new division of labor has made its presence felt in the world, arising from the "de-industrialization" of the developed and transfer production capacity of resource-intensive industries and pollutants from these countries to the developing world. "Dislocation" industry had the interim foreign direct investment made in the new industrialized countries, the latter becoming, in turn, sources of direct foreign investment, taking its capital in other countries in developing handsets. Currently, FDI destination is no longer a priority in developing countries, yet they are increasingly leaning towards the developed countries, due to the attractiveness offered by their economies.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Globalization, Production, International economic relations
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
The advent of the Internet and the business digitalization produced in recent years has meant a rethinking of the marketing strategies and particularly of the business communication strategies. Business communication has undergone major changes both in terms of means, but especially on the content. Thus, if until now the target customers of a company were limited geographically, nowadays, it must take into consideration a “global customer”, arising in a multicultural environment. Also, more than ever, the core of business communication must be the analysis of the potential clients’ needs in order to provide them with useful information. In this context, the online media (social networking, email marketing, webinars etc.) represent the "New World" for corporate communication. Therefore, the success of business communication depends essentially on how the company manages to turn digitization into a competitive advantage.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Digitization, Digital marketing tools, Business communication, Multicultural environment
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
Leadership is a concept appeared in the second part of the twentieth century which developed later on because of the business necessity as the economic environment has become more and more complex and the classic managerial style was no more efficient. In this complex world of business, women were traditionally involved in business at the administrative level, with small chances to reach top structures in a company. Due to the modern times, they won their rights to prove their management skills and to obtain more important jobs in famous companies. This paper presents the results of a research based on interview method and getting responses from Romanian women involved in business at the middle and top management in multinational companies. The main goal of the study was to identify the main features that define the women as a leader or a manager by finding lateral thinking skills. This research revealed that most of the women interviewed have their features closer to the conventional leader and only few of them have developed strong lateral thinking skills.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Leadership, Management, Lateral thinking
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
The purpose of this paper is to establish the conceptual delimitation of the term religious marketing. The term religious marketing has caused controversy. There are two currents: that of the theologians, on one hand and that of the marketers, on the other hand. The representatives of each current have their own view regarding the implementation of marketing into the religious sphere. The article concludes with the necessity to adapt the churches’ activities and the ways they must be presented to the society’s actual characteristics. This can be achieved by using appropriate marketing tools and methods; however, the particularities of religion must be taken into account in order not to alter its religious values.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Religious marketing, Church marketing, Faith, Religion
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
Now, more than ever, society needs leaders. Life groups and society is inconceivable without organization, without leadership, without people with vision. The quality of leaders has always been a matter of prime importance, as leader and has always had a decisive role in both the business world and war, it is a key factor in the decision results. The team has an important role in the evolution and development of the person, constituting the most important means of training, development and social integration. Being a subject frequently discussed in the literature, standing at the intersection of management and psychology of groups, topics in the field is quite small, the present work is intended to be an analysis of what we could call leaders formation in the context of internationalization.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Vison, Charisma, Competences
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
Relationship marketing activities are assessed in the end according to the profitability obtained by the company. However, the calculation of the obtained profit includes a lot of variables which are not related to the marketing activities. In these circumstances, it is more appropriate to perform the assessment of the results of the marketing activities at a more concrete level, by studying their possible determining factors. Some of the most important factors that determine customer loyalty are: Satifaction, Trust and Commitment.This article has two parts : a qualitative research stage and a quantitative research The stage of qualitative research consists of analyzing the research literature from this domain, which highlights the dimensions of Loyalty Construct, relevant for the real estate field. The stage of quantitative research aims at testing the proportion of content validity for the most commonly used variables in the real estate field of practice. The results describe an estimation of the dimensions of the Loyalty Construct for the case of real estate services.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Loyalty, Satisfaction, Trust, Commitment, Real Estate Marketing
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
Marketing is a new activity, whose premises for emergence must be sought at the very beginning of the 20th century. It had a slow development, localized within a country with a strong market economy. The term ‘strategy’ represents the title of one of the ten supreme magistrates, who used military force during the time of confrontations. Currently, ‘strategos’ means the planning of the enemies’ destruction by using resources, and the term ‘strategy’ is limited to the phrase. A more thorough analysis of the notion may be summed up in five key factors: plan, strategy, behavioural model, position and perspective. After the 1950s - 1960s, marketing experiences an explosive growth, being included among the preoccupations of companies from economies with different structures and degrees of development. (http://www.academia.edu/11461407/Bazele_...)The USA is where strong favourable factors, such as the industrial revolution, the division of labour, the increased distances between producers and traders and the population explosion etc., appeared.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Strategy, Goal, Outlook, Marketing
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
The supremacy of Constitution has as main consequence the compliance of entire law with the constitutional norms. Guaranteeing of the observance of this principle is essential for the rule of law, is primarily an attribute of the Constitutional Court, but also an obligation of the legislator to receive by texts adopted, within its content and form, the constitutional norms. Entering into force of the new criminal codes generated a significant jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court on the verification of constitutionality of some regulations in the Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code. Through this study we intend to analyze the following key issues: a) how were the constitutional principles and values embodied in some criminal and criminal procedural norms of the new codes; b) the effects of Constitutional Court decisions in the process of constitutionalizing of the criminal law; c) applying into judicial activities of the Constitutional Court decisions, particularly those through which the new Criminal Code regulations were found unconstitutional.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Supremacy of Constitution, Constitutionality of some regulations in the new criminal codes, Effects of Constitutional Court decisions in criminal law, Application of Constitutional Court decisions in criminal proceedings
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
The current study evaluates the potential of the profitability ratio in predicting corporate bankruptcy. The research is focused on Romanian companies, with the targeted event being represented by the manifestation of bankruptcy 2 years after the date of the financial statements of reference. All tests were conducted over 2 paired samples of 1176 Romanian companies. The methodology employed in evaluating the potential of the profitability ratio was based on the Area Under the ROC Curve (0.663) and the general accuracy ensured by the ratio (62.6% out-of-sample accuracy). The results confirm the practical utility of the profitability ratio in the prediction of bankruptcy and thus validate the need for further research focused on developing a methodology of analysis.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Corporate finance, Risk, Failure, Financial ratio, Financial analysis, Classification accuracy
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
Amortization is the process of gradual recovery of the financial result in irreversible impairment of assets, charges for the year by including the depreciation of the consideration of the duration determined by the projected operating assets, as amortization. Impairment occurs as a result of their use within the entity, or due to the passage of time and the amount of this distribution is performed impairment on the value of new products, works, services or activities carried out using these tangible assets. This process of distribution requires that the conclusion of the economic circuit through profit distribution, works, services or activities harnessed to separate or recover from revenue from that part of the value that was included in the operating cost of title reduction in value. Such amortization is considered separately in depreciation fund which is a power source of the fund's agent economic. Depreciation serves to correct the value of assets to bring to a value closer to reality.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Depreciation, Assets, Amortization, The role and importance depreciation
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
This paper presents the particularities of the financial technology industry, how is FinTech defined and how can the financial technology solutions implemented by companies be categorised. Also it approaches FinTech’s appeal to the consumer and the effects, both disruptive and positive, that it had on the financial industry, as well as the growth this industry has seen in recent years. It will also analyse the implementation of FinTech solutions by the financial service providers active on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB), which were determined by the market institutions or by the regulatory framework set by Romanian Financial Supervisory Authority as well as solutions aimed to provide better services to their customers, in the form on online trading platforms.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Financial technology, Fin tech, Romanian stock market, BVB, Capital markets
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
Focused on the banking sector, the article analyses the change in approach that financial organizations needed to embrace in order to overcome the difficulties of the recently passed financial crisis. In order to emphasize this difference, the article focuses on the negative effects of the financial crisis on the banking sector and as well on the reorganization measures taken post-crisis. Furthermore, the article discusses the evolution of mergers and acquisitions in the banking sector throughout the years, the financing method and the way the crisis affected the economy worldwide.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Financial crisis, Banking sector, Mergers, Acquisitions, Economy
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
Arbitration is today considered a form of justice adjusted specifically for disputes between traders, representing a special attraction for the business world. Arbitration can be considered as a refuse reflex from the traders to obey close-minded forms of common law procedure, characterized by excessive rigor or conservatism and as an expression of their propensity towards more malleable means of settling disputes, specific to arbitration.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Dispute resolution, Arbitration, Commercial, International
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
Romania is one of the European countries characterized by high rates of unemployment for youth aged 15-24 (21.7% in 2015) and long transitions of graduates from school to the world of work. Several policies were developed in order to facilitate the entrance of youth on the labor market, but with limited outcomes. The present paper aims to analyze the job opportunities for youth on the Romanian labor market in order to understand the demand-side opportunities and barriers. We use the data from a national representative survey among companies carried out in 2015 and we focus the analysis on the job vacancies for youth and the skills required, as well as on employers’ satisfaction on the skills and knowledge of newly hired graduates.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Youth unemployment, Youth employability, Youth labour market
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
Guided by the Christian faith, Byzantine art has attached special meaning to the representation of the human figure. Grounded on aesthetic principles, the artistic representation of the human face relinquished on the physical materiality of the represented model, searching for its essences and resemblances to the divine world. Subject to specific representation rules, Byzantine portraiture bears a series of peculiar characteristics that mark it out among other images of this kind belonging to other spirituality areas, periods and artistic styles. Both in icons, where it highlights a series of particular significances describing the divine nature of saints, and in other fields of Byzantine arts – such as mural painting or mosaic –the portrait stands out due to its importance. This paper intends to present a few of the defining characteristics of portraiture in Byzantine art, exemplifying the evolution of this artistic genre by analysing some of the most representative creations of this field.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Portrait, Byzantine art, Icon, Iconoclasm
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
This paper’s purpose is to provide a review of the book ”The New Rules of Green Marketing. Strategies, Tools and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding” (2011) written by Jacquelyn A. Ottman. In this sense, the book is analyzed from a personal point of view, but exposed as objective as possible. In recent years, people’s attitude changed from skepticism to positivism in what concerns green products and the trend is to include them into their lives as usual commodities. This book essentializes the new guidelines of green marketing. The most significant benefit of reading this book is that it embodies theoretical aspects with practical ones, such as concrete examples of companies involved in the green market. The book adresses multinationals, entreprises, agencies, trade associations, NGOs, government agencies involved in the green marketing environment, professors, researchers, students or any individual having an affinity for green marketing in general.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 29th May, 2016
- Keywords: Green marketing, Green product, Green consumer, Sustainability
- Received: 25th April, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 26th May, 2016
The existence of the safe water supply and sewerage systems, especially in the rural areas of Romania, are mandatory for the insurance of the public health. In this context, a series of Romanian regional water and sewerage services suppliers developed Total Quality Management Systems, starting with the implementation of multiple ISO standards and in response to the need for answering to high requirements, both for constant development / modernization of the infrastructure and expansions to new consumers, as for the permanent improvement of the water supply, sewerage and wastewater treatment’s quality. The Total Quality Management Systems inter-relate a series of quality components, all of them functioning in a unitary–integrated way, using specific rules and procedures for assuring the increase of the delivered services’ quality and performance. The results begin to be seen on all areas of the concerned water suppliers’ activity: from the operational field to the commercial, staff’s performance, environmental and customer care ones. one of the main fundaments of the monetary creation – aspect which is indissolubly related to the idea of evolution, more precisely, to the idea of economic development.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Total Quality Management System, water supply services, sewerage services, rural area
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
The research aimed to see how the family members’ involvement in the practice of leisure movement games (tennis) raises the children’s movement wish and psychomotor skills: coordination, balance, rhythm, precision of movement. In conducting this research were used the survey method, the observation method, the measurement-evaluation method and the statistical-mathematical method. Data was collected during 10 months from 76 children, aged from 10 to 13 years (±3 months) and enrolled in a leisure movement game program. Descriptive statistics indicate a significant effect of the variables: medicine ball throwing, speed running, endurance running and throwing target with the tennis ball. One can see a positive effect due to the Evaluation – Intervention interaction: medicine ball throwing η²=0.12, speed running η² = 0.13, endurance running η²=0.16, throwing target with the tennis ball η²=0.21. Educational leisure time sport movement games raise the level of driving skill development and psychomotor qualities, based on a greater involvement in the correct performance of sport activities.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Children, Sport, Leisure activity, Tennis, Psychomotor skills
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
Constanta County represents a very strong economic force in Romania, but also in the European continent in general. Thus, Constanta, is facing numerous problems. The negative factors that have influenced Constanta County are mainly internal. Due to its position by the Black Sea, the County is also influenced by all international political events, by the decrease of the cereals in commodities exchanges, by the oil prices or the fluctuation of the exchange rate. However, most risks have emerged because of the managerial strategies implemented by companies or the state policy on the protection of national wealth. Our welfare, at micro and macroeconomic level, depends on administrative policies.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:risks, economic crisis, accounting, measurement, control
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
Companies are increasingly using methods such as massage, sports, mindfulness, etc. in order for example to improve employee well-being, reduce stress, or increase the energy level of the employees. This article examines, based on a case study, if Aikido may be a practical way to reduce stress and/or increase energy. The empirical study is based on measuring the energy and stress level of the practitioners before and after the practice of Aikido by the use of the ElectroPhotonic Imaging Device developed by Prof. Dr. Korotkov.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Human Resource Management, Energy, Stress, Human Resource Development, Company Sport, Electrophotonic Imaging
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
The concept underlying the pervasive communications systems is Internet of Objects, defined as a global network of smart objects, resulting in "attachment" of communication functions, data acquisition, data processing objects we interact with daily. Internet of Objects will be based on 4th generation of Internet systems. In such systems, each intelligent networked device must offer its users a number of services, which constitute a development of the current model of Web services. Such services will result from aggregation of micro services offered by each pervasive device connected to the Internet. Aggregating these micro services requires that each node in the network has the opportunity to present / expose its capabilities (so-called "advertising") in a standard way for client applications to be integrated into complex services. Therefore there appears the need to introduce a coding scheme to identity the nodes in the network, enabling the identification of their capabilities. An alternative to implementing such a system of encoding / identifying characteristics of network nodes is active RFID technology. The aim of this chapter is to develop a method to ensure the convergence of wireless sensor networks with active RFID systems within a pervasive hybrid network based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, which satisfies the Internet of Objects network.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:internet of things, home automation, cloud, wireless, sensors
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
Changes are the only constant value in the current unpredictable economy. Under these circumstances leaders and employees must manage the external and internal environment and bring profitability for their companies. This paper gives an introductory approach to different perspective over learning companies in international literature. Different theoretical aspects, models and theories are taken into account for having a higher visibility to the complex concept of learning companies from leadership side to multiculturalism as the firm profitability should be the final goal of each economic system. The article concludes that not the process of learning is important but the adaptability to every different environment must be seen as vital.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:learning economy, leadership, multinational organizations, business environment, knowledge
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
In this paper, we aim at gaining insight into the Romanian president’s online campaign during the 2014 elections. Although there is a growing body of literature on online political campaigns in Western democracies, little research exists on using Social Media in an emergent economy like Romania. In order to take a closer look at the president’s online communication strategy, we conducted a content analysis on the posts published on the president’s official Facebook page over the two weeks leading up to Election Day. This study is the first of this kind and it indicates that president Iohannis used close-ended messages to control the speech, while reaching out to emotion to gain users’ support.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Social Media, Facebook, Klaus Iohannis, Romania, Presidential Elections
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
Given that services of Financial Investment Services Companies can be very similar (described by law), it's very important that they be distinguished by certain elements from competitors, thereby gaining market share. How can they do that? By adding value for customers. International literature offers views on creating competitive advantage considering the elements of the Marketing Mix: product, price, placement, promotion, personnel, process and physical evidence. From our experience in brokerage business, but also from our research in this field, we conclude that product and prices policies should be considered in periods of economic growth and stagnation. If in times of crisis we find no significant differences between companies (regardless of the number of products or the fees they have), in a stabilized economy, precisely this policies makes the difference between competitors.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Marketing Mix, Financial Investment Services Companies, Stock Market, Added Value
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
The article performs a comparative analysis between the European Union member states from Central and Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania) in terms of real economic convergence with the Euro area. Specifically, the paper emphasizes the assessment of the time required to catch up with the average level of GDP per capita in the euro area. To determine these developments, we use a system of chain indices, calculated based on the growth rate of the GDP per capita. Assuming that the average growth specific to the period 1999-2014 will continue in the future, the results illustrate that the shortest period of catching up belongs to Poland, while Croatia remains by far the most distant country from the euro area.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Euro area, Catching up, Real convergence, Central and Eastern Europe
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
This study aims at analyzing the distribution of tourist flows in 2014, from 25 European countries, on three main categories of trip purposes, and assumes that there are differences or similarities between the tourists’ countries of residence and their trip purposes. "Purpose'' is a multidimensional concept used in marketing research, most often for understanding consumer behavior, and for identifying market segments or customer target groups, reunited in terms of similar characteristics. Being aware that the decision of choice/ purchase is based on purposes, their knowledge proves useful in designing strategies to increase the satisfaction level provided to the customer. The statistical method used in this paper is the factorial correspondences analysis. In our opinion, the identification, by this method, of the existence of differences or similarities between the tourists’ countries of residence and their trip purposes can represent a useful step in studying the tourism market and the choice/ reformulation of strategies.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Tourism, Destination, Factorial correspondences analysis, Trip purpose
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
Upon the dawn of postmodernity, in the twenty-first century, we witness the emergence of a new way of thinking and of new forms of culture and life, under the ideology of globalism, whose dominance is given by the practicality and utility related to civilization, and under globality, which is the cultural aspect of globalization, pertaining to the field of culture. The two dimensions of globalization and globality, civilizational and cultural, will (re)question the principle relationship between Christianity and the new postmodern globalizing utopia, requiring to (re)consider the sense and presence of Christianity within the world, and the appropriate sociological figure of the Church, within the new reality of global and globalized humanity, in the postmodern public space. This paper deals with this ideology - globalism and the cultural manifestation of globality, and with the Orthodox answer to the new challenge of individualism and postmodern globalizing (neo)collectivism.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Globalization, Global (dis)order geopolitics, Natural Reality of the created world, Postmodern (neo) collectivism, Ideology
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
Customer loyalty is becoming a topic of interest which is winning increasingly more importance lately, as a result of the focus of marketing research on business relationships. One of the most important factors that determine customer loyalty is Service Quality.The stage of qualitative research consists of analyzing the research literature from this domain, which highlights the Relationship Quality construct as a distinct dimension, relevant for the real estate field. The summary of the main models of relationship quality indicate the most commonly used variables to describe this construct. The stage of quantitative research aims at testing the proportion of content validity for the most commonly used variables. The results describe an estimation of the dimensions of the Relationship Quality construct for the case of real estate services.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Relationship Quality, Service Quality, Real Estate Marketing
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
According to the modern theories of economic development – the take-off, backwardness, convergence and balanced growth hypothesis - the new industrialized states from Asia seem to have noticed the advantages of backwardness from which low income countries benefited, namely the possibility to take advantage of the latest technological discoveries of advanced countries, thus achieving a faster growth than the latter which operated closer to the technological border. The assimilation of appropriate technologies, however, required the efficient mobilization and allocation of resources and the improvement of human and physical capital. While the Western countries were confronted with crises generated by inflationary shocks and movements of speculative capital, the relative isolation of countries whose economy was planned by the world economy sheltered them until 1990, unemployment being practically non-existent. Asia's exceptional economic success is not only due to borrowing Western practices, but also to the fact that Asian societies maintained certain traditional features of their own culture - such as a strong work ethic - and integrated them in the modern business environment.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:China, Eastern European states, Transition economies
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
The characteristics of contemporary international relations cannot be understood without their doctrinaire analysis, outlined around three main approaches: realist, liberal and structuralist. Even if the object of the study is the same, they provide extremely different responses to questions such as: What relations are established between states? Who are the leading players on the international scene? What is the priority in approaching the international relations of a state? How are the relations between states characterized and determined? This study aims at highlighting the manners in which multilateral approaches are the way to manage global business, either through flexible, open, variable forms, or through reviving the tradition of international institutions.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Economic realism, Political mutations, Great Powers
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
Organic solvent is a broad term that applies to many classes of chemicals. The solvent (benzene, toluene etc.) aspects of occupational exposure are reviewed via the examination of the use, occurrence, and disposition as well as population’s potential of risk. The general public can be exposed to solvent in ambient air as a result of its occurrence in paint process. Solvents are primarily irritants to the skin and mucous membranes and have narcotic properties at high concentrations. Published epidemiological data identified various types of birth defects in certain occupations.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Organic solvent, Toluene, Xylene, Teratogen, Children
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
This research paper analyses the situation of the third-country national children in Romania regarding their access and participation into the Romanian educational system. It is an empirical approach with a special focus on migrant children in the public and private educational system in the Bucharest-Ilfov region where more than a half of the third-country nationals are to be found. The paper provides a qualitative and quantitative analysis regarding the number of non-EU children in the public and private education system in Bucharest-Ilfov, their distribution by age group and type of school: primary, secondary, high-school as well as the schools with high agglomeration of foreign pupils and their distribution in the neighborhoods of Bucharest-Ilfov. The analysis uses, as well, primary data collected during the year of 2013, when a number of 60 schools in the region Bucharest-Ilfov were approached by phone, through emails and face-to-face meetings in order to find out whether they had foreign pupils enrolled in their school and what was the situation on the ground in those schools that reported foreign pupils.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Education, Migrant’ integration, Migration, Foreign children
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
The aim of this paper is to present an econometric analysis using VAR techniques for emphasizing the political institutional factors, economic freedom factors and the quality of labor force factors impacting on FDIs attracted in Bulgaria and Romania. We used yearly data series between 2000 and 2014, provided by the World Bank. These two countries display a very friendly climate (law income corporate tax), but they attracted large amounts of FDIs only for a short period of time at mid-2000s’. The foreign investments sharply dropped during the crisis, and the perspectives are not so good. The foreign investors claim that high corruption and bureaucracy greatly diminish the advantages of an attractive fiscal environment in these two specific countries.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:FDIs, Quality political institutional factors, Economic freedom factors, Quality economic institutional factors, Quality of labor force factors, VAR analysis
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
This paper aims to analyse characteristics of the labour market participation in Romania in order to highlight the existing inequalities in employment opportunities. Official statistics are analysed for providing an in-depth overview of the recent evolutions of the Romanian labour market. Special attention will be given to gender, rural-urban and age inequalities. The results show significant gaps in labour market participation for specific groups such as people living in rural areas, women and youth and high level of regional heterogeneity regarding the existing employment opportunities. The findings of the article are useful for policy makers and institutions with responsibilities in labour market and education fields.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Labour market, Employment, Human capital, Inequalities
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
Global competition has evolved from the competition between companies to the competition between regions. In this context, clusters play an important role as competences’ concentration poles. The cluster initiatives represent concentrated efforts to increase the wealth and competitiveness in a certain region including companies, local administration, research and training institutions. This paper proposes the analysis of the European clusters’ role in ensuring the regional development. Resulted conclusions emphasize both the positive results of clusters’ existence, as well as the fields where improvements can be made in order to increase the clusters’ impact on the economic development.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Clusters, Development, Growth, Competitiveness
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
This paper sheds light on the world of film tourism, the connection between the film as an image-making tool and the attractiveness of tourism destinations. In this context the present research analyses the phenomenon of film-induced tourism. Even though the phenomenon of the film tourism has been recognized, there are still few profound studies and a lack of the statistical data. However, the evidence of existence of such a phenomenon as film-induced tourism is incontrovertible. Thus, the little statistical data available on this topic indicates that such countries as UK, Australia, and New Zealand lead the way from the point of view of the film tourism. Existence of this type of tourism and its potentially significant economic value make understanding the drivers of film-induced tourism extremely important to know.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Film-induced tourism, Tourism drivers, Tourist destination competitiveness, Economic impact of filmmaking tourists
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
From a managerial point of view, all the media means of professional communication, socialization and interaction emphasize entrepreneurial success stories. One of the modern concerns of all current researchers is to underline the place and role of leaders in the institutional framework. The leadership is perceived as a support pillar in maintaining any business. The analysis of this phenomenon is extremely extensive, starting with the culture of a company, the purpose of its existence and comprises aspects concerning the employees motivation and the degree of identifying themselves with the organizational objective. A constant concern in analyzing this phenomenon is retaining the employees and encouraging them to bring added value to the organization where they perform their daily activities. Nevertheless, the Romanian banking system in Timişoara seems to display a strong resistance towards change. The leadership of this industry is comprised of people with great managerial abilities. The transactional method, manifested by the leader in the Romanian private banking system in Timişoara, seems to be the main phenomenon at the basis of their daily activity. The manager – leader hypothesis is slowly taking shape. Due to the resistance to change, generated by the educational model, from a managerial point of view, the balance is strongly tilting towards the managerial traits at the expense of the leadership ones. We are still at the stage where the tolerance towards liberty, uncertainty, are some of the traits of the leader in the Romanian private banking system in Timişoara, which are poorly identified at the management level of this very important segment of activity.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Transactional leader, Representation, Integration, Structuring, Tolerance
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
The School & Work project (2014-1-UK01-KA204-000071), co-financed by the European Union under the Erasmus+ programme, intends to capitalise the existing results of previous European projects addressing the early school leaving issue with a view to establish a more concrete and effective cooperation between schools and the world of work, which will enhance students’motivation to learn and complete their studies. The article introduces e-learning resources focusing on strategies teachers could use in order to help students unveil their interests and aptitudes. This will enable teachers plan and implement personalized educational paths and guidance services and valorize students' talents through curricular and extracurricular activities , which will motivate students to stay at school.
- Type: Review article
- Published on: 21th April, 2016
- Keywords:Competences, E-learning, Dropout
- Received: 1st March, 2016
- Final revision and acceptance: 19th April, 2016
