Volume 15 (2021): Issue 1 (December 2021)

Models for estimating the probability of default are widely used in the business throughout the lending process, starting as early as the application stage, where they play an important role in loan approval status. For model soundness and performance, ensuring adequate data quality is essential. Identifying outliers, analyzing their impact and choosing the right method to treat them is a necessary stage of preprocessing, which is often overlooked in practice for a variety of reasons, an important one being insufficient data. Given the inherent imbalance of the loan portfolio with regard to default status, elimination of outliers is seldom feasible. The current widely accepted approach is based on binning and weight of evidence. Usually two types of binning are tested, namely bucket and quantile. While the latter is robust to outlier presence, the former is not. Both approaches lead to the discretization of the continuous variable they are applied on. This causes information loss both in terms of variation given by individual values and in terms of distance between the various observation points on a certain variable. In the present paper, we explore the opportunity of using other methods for dealing with outlier presence and we describe their advantages and disadvantages in the context of probability of default estimation for credit risk. We conclude that, aside from quantile binning, not dealing with outliers in case of very large datasets or winsorizing are also effective. More importantly, several methods should be considered and tested for each variable in order to find the optimal balance between altering the data and reducing variance.

The rate of diabetes has increased in proportion to that of obesity and thus is a topical issue that is carefully studied and for which various IT solutions are proposed to facilitate the treatment and monitoring of patients. There are many applications that can be used by those diagnosed with diabetes, those with various specifications useful in ensuring a healthy lifestyle, reminders for testing and nutritional journals. This paper highlights a brief analysis of existing applications for monitoring patients with diabetes and proposes a useful computer application in collaboration between the specialist, patient and laboratory physician. Many people do not have access to specialized medical services (especially those living in rural areas, in isolated areas) and at the same time, the current context of the pandemic proves the need for certain technological solutions for monitoring patients at home.

It is known that the evolution of digital technologies, together with a combination of other essential generic technologies, leads to a change in the way we design, produce and market related products and services, as well as in the way how value is generated from them. Digitalization and transformation of the business process to create remarkable customer experience are absolutely necessary for any company that wants to evolve and succeed in the fast-digitizing business environment. The main objective of this research was to discover how digitalization influences economic growth. The databases used were Eurostat and World Bank. We selected 8 main research variables, which were divided into two sets to describe (i) the phenomenon of digitalization by digital skills, mobile subscriptions, enterprises with e-commerce, and (ii) the phenomenon of economic growth by real GDP growth, unit labour cost growth, resource productivity and R&D expenditure of GDP. The research methodology was centred on Canonical Correlation Analysis to reveal the connections within and between the two phenomena. The results revealed, for example: the digitalization set was able to explain 70.33% of economic growth with the correlation of 0.800; the real GDP growth is affected by the share of enterprises involved with e-commerce, unit labour costs and resource productivity are affected by high-level digitalization seen by enterprises conducting data analysis on customers for marketing purposes; and that digital skills and R&D expenditures are positively related.

For the past years, cryptocurrencies have been a hot and controversial topic that has captured the attention of the whole tech world. Even if right now the portfolio of digital assets is considerable in size, the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, exploited its pioneer advantage and managed to remain at the center of attention both for the media and investors.

During 2020, one of the most chaotic years, Bitcoin boomed in November 2020 almost doubling since the end of 2019. This boom is the result of a combination of factors, such as the fear of missing out translated into a chain reaction of public and private companies to consider Bitcoin a safe reserve asset, a hedging method against inflation, which represents a substitute for traditional hedging instruments, the infrastructure developed around it over the years, and lastly the hype created by influential figures through news and social media platforms. There have been many public figures that exhibited interest in cryptocurrencies through platforms such as Twitter, for instance Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Kanye West, Hugh Laurie, Mike Tyson and Gwyneth Paltrow are just some in a long list of celebrities that backed Bitcoin.

This paper aims to analyze the impact that twitter posts have upon the evolution of Bitcoin, coupled with Tesla’s investment and recent statement of introducing Bitcoin as a method of payment in the near future. Our research tries to determine if the news and social media posts, such as tweets have an influence upon Bitcoin’s volatility and fluctuations.

Communication is an essential element in life. It is key to understanding each other, forming relationships, and sharing knowledge, information and ideas. “Social media is modifying the ways we communicate and is providing marketers with interactive means to effectively reach consumers. This has given rise to those digital images known as Emoji, which is a trending topic that is shaping our lives and sculpting its way to related social sciences.

Many businesses have been employing emoji in their communication messages, yet little research was conducted in this area. This research will build new insights and will investigate the role of emoji in influencing behaviors in terms of engagement, satisfaction, loyalty, and perception.

Abductive approach to theory was used. Secondary data was collected to explore and explain the concept of online marketing psychology using emoji language. The idea is then tested via survey, to modify the existing theory, and to generate a new idea regarding banks via interview as well.

Research questions investigated the use of emoji in online communication as an effective way to engage consumers, whether emoji lead to better customer satisfaction and loyalty, and how serious organizations can benefit from employing them to break the perceived “coldness”.

Results approved the effectiveness of emoji use in marketing, and they’re no longer limited to “modern” businesses, rather they’re starting to encompass almost all businesses in different industries. The research ends with a set of recommendations that’ll guide businesses through this trend.”

Through this paper we want to contribute to the understanding of the main concepts, methods and tools which make possible the transition to a new type of entrepreneurship, namely digital entrepreneurship (DE). The importance of the topical concept, which is an accelerated expanding practice, lies in the fact that a digital business offers opportunities that transcend geographic space, primarily through global online space. The forecasts given to digital entrepreneurship are positive and even aspirational as they anticipate important benefits for the businesses that will create, sell and deliver digitally supported products and services. For the time being, what is presented in the specialized literature are reserved approaches towards the definitions, methodologies or strategies applicable to this type of entrepreneurship, which is in different phases of development on the globe. This research is done according to a simple scheme and we consider it logical in order to understand the transition of entrepreneurship from the knowledge-based economy to digital entrepreneurship. In this approach we proceeded first of all to document the main notions such as: the digitization process and the digitalization phenomenon; the specifics of business in the digital age; digital traction indicators for measuring business success in the digital environment; distinctive features of digital entrepreneurship and we ended with an integrative perspective, formulating recommendations for a successful transition to digital entrepreneurship. We believe that the contribution of this paper is to put together in a clear but concise manner, key aspects that highlight the transition of the traditional business vision to the vision proposed (or actually imposed) by digital entrepreneurship and the era in which we live.

The goal of this study is to examine knowledge management’s function as a mediator between academic management and business education. Knowledge management evolved in the last decades as an important component of the organizational management that focuses on intangible resources. In the knowledge economy, knowledge became a strategic resource and it needs a different type of management because it has different economic characteristics by comparison with tangible resources which are represented by physical objects. Knowledge management becomes dominant in the knowledge-intensive organizations, like universities, research centers, consulting companies, and those organizations where knowledge density and knowledge processes intensity determine the organizational performance.

From this perspective, it is interesting to analyze the role played by knowledge management in mediating the complex correlation between academic management and business education. Academic management is considered an independent variable and business education the outcome of the whole management of the teaching and learning processes. Knowledge management is the mediator of the whole process. The present research is based on qualitative and quantitative analyses. Qualitative investigation consist in a critical analysis of the literature, and quantitative research is a survey based on a questionnaire addressed to students and professors involved in business education from two Romanian universities. Statistical processing was done with SPSS version 26.0 and the macro PROCESS version 3.5. The findings back up the basic hypothesis and support the research model.

The goal of this article is to examine the significance and the influence of the degree of emotional knowledge for the managers in relation with variables such as the employee performance, job satisfaction, and efficiency in a work environment impacted by digitalization. The study’s research questions concentrated on analyzing the opinions of 35 respondents within a multinational beverage corporation concerning the relationships between their managers’ level of emotional knowledge and their own work engagement, job satisfaction, and efficiency within the work environment. This phenomenological study disclosed that the capabilities of a manager in relation with emotional knowledge are very important for the managers’ capability to lead people, engage them, increment job satisfaction, and increase their efficiency.

As more and more business data is generated and made available in the online environment, it makes sense for all the business components to start and take advantage of this trend. One of the components that we targeted in this paper is business knowledge, more precisely gathering enough data and information in order to generate knowledge about a business, also known as business intelligence. But this could not be done without taking into account the global pandemic that started in 2020 and continued to this day, accelerating the business digitization trend exponentially. Numerous papers related to the forced digitization of businesses due to Covid-19 have been published in 2020, most of them being focused on job loss, business model shifts, the economic impact and governmental stimulus effect in various industries. The current paper is focused on the business knowledge creation, more exactly on how and where to find data and information in an exclusively online manner about Romanian ecommerce companies, that can then be processed in order to obtain business knowledge. We researched three Romanian ecommerce websites in order to see if meaningful knowledge about their business approach can be extracted, all being done entirely from online sources, with no physical connection or relation to the targeted companies. In order to achieve this, we used public traffic data from websites like www.trafic.ro, financial data from www.listafirme.ro and also tested a few other key metrics of the websites. We managed to identify a very interesting situation concerning the three ecommerce websites while also outlining a simple workflow that can be duplicated by anyone in order to obtain basic business intelligence about Romanian internet-focused companies.

This paper aims to achieve a comprehensive image of the knowmad worker. Over the past few decades, knowledge workers have been at the center of academic and practical interest in the knowledge management field. Without excluding other management directions, this specific segment developed for a better understanding and sustaining of organizational knowledge dynamics. Recently - associated with unpredictable changes in all aspects of our lives, that have a direct impact on the business market - the knowmad typology gained increasingly more interest in the academic field, being recognized as an emergent group of learners and workers. They are associated with better adapting skills, increased innovation and creativity performances compared to previous knowledge workers and these qualities ensure individual and organizational competitivity in the contemporary society, as this paper will show. While the primary focus of existing knowmad literature is on the education shift towards a competence-based approach, the working coordinates of these workers remain in a secondary position in the existing literature. Through extensive literature review, and by using a data analysis engine, key concepts have been identified and analyzed in a systematic comparison between knowmads and knowledge workers. The first part of this paper is focused on placing the knowmad workforce into the relevant social context. In the second part and third part, the knowledge worker and knowmad typologies are analyzed from skills, roles, and attributes perspective. Findings obtained through this research show that the knowmad workforce represents the unavoidable future worker, which is both a consequence and a solution for a business environment defined by continuous unpredictable changes. In this respect, future research directions should be focused on the management of knowmad workforce.

In the broad field of economic research, the process of resource allocation and the degree of manifestation of the freedom of the competitive market are relevant points of interest in order to achieve in terms of microeconomic performance. Through this work, we have proposed to investigate the extent to which competitive markets tend towards that form of perfection and what are the main challenges and implications for the market freedom. The novelty of this study counts in bringing to the forefront the match-making process, implicitly the study of the match-making market, introduced by the American economist Alvin E. Roth in 2015. In particular, it analyzes a new valence of the competitive market, the operating mechanism being aimed at highlighting a specific terminology, such as linguistic decryption of markets. This paper has extended the concept of matching, by analyzing the ethical issues involved, as well as the way in which we are witnessing a crescendo of concrete examples of the functioning of these markets. At the same time, we used the use of methodological tools specific to the analysis of statistical data on measuring the degree of competitive freedom in the main key sectors in Romania in 2015 and 2019, by applying The Aggregate Index of Competitive Pressure (AICP). The results showed the degree of openness to competition of the main sectors in Romania, as well as the fact that the matching market assumes the effective operation and manifestation of the competitive mechanism.

This paper analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on SMEs’ work environment, human resources processes, how the companies reacted and adapted, what forms of support were offered by the authorities, with a particular interest for e-learning tools and systems, that may prove to not just a temporary coping mechanism, but a functional, wide-spread approach.

The scale of workforce transitions (jobs that disappeared versus jobs that opened) generated by COVID-19 on labor trends heightens the pressure for businesses and policymakers to act to support supplementary training and education programs for employees and encourages companies to address the issues related to the workforce with e-learning solutions that focus on flexibility and digitalization, as usual practice.

Consequently, the paper reviews the current options of learning management systems, aiming to support managers’ decision-making process on this matter, taking into consideration infrastructure, contents, services, flexibility, and other criteria. Furthermore, the issue of implementing an e-learning project is carefully considered, in order to achieve the desired results.

The key aspects of today’s economic climate are intensified competitiveness and fast-changing global markets. In order to stay competitive, family companies need to respond to these developments and more frequently seek foreign expansion themselves. To understand how organisations should respond to changes in the market to retain a competitive edge, the idea of knowledge management and dynamic capabilities has indeed been developed. Such an environmental transition could be the internationalisation of a family business. The purpose of this research is to examine, through the lens of knowledge management and dynamic capabilities, the internationalisation of family companies. A qualitative single case study model of a family business that has been through an international expansion has been considered, collecting evidence through semi-structured qualitative interviews with three of the company’s key individuals. The study reveals that in the internationalisation process, there are many skills that assist family companies. Sensing technologies include screening capabilities for networks and industries and helping family companies identify new prospects in international markets. Seizing skills provide decision-making and management capabilities and change the capital base to take advantage of the possibilities previously sensed. Finally, family businesses should constantly reconfigure their tools with transforming skills, which consist of entrepreneurial knowledge capabilities, to optimise processes and frameworks in the current international setting. Different facets of family life influence the development of these complex skills.

Understanding museum visitors’ behavioral patterns may help in predicting their number of visits. The aim of the research is to identify the trend models associated with the number of visitors, in 2012-2019, in 2 national museums in the top of the most visited museums in Romania: the National Museum of Natural History “Grigore Antipa” in Bucharest and the National Museum “Peles” in Sinaia and forecast the number of visitors to these objects in 2020 and 2021. Subsequently the same methods were used to analyze the total number of visitors to museums in Romania in 2012-2019 and to forecast the number of visitors for the years 2020 and 2021. The research method used was that of coefficients of variation, which aimed to determine the forecasts for the number of visitors through three types of models: linear, quadratic and exponential. However, Covid-19 pandemic dramatically changed the forecasts of visitor flows in the museums and the managers of these cultural heritage institutions had to cope with this situation.

Nowadays, employers are reconsidering the definitions of professionalism and professionals. In addition to job related knowledge and skills, a professional need some general behavioral skills too, which are especially required when working with others. These inter-relational skills are not “hard skills”, but “soft skills” Being challenge to face an economic reality that is changing permanently, universities have to adapt themselves and to respond to the needs of the socio-economic environment by developing and adapting their educational services to the contemporary requirements. Among the multiple dimensions of the changes universities are facing nowadays important ones are the changes at the curriculum level: goals consisting in competences according to the labor market requirements, new educational plans and programs, new content and teaching and learning strategies, new learning settings and environments. The paper presents the experts’ perspective in respect with the ways in which universities are developing and innovating their curricula and analyses Romanian employers’ opinions regarding the curriculum development and innovation in schools of economics and business. The analysis is based on a survey conducted among the most important employers in Bucharest, the capital city of Romania and, in the same time, the largest local labor market in the country with national and multinational companies. Recommendations regarding the curriculum development and innovation are included too. These are meant to enhance the capacities of universities to provide high quality education and develop competences required on the labor market.

The paper discusses the key features of the state of the structure of healthcare in Russia and Romania, the administration of this scheme is assessed and the statistical array takes place over a long period. The health sector’s sustainable status is perceived to be the main target concern of each state. The medical care degree is the country-wide coefficient of well-being. However, not only at the state level, but also at the regional level, the characteristic effect of socio-economic factors on population health metrics is especially pronounced. Without the introduction of modern approaches to management, it’s more professionalization, that is, the building of a management organization that insists on the professionalism of leadership, the solution to the problems of healthcare growth is unlikely. One of the essential national tasks of establishing a plan for the socio-economic growth of Russian and Romanian healthcare and raising the standard and quality of life of the people is to strengthen the healthcare system. The provision and management of the quality of patient services can be considered one of the most significant concerns in the area of healthcare. Moreover, these issues are the most difficult to address, which is why, during a time of economic and social turmoil, their importance grows significantly.

The modernization of higher education is a complex process and occupies a priority place on the agenda of concerns both at European level and at the level of each member state of the European Union (EU). In this paper we present the results of the analysis of the main aspects of post-integration modernization of higher education in Romania, compared to the evolution in other Member States in the same period, from the perspective of five indicators: expenditure per student, percentage of GDP allocated to higher education, graduates per thousand inhabitants and professor per student’s ratio. In order to achieve the proposed objective, we have carried out a research and a cluster analysis of data from secondary sources of available information, respectively reports of the European Commission and various statistical reports that will be mentioned throughout the article.

The efficiency of resources is a current issue that can be of great interest to anyone, especially since it is often associated with economic performance, at both - micro and macro level. Therefore, it can be useful to evaluate the resource availability of countries and to understand how a country’s economic development is connected with its resource abundance. Our study examines whether the availability of resources can be viewed as an indicator of the economic development of a particular country by analysing the correlation between the total resources rent, as calculated by the World Bank, and the gross domestic product and its development in 45 countries worldwide. We found that natural resources rents are linked to both GDP per capita and GDP growth, leading often to strong positive or negative correlations. The particular cases need to be further addressed, by looking into additional parameters on country and regional level.

Traffic fatalities are a severe problem. The European Commission estimated that one in four road accidents are related to alcohol consumption. It is also shown that alcohol changes perceptions and is reflected in the driver’s reflexes. This study aims to determine the factors that lead to changes in the mortality rate due to car accidents. The dataset was retrieved from different official sources depending on the type of variable. For the time-invariant variables were used two official sources from which the drivers are informed with the main road rules from a certain country. Using the Arellano-Bover / Blundell-Bond linear dynamic panel-data estimation on 22 European Union countries between 2012 to 2018, the results showed that the road safety laws have a meaningful and significant impact on road fatalities. Alcohol legal limit has a positive impact on road fatalities, which shows that if the legal alcohol limit is non-zero, the road fatalities increase. Another important result is related to young people neither in employment nor in education and training (NEET), which directly influences road fatalities. This result shows the importance of investment in education. At the same time, the results underline the importance of investments in infrastructure, as the length of the highways increases leads to a decrease in road fatalities.

Analyzing price competition through game theory is one of the most important frameworks of oligopoly theory, especially in industrial organizations. Numerous studies have been conducted in this direction, as companies are forced to adjust their sustainable pricing policy to operate in the long term. Thus, the players make a regular adjustment of the pricing strategy. Of all the models developed based on Bertrand’s reference model (1883), the most analyzed were those in which informational symmetry predominated. Since informational symmetry presents only a theoretical framework, economists have turned their attention to information asymmetry. This type of information best describes a complex economic game, as it creates an information gap between players and generates opportunities in the decision-making process. Thus, asymmetric information is the main parameter of the decision-making process that determines decision makers to resort to different decision strategies than those assumed by the analytical model. Any asymmetric Bertrand model predicts competitive and efficient market outcomes, a direct relationship between a firm’s conduct, market structure and finally market performance. This paper undertakes an analysis of the Bertrand model in the case of demand and asymmetric costs. We determine the Bertrand-Nash equilibrium under the scenario in which close, but not perfect substitutes exist for the differentiated product with hypothetical data. Then we highlight what happens with profits when we consider that discrete cross marginal demand gradually increases. For more research, there are numerous studies based on sequential games, Bayesian games and signaling games both in discrete time and in continuous time.

Machine Learning is a constantly growing area which has the capacity to analyze massive amounts of data and find relevant patterns, a very important feature in the era of big data. It has a wide range of application areas, including the financial field, and proved to be efficient in solving various problems, including the prediction of the default probability of a customer to meet their obligations to the bank, using classification algorithms. Their output is further used when deciding whether to approve a loan or no, based on the previous behavior of the customers, hence reduces the loss of the bank. Even though Machine Learning algorithms proved to be efficient in solutioning this type of problems, none was identified for remarkable results. This paper studies 10 different methods applied on the same dataset (Logistic Regression, K-Nearest Neighbor, Support Vector Machine, Kernel Support Vector Machine, Naïve Bayes, Decision Tree, Random Forest, Bagging Classifier, Linear Discriminant Analysis, Neural Network - Multi Layer Perceptron) and performs a comparative analysis aiming to identify the one which outperforms the others. Their performance is evaluated based on some well-known statistical measures such as Accuracy, Misclassification Rate, Precision and Specificity. In addition, this paper also presents and evaluates the impact of feature selection on the overall performance of an algorithm.

Digitisation is a constant of contemporary life. The generation most accustomed to using online resources and electronic devices is that of Millennials.Considered a rebel generation, Millennials have strong believes and values, are deeply connected to their peers and to the world, and also, important users of electronic devices and online sources for entertainment purposes. Although considered a labor industry, tourism is increasingly adapting to the new trends of the activity’s digitisationThe paper presents two types of researches. The first one aims to emphasize Millennials’ habits in the tourism consumption. In this respect, the results of a qualitative research were presented. The second objective highlights which are the most famous museums in Romania and evaluates the 11 selected museums based on specific criteria on their digitisation progress. At the same time, the 11 museums were assessed based on the number of reviews and the average scores recorded on Google and TripAdvisor platforms. The results obtained show a little interest of the millennial consumers in applying digital techniques for visiting tourist attractions, mainly museums. They majority considers virtual visits as temporary habits, and only as a consequence of crisis situations. On the other hand, the process of Romanian museums’ digitisation is in progress, managerial transformations being valuable. The main contribution of the paper consists in the x-ray performed on the digitisation process of the Romanian museums.

In this paper, I examined how the adoption and implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning systems influences an organization’s performance. Performance is a key component that underlies the organization’s activity. Enterprise Resource Planning systems are used to manage the activities of an organization (accounting, procurement, compliance, production, project management and other distribution chain operations). The impact of implementing Enterprise Resource Planning systems may differ from organization to organization. The main purpose of the paper is to present the most important performance indicators that are influenced by the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning systems, but also what is their impact on the entire activity of an organization. The research method used is a quantitative research based on the questionnaire where we identified how Enterprise Resource Planning systems influence the performance of the organization. The data collected were useful to answer the main research questions formulated in the paper. The results obtained based on the questionnaire showed that organizations that implemented Enterprise Resource Planning systems obtained more favorable values of performance indicators than organizations that did not implement them. These Enterprise Resource Planning systems also have a role in the sustainable development of the organization, but in principle Enterprise Resource Planning systems are useful to improve the performance of the organization.

Enterprise Resource Planning systems represent those systems that have the role to significantly improve the flow of information between departments, but also to streamline the activity of companies. The purpose of this paper is to identify the main aspects through which Enterprise Resource Planning systems offer to a company the opportunity to grow sustainably, thus becoming a “green business”.

The research method used in this research was the survey, the questionnaire being an efficient tool for data collection. The questionnaire includes some demographic questions besides the questions specific to the subject of the paper, which has shown that Enterprise Resource Planning systems help an organization to become a green business. For data analysis we used the multiple regression model, using Microsoft Excel. The results showed that there is a significant influence between the independent variables (i.e. reducing costs, clarity and quality of information generated by the Enterprise Resource Planning system, increasing labor productivity, influencing production and services in general, influencing business infrastructure) and the dependent variable (attention to sustainability by companies).

The conclusion of this paper demonstrated that Enterprise Resource Planning systems are useful in a company, because the information provided by Enterprise Resource Planning systems is useful in the decision-making process to ensure the desired sustainability, so that the company becomes a “green business”.

Renewable energy appears to be the solution to both the continuously growing energy demand, and pollution from fossil-based fuels. Recent advances in big data means that crucial areas of the energy supply chain are of interest to the use of advanced analytics. Solar energy is one of the most important renewable energy sources; however, it is stochastic, leading to production volatility and making it difficult to dispatch. The European Commission provides the legal framework and guidelines for increasing the adoption of renewable technologies in the European Union (EU). Meanwhile, the research community must provide solutions for increasing the predictability of solar energy: successful integration depends on how well solar energy production is predicted. Working under the Cross-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining, using real word operational data, this research focuses on providing a foundation of the analytics capabilities needed for reducing, or even removing, the disadvantages of solar energy, demonstrating that a world-class predicative tool can be obtained. Using weather and production data from photovoltaic cells installed in Romania, as a case study, coupled with the powerful artificial neural networks (ANN) architecture, results in a benchmark prediction performance. Currently, there is no research addressing photovoltaic energy production prediction by integrating the impact of artificial intelligence and big data.

The global socio-economic and sanitary crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has generated many different effects on the links of the global agri-food value chains regarding the production and consumption behaviors of agri-food products. Depending on the link, these effects can be positive, negative, or even a mix of both. However, all these sudden changes, beneficial or not, they result in deepening the economic tensions existing along the agri-food value chains. In this context, the aim of this research was to explore the rising tensions along the Romanian agri-food value chains during the different stages of the COVID-19 crisis in Romania, while bringing the HoReCa industry in the spotlight of this study, and, more specifically, the food service component. This paper brings contribution to the literature concerning the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic at the level of the agri-food value chains based on a statistical analysis carried out with the data available from two open access sources: Google Trends and the Romanian National Institute of Statistics. A short bibliometric analysis was also elaborated on the papers tackling the topic of the rising tensions along the agri-food value chains during the pandemic. Research results show that the Romanian HoReCa industry has been subject to various challenges emerged from the need to limit the spread of the COVID-19 disease. This has generated a lot of concern – not only from the food security perspective, but also from the perspective of the entrepreneurs active in the agri-food value chains. Food-ordering companies with homedelivery have been of high interest during the COVID-19 pandemic, as they connect two major links in the food chain: restaurants and consumers. While consumers have become more dependent than ever on digital solutions to purchase food, a lot of pressure is put on indoor restaurants.

The “too big to fail” institutions are a widespread concern, especially in the financial world. Their failure can create severe economic downturns and social turmoil. In past bank failures, governments intervened with public funds to save such institutions from collapse to avoid economic downturns. Since, measures have been put in place to prevent bank failures and limit the utilisation of public funds. However, failures cannot be prevented and risks of affecting the economy are always present in the case of too big to fail institutions. This article explores the possibilities offered by recent advancements in the fields of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, widely implemented by the financial institutions themselves, as tools to be used by authorities in ending the too big to fail conundrum. The adequate implementation of these technological capabilities will contribute to the areas already targeted by governments – reducing the probability of failure and providing tools to limit negative externalities and spillover effects – and will also introduce a new capability that could address the too big to fail matter. Since financial institutions are, in their essence, data hubs, now in a digitalised format, the possibilities to automate tasks and provide insight for decisions should address the issue. The actual transfer of assets and liabilities to institutions that can carry on the activity, currently need years to be handle:. Big Data and Artificial Intelligence technologies could make such operations a matter of hours or days.

Team coordinators are prepared to manage multiple situations such as misunderstanding, conflicts, different levels of engagement and they are usually willing to take risks while accepting a leading position. Yet, not all of them are prepared for crisis such as COVID-19 pandemic. The way they communicate with their teams in this type of periods is essential to ensure continuity and establish organizational trust (Guzzo et al, 2021). In this context, many corporations had to face a new challenge: working mostly or even entirely from home. Employees as well as managers switched to virtual meetings, the concept of a team has suffered modifications and virtual meetings replaced all face-to-face interactions. Leaders had to adapt and learn how to improve their skills to engage with their teams and to ensure performance. The purpose of our study is to see what specific activities were implemented within teams while working from home, what is the perception leaders have about team performance and to find out if this context has diminished their level of control. Data for this paper are gathered using in-depth interviews with team leaders/coordinators/managers from different corporations installed in Bucharest, Romania. The results show that the performance has increased, the teams and coordinators showed a great adaptability, and their level of trust has improved. Recommendations are put forward for teams to consider creating a better balance between their personal and professional lives and to find new ways of socializing at work from time to time on other topics that the business-related ones.

The digital revolution is fundamentally changing business strategies, structures and evolution, consumer behaviour and regulatory approaches. More than ever, the current pandemic has intensified the role of the ICT sector for economic and social survival and resilience and profiled it as a “winner” when compared to other sectors and industries. The paper addresses how the digital economy can contribute more in Romania from taxation, building on arguments in the literature in favour of considering the tax system composition as important as the absolute level of taxation. We discuss how the European Commission’s proposal of a digital services tax could be applied to Romania and what the impact would be on the ICT sector, which already benefited from certain tax advantages in the last 10 years. Within an exploratory and descriptive case study, we show the very good performance of the Romanian ICT sector relative to the overall economy in the last decade, in terms of turnover evolution and profitability, although its share in GDP remains relatively low. Still, average salaries in the industry are double than those of the overall economy, which may be an indication that its value added is higher. We conclude that it is unlikely for the Romanian ICT sector to be able to bear in full the EU proposed digital services tax, but a more bearable scenario is one with a 0.5% tax or 1% tax. Nevertheless, such a proposal should be accompanied by a comprehensive ICT strategy aimed at addressing the labour force competition and investing on the digitalization of the overall economy.

Digitalization in the agricultural sector is an imperative upgrade required to confront the predicted food security challenges announced by the United Nations and Food and Agriculture Organization. Smart agriculture goes beyond primary production (crop diseases, crop production), influencing the complete agricultural value chain, including sustainability and the environment. The present paper results were obtained through a well-documented literature review of European smart-farming projects and a quantitative analysis of the actual status of information, communication, and technology practices implemented among the member states. The research questions aimed to assess the European smart-farming projects’ distribution among the agricultural value chain and to evaluate digitization’s current status at the country-level among member states. At first glance, European Union has implemented over 30 projects with the primary scope to streamline the agricultural sector through massive investments in high-tech technology, autonomous robots, special workshops, and multiple training pieces for farmers and other parties involved along the value chain. The outcomes indicate that the European efforts were mainly orientated towards adding value to the “input-supply” stage. The following immediate focus was to support the entire agricultural supply chain. This article enriches the current literature through a unique combination of the European agricultural value chain and a structured review of the main digitalization projects implemented or which are under-implementation processes among the value chain.

The article aims to analyze how the public interest of an educational franchise has evolved and how it has been influenced by the pandemic. It compares the evolution of the traffic on the franchise’s YouTube channel, Profesorii Trasniti (Nutty Scientists), from two periods of time, “pre” and “post” pandemic, March 2020 being the calendar date taken as a benchmark.

The research methodology includes both a secondary analysis (based on articles published in the literature on topics such as: digitization, education in the virtual environment, social media as a tool in the equation) and a statistical measure of the difference between the proportions of the number of comments on published videos on the YouTube channel “Profesorii Trasniti” (Nutty Scientists) of the Fun Science Romania franchise, “pre” and “post” pandemic based on the data provided by the YouTube Analytics platform.

The questions that arise from this study are:

To what extent has the social media engagement of the “post” pandemic audience on the YouTube channel Profesorii Trasniti (Nutty Scientists) of the Fun Science Romania franchise increased in terms of its educational content?

To what extent has the interest in a strong educational content increased on YouTube compared to the one focused more on entertainment in the pandemic context caused by COVID 19?

Purpose: This study is focused on researching the impact of WOM on the acceptance of mobile banking. This research offers insights into factors that affect the implementation of mobile banking applications.

Methodology: The research’s inclusion was based on relevancy, authenticity, and reliability of information extracted from publication journals, and exclusion was based on non-relevancy and lack of authentic research. For the analyzes, consumer data were collected through a survey, and structural equations modelling, and path analysis were employed to test the research model.

Findings: The findings showed that WOM was the critical factor influencing consumer perceptions towards mobile banking. WOM also positively affects other factors impacting mobile banking acceptance, such as Ease of use, Perceived usefulness, Social Norms, Trust, Attitude, and intention.

Limitations: The most significant limitation of this study is that it only concentrates on internet users. Non-users are not considered.

Value: Many researchers studied the number of effects on mobile banking, but this work’s uniqueness is that this paper focuses on WOM impact on mobile banking adoption. Its impact factor is considered the main contribution of this research.

Information and telecommunications technology have altered society, the economy, and financial-banking activities globally in the previous few decades of development. The current stage of mass digitization is to design an increasing number of managerial, technical and technological tasks in all sectors of society and economic activity. It won’t fall behind the financial sector, where digitalization is already having a rapid impact on the financial service sector, with a wide range of products, applications, and different processes, as well as the development of business models that transform the traditional way financial services are provided. Technological advances have occurred in all areas of economic and financial activity, from the boardroom to the regulatory and supervisory bodies in both private and public finance. In this post, we’ll take a look back at the development of digital financial developers and rank them for the future.

The topicality of the topic lies in the importance of globalization from the perspective of sustainable development in the socio-economic and ecological sphere. Globalization cannot be considered as representing a completely new phenomenon in the history of the world, it has certain historical antecedents, many specialists arguing that it is nothing but a new name for an older phenomenon. Globalization is the global trend of the world’s economies to become borderless and interconnected. Globalization has caused major damage to nature and the drying up of non-renewable resources, creating the possibility of global campaigns to develop. Civil societies are less efficient in the face of global factors, which cannot be held accountable, such as governments or companies anchored in the territory, visible and affordable.

Achieving the 2030 and 2050 climate targets gears up several economic opportunities but also a package of threats for the EU Member States. The economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic will accelerate the energy transition, which is becoming an engine of post-coronavirus economic growth. In this landscape, new economic governance, speeding up innovation, cutting the red tape, and improving access to human and financial resources becomes essential for ensuring a sustainable and long-lasting economic development which is linked with reducing the carbon emissions. Basically, a race against the clock has begun, as the first significant climate targets are to be met in 2030, aiming to reduce GHG emissions by 55% from 1990 level. Several recent studies have sought to deepen the potential of hydrogen in achieving these climate goals explaining how it can be embedded into the European Union economy. It highlighted some important features and applications of hydrogen as a substitute for other polluting resources used today in energy production, transportation, or other economic and social domains. Using a regression model, the author identified a close correlation between the increase in the price of carbon certificates and the decline in coal production. An accelerated, three-fold increase in the price of carbon certificates could enable hydrogen to be used in the power sector, while ensuring post-2030 continuity for domestic natural gas production. The combination between blue hydrogen and natural gas might be the solution to eliminate two thirds of carbon emissions from energy production, while attracting European funds, as investments for the energy transition.

The topicality of the topic lies in the importance of taxation and reforms in this field for the economic development of any state. For the EU, as a conglomeration of states and as an exponent of economic globalization, taxation has a strong influence on the multiple economic processes that take place within this structure, as well as within each member state. Undoubtedly, from the perspective of the possible association with the European Union, for the Republic of Moldova, the fiscal changes with subsequent impact on the socio-economic development have a special importance. However, Community tax policy is difficult to impose in the European area, especially because of the obstacles it faces, especially those caused by the Member States themselves, which are reluctant to apply common rules, in particular to the elimination of various forms of tax discrimination, double taxation or tax evasion. The main tools that the European Union intends to use to bring Member States’ taxation closer together are tax harmonization and tax cooperation between Member States.

In this article, we try to see if there is a direct link between this health crisis and global warming and if there is something to take away and use at a different level. We are living in complicated times, a sanitary crisis which is followed by an economic one, the amplitude is remained to see, but clearly, both are very damaging. In both cases, being able to rely on the best available scientific knowledge is essential for decision-making. But these cases are quite different because in the case of climate change, apparently, the solution consists in embracing a new social, economic, and energy model. Unfortunately, this aspect is missing from the measures aimed to slow down the COVID-19 pandemic. If certain decisions taken to solve the pandemic seem initially to be directed through the direction of climate protection, others seem rather to going in the opposite direction, so there is no immediate equivalence from one problem to another, and we should not mislead ourselves about possible positive consequences of this health crisis in terms of climate. Nevertheless, perfect communication, coordinated and targeted, clear and honest, has to go hand in hand with the actions taken, to obtain the best and fast results. Despite this situation, we don’t have to forget that that humanity is in the middle of another crisis, global warming, which will affect even more, at all levels, not only humankind, and for a longer period.

The importance of the effects of climate change has been emphasized on a variety of levels and from a number of different perspectives: on a country, regional or international level; affecting agriculture, energy, tourism, shipping, economic activities, various ecosystems as well as human health. It has been repeatedly recognized that climate change has a significant impact on freshwaters, including on their quality, availability and sustainability. From a different perspective, that of the circular economy, management strategies applied in respect to freshwaters have a direct impact on the climate. At the same time, improper waste management has a very high negative contribution to the latest climate changes, on one hand, and on the quality and availability of freshwater resources, on the other hand. Nevertheless, how all the three different above-mentioned elements – climate change, freshwater resources and waste management – are linked in the context of 2030 Agenda on sustainable development is yet to be thoroughly discussed in the scientific literature in the field of environmental law. Thus, by analysing a sample of the legal doctrine contributions published starting from 2016, as well as several official documents issued by the United Nations, we aimed to establish if all the three above-mentioned elements are interlinked and how they impact each other. As a result, we determined that there is a clear necessity for states to take unified measures to address climate change, protection and management of the freshwater resources and consistent waste management in the context of the Sustainable development goals (SDGs) introduced by the 2030 Agenda.

COVID-19 was responsible for a global health crisis beginning in early 2020 that saw telecommuting become commonplace regardless of the size of the firm, the sector or country. It’s possible that even before pandemics, there were some differences in the practice of telecommuting among countries and sectors. These differences were impacted by factors such as the cultural context and labor policies at governmental and corporate levels. Telecommuting in the EU had only reached 5.4% in 2019 before the Covid-19 outbreak, making it a relatively new trend when compared to the technological potential it offers. 40 percent of EU workers are expected to telecommute in 2020, in the early stages of the outbreak, according to estimates. This research uses the theory of socio-technical transitions (MLP) to examine how and why telecommuting suddenly became the norm among managers and workers from a variety of different industries. At landscape level, an opening was provided by the Covid-19 epidemic that allowed telecommuting to break over the niche-regime barrier.

This paper aims to emphasize the significance of the Critical Infrastructures in a general European context, as well as a divided approach on the Romanian types of critical infrastructures and their specifics.

The main topics approached in the article are analyzing the processes undergone to identify and regulate Critical Infrastructures in the field of Transportation, Energy production, Water and sanitation, Nuclear Industry in Romania, as well as to adapt and standardize the Romanian legislation to the legislation of the European Union.

Although in the international literature the Critical Infrastructures are fully covered, the Romanian literature is scarce and not unified, due to the fact the Critical Infrastructure notion is new and in ongoing development.

The source that legislates which infrastructures are considered of critical importance in Romania is the emergency ordinance 98/2010, that has been repeatedly altered and is still subjected to critique and amendment attempts.

The author, as security representative of a private infrastructure in the energy field, proposes completions of the procedures that determine the criticality of an infrastructure in the energy field through the ACIS methodology.

There was proposed a set of directions for the Romanian Critical Infrastructures alignment, with the rules introduced by the European Critical Infrastructure Protection Program, and, as well, adaptations of the requirements of the European Commission in relation to the Council Directive no. 2008/114 / EC.

We were aiming to strengthen and increase the resilience of Romanian Critical Infrastructures, making them more efficient, smart and robust.

Nowadays electricity trading and supply are evolving rapidly due to the digitalization of the electricity industry. This evolution is also generated by the development of many new business models in the field and also by new technologies in the form of smart meters, smart grids, smart homes, demand response, artificial intelligence, peer-to-peer trading, Internet of Things or Blockchain. All these technologies together have a huge contribution to the field of electricity and jointly create the digitalization of the electricity generation, transportation, supply and trading.

The aim of the research paper is to determine the degree to which consumers agree to work with an Aggregator to implement demand response. In addition, we have an interest in searching what makes them more attractive to electricity prosumers and consumers (both households and industry) as well as identifying those triggers which make electricity consumers or prosumers to start utilizing them.

We have to bear in mind that Demand Side Management besides offering incentives and monetary benefits also assists end consumers and prosumers in energy management in the meaning of decreasing energy wastes and increasing the level of optimal generation and consumption. Beyond the above mentioned facts, the focus is on the decrease of carbon dioxide emissions generated by pollutant fossil fuel electricity generation and positively affecting global warming, without endangering the proper functioning of electricity systems. Education and awareness have a huge role in achieving a more rational, optimal and conscious consumption of electricity through Demand Side Management. The issue has to be raised to the level of importance and acceptance similar to what recycling of other recyclable materials have nowadays, such as paper, plastic, various metals and glass.

Leadership models in the times of COVID-19 is surely the topic of the hour, yet this hour might last for some few years. By the end of it, we will reach the point of no return and a new set of rules and paradigms would have been created. Many researchers and leadership representatives investigate this topic. The available and reviewed literature is rather shaping the discrepancies of the past-embedded practices, as opposed to the current challenges. In this context of constant change, the current paper is aiming to investigate some current leadership practices, which are targeting the level of productivity, different ways of working and communicating in the work from home context. Moreover, the research would be setting the stage for something that is not there yet, in the current leadership patterns. The research methodology based on top management and senior leaders’ interviews, covering multiple industries from Romania, like banking, energy, manufacturing at large scale and outsourcing. The questions were designed to investigate the realities on their new job definition, from a personal perspective, as people managers and the business value outcomes envisioned in the new scheme of work. The theoretical contribution of the paper is to define a set of guidelines and filtering areas of leadership focus. The set of information gathered for new business metrics of performance, the ownership, efficiency and business value creation is pushed at all levels. One major change is the new definition of discipline, shifting from authority into entrepreneurial attitudes.

Industry 4.0 and digitalization are changing the business world. While companies are optimizing their processes and adapting to the new market conditions, some entrepreneurs are pushing the boundaries by creating new organizations that are capitalizing on the digital environment or even building the technologies behind it, achieving fast, impressive results. The paper is concerned with characterizing the Romanian entrepreneurship within the digitalization and Industry 4.0 context, through the means of a semi-systematic literature review of articles and conference proceedings published within last five years, indexed in the Thomson Reuters Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection database. Manual filtering, categorization and synthesis of the relevant articles were used along with co-occurrence networks built in VOSviewer. The main directions were discovered to be in six areas on the use of technology in business and two areas which were also particularly related to entrepreneurship education.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought tremendous challenges for the educational field, especially in terms of leadership strategies to be taken on a short notice in order to ensure both health security of the personnel and learners, but also adapt to an online teaching environment and other challenges. While several higher education institutions had partially or completely adapted to an online educational model, the COVID-19 period offered new challenges in terms of internationalization, investment in technology and financing, but also in terms of implementing new educational models, fully online or hybrid models. Based on a sample of 23 Universities from the European Union, the current research aimed to propose new directions of the academic leadership strategies and focus points during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as expected trends after the end of the pandemic.

Based on the study of the academic leadership strategies and models in the European Union, this paper offers an additional practical overview to existing studies in the field, as it inquires the implemented university leadership strategies in order to adapt and overcome the current pandemic crisis, as well as ensuring the continuity of activities and development of higher educational institutions.

The traditional educational models have been challenged by the appearance of the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, which made online education an imperative almost everywhere in order to ensure a minimized health risk for population through social distancing while continuing the educational and administrative activities of educational facilities. As a measure of protection for their students and personnel educational facilities in the European Union decided to close and continue the activities online starting with March 2020. By using the Delphi method with two rounds of questionnaires the present paper intended to inquire the experience of students from the German department of the Faculty of Business Administration of the Bucharest University of Economics Studies in Romania in the early stage of complete online teaching due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The results of the inquiry indicated the majority of students evaluated positively the easiness and accessibility of information and tasks during the online courses, tended to feel still as a community and not as isolated individuals and preferred to continue with both online and face-to-face classes in the upcoming period, thus, overall rating positively the online teaching of the second semester between March 2020 and May 2020.

The study offers a basis of inquiry for future research papers in the sense of analyzing the public perceptions of a sample of students from the included faculty in order to determine improving directions for the future of online learning.

Smart meters allow electricity consumption readings at a high time resolution generating time series that can be investigated to extract valuable insights and detect frauds. Using a dataset with recordings from Chinese consumers, we propose an exploratory data analysis and processing to train several classifiers and assess the results. Good results are obtained with ensemble classifiers such as Random Forest (RF), eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGB) and Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) with two layers and a relatively small number of neurons. Real-consumption dataset daily recorded in China consisting of over 42,000 consumers and over 1,000 days is processed with machine learning ML algorithms or classifiers to distinguish between normal and suspicious consumers. In this paper, we will compare a simple feature engineering method that consists in aggregating the data, calculating distances and density function with no feature engineering, proving that the first approach enhances the results and reduces the utility companies’ costs related to on-site inspections. The results are compared with AUC score and ROC curves as the input data is highly skewed.

The goal of GDPR is to harmonize consumer rights in the European Union regardless of where they are or where they come from. This has an impact on the processing of personal data within organizations - especially in human resources departments. GDPR has major consequences in the HR field as the employer processes employee data (and potential employees) on a large scale. At the formal level, the Human Resources Director must ensure that the new concepts introduced by the Regulation are correctly reflected in the internal documents governing the duties and responsibilities of the employees. The biggest challenge in this regard is defining the role of the data protection officer at the organization level. The methodological section of this article includes a narrative analysis based on an interview with a data protection officer, head of compliance guide to GDPR. The purpose of this study reflects the impact of the Personal Data Regulations on the Human Resources activities. It is useful for organizations and subjects to know what particular attention should be paid regarding GDPR to the recruitment process, the access methods of the equipment available to the employee, the data protection solutions in the systems and the employee monitoring system.

In the current global context, agriculture should develop both interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary. Digitalization and innovation represent the key drivers of evolution. Agriculture must become more flexible and adaptable to the current challenges, integrating eco-friendly solutions that can maintain production at optimal capacity for a longer period. This paper aims to review the Romanian agricultural policies from the 19th century to the present, bringing perspective on the international practices and focusing on the technological innovations that occurred in the past years. The research follows the evolution of agriculture on the European agenda. There are now new challenges imposed by the need for modernization and reconfiguration of farming into an integrated system with performance parameters and development routes. Romania has followed the trends and implemented several policies which aim to help farmers integrate the new technologies into their day-to-day work.

In the past years, the food industry has been challenged by several factors: increased natality, accelerated growth of urban areas, higher prices. All the above are turning into a growth vector which may seem like a great opportunity for farm owners. Despite the favorable context, the farmers are facing their own issues trying to cover a big demand, through eco-friendly ways. This paper explains the importance of ensuring resilience for small farmers. In general, farmers are adaptive entrepreneurs, but they need support through agricultural policies, a coherent legislative framework, and a substantial package of economic measures. The modern Romanian farmer will be able to streamline their supply once they learn how to optimize their sustainable business plans. The increased yields are determined by both technological processes and responsibility for the environment. Promoting small farmers and stimulating their access to the market is defining for the future of food security.

The latest technological discoveries in communication have translated into a more advanced and performant agriculture field which now has a greater online presence than ever before. Therefore, the new challenges to be faced in agriculture are not only the environmental ones, as it was in the past, where the weather was the variable having a higher power. The new challenge is raised by a fully technologized world. This paper is planning to analyze how agriculture changed in Romania after the internet and the online world. This also strives to highlight the main challenges faced by agriculture in the century of technology, its benefits and to answer the most asked question of the 21st century. Is this version of agriculture the better or the healthier one? As for the wealth coming from the big progress, the data from Meticulous Research’s report published in 2020 shows that the agriculture IoT market will reach 34.9 billion dollars by 2027. Meaning a significant raise of crops after industrialization, as well as a higher rate of profitability compared to past centuries and past technology phases. This means not only that farmers have better results, but their wealth has also grown, however, the main question still stands. The disadvantages come from its new own qualities – increased range of production, higher knowledge share, and industrialization.

Due to COVID-19, disruptions in many sectors i.e., social, political, labor, economic and education have been produced. Education is one of the key factors for development and also for improving competitiveness and growth of countries. The role of entrepreneurship education and training institutions is to prepare students for entrepreneurial practices and develop entrepreneurship competences. The transition from face-to-face teaching to online ones creates many difficulties for students, educators and institutions to adapt quickly. But the required changes within education due Covid-19 also open the way for new forms of teaching and learning within entrepreneurship education i.e., to develop and use interdisciplinary education forms as well as more practical oriented lifelong learning approaches and use the support of digital learning platforms. This paper presents some consequences of the pandemic in the field of digital teaching and learning models within entrepreneurship education and lifelong learning. Second some improvements are proposed in this context which have been tested by the Lifelong Learning Study Group of the IAT also within European projects.

The main processes that have an impact on the entrepreneurial media are innovation, promotion of products and services, and the element of novelty. Through technological progress and the dynamism of labor market development, new entrepreneurial directions have emerged, which have seen a rise through the development of media content. Media and entrepreneurship determine new content techniques, resulting in new services and products. This paper aims to highlight the correlation of the media industry with that of entrepreneurship, these being in a close relationship, which results in innovation, creative content, and business development. To this extent, a bibliometric analysis was performed on a corpus of scientific papers, from the Web of Science platform, focusing on media entrepreneurship to determine the current state of knowledge in this area. Furthermore, the analysis reveals the most researched themes and the relevant terminology used. As a selection protocol of the scientific material for media a series of keywords were used, that is: “media”, “internet”, “radio”, “TV”, “newspapers”, “social media”, “journalism” and for entrepreneurship we followed the keywords: “business”, “entrepreneurship” and “entrepreneur”. The results of the analysis showed that the most frequently used terms in media entrepreneurship research studies are: Internet, development, social medium, and business model. In addition to that, media and entrepreneurship seem to be closely researched concerning innovation, economic development, and education.

Recent technological developments have led to economic changes that have an impact on the macroeconomic and microeconomic levels in developing countries, as well as in developed ones. The introduction of cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency, made public in 2009) into the economy through blockchain technology, generated a series of benefits, but also significant risks for citizens, companies and states.

The main purpose of this article is to present the operating mechanism of the blockchain system and cryptocurrencies, their advantages and disadvantages and the attempts of the international authorities to regulate the crypto market. The authors will present also few case studies of tech start-ups that leveraged the versatility of blockchain principles into viable business propositions. Romania makes no exception in this field, so the authors will analyze and present the current status of this industry.

The age in which we live is increasingly characterized by the ability of people to communicate without restrictions, to send information without restrictions and to have access to complex information, which can be accessed very quickly. The information economy will penetrate and change almost every aspect of our lives. Thus, there are many examples of companies that no longer need to occupy physical space to carry out their activity. They can be virtual and can work anywhere in the world. In this context we also refer to the transition from classic commerce to online commerce.

In this paper we analyze the behavior of Romanian consumers regarding the purchase of online or offline sales spaces and complete this analysis with a quantitative marketing research on “Opinions and attitudes of Romanians on the purchase of food products from online sales outlets and offline.”

Tourist destinations are based on new technologies to facilitate access of visitors to tourist attractions. The mobility of the tourists together with the access infrastructure to the tourist objectives is important in the coordination of the tourist flows. More and more self-organized tours will overshadow the travel agencies tours in the demand and preferences of tourists. As technology advances, the curiosity and need of tourists to experience something new develop. The stringent health security requirements in the ‘new normal’ social life during and post-pandemic times enforce radical changes of tourism, among which virtual tourism gains solid grounds. Virtual tours accessed via smartphones have largely replaced the classical guided tours, lately. Our research is aimed at finding new ways to help Bucharest turn into a smart tourism destination. Bucharest is a European capital that needs modernization, innovation, digitalization and greater exposure and promotion internationally. The paper discusses the new trends of smart tourist destinations, the ways and means by which a destination may become smart and attractive for tourists and proposes a virtual signposting for visiting tourist attractions in Bucharest. Through our research we contribute to the intelligent tourism development in Bucharest and we offer ideas for future smart tourism projects.

The Romanian dairy industry has experienced a significant evolution in the last 30 years. Improving product quality is a decisive and important factor for increasing competitiveness in both domestic and foreign markets. The concept of sustainability is increasingly found in the quality policies and objectives set by dairy producers. This paper aims to capture the current sustainable development practices and quality strategies applied by companies in the dairy sector in Romania and how they are perceived by consumers. In order to highlight the opinions and attitudes of Romanians regarding the quality strategies and sustainable development practices that are applied in the dairy sector, the authors conducted a quantitative marketing research among the Romanian population. The sampling method was non-random, and a questionnaire was used to collect the data, which was displayed on a web page (Computer Assisted Web Interviewing). The research revealed that many Romanians have heard of the concept of “sustainable development”, but do not know very well what it refers to. The authors consider that the topic is up to date and that based on the results of this research, companies in the analyzed sector can improve their applied quality strategies and adopt new sustainable development practices in order to improve their products and increase consumer satisfaction.

In a world dominated by data, information is one of the most important resources. But simply collecting and storing data is not enough, as data has to be transformed into information. Researchers agree on the fact that both computing power and analytical methods allow this at an unprecedented level. Given the consistent and wide applicability of such systems and technologies today, the present work goes into possible uses of cognitive computing and sets its focus on the retail sector. Cognitive computing generally helps with consumer profiling, deriving their preferences, delivering suitable product recommendations, and contouring the consumer experience when interacting with companies. The main aim of the present work is to investigate consumer experiences with the help of cognitive computing and lay ground for further research on this topic. In the following sections of the present article, we define the concept of cognitive computing, with regard to its meaning for multiple, diverse data streams and types. We then empirically investigate the use of CC for shaping and enriching consumer experiences with the help of cognitive virtual assistants (CVAs). After conducting quantitative research, we discuss differences in perceptions between two age groups (under and over 40 years).

In the glocalization context, private health insurance local and international companies invested in Romania for over two decades, nevertheless the private health insurance adoption rate in the country was the lowest in the region. The purpose of this research is to analyze and understand the phenomena behind private health insurance customer satisfaction, designing a cognitive model and identifying the functional relationships between elements. The literature review provides various models that are related to customer satisfaction, from buying decision process to the relationships between perceived values, service consequence and expected service values that determines customer satisfaction. The developed conceptual model in six dimensions, including the output variable block for customer satisfaction, was the base for developing the research questionnaire. Developed on a structural equation modeling approach, the quantitative research results depict how customer satisfaction is mediating private health insurance and consumer behavior. Consequently, a private health insurance provider needs to adapt its products to increase people’s motivation to purchase such a product and, after the acquisition, to improve the covered services to increase the beneficiaries’ level of satisfaction. The generic contribution this paper brings is to present the private health insurance industry valences for Romania in the years 2017-2019 and the relationship between the product attributes, Customer Behavior and Consumer Satisfaction.

Marketers have been trying to find the means to innovate and introduce technology as much as they can in their line of work in order to convince consumers to acquire their products or services and due to recent outcomes, it has become harder for certain fields to benefit from conventional marketing strategies and implementations. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality have the possibility to help fields that are overlooked in Online based marketing and even bring new light to presenting products and services to consumers. In this article, we will try to identify the advantages and disadvantages of using these technologies in marketing strategies, where they have been used successfully and where they can be used to innovate. We will be reviewing research papers that have been published in the field of virtual reality and augmented reality that are connected with marketing strategies with an emphasis on tourism, education and marketing, presenting the findings and relating our opinions on further developing these aspects.

In recent years, with the remarkable growth of the global digital market, specialists took a new direction of focus in the field of marketing, considering customer experience an important differentiator in today’s digital landscape. In an online setting, in contrast to traditional marketing, the dimensions of customer experience include informativeness, entertainment, social presence and sensory, elements that create customer value. The experience is an increasingly significant component in defining the success of an online company, becoming a source of competitive advantage for any e-business. Yet, to accomplish these favorable results, a business needs to focus on customer loyalty, a concept that is understood from a relational perspective as the consumer’s preferences to sustain a stable relationship with the brand, fact that involves consistent visits of the site, and in consequence, repeat purchases. The research presented in this paper is based on the literature review. Subsequently, a conceptual model was proposed as the intersection of the online customer experience dimensions with the concept of customer loyalty, which, in turn, includes consumer’s attitudes and behaviors toward an online business. The purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to offer an outline of opportunities to use customer experience for increasing customer loyalty and (2) to provide managerial implications and guides future research opportunities to empirically measure the impact of online customer experience components on customer loyalty.

Since the introduction of the advanced internal rating based approach through the Basel framework, financial institutions and regulators have been dealing with the increased complexity of Loss Given Default models. The development and validation of the parameters has become more formalized and standardized as more prescriptive regulations and guidelines have been published by the European Parliament, European Central Bank and European Banking Authority. Furthermore, following the introduction of IFRS 9 in January 2018 even more emphasis is put on the development and validation as the standard poses new challenges to the way models are designed, developed, validated and increased complexity through the introduction of the lifetime and forward-looking adjustments. This paper address the challenges faced by banks and regulators when assessing and validation the IFRS 9 - Loss Given Default parameters and framework. Moreover, it describes a non-exhaustive list of tests that can be performed to establishing the accuracy, discrimination power and stability of the Loss Given Default outputs. It is important that the framework built around the modeling, development and validation process allows models to be easily integrated in the management framework in a flexible manner that can facilitate any changes that must be brought to the models. Hence, this paper outlines a non-exhaustive list of quantitative validation tests considered would satisfy the requirements of the IFRS 9 standard.

The economics of burnout is estimated at around $300 bn globally, reaching a point where the World Health Organisation could declare a pandemic in the foreseeable future. There are obviously financial losses due to burnout, however, there are also financial gains for the pharma industry and therapists. In this article we shall put some data in balance, but also look at deeper regulatory implications, for companies, hospitals and people. Along with exploring causes and financial impacts, we shall look at how non-financial reporting can provide more timely guidance and alarm signals, better social responsibility disclosure practices where medical reports are more material, not just a set of issues. The time is right to revisit the Human Resource Accounting (HRA) practice from both its traditional cost approach perspective and also from present challenges to understand how value is put at risk.

This paper aims to provide a high-level overview of whether and how ethics is taught in Romanian accounting and business faculties, members of the Association of Economics Faculties of Romania (AFER), at Bachelor or Masters’ level (accounting, audit or business administration programs).

While there are numerous research papers on how ethics is taught in general and some national surveys in other countries, this is the first analysis of its kind in Romania and it can be helpful for faculties to compare themselves to what their counterparts are doing to teach this important topic for professionals in accounting and business. We analysed the publicly available (detailed and most recent) curricula of 60 programs (22 bachelor and 38 masters) from 14 faculties in 8 Romanian cities. We found out whether ethics is included as a self-standing course or ingrained in the curricula (based on our own hypothesis which we then verified) and whether it is predominantly an optional or a mandatory discipline. We found that, with a few exceptions, the majority of programs analyzed approached ethics (academic or professional) and that the Ethics self-standing courses (or the courses where ethics is included as a secondary subject) have a relatively high importance (judged from the number of credits allocated to them). There are many other variables to analyze in order to make the research more relevant for professors that would want to update their ethics curricula. One would be for instance to analyze whether currently ethics is taught more towards senior years or at the beginning of students’ education.

The current paper explores how inter-company arrangements within a group can positively influence companies’ performance management strategies.

In current globalization era, taxation system transcends the countries boarders, being a tool used both for eliminating double taxation for an income, but also as leverage in modern commercial wars (e.g. import taxes between USA and China). Thus, it can be considered that taxation knowledge provides a competitive advantage to all companies that are considering it as a business tool, in an ethical manner.

The necessity of such an analysis appeared during the second part of the pandemic crisis, when we noticed that companies part of a group managed to perform during the crisis period due to cash allocation within the group. This is a multi-disciplinary study, being obtained by combination of the following subjects: (i) performance management, (ii) international taxation, (iii) transfer pricing and (iv) game theory.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, with a strategic tax mechanism, companies can restart their business in the post-pandemic period with a competitive advantage. Strategy is the key and everyone who have such a key will stay in the market game.

This paper examines the role of accounting through the information it provides to stakeholders, as well as the role of accounting in the development of our society. Accounting is vital for society, it is the main tool used to run businesses and state institutions, companies are decisive for defining culture, and culture is the basis of a developed society. Societies rely on its institutions, and the solution for a better world is found in the usage of reliable and independent data. It is well known the fact that subjective management decisions based on creative accounting led to big crises with negative consequences for all. Accounting has been used as the main tool to assess performance, but in order to be even more useful for society, the accounting system needs to modernize and unite, be transparent and totally independent from management. And it should be even more connected to the business model and responsive to the needs of society, in order to be able to provide valuable, comparable and useful information for all parties involved. The paper advocates for independent and forward-looking accounting, by giving up the flexibility, creativity and influence of managers, for decisions based on detailed and concrete information, transferred and consolidated in real time with the help of technology. Now accounting has the capacity to control the business and bring value to society through real-time and high-quality business reporting.

The corporate governance pillars have been intensively discussed in the literature and the formation and functioning of the audit committees have a special place in this world. Considering the existing conclusions retained by the literature on the influence of the audit committees on the performance of the companies, we intend to analyse the current status quo of the level of compliance for the listed Romanian companies in this field. Corroborating the recommendations of the corporate governance code provided by the Bucharest Stock Exchange along with the provisions of the norms that regulate statutory audit in Romania, we find a positive evolution of the level of compliance for the Romanian companies with respect to the formation and functioning of the audit committees.

Artificial Intelligence is changing the reality of the accounting field, on a rapid way, due to the benefit of improving and reshaping the actual way of performing activities on this domain. Over the years accounting has changed significantly by replacing the work with paper and pencil first with computers, but more importantly with programmes able to decrease time spend on repetitive work that reduce the amount of errors. The interest on Artificial Intelligence solutions in this domain is not new but on the last years researchers become more focused on it. Despite the material progress there seems to be not enough data to support companies’ willingness to embed Artificial Intelligence solutions into their accounting activities. Also, an important aspect of this reality is the capability of experts to adapt faster to the new status quo and to acquire the necessary skills to be able to work with Artificial Intelligence solutions and to overcome the fear of losing their jobs. This paper is focusing on understanding the impact of Artificial Intelligence solution in accounting by conducting a qualitative research based on relevant literature review, of the last years. This paper is highlighting the potential changes Artificial Intelligence can bring to the accounting jobs and the necessary steps to be taken in order to prepare for the new jobs, in which Artificial Intelligence solutions will be more present.

This study aims to investigate the opinions of certified accountants in Romania on the implementation of the IAS/IFRS (International Accounting Standards/International Financial Reporting Standards) in an emergent country that has a short to medium experience in adopting and implementing the standards.

Accounting digitalization is a very important topic nowadays, not only for practitioners, but also for scholars and many different institutions. Digitalization influences the accounting profession through many ways, but the rhythm of digitalization firstly depends on people involved. Having that the accounting practitioner is the main actor in this field, it is very important to know how his behavior drives the pace of digitalization and whether his experience increases or reduces its rhythm. Using a case-based experiment with 2x2 between subjects and full factorial design, this paper examines the influence of the accountants’ experience and their behavior on digitalization pace. The findings show that Romanian accountants are attracted by digitalization and feel comfortable with this change. Although the results show that the work experience is a factor that influences digitalization changes, there was not enough statistical evidence to confirm the findings. This study contributes to accounting digitalization literature by showing how accounting practitioners react to digitalization change and how the pace of digitalization is driven by their behavior and their experience.

The purpose of this article is to analyse the impact of earnings management on audit quality, taking into consideration the transparency of financial reporting under IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards). The global reporting has undergone important changes in the last decade of time. IFRS represents a revolution concerning the accounting principles and these standards were created to aid the investors and the auditors with the globalisation. Although there is a replete foundation of rules, the high degree of competition has decreased the accuracy of financial reporting through different ways and consequently the level of audit quality. Earnings management has the root in the incentives for management taking into consideration the linkage between the values of entities, the reported earnings figures and the measure of discretionary (abnormal) accruals. The main purpose of the research is represented by the investigation of accuracy of financial reporting concerning the linkage between earnings management and audit quality. The in-depth acquaintance of these elements highlights the actual circumstances of institutional context related to IFRS and ISA framework. In the present survey, a sample of 14 countries, during 2010-2019 was analysed. The study involves a quantitative model based on Jones model in order to verify the incidence of earnings management on audit quality. The results attest that the positive relationship between earnings management and audit quality is highly influenced by the accuracy of financial reporting under IFRS. At the same time, the present paper argues a continuous improvement of the financial reporting under audit inspections by Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOBs).

One of the most intricate and debated subject in international financial reporting convergence program was and remains the Revenue recognition. After a long due process, the new IFRS 15 standard was published in 2014 and mandatory implementing from 2018. From here, 2020 adds multiples difficulties due to COVID 19 pandemic effects. In this context, from the same starting point we continued our previous endeavor into current times. Despite the new financial reporting standard “smartness” and high-quality content, the entities’ awareness and good understanding of the new standard’s main issues are crucial for successful implementation. Likewise, the business-model’s requirements and the way of caring them out are equally important. If in the precedent study we chose construction industry, now we extend the research to the telecommunications area – one of the most challenging sector – and we have considered the additional COVID 19 pandemic’s sudden, unpredictable, and complex effects, using the same research methods (comparison analysis and the theoretical pattern), in order to produce a chain of evidence and to reduce biases. The main objective was to demonstrate a common pattern of challenges and controversies from these two hot-impact sectors’ perspectives, alongside with the outcomes of the COVID 19 pandemic. We consider our effort to be helpful in finding the practical approach to improve the understanding and effective use of accounting information and to provide a value-added feedback to standard setters. Despite the inherent limitations of our research, we are confident that our findings originally contribute to increasing the knowledge of the relevant issues of financial reporting based upon IFRS and produce more “business light” to important global players.

Competitiveness has always been considered a vector of innovation that is centered around economic performance; constantly pushing companies to achieve better performance results. In such a modern society deeply marked by digitization, value creation has expanded its scope and it is no longer involving only harnessing customer satisfaction through the quality of the products or services marketed to customers, but it is also involving the permanent digital connection and engagement between the links of any value chain. Digital platforms, including social networks, are major sources of economic concentration where different forms of value emerge. For example, Facebook Inc. runs a business model that involves selling online media space for companies willing to pay money to have consumers of goods and services engage with the ads displayed on Facebook platforms, based on specific group targeting. Taking all of this into consideration, the scientific interest in exploring the nature of an emergent form of value along the chain is implicit. This paper brings its unique contribution to the existing literature concerning the topic of agri-food value chains by providing a niche marketing approach on a paradigm shift at the level of the nature of value generated in the chain in the case of highly digitized societies. The research objective was to bring the sustainability factor into the spotlight of the analysis concerning the paradigm shift of the nature of the value generated in the agri-food value chain. Research results show that some multinational corporations active in the Romanian agri-food sector use the Facebook Ad Market to reach consumers and call for them to engage in activities specific to building a sustainable agri-food system. Thus, by engaging in such activities, consumers feel that they contribute to the corporations’ effort in achieving sustainability. Consequently, a different form of value is generated along the chain.

One of the fundamental pillars of the European Union aims the convergence of economic performances between countries and regions. This objective has proved to be increasingly difficult to achieve with the expansion of the regional group towards the Central and East of the continent. The aim of this paper is to study real convergence in the New Member States from Central and Eastern Europe, by taking into consideration the evolution of GDP per capita between 2000 and 2018. In this respect, we have conducted a comparative analysis between countries and regions using β- and σ-convergence. By applying cross-sectional regressions, we have identified a strong relationship between the initial level of income of the Central and Eastern European countries and the subsequent growth rates, the average catching-up speed reaching 3.6%. Moreover, β-convergence was accompanied by a reduction of income divergences between Central and Eastern European Members. In contrast, our analysis suggests a weaker process of convergence between regions compared to countries, the convergence rate reaching 1.7% per year. Furthermore, by studying the intra-national patterns, we have illustrated that the capital regions have consolidated their relative position in the majority of the Central and Eastern Member States to the detriment of the other territorial units. Consequently, the paper suggests that convergence across countries was accompanied by an increase of intra-national disparities between regions in Central and Eastern Europe.

In this paper, the authors seek to analyze if the relationship between final consumption and foreign trade indicators, at a macroeconomic level, manifests as a Granger causality. The graphical representation of the datasets reveals that the evolutions follow a similar pattern (with the exception of the net export). The indicators on both sides of the causality have been widely approached by researchers, as they contribute to the formation of the Gross Domestic Product. The research methodology follows the Toda-Yamamoto procedure for measurement of Granger causality, as the variables were expected to be (and were found to be in the initial step of the data analysis) non-stationary, and the results on the processing in levels can provide more accurate information. The research hypotheses were designed in order to detail the main topic of the paper on foreign trade indicators. None of the hypotheses has been validated, and the authors consider, in the future, the application of other methods to assess the quantitative side of the links between foreign trade and final consumption. The authors consider that a significant contribution brought by this study is the type of data analysis method applied and the approach towards the two macroeconomic components of the economy, for the cases of Romania and the entire European Union, of which Romania is a member.

The world-wide process of structural transformation is a result of the emergence of new challenges with long-term effect; which requires a strategic vision in the agro-food trade, together with the implementation of concrete actions by the authorities. Increasing global population, increasing pressure on natural resources and global warming are leading to a new framework at international level. In Europe, the aging process is an additional challenge. All these aspects will have profound implications for agriculture and rural areas. Global food demand is increasing, a large scale of urbanization, rising input prices, pressure on water resources and increasing vulnerability of crops and animals to climate change will limit food production.

Even in these conditions agricultural sector of Romania has a huge potential. Domestic food demand could be covered if this potential will be exploited with technological resources and would not depend so much by climatic factors. Also Romania could export significant quantities of agro-food products. On the other hand, Romania suffers from one of the most pronounced structural divisions of agricultural land between all EU member states and also between the new member states. Precisely for this reason, Romania loses a lot in terms of production and export of agro-food products, in competition with developed countries. This paper analyzes the competitive position of Romanian companies in agro-food value chains. The article also answers to one of the most important questions. Are Romanian companies competitive in the agro-food value chains? What are the factors, challenges and obstacles for internationalization of Romanian agro-food product? In order to answer these questions, a quantitative research was performed using statistical data obtained from International Trade Center, for the year 2019 and Romanian National Committee for Macro prudential Supervision, 2020.

The present paper is a defense of the free-market economy/capitalism as a proper institutional setting for both producing and preserving cultural goods. We argue that culture is best served by a framework in which economic agents can evaluate their cultural consumption and production in a market order based on private property rights and monetary prices. In this vein, we first put, in contrast, two important lines of thought on the subject of value and capital in cultural matters. On the one hand, the mainstream approach upholds both that “cultural value” is intrinsic (and measurable) and that a fourth type of capital (namely “cultural capital”) can be introduced in the capital theory. On the other hand, by using a qualitative research methodology, based on deductive reasoning and historical analysis, we contrast the mainstream/neoclassic view with the praxeological approach of the Austrian School of economics. We conclude that neither “cultural value” is an objective fact, nor that the very concept of “cultural capital” can be integrated coherently in the economic theory. Yet, we claim that private management of cultural goods is superior to their public administration, due to (1) a genuine interest of private owners to rationally exploit cultural goods according to the subjective preferences of cultural consumers, (2) the inbuilt sustainability of the free-market economy as concerns the efficient exploitation of the cultural goods.

The COVID crisis affected the whole world at an unprecedented and unexpected level. There are concerns about the economic impact of the crisis and about how the world will be after the COVID-crisis ends. The present paper had as main objective to analyze the opinions of specialists about two aspects: a) economic impact of the COVID crisis at different levels in the economy (world, national economy, industry, business) and b) how will be the world order in the aftermath of the COVID crisis. The methodology used is literature review and documentation, followed by content analysis. The research revealed that the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak was huge at all levels in the economy, resulting in a global recession. Also, specialists appreciate that the world will not go back to how it was in 2019, there will be a clear distinction between the pre-COVID and the post-COVID eras, with a need for a new economic order after the crisis, that will emphasize global solidarity for the purpose of the common good.

This work draws the attention of a wide and illegal practice developed by some Romanian public authorities. This practice if the public authorities to requests additional approvals that are not provided in the legislation generates unjustified delays and significant costs for the beneficiaries of the construction works. Thus, in the phase of drafting the urbanism documentation, some city halls and local councils request the neighbours approval in notarized form as a prerequisite for approval of the zonal urbanism plans (“PUZ”) and / or of the detail urbanism plans (“PUD”). As this approval does not reflect a mandatory condition according to the legal framework that regulates the procedure for drafting and approval of the urbanism documentation, the practical effect is that, as a consequence of a wrongful interpretation of the law by some public authorities, the beneficiaries of the construction works lead in useless situations in which they depend on the discretionary will and sometimes also abusively of their neighbours.

Penalty clauses are regulated in the Romanian law through the provisions of the civil Code. These types of clauses are frequently inserted in commercial contracts in order to ensure that all contracting parties will respect their obligations, or will pay the pre-evaluated damages considered by the parties at the conclusion of the contract. As opposed to the common-law regulations, the continental law systems allow and support such clauses, mainly because of the liberty of the parties when concluding a contract; nevertheless, our legislation, as other European legislations allow the mutability of penalty clauses, when they are deemed excessive.

In the present study, we aimed to analyze the nature of the penalty clause in the Romanian regulations, as well as study their applicability in commercial contracts, especially when inserted in contracts that are concluded over longer periods of time for the supply of services. We aim to understand if such a clause might be deemed inapplicable if one of the parties decides upon the termination of the contract ahead of term or simply wants to reduce the clause in order to pay a lesser penalty.

The legislation states that such clauses may be amended by the court when part of the principal obligation was partly upheld by the party and its execution has profited the creditor, or when the penalty is “manifestly excessive” as opposed to the prejudice that could have been foreseen by the parties at the conclusion of the contract. Based on the current state of legislation, while analyzing doctrine and jurisprudence, we aim to underline what a manifestly excessive penalty should be.

A recent decision of the Romanian High Court of Justice dated 6 March 2019 offers the possibility to analyse the recovery of the prejudice caused to a creditor by a company under court proceedings after on its insolvency. The applicable regulations (i.e. Law no. 85/2015) represent the legal framework, which aims at debt payment by the insolvent debtor to his creditors. Therefore, the procedure is collective and all the known creditors are involved. Consequently, the law regulates the means and the conditions of this procedure. The prejudice caused to a creditor by the insolvent company shall be recovered following the rules of the special law and not through the general applicable rules, i.e. the Civil Code. The article aims to identify the relevant theoretical aspects and their applicability in practice by the courts of law.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - Regulation (EU) 2016/679 came into effect on the 25 of May 2018 and changed the way both companies and consumers look at the importance of personal data. While the Regulation aimed to offer better protection of personal data, it also posed many challenges for the companies processing such data. A special category of personal data are the health data, considered sensitive data under the GDPR and subject to special conditions regarding the processing. Therefore, one of the main industries that was highly impacted by GDPR was the healthcare industry. The challenges that the industry faces, especially private small health clinics, are unique among the private companies. Starting from the legal provisions that the healthcare industry must comply to under GDPR, the article analysis the main mistakes that heal clinics make, the causes of such mistakes and the main challenges faced by health clinics, with the aim of offering possible solutions for a better application of the GDPR principles in the activity of health clinics for the benefit of both the healthcare industry and the patient.

Transfer of seat of companies remains one of the debated issues at European Union level as more and more cross border transactions are taking place and the shareholders try to take advantage of the rights of free movement provided by the treaties. The recent caselaw brought the European Union in a difficult position, having to accept the existing lacks in the treaty’s provisions and come with specific legislation to cover the consequences raised after Polbud case. The caselaw on transfer of seat of companies from one member state to another was not very complex and numerous at the beginning, but became incisive with the development of the internal market and increase of cross-border transactions, becoming more open towards the acceptance of the freedom of establishment in most cases of transfer, forcing the national company law, especially the rules on conflict of law, to encounter a new challenge in the harmonisation of the provisions related to incorporation, functioning, merger/division/conversion or the creation of secondary establishments. This article wants to be an overview on the reaction of the European Union, especially through the latest Directive in the field, Directive on cross-border conversions, mergers and divisions was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council (Directive (EU) 2019/2121), but taking into account the caselaw in the field and trying to project future evolution of the new provisions.

The present work is aimed to answer a very interesting and sensitive legal issue in the Romanian pharmaceutical field. This issues regard mainly the existence of coordination or contradiction between Romanian (i.e. Romanian Pharmacy Law no. 266/2008¹) and European legislation (art 34 TFEU²) in respect of the delivery of the online sale of OTC medicine only from pharmaceutical units.

This research aims to analyze one of the most important components of the activity of a company, namely the activity of management control. The paper is structured in three parts, thus aiming to achieve an objective synthesis that faithfully reflects the current structure and regulation of the company’s management control. The first part will address the introductory and general aspects of management control according to each type of company, respectively, the rules applicable to partnerships, capital companies but also limited liability companies. The second part of the paper aims to present in a timely manner all the essential aspects regarding the censors, as corporate control bodies. Thus, the analysis following aspects such as the term of office, the rights and obligations of auditors in relation to the company but also their responsibility for the activity carried out. The third part exhaustively analyzes the legal regime of financial auditors and in this sense will prefer to follow the regulation of the company law but also of the special applicable legislation. In carrying out this research, specialized works in the field of society were used, as well as the regulations from the updated special legislation.

The registered capital of the company by shares is divided into fractions known as shares, which, unlike the parts of interests or social parts, represent negotiable instruments, presenting first of all the advantage of being negotiable and freely transferable, subject to limitations that could be introduced by the associates by the constitutive act. Therefore, in exchange for the contributions made to registered capital of the company by shares, the associates receive a number of shares corresponding to the value of these contributions, which represents a certain fraction of its registered capital.

Taking into account the negotiable nature of the shares, the quality of shareholder derives and is more related to the quality of owner of shares, dissociating itself from that of signatory of the company’s constitutive act, obliged, inter alia, to make contributions, the latter quality being relevant only at the moment of incorporation of the company. Actually, during the existence of the company, the quality of owner of shares, and therefore of shareholder, can change significantly and uninterruptedly, depending on the operations performed with these titles, causing appropriate changes in the shareholder structure of the company.

The study of the competition legislation in India has as justification the fact that the indian economy has one of the biggest growth rates in the world, India being the biggest democracy in the world.

At the beginning, India had its own competition law, called the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1969 (MRTP Act). After the initiation of economic liberalization in 1991, it became imperative to put in place a competition law regime that was more responsive to the economic realities of the nation and in accordance with international practices. In 2002, the Indian Parliament voted for a new law, Competition Act, to regulate business practices in India. The Competition Act has as its goal to regulate three types of conduct (anti-competitive agreements, abuse of a dominant position and combinations). The Competition Act was amended by the Competition (Amendment) Act in 2007 and 2009.

The Competition Act has also created a new enforcement body, the Competition Commission of India (CCI), which is responsible for the enforcement of the Competition Act.

According to the provisions of the Competition Act, is allowed to make an appeal to the Competition Appellate Tribunal (COMPAT) against the decisions of the CCI. A further appeal from the decision of the COMPAT may be submitted before the Supreme Court of India.

In the same, the Competition Act is taking into consideration its enforcement with the aid of mutual international support and enforcement networks across the world.

In the context of the exponential growth in volume of digital trade and the diversification of its forms of implementation, the present article analyzed the framework provisions contained in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, provisions governing the conduct of post-Brexit digital trade.

Non-standard forms of employment have become current practice in most European legal systems, by virtue of their positive effects on labor flexibility – beneficial to both employers and employees. From a company’s perspective and interests, regarding the current context of labour relations, a new approach is needed and highly recommended. In an unpredictable business environment, only those innovative companies which have proved able to identify business opportunities and adjust to change have remained competitive. Therefore, the interim management program – as a new type of employment - brings forth an extensive potential for development. Since Romania is a country where this contractual model is relatively little known, this paper addresses some of the most obvious elements of this atypical contractual arrangement, which most authors deem very appropriate in the context of globalization. Our comparative approach seeks to identify various legislative perspectives on interim management and the conclusions of our research suggest the usefulness of the introduction the interim management model to the national labor market. The comparison of this form of flexible employment and other forms used in Romanian companies has been conducted.

This paper aims to provide an analysis of the legislative framework that regulates the inclusion of clauses on good governance in tax matters, in the agreements concluded between the European Union, with its Member States, and third countries. We provide a representation of the regulatory pathway from a set of standards on tax good governance according to the principles of transparency, exchange of information and fair tax competition towards a common EU external strategy for effective taxation.

Agreements that the European Union has either in place or negotiating with countries and regions around the world are an excellent tool in fighting unfair trade practices and promoting international standards on good governance in the tax area, and set the basis for a fair competition in the economy of developing countries: a strong tax administration and institutions responsible for fighting illicit financial flows in developing countries can contribute to erase poverty and inequalities while promoting good governance and state-building.

In the business world, certain needs of the company may impose the necessity to increase its capital. These needs may consist either in the desire of the partners to develop the company’s activity, either to remove certain financial difficulties. The modalities and procedures for increasing the capital are regulated by Law no. 31/1990 on companies, having various particularities and immediate effects.

The current paper, therefore, aims in presenting these methods and their particularities, both from a theoretical and practical point of view, in a comparative way, for the joint-stock companies and the limited liability companies, as the most frequently existing types of company in Romanian law.

The epidemiological crisis caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has led to the need to adapt national legislation to safeguard jobs and to decrease the unemployment rate – realities existing at European and international level – by providing financial facilities to employers and employees. This paper presents and analyses the relevance of the legal rules adopted in this field.

The purpose of the research – of which this text presents only a first part – is to show that the duality specific to financial instruments – positive role in market growth and counteracting risks, respectively negative role through speculative massification – is influenced by public policies. Assuming the crises as moments of truth, I analyse various data for Tulipmania, Great Depression and Great Recession and how they evolve under the impact of public policies. My hypothesis is that with the development of capitalism, the public policies have an increasing impact on the duality of financial instruments, namely a negative one. Here I present only a few methodological aspects and the Tulipmania case – the other two cases I will present at the FIBA session – where public policy intervention has been minimal: both the previous one, regulating the financial instruments and the tulip market, and the later one, for liquidating the crisis and its consequences. The impact of the crisis on the Dutch economy and society at the time was relatively small; bubbles and similar crises did not occur later in the Netherlands. The analysed data highlight the following stage results: a). the free market is not immune to the effects of the duality of financial instruments, but b). it has the capacity to educate market players, to avoid moral hazard and, in the long run, to reduce risks. The lesson is that minimal market intervention does not distort its operation, it does not introduce additional negative elements.

Through this article we will try to get into the way of thinking of one of the most important economic schools, namely the Austrian School. Over time, many mistakes have been made by various economic schools because the fundamentals of thinking were not clear or the concepts used were not properly defined. Here we will try to clarify the foundation in general of the socio-human sciences and in particular of the mentioned school. Building theories or opinions on a fragile foundation will certainly give rise to a friable architecture. Among the various philosophers who have approached science, we believe that von Wight has a direct and clear approach to the type of human social thinking. From the information we have we do not know an approach similar to this article. The Austrian School has hitherto been understood as a methodology from the perspective of Aristotelianism. The question is whether a new perspective can make more sense. The methodology of presenting the article is narrative argumentation. The questions we try to answer in the conclusions are those related to understanding the present moment and discerning the future moment through the fog. The conclusions will be critical regarding the use of mathematics in the socio-human sciences, and the socio-human sciences must be understood only from the perspective of human motivations and intentions. Clarifying the starting point in economic thinking makes us more modest in drawing conclusions and making predictions about the future.

Currently, the dynamics of new generation threats have deeply influenced the economic stability in several areas of the world, especially with the onset of the Covid-19 health crisis. Moreover, the nature and the plurality of the new hybrid risks and threats demands a stringent need to deepen the studies on new models used in competitive assessments.

This paper proposes integrating core ideas of constructivism into the new model of competitive intelligence in order to improve the process of economic resilience building.

That being said, the current research aims to bring into the light a complementary approach which could improve the competitive intelligence practices through economic constructivism.

The economic constructivist approach will provide additional conceptual tools to understand business and economic issues related to human consciousness, national identity, and interest formation after the state of entropy generated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

This academic approach aims to highlight several particular topics, such as the relationship between competitive intelligence and economic constructivism, as well as the implications of economic constructivism for competitive intelligence.

The usual and rather linear functioning of a country’s economic and social structures is mandatory for setting stable grounds towards wellbeing. However, disruptions may appear in the ordinary flow of a community and produce a new order of action, prompting social ecosystems to focus on core operations. The COVID-19 pandemic, that has profoundly affected humanity in 2020 on multiple channels, has imposed a novel strategic thinking both for individuals and businesses, demanding an enhanced societal approach more than ever. Faced with such a major crisis, known in literature as a “black swan” event, social enterprises must show developed capabilities, flexibility and proactivity. Given the inaccurate evidence of social enterprises activating in Romania and of the limited studies focusing on their risk-response behavior, the paper explores the impact triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic over social entrepreneurship and in particular on Romanian social enterprises. To investigate the ability of these entities to successfully cope with this groundbreaking challenge, the paper firstly performs a literature review analysis on the reorganization of the social and economic sphere, in light of the pandemic. Furthermore, it approaches the challenges posed by the pandemic on traditional and social entrepreneurship, together with their reshaping of organizational resilience. Building on literature review and on document analysis of reports regarding essential actions to be embraced to maintain stability during the COVID-19 crisis, issued by renowned consultancy companies and organizations supporting social enterprises, the paper formulates an instrument for mapping the ability of Romanian social enterprises to overcome the pandemic threats.

The study aims at clarifying the role of risk management in improving business performance. In this study a literature review has been employed in order to understand the subject matters in managing business risks to increase company performance. The literature reviewed shows that risk management does contribute to the improvement of the business performance, measured as increase of company profits, decrease of business costs and, in turns, increase in economic proficiency. Therefore, the risk management impacts, in a positive way, the quality of a business that is embodied in improving the financial status of the company, increasing the profits, as well as decreasing the costs. Some recommendations are made for decision makers in the insurance business sector, who are required to be fully aware of the influence that risk management has on helping their business flourish. This is advisable through decreasing the cost of production, increasing profits, and improving financial business situation in their companies. Also, company decision makers are required to work continuously to develop risk management to increase profits, reduce costs, and improve the financial situation, and thus improve business performance.

Coworking spaces are actors of the entrepreneurial ecosystem with strong social aspect and recognized impact regarding start-up communities. These establishments became frontrunners of increasing work productivity for people working from distance as well. They also make part of the businesses which are directly affected by the pandemic caused by Covid-19 virus. The paper attempts to define a digitalization opportunity of coworking spaces by adapting the business model to the current living conditions with special regards on the services they provide. Beside of identifying the key challenges and edges that the current situation brought, the paper assumes to provide insight information from the point of view of a hub operator and hub members, who decided to preserve their membership. The research includes a literature review of key concepts used within the analyses, followed by the definition of the methodology which covers a study case of a coworking space from a small city located in a developing country. A hybrid approach is included as solution in the paper supported by a business model proposal based on Canvas Business Model. The results of the research are reflecting the needs of a group of entrepreneurs representing micro enterprises, willing to participate in the creative process of business transformation and adaptation. The conclusion chapter summarizes the main findings in the form of recommendations and further alleged questions during the research.

Nowadays, Internet of Things devices are everywhere and their importance and impact on society has increased significantly in the past years. On one hand, Internet of Things devices can bring multiple business opportunities as well as major positive changes to our daily lives. On the other hand, the rapid expansion of the Internet of Things universe comes with important security risks, forcing both users and companies to consider the vulnerability of these devices as well as the confidentiality of the data they generate. The main objective of this paper is to improve current understanding of the Internet of Things by providing a comprehensive overview of the main challenges and opportunities associated with these new communication technologies in various domains and industries. Secondly, the data sets from two Special Eurobarometer studies are analysed to further explore the attitudes, perceptions and experiences of European citizens towards technology and cybersecurity. Using SPSS software, one-way ANOVA and other standard statistical analysis of the data were performed. The results show that the level of awareness of cybercrimes among European citizens has increased. Another key finding is that technology users from European countries remain highly concerned about security issues online. These findings might be of interest for scholars, policymakers, service providers or firms from different industries and can further stimulate the development of local and European initiatives to address and solve these issues.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a new framework for assessing the innovation capacity and efficiency in Romanian small enterprises and start-ups. In this sense, a systematic literature review has been employed in order to obtain a clear understanding of the existing knowledge and to critically evaluate the existing solutions. In addition, considering the European Union objectives regarding innovation and sustainable development, this paper investigates the present situation of Romania by interpreting the official European Commission reports and current research papers. Considering the importance of regional innovation advancement and that of creating economic growth through competitiveness, this paper scrutinizes several concepts from the scientific literature, including regional innovation governance, entrepreneurship and innovation efficiency with the final purpose of developing a framework applicable for Romania. Taking into consideration the relatively low scores of Romanian regions regarding innovativeness and technological advancement, this paper attempts to provide a clearer understanding of the applicable factors that can be used for measuring innovation performance. The proposed framework focuses on the importance of entrepreneurship and the development of new business models in order to efficiently assess the innovative endeavors of enterprises. All things considered, this paper provides both theoretical and managerial contributions and possibility for further investigations addressed at specific Romanian regions and business sectors.

Seen as an effective approach for sustainable development of disenfranchised communities, spurring legislation initiatives and private investment, social entrepreneurship has gained the attention of many economies across the globe. Social entrepreneurship arises as an effective practice for solution development for access to education, healthcare, water, food, or electricity. In the United States, several university programs are tackling the development of technology-based social ventures. While there has been growth in assessing social entrepreneurship education, little exchange of what works in a technology-based social entrepreneurship program occurred.

To contribute to the body of empirical knowledge of what works in a program dedicated to technology-based solutions which have the potential to stimulate global improvements, the researcher performed a qualitative analysis of the Penn State HESE program’s ENGR 451 course on social entrepreneurship. The purpose of this research was to gather some baseline data about three areas connected to developing culturally fit technology-based ventures and the humanitarian entrepreneurial mindset developed throughout this process. The paper reported on a grounded theory study using in-depth interviews with the 49 students enrolled in the ENGR 451 course on social entrepreneurship, 70% studying engineering. The research analyzed two areas related to engineering entrepreneurship: the entrepreneurial mindset generated by participation in the course and the process of developing culturally fit technology-based social ventures with particular interest in task-role distribution, idea generation, and design-thinking stages. The current study is part of a larger qualitative study exploring how and what students in the HESE program learn about social entrepreneurship and how this learning influences their intent to be part of or to start a social venture.

The findings have potential impact across social entrepreneurship program design, are intended to inform educators of social entrepreneurs about social entrepreneurship program design and the humanitarian entrepreneurial mindset.

Cities are complex systems vulnerable to a multitude of risks and disruptions that are becoming increasingly difficult to manage due to urban overcrowding. Socio-economic, technological challenges, but especially natural ones, such as epidemics, have proven to be disruptive from several perspectives of human existence. The negative evolution of the disturbing factors led to the extension of the concept of resilience, traditionally used in socio-ecology, in the urban infrastructure. The aim of this paper is a comparative analysis of some sets of indicators, frameworks, and informatics solutions that can provide an image of how cities can become resilient urban areas. An exploratory analysis is conducted by studying scientific resources and specialized articles that address the issue of developing resilient cities supported by innovation and digital technology. With technology approaches, cities can be helped to prevent and reduce the effects of possible blockages or catastrophes, to respond and intervene promptly in case of crises, and to plan and organize properly in order to recover from shocks or stressors.

In recent years, Japan proved to be one of the world’s leading countries in the travel industry by international tourist arrivals, with many other businesses relying on foreign travelers’ consumption within the country. The current Covid-19 pandemic crisis is a challenge for the tourism industry all around the world, as well as for Japan, where the entry restrictions have been strict since the start of the pandemic, foreigners not being allowed to enter the country for leisure purposes. However, even though the national income in this economic area decreased, it is still very high compared with other countries, and many businesses managed at least to maintain their activity on the market. In this paper, I will first analyze what were the strategic measures the Japanese government had taken regarding the national tourism industry during the SARS epidemic at the beginning of the 21st Century. Further, I will compare those measures with the government’s attitude over Japan’s travel industry in the first year of the current pandemic. Furthermore, I will make a comparison of the national income in the travel industry and the number of tourists by major areas in 2020 and the previous year, in order to introduce some strategic measures that could improve Japanese tourism for the next period, considering that the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games will be held this summer.

At the global level, there are many different front-of-pack nutrition labels and there is not yet established a convergence. To promote healthier food, Governments and manufacturers try to provide more nutritional information on food labels. Changes in food labeling policy depend on how consumers and companies react to changes in the market. The paper is based on the current regulations that exist worldwide. The analysis covered the period between 1980 and 2021. This study increases the attention of all stakeholders involved in the front-of-pack nutrition labelling debate. In this regard it is relevant to present the advantages and disadvantages, the similarities and the differences of front-of-pack nutrition labelling, because each one is unique, so it is hard to compare them by using the same criteria. The paper brings into the spotlights different policies from different countries that aim to educate the consumers about the content of food, the case of front-of-pack food labeling, that represents a social responsibility issue, especially for health and obesity prevention, no communicable diseases, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, due to the important role played. Our results show that there are key items, in terms of social responsibility, companies should take into account when planning their strategies and may help also the investors in food manufacturing companies with an increased interest in social information to request and understand the importance of the front-of-pack nutrition labelling of companies they want to invest in. It is important to understand the label of products that we buy, to be able to choose wisely. Our research is important for the business to advance in disclosure on the pack of food of relevant information, as well for the academic community regarding the front-of-pack nutrition labelling, as a responsibility issue. Future research is needed since there is a variety of front-of-pack nutrition labelling and is changing constantly.

The importance of medical services in the modern age is undeniable. In Romania, the state medical system faces a series of problems, which do not seem to have an immediate solution. These include: outdated infrastructure, lack of medical staff, lack of investment and poor organization. The specialized literature presents studies of patient satisfaction, performed on different sectors of the medical field. This paper aims to present the Romanian medical services market, and the users’ satisfaction with the medical services. In order to highlight the opinions and behaviors of Romanians about the medical services and the degree to which the provision of these services met their expectations, the authors conducted a qualitative marketing research among the Romanian population. The sampling method was non-random, and a questionnaire was displayed on a web page (Computer Assisted Web Interviewing) to collect the data. The research revealed that many Romanians prefer private medical services, even if they are more expensive, due to the cleanliness, promptness and quality of the medical act. The authors consider that the topic addressed is very relevant and that, based on the results of this research, the authorities involved can establish concrete measures in order to improve the quality of the medical services and increase customer satisfaction.

Each individual is unique, and the digital identity associated with a person should model and guarantee this uniqueness and the ability to reliably recognize him/her. In this paper, we review the challenges posed by the sudden transfer of a significant part of the social activity in the online realm, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with unforeseen consequences on the educational process in particular. If there was a fairly large spectrum of economic activities that were taking place or were facilitated via a digital medium prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the education system worldwide proved to not have been prepared to provide an effective and consistent response to the going online approach, which was merely a choice, but rather the only embraceable option. In the context of online education, this paper can design a comprehensive and integrated framework for assisting the process of students’ digital identity validation, particularly when attending an examination or any other form of academic evaluation conducted remotely. We also consider the integration of digital identity validation with platforms that offer educational content, knowledge evaluation tests, and other elements to which access must be ensured only for authorized users, based on a strict identity identification process to eliminate those who want to defraud or disrupt the functionality of the system.

The pandemic changed the paradigm of education at all levels. From primary schools to universities, teachers and students must conform to new patterns for teaching and learning. The goal of this paper is to share the experience resulted from the pilot project developed at the National Institute of Administration in order to deliver online training for public administration in the pandemic context. The project entitled PPP online (Romanian abbreviation for “online training programs”) was a challenge which supposed the redesign of the curricula and finding the best alternatives for delivering knowledge and interaction between trainers and participants. We must emphasize that there was only very limited experience in online training for Romanian public administration until 2020. In this paper we expose the choices considered for the transition to online training and the results of a study about participants’ perception regarding difficulties they encountered and the quality of programs. In this regard, we collected and analysed the feedback from more than 1000 participants (respondents to an online questionnaire). Our study has an optimistic conclusion about changing teaching and learning through technology in public administration. It can be appreciated that both trainers and participants can rapidly adapt to the conditions of the online learning environment and the proposed structure of training programs was validated by the results and positive feedback. We also present some best practices achieved during the pilot project.

A general preoccupation of many local companies is to design and implement sustainable strategies. In this context, managers are seeking to identify the potential of different factors to facilitate the effective integration of sustainability into their business practices. In the present paper, we clarify the sustainable purchasing concept and we analyse this activity run within several corporations from the local banking field, IT&C and pharma. The literature review served as a basis for an empirical investigation among local large organizations. The methods used were in-depth bibliographic documentation, companies’ analysis and semi-structured interviews performed with purchasing heads. The result of the research confirms the important role of the purchasing activity and shows us how this field can contribute to a sustainable development of business. Despite the general interest and the motivation to use sustainable principles, effective incorporation of sustainable purchasing principles into business practices may encounter some obstacles, raising the need for more research.

The financial and economic crisis led to a significant recession in the EU-27 in 2009, followed by a rebound in 2010. The existing economic situation requires a rethinking of the economic development policies, focused on analyzing the indicator of gross value added, created in production. This may lead to a new growth model, based on economic activities with higher value added. This paper investigates the linkage between overall gross value added in EU-27 and gross value added by economic activities, as described by NACE Rev. 2, from first quarter 2010 to second quarter 2020. The article attempts to include a wide range of statistical analysis and models for a complete assessment of the subject. Therefore, in order to achieve the objective, we choose to investigate the presence of causality relationships using VAR/SVAR models and Granger causality test, which reflect the presence of long and short-term relationships between certain selected variables. Through the assessment, we discovered a strong bi-directional causality between overall gross value added and the gross value added by industry and by distributive trades, transport, accommodation and food services, based on which we estimated a linear regression. The findings should present interest for policymakers, in order to assess perspectives to economic growth.

The post 2008 financial crisis reform package includes the bank resolution framework. Among other measures, it foresees that failing banks should be left under insolvency proceedings, unless they meet their salvage is in the public interest. The Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive defines the public interest, providing guidance that resolution authorities need to take into account when deciding between resolution (continuation of the bank’s activity) or liquidation when a bank fails. While the guidance stems for a legal act, the concept can be mathematically modelled together with the underlying decision making process. To date, only parts of the resolution public interest or the concept of financial crisis have been modelled. The public interest assessment and underlying decision process, to the knowledge of the author, have not been mathematically modelled. This paper proposes a mathematical model for the public interest assessment as provided under the European resolution framework. While this seems to be the first such effort, it should be seen as a basis for further critical thinking that should allow more advancements that would ultimately facilitate the assessment and to provide insights for its intended users. The model can be easily implemented by practitioners by selecting or adding more relevant variables and most importantly by following their own calibration. The model is designed in a way to enable integration in an artificial intelligence deployment on data that authorities collect on the economies.

The Kurzarbeit model was applied by several European governments during the previous crisis of 2008-2009 and involved the design of small state-funded work schemes. Governments have supported subsidized companies to compensate for the loss of revenue. Adapting the model to the crisis has been much easier in countries where regulation already exists, compared to the countries that adopted it for the first time. The efficiency of the model was different, with the best results being obtained by countries that had robust economies before the crisis. Overall, at the level of countries that have applied this model, it can be said that the model provided job stability during the crisis, not the certainty that workers will keep their jobs even after the crisis. Given the recent decision of the Romanian Government to apply the Kurzarbeit measure in our country as well, in the current study we considered the analysis of those issues that affected the countries that adopted this model for the first time, in the previous crisis, at which we added the unprecedented impact of the recent pandemic and the particular aspects that characterize today’s Romanian economy. The results show that, without analyzing the particularities that differentiate Romania from the countries that have successfully applied the model, the Kurzarbeit model will not ensure the sustainable development of the social factor and the employment rate assumed for 2020, and social inequalities and poverty will continue to deepen.

This paper presents a proposal for a mobile learning application called MySchool, which will be added to the e-learning platform Moodle and which contribute together with it to increase the efficiency of training on the platform.

In the first part, analyzing the specialized studies, it was found that the main deficiencies reported in the case of e-learning platforms come mainly from the way the platform was designed and especially from the design of the training model when the beneficiaries and users are students in the pre-university course.

The paper proposes a mobile learning training system to be added to an existing e-learning platform in schools in Constanta County, Romania. The chosen platform was the Moodle platform which does not make such an application available to users.

The main features of the Moodle platform are further analyzed together with the didactic aspects of the application of the platform in the online training process of students. At the same time, the advantages of students who use mobile applications are presented, as well as the disadvantages of m-learning applications.

For the design of the proposed system, the ALDIE software design model was chosen together with the rapid prototyping method.

The functional and non-functional requirements of the MySchool system and its three-level architecture have been established (Fig. 7).

We also designed a learning network in a classroom with 25 students for the proposed system.

The conclusions of the paper highlight the usefulness and need for such a system attached to an e-learning platform.

COVID-19 has produced dramatic consequences on the world economy, industry, and citizens. But digitization is also aiding many businesses to adapt and surmount the current situation caused by the pandemic. The increase in the utilization of technology in the everyday lives of people and businesses to cope with this exceptional state is a testimony of the digital acceleration process. This study examines the impact of the digital revolution processes in three areas: labor and social interactions, marketing and sales, and technology. The effect of digitalization is anticipated to be transversal to each domain and will inspire the emergence of new digital services and products centered on flexibility. Furthermore, new methods of working will encourage the demand for new talent irrespective of people’s geographical position. Furthermore, cybersecurity and privacy will grow to be two key components that will support the integrated growth of artificial intelligence, robotics, big data, and the Internet of Things technology.

Resilience is a concept that reflects the ability to cope with change; sustainability is the ability to preserve the beneficial aspects associated with economic activity. Regarding the last decades, we assess the extent to which the resilience of sustainable tourism depends on labour market, economic growth, energy consumption, and renewable energy consumption. We used Granger causality applied to indicators correlated with sustainability (number of international tourism arrivals, labour force, GDP, total energy consumption, renewable energy consumption) for the period between 1995 and 2014. The time interval could not be extended because of the lack of recent data. The main result is that for Romania, Bulgaria and Poland the resilience of sustainable tourism depends on the indicators we analyzed, all of which playing the role of generator or “cause” for the numbers of arrivals. Bicausality was noticed for Romania and Poland and partial bicausality for Bulgaria because labour force and economic growth are not the causes of total energy consumption and neither are the number of tourists, labour force and economic growth the causes of renewable energy consumption. The resilience of sustainable tourism is dependent on the situation in other fields of activity since the tourism sector does not have the capacity for self-regeneration.