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The aim of the paper is to evaluate the accountability and transparency of Italian non profits organizations. The main goal is to understand if a general accountability or transparency problem, or a systematic publicity deficit, exist in the third sector in Italy. Non profit organizations have an ethical obligation to their stakeholder and to the public to conduct their activities with accountability and transparency. Non profit organizations should regularly and openly convey information to the stakeholder about their vision, mission, objectives, activities, accomplishments, decision-making processes and organizational structure. Information from a non profit organization should be easily accessible to the stakeholder and should create external visibility, public understanding and trust in the organization, conditions necessary to find donors. Non profit organizations work with communities and community donors need to know how their money is used. In the first part the analysis of the definition of transparency and accountability is made and the sustainability report like an important instrument of communication is considered. In the second part an empirical research is presented. The Italian law allows taxpayers to devote 5 per thousand of their income tax to non profit organizations, choosing between charities, social promotion associations, recognized associations, entities dedicated to scientific research and health care, universities, municipal social services and other non profit organizations. The present study present a quantitative research and it’s based on an empirical analysis of non-profit organizations that receive this donation in Italy in the year 2010 and 2011. In the paper we analyze the transparency and the accountability of the top 100 non profit organizations that have received the contribution of 5 per thousand, checking whether they prepare their Sustainability Report or any other kind of report for communicate the use of funds received. The new research was based on one previous research (Gazzola and Ratti, 2013) but we compared the data of the year 2010 with the date of 2011. Statistical method is applied for the purpose of this study. The analysis on the transparency and accountability in non profit organizations clearly requires further study, yet the results obtained in this study allow us to offer various reflections and encourages us to continue in this research because non profit organizations must increase their transparency.

Global retail chains expanded rapidly in Romania since 2000 (Javorcik et al., 2013), their presence bringing significant changes in the landscape of the developing national economy. In this study we used data on six major retail companies in Romania, statistical data from Eurostat, and I proposed two models to highlight a link between the variables. The aim of this paper is to identify the relationship between the turnover and the number of employees of the main retail companies in Romania, in the first model using linear regression. In the second model we used multiple regression analysis to identify the relationship between the dependent variable (turnover) and independent variables (Internet users, Individuals having ordered / bought online). The result of the study paper is to evidence the fact that the increase in the number of employees in the retail sector will lead to the increase of their turnover.

We wonder why the creative economy concept causes so much passion, excitement and so high expectations. Because imagination, creativity, competence, fantasy, individual talent, ingenuity were and still are today catalysts that led to society development. How does creative economy, that seems to promise so much, distinguish from other economic stamps which imprinted the human community in the course of history? These are some of the questions we will try to answer in this paper work, having in mind as objective the study of communication processes and mass-media. Generally, the research over mass-media system considered that the content analysis may provide the means to understand the society we live in. In terms of methodology, starting from the observation of mass-media industry and economy actuality, we propose to make an analysis of content. We will raise issues regarding concept definition and delimitation, historical development and media industry analysis from an economical perspective, analyzing the opinions of some other researchers about these subjects. We will try to present the concepts we support having in light some reference paper works and to illustrate with realities from Romanian and international mass-media economy. We will go through literature and we will try to support with empirical data the subjects discussed in theory. To achieve these things, we will use relevant statistical and official data of other researchers. In the examination of mass-media economy we will study economical models, comparative analysis and analysis of international organizations positions. In the current situation, mass-media is part of a technological and economic transformation, like the whole society is. An economical approach of media industry is important today both from the scientific and practical point of view. Most of the decisions taken by the factors that lead the businesses in media sector are largely influenced by financial resources. In this aspect, the economic approach of media sector is extremely relevant to understand the way firms act in the media sector and what are the perspectives of this industry.

This paper focuses on the returns of two segments of Private Equity (PE) market in Europe and in the US; Venture Capital (VC) and Buyout (BO). Contrary to the publicly traded stocks where information about the trade of securities is public, the measuring of the returns of these asset classes is not unambiguous. The returns of PE investments are considered as confidential information therefore we only have estimations about the real characteristics of the financial performance of the PE industry. Although it is impossible to observe the whole industry it is important to chart its performance because PE plays an essential role in the financing of firms, especially firms at special stages of their lives and the more information the investors and companies have, the more effective PE market can be therefore it can contribute to economic growth, employment, innovation etc. In the literature PE, VC and BO are not distinguished properly and they are often used as synonyms. Despite their similarities, there are significant differences in the features of these types of investments. In this paper the authors present the return characteristics of the PE industry of Europe and the US with regard to the stage-focus of PE funds. The key findings of this paper are that in average the returns of BO funds exceeded the returns of VC funds in the US as well as in Europe. Not just according to the absolute value of the returns, but also according to its risk-return tradeoff BO seems to be a preferable investment. The same statements can be made in case of the European market. The US returns are higher than European VC returns, because compared to the US VC industry the European is undeveloped. On the other hand the gap between the performances of BO funds is not as significant as the difference of VC funds. While in the 90’s US BO funds outperformed the European ones, after the millennia European BO returns were higher. The analysis of returns reveals the sensitivity of these asset classes to economic cycles. The ‘dotcom’ boom of the millennia affected greatly the PE industry as well as the recession of 2008. The first section of this article describes the different subsets of PE, than it shows the differences in terms of returns of the US and European market, than in the third part the paper compares the characteristics of the different classes of PE.

The present paper intends to present the perceptions of 90 students, studying at the University of Oradea, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology and Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, about two evaluation methods used at the English course, namely the classical, end-of-semester testing method and the so-called “progressive evaluation”, which is carried out during the course and results from weekly in-class grading. At the end of the two years of studying English as part of their curricula, students were asked to complete an anonymous questionnaire of 11 items, in which they reported either their contentment or discontentment with the two evaluation methods used, and expressed opinions about the efficiency and usefulness of the English course they have attended. A copy of the questionnaire is included as an appendix to this paper. This paper begins with a brief discussion and definition of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), after which it focuses on the description of the evaluation methods applied, on students’ response to these methods and some personal consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of the two evaluation methods. ESP is a very broad domain, referring mainly to teaching English to students or people who need it for specific purposes, i.e. at work, or in their future career. In these faculties ESP is the main instrument for teaching a foreign language. In contrast to general English, ESP starts from the assessment of those functions and purposes for which English is required, as well as of the skills the learner might need most. In order to give students the possibility to compare two evaluation methods, they were evaluated at the end of their first semester, by using a method that is often used at the University of Oradea, namely that of testing learners’ achievement at the end of the semester. Starting with the second semester, we have presented students with the other evaluation method, which we called “permanent evaluation”, based on weekly in-class grading.

The increasing popularity of the concept of „regional innovation system” has been driven in part by greater international competition, lack of efficient traditional regional development models and policies in many regions around the world. The paper aims to describe situation on innovation policy and system of Latvia. The paper is organised as follows: Section 1 provides the theoretical background, summarising the understanding of the nature of regional innovation system. Then, Section 2 deals with regional innovation policy theoretical aspects. In Section 3 innovation policy of Latvia, key government players and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) influence on innovation policy is discussed. Section 4 concludes innovation system and policy situation in Latvia. The methods used are: monographic, graphical method and case study.

The current paper has the aim to provide guidelines for designing efficient product and price strategies, through proposed business cases which could be used especially for banking products addressed to SMEs. While identifying the optimal product and price strategy and designing the product catalogue structure, the marketing specialist should definitely consider existing portfolio behaviour and estimate the growing potential (if possible, overall portfolio, with focus on accurately defining the additional impact of the newly proposed product/ products). A business case contains estimations for results to be generated by products to be launched or optimized. This paper presents complex schemes for business case scenarios for migration of existing portfolio to the new products, but also considers new clients acquisition based on important features of the products. The pricing strategy is not a simple task to manage. Especially when speaking about transactional packages (for which the price is lower than separate services included), some segments or clusters may generate loss to the bank if they already used the services at a higher price than the one of the package. Therefore, the decision of setting up specific prices needs to be based on an accurate and complex analysis, as presented in current paper. The assumptions used in a business case need to be relevant for the entire process of designing and launching a product, therefore they can always be adjusted for better calculation of the impact. No matter if the assumptions and prices remain as in the initial proposal or not, the steps to be followed are the same. Segmentation also plays an important role in designing the product strategy, since the target for a product or product catalogue can be represented by a segment, a sub segment or a cluster of many segments. Not always the initial segmentation represents the clustering for the product strategy. Sometimes, behaviour of existing clients represents the starting point for clustering of a market target for products. In case of SMEs acquiring banking products, another relevant aspect to consider is the turnover through the bank, incoming and outgoing. It consists in the business routed to the bank as incoming payments and out the bank, through transactions made. The turnover is directly influenced by the value proposition of the new packages and may radically influence the final net impact of the business case, being a revenue generator, as you may see explained in the following pages.

Considering the fundamental role of small and medium enterprises in Romanian economy, this paper aims to quantify the level of their bankruptcy risk for 2009 and 2012 period, after debuting of financial crisis. The main reason of selecting this type of companies is that they represent the backbone of national economy. They have an indispensable role, because they offer jobs for great part of population and their contribution for GDP stimulation is considerable. In this paper it was applied two default risk models, namely the well known Altman’s Z-score model, based on five financial ratios and a bankruptcy predictor model developed by Teti et. al (2012) used firstly exclusively for Italian small and medium-sized enterprise for 2006-2009 period. The model proposed by Teti et. is based on the investigation of financially distressed and financially non-distressed Italian small and medium-sized enterprises during the financial crisis by using a discriminant analysis model. They conclude that there are four financial ratios, which characterized well the small and medium-sized enterprises bankruptcy risk. These variables are financial ratios, like: Debt/Total Assets, Return on Sales (ROS), EBIT/Interest Expenses and Working capital/EBIDTA. They consider that small and medium-sized enterprises require a particular approach in terms of bankruptcy risk analysis. In present study I try to compare the efficiency of traditional bankruptcy risk model with a small and medium-sized specific model. The necessary database for present analysis is ensured by simplified financial reports of 120 small and medium-sized enterprises registered in Bihor County. The selected enterprises are operating in manufacturing industry (21,67%) and trading (78,33%). Present investigation has an important value in actual economic background, where the healthiness and sustainability of small and medium-sized enterprises is a great issue. The results of study shows contradictory results after implementing above mentioned methods, so while after Altman model application, the investigated firms are non financially distressed, in case of second model applying the great part of firms have medium financial problems.

The cartel is considered the most harmful anti-competitive practice; therefore the competition authorities were concerned about the continuous improvement of the legislation governing this practice. In order to stimulate companies to withdraw from participating to a cartel in the European Union, the leniency policy has implemented. The present paper aims at achieving the hindsight of the years 2009-2013 regarding the evolution of cartel cases detected both at EU level and in Romania. The research methodology used is the study of literature, followed by the analysis of the legislation governing the European cartel and the analysis of all decisions issued between 2009-2013, both by the European Commission and by the Competition Council of Romania. The paper is structured in four parts. The first part presents the cartel from the theoretical and legislative point of view. The second and third parts of the paper include the analysis of cartel cases detected both at European and national level. The following aspects were taken into account when analysing the cartel cases: the date when the decision was issued by the competition authorities, the number of companies involved in the cartel, the opening date of the investigation, the method of opening the investigation, the field in which the cartel operated, the duration of the cartel as well as the amount of the fine. The final part of the paper highlights a number of conclusions. In the reviewed period 22 cartel cases were detected in the European Union and 23 cartel cases in Romania. The amount of the fines imposed at a European level is 251 times higher than the fines imposed by the Competition Council of Romania. In the European Union there were 11 long-term cartel cases, 10 medium-term cases and only one case lasted less than a year. In Romania there have been detected 4 long term cartel cases, 7 medium-term cases and 12 cases of short-term cases.

The large number of regional trade agreements notified to the World Trade Organization (WTO) significantly influenced the flow of world trade. By April 2014 there had been notified 583 regional trade agreements to the WTO, of which only 379 are in force. The objective of this paper is to highlight the importance of regional trade agreements in world trade, especially the importance of establishing a regional competition policy in these agreements. The research methodology used is the analysis of legislation governing preferential trade agreements at the level of WTO, the collection and interpretation of statistical data provided by the WTO Secretariat, the case study, namely the study of literature. The paper is structured in three parts. The first part of the paper examines the basic laws based on which regional trade agreements are notified to the WTO and the evolution of these agreements in the period 1958-2013. The second part of the paper is devoted to the analysis of competition policy in regional trade agreements. In this part of the paper, to highlight the patterns of competition policy adopted under these agreements was analyzed by three case studies of competition policy in the EU, ASEAN and NAFTA. The three case studies have revealed that the three preferential trade agreements present regional competition policies with varying degrees of integration. The most complex form of competition policy is found in the European Union, because we are talking about a centralized model of competition policy. ASEAN presents a partially decentralized model, while NAFTA scrolls with a decentralized model of competition policy. The last part of the paper presents the characteristics of the four models of competition policy identified in the preferential trade agreements in force. It should be emphasized that if the initial preferential trade agreements have not put a great emphasis on the rules of competition policy, practice has shown the importance of competition policy at the regional level and there is now considerable progress in this regard.

The positioning strategy has suffered serious changes in the last few decades, being influenced by the rapid development of competition and the growing focus on specific traits belonging to the market, to the consumer or to the product. The purpose of this paper is to present the developments of theoretical positioning strategies and the orientation from more simple, product oriented strategies, to ones more oriented towards the client and with a briefer period of time. The world is moving in a much faster pace than in the past, thanks to communication development so companies are obliged to adopt more specific strategies in order for them to be effective. This essay represents a literary review presenting a documentary research within the scientific articles and strategy and positioning books. The paper begins with the analysis of company strategies and the marketing strategies in general. The first author to group the product positioning strategies is Porter with his three generic strategies. Following the development of brands and because of the lack of competitiveness in the simple generic positioning strategies, this paper has also presented the newer positioning strategies proposed by Kotler, Treacy & Wiersema, and also more complex ones such as Bowman's Strategy Clock and Blankson and Kalafatis positioning strategy based on the type of the consumer. The fast expansion of local brands in all categories has led to mistakes in positioning strategies, categories also presented in the current essay. The results of this study show that new positioning strategies are more and more based on the consumer and market segments and on the product specification - which have also evolved in the last decades. Adaptability to fast changes in the competitive market will represent the future positioning strategies.

Budgets are an important part of the business environment since 1920 and are considered to be the key drivers and evaluators of managerial performance; and the key elements for planning and control. Budgets are the most powerful tool for management control; they can play an essential role in the organization’s power politics because it can increase the power and authority of top management and limit the autonomy of lower-level managers. Besides its advantages traditional budgeting presents disadvantages also. In recent years criticism towards traditional budgeting has increased. The basis of this criticism is that traditional budgeting is a relic of the past; it prevents reactions to changes in the market, it cannot keep up with the changes and requirements of today’s business world and it isn’t useful for business management. In order to eliminate criticism researchers and practitioners have developed more systematic and alternative concepts of budgeting that suits better for the needs of the modern business environment. Beyond budgeting, better budgeting, rolling forecasts, activity-based budgeting are the main alternatives developed in the last years. From the mentioned alternatives this article examines only beyond budgeting. Our paper discusses how budgeting has evolved into its current state, before examining why this universal technique has come under such heavy criticism of late. The paper is a literature analysis, it contributes to the existing managerial accounting literature and it is structured as follows. In the first part the background and evolution of budgeting is presented, followed by the analysis of related theories in traditional budgeting, emphasizing both the advantages and disadvantages of traditional budgeting. The second part of the paper continues with the discussion about alternative budgeting methods highlighting pros and cons of alternative methods, especially beyond budgeting. In the third part conducted surveys and studies are analyzed in order to establish whether traditional or alternative budgeting methods are better and have a positive impact on businesses; or which has more practical usefulness. The final part provides conclusions and discussions for future research.

This paper presents issues related to determining the bankruptcy risk for 64 companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange.The purpose of this paper is to determine the percentage of companies falling within the normal range. In the introduction, we set the goal, the research methodology, and the novelty value of this work. Hereinafter, we presented different views of risk concepts, bankruptcy, solvency and liquidity. After that, based on theoretical presentations, a case study was conducted to determine the solvency and liquidity ratios. In the end, on the basis of the above considerations, the conclusions were established and some proposals were listed.

The European framework for fiscal policies is constructed mainly on the objective of monitoring budget balances and public debt, allowing national governments to decide on the specific fiscal policy that is more suitable to their internal context and public needs. However, for Euro Area member states this autonomy is restricted by the conditions imposed through the Stability and Growth Pact. As the recent macroeconomic dynamics underlined the necesity of improving the fiscal outcomes, the fiscal framework was updated and modified by the provisions of the new European economic governance meant to avoid unsound and unsustainable fiscal policies that could affect the stability of other Euro Area member states. The Six-Pack, the Fiscal Compact and the other conditions imposed by the reform of the fiscal governance framework are meant to ensure more discipline in drafting and executing national budgets. Even so, national authorities maintain their fiscal sovereignty and the decision regarding fiscal structures remains at their disposal, as long as the drafts are approved and the outcomes are maintained in the limits imposed through the supranational fiscal framework. Regardless of the numerous differences between member states, similar trends regarding tax mixes can be noticed in time. The objectives of this paper is to analyze fiscal structures of Euro Area member states and to determine, if any, groups with similar fiscal structures, their composition and the similarities that characterize Euro Area in this respect. In order to have a clear overview of fiscal structures within Euro Area, we analyzed data for 17 member states, for year 2012, taking into consideration total general government revenue, indirect taxation, direct taxation and social contributions. As one of the aims of this paper is to determine whether in Euro Area the main contributors are corporations or individuals, we also analyzed the structure of direct taxation, dividing it into taxes on income of corporations and taxes on income of individuals and households and other current taxes. Actual social contributions were also split into employer’s actual contributions, employee’s social contributions and social contributions of self- and non-employed persons. As the primary data analysis revealed many differences between Euro Area member states, but also similarities concerning various fiscal aggregates, we completed the analysis through multidimensional analysis, with the aims of classifying Euro Area member states into subgroups with similar fiscal structures. Taking into consideration the above mentioned variables, we used cluster analysis in order to determine which member states have similar fiscal structures and which are the main similarities that characterize Euro Area in this respect.

Due to the development of information technology, every enterprise has a lot of data, which magnify the difficulties of selecting the most relevant. Hence, appears the mistake of measuring too many things. Owning too much information, will lead to vagueness, the opposite effect of a measuring system. This phenomenon does not depend on the manager’s ability to compute and communicate, but rather on the ability to provide adequate information, to take good decisions and to compare results with the planned objectives. These can be done through a user interface – Dashboard, which is a tool that allows the alignment of business processes and strategies implementation. Dashboards are more than a collection of indicators and graphics, they are found in different forms and interfaces. Dashboards answer to many questions of the organization and are addressed to different types of audiences. Before creating a Dashboard, we must answer the following questions: who is our audience, what decisions should be taken after the analysis, in what context will be used, how often should be measured the indicators? Once an enterprise has identified a need for a dashboard, managers must go through the process of defining what they will include in their dashboard (key risk indicators and key performance indicators). This paper shows how this methodology has developed, the main features and benefits of Dashboards, as well as the most used software for creating them. As the main objective of the paper is to discuss how Dashboards can be used in business analysis (BA), in introduction, there are presented some general ideas about BA and benefits of using Dashboards. In the next section, there are presented several definitions for Dashboards and the steps which must be followed for implementing an efficient one. In the case study is created a dashboard for sales analysis of an enterprise, using Tableau Public. The paper ends with some conclusions and with the list of references.

One of the reasons why people get degree and participate in organized education is that they want to raise their human capital or signal their inner abilities to future employers by sorting themselves out. In both cases they can expect return to their investment, because they can expect higher life-time earnings than those who do not have degree. In this paper we will refer this activity as higher education investment or education investment. In this paper the investment of the state into educating their citizens will not be considered. The question of this paper will develop the findings of Vona (2014). I suggested to introduce modern risk measures because individual risk-taking became a serious question. It was considered that modern risk measures can help to solve some issues with the relation of investment and risk. However before applying some measures from a different field of science, namely investment finance and financial mathematics, to another, economics of education, there must be a very careful consideration, because there are debate over these measures applicability even on their field of science. Value at Risk is not coherent and Expected Shortfall is only one of a great deal of possible tail loss measures. For this reason it will be discussed in detail how should we should adopt the measures, what kind of data is necessary for calculating this risk measures and what kind of new insight they can bring. With the aid of a numerical example it will be shown that with expected shortfall measure we can reflect some large losses, and potential high value of diversification. We show the value at risk based measure is not coherent and this means it points out something different in this environment. It is can be an indicator of loss in opportunities for high end returns.

Universities have an important role in the state because through them, it shall function in higher education. The old Romanian academic educational system foundation has been strengthened and modernized by adopting the National Education Law 1/2011, on which occasion universities have experienced a consistent reform with changes especially in financial issues. However, the percentage of gross domestic product allocation for education shows a downward trend. Moreover, despite the fact that the National Education Law provides for the allocation of at least 6% of gross domestic product to finance national education, these assumptions have not been observed so far, because in recent years the percentages were allocated around 3% of gross domestic product. In the external context of chronic underfunding extremely unfavorable for the Romanian academic education, this paper aims to identify current trends in the field, through an applied research carried out on the University of Craiova. University of Craiova stands out as the most prestigious institution of academic education in Oltenia, who is conducting a voluminous and complex activity about ensuring quality standards and efficiency in the educational process The current investigation is the extension of a research initiative launched in 2013, through the paper entitled "The Current Status of Financing Public Higher Education Institutions in Romania - The Case of the University of Craiova" and brings further developments on the topic, aiming to highlight the evolution of the funding structure of the University of Craiova in the range 2011-2013, based on the latest information disseminated through the financial statements and the annual reports on the status of the institution. In this paper we try to bring more research in this area by diagnosing the current state, providing answers to questions such as: How does the financing structure of the University of Craiova stands? How did the University of Craiova funding evolve since legislative changes in 2011?

Over the last years, management have been facing a series of profound changes in trends coming and going, one being more productive than other or causing more damage when applied improperly. The paper focuses on the last trends in management that have evolved in the last years, trends that have been marked by a Darwinian business environment and made more unforgiving since the financial crisis and the innovations in technology, social media and management philosophy. The paper will present and describe the most important new trends in management that enabled select organisations to remain competitive and overcome the multiple difficulties caused by the ever-changing economy based on a qualitative research. From the “outside innovation” that is considered always to be the key in overcoming the obstacles facing an organization, to the new buzzword “design”, that is said to ensure the organization long-term competitive advantage, the paper will analyse new trends and also will be describing the impact they have on the welfare of the organization. The research has also shown that managers tend to put a greater accent on searching for innovation rather than efficiency in order to ensure a continuous progress in the organization and to maintain business sustainability. The paper will not be comparing the efficiency of these different philosophies, or the results they generated, as time will still be the ultimate judge.

The purpose of this theoretical paper is to analyze the concept of entrepreneurship while following the approaches taken by scholars over time in this field of research. Four entrepreneurship theories which are relevant for the analysis and practice of entrepreneurship will be explained and compared. In a continuously and rapidly changing world, like the one today, information and knowledge seem to be of most interest for entrepreneurs. The current central element of entrepreneurship within the academic world is considered to be the notion of opportunity. Nonetheless, this has not always been the situation in entrepreneurship research and as a result, during this paper I will follow the evolution of entrepreneurship as a concept and I will point out a series of findings relevant for its analysis and practice. Consequently, I have considered choosing two theories focused on the notion of opportunity, namely Drucker’s theory of entrepreneurship and Burt’s theory of entrepreneurship. Additionally, I have used Schumpeter’s theory of entrepreneurship because of its major influence over both the theoretical and practical aspects of entrepreneurship and von Hayek’s theory of entrepreneurship because of its role in signalizing the significance of practical knowledge within the research of entrepreneurship. Each of these four theories is analyzed and strengths and drawbacks are pointed out. The comparison which resumes the paper takes into consideration the theories authors’ profiles, their backgrounds and the moment in time when the theories have been stated. It will be possible for the reader to observe that the concept of entrepreneurship has changed in time and implicitly the trend in entrepreneurship research has altered from a theoretical approach to a much more practical one. The main driver for this change was the business environment, which was forced to continuously search for improvement measures in order to survive. These improvement measures relied always on discovering new opportunities and therefore, nowadays the scholars worldwide consider the notion of opportunity to be the paramount element of entrepreneurship.

JEREMIE (Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises) program was implemented as a part of the EU cohesion policy in the framework of 2007-2013 programming period. The primary objective of the program was to enhance the financing prospects of SME’s through structural funds that provide financial engineering instruments like loan, guarantee and venture capital. This paper focuses on the effects of JEREMIE on Hungary’s venture capital market. Since 2010, 28 JEREMIE backed venture capital funds were founded in four rounds and 130 billion HUF capital was allocated into these funds with the contribution of Hungarian government. A well-established venture capital market can boost entrepreneurship and innovation, therefore economic growth which is the foundation of government involvement. On the other hand, there is an extensive literature highlighting the limits and possible drawbacks of the active role of public sector in the venture capital market. There is a consensus in the literature that in the long run the extensive role of government in venture capital industry is counterproductive. Substituting market participants by government agencies will hardly result in a competitive and efficient market. However, temporarily as a catalyst public sector can contribute to the development of venture capital market. Direct government intervention supportable temporarily only in the infancy of the industry. The primary objective of every program must be to develop the market to the level where it becomes self-sustaining. This way the success of these programs must not be measured only by the amount of invested capital, financial performance of venture capital funds and venture capital backed companies. Raising private sector awareness and the progress of necessary institutions are also the criteria of a successful program. During the design and implementation of venture capital agendas these aspects must be taken into consideration. This paper aims for evaluating how successful JEREMIE program is in enhancing the development of venture capital industry.

In this paper we analyzed the importance of ethical and conduct codes in implementing the compliance programs in an organization. We presented the assumptions that were the basis for the forming of ethic and compliance programs, as well as their evolution in the last decades. In the first part of this paper we highlighted the legislation that outlined principles required for organizations to implement their compliance programs and business ethics. This legislation came as a response to corporate scandals relating to bribery, fraud and corruption in the 70s, and governments of the affected countries were forced to react in order to prevent, detect inappropriate behaviour, as well as improve corporate behaviour. After coming into force of the Federal Law "The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977" (FCPA, 1977), there was an increase in the number of codes of conduct and corporate involvement in adopting a conduct supported by consumers and stakeholders and to redefine the standards and values, to create a new image corresponding to the new market requirements. In the Guidelines 2002 basic principles are set out in order to efficiently implement a compliance and ethics program in business. The case study was materialized in the analysis of ethics and compliance codes, and the method used for implementing them in three Romanian companies. Analyzing the three ethics and conduct codes, we can conclude that the most important factor to successfully implement ethics and compliance within an organization is "tone from the top". CEO conduct is one that has a direct effect on members of the organization. Furthermore, we followed capturing developments in the rules governing the international business ethics and evaluated the legal framework regulating these issues. The primary aim was to assess how rules are implemented throughout business ethics compliance programs developed at company level and to identify ways to promote - at an organizational level – the culture of ethical business and compliance.

The current paper has the aim to provide guidelines for post-launching monitoring activities and steps related to new transactional banking products addressed to SMEs. While the pre-launching activities have the purpose of accurately defining the objectives, assumptions and estimations, the purpose of the post-launching plan is to identify: if the final objectives of a product launching have been met, on one hand, to analyze results in the sense of identifying an efficient action plan in order to overcome the lack of results (if case), but most important, to identify opportunities for optimizing the products and for communicating properly the value proposition. This paper also presents schemes for monitoring the results from a business case and for motivating the sales force, as an essential step in increasing the sales. Therefore, alternatives of incentive campaigns are presented, as sustainable campaigns with to purpose to achieve an expected success rate. As an additional support guideline for the sales force, some scenarios and post-sales actions are presented, together with an example of portfolio analysis considering potential per client. Considering the methods and details presented in the current paper, one can identify the importance and find out how to monitor the results after launching a new transactional product addressed to SMEs, can understand and design an incentive scheme and also define actions to be taken in order to increase revenues from a newly launched transactional product.

In our paper we review the general topic of social involvement of organizations, in the light of business-society relationship. For this aim we analyze the extensive international literature of corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship, social philanthropy, sustainable corporation and other related concepts. In this endeavor we categorize the main body of knowledge in three broad areas: (1) papers investigating the definitions and measures of these concepts, including practitioners’ opinions, (2) predictors of such involvement and actions, (3) effects of social responsibility manifested by organizations. The second section of our paper focuses on the Romanian literature on this topic, as it is less systematized so far. In this section we focus on the main findings of studies conducted on Romanian companies regarding CSR or related concepts. In the final, concluding section we propose a research methodology for CSR in Romania meant to clarify the impact of the most frequently considered predictors.

Sustainable development has become the development paradigm of our new era. The present paper aims to offer some considerations regarding transnational partnerships for sustainable development, focusing on the European Union countries from the South-Eastern area. The research methodology is based on the literature review of the topic, as well as a quantitative and qualitative analysis. Working in transnational partnerships has been seen as a way of adrressing complex issues, such as sustainable development. These kind of partnerships are voluntary, multi-stakeholder initiatives specifically linked to the implementation of globally agreed commitments, facilitating and strengthening the process towards sustainable development. The investigated EU countries from the South-East Europe demonstrate strong commitment for being part in transnational partnerships for sustainable development from different perspectives: the significant number of transnational partnerships and the great number of partners in each partnership coming from widespread areas, the wide variety of the approached topics directly connected to sustainable development and the types of organizations involved as partners. The merit of this paper, in spite of some limitations, is to contribute with an original research regarding transnational partnership for sustainable development, setting a focus point on the way to further research.

It is well known that economic education need adequately answers to global challenges. Despite to this, there is still a significant lack of understanding of how we can do this in practice. The purpose of this paper is to provide a possible answer, based on the idea of building economic education program focalized on the characteristics of the new generations of students. We structure the paper as follows: first we offer a first approach about actual economic education, analysing the importance of understanding the new generation of students – Y Generation. In the next section we present the research method used for the empirical analysis, and we develop three hypotheses, based on interviews and data analysis. In our opinion, the operationalization of education centered on student in the field of economics is influenced by pragmatic orientation, of the management of communications and dialogue with students and also by presenting realistic and business models. We test these hypotheses using a test administrated for 22 students in Management, enrolled in the second year, undergraduate studies. Then we include in our present paper the empirical results in order to show that all three hypotheses were confirmed. The results are presented with a thought description of the empirical analysis. Finally, discussion and conclusions are presented and implications for economic education are discussed.

Over the last decade, the World has shown increased concern for climate change and energy security. The emergence of these issues has pushed many nations to pursue the development of clean domestic electricity production via renewable energy (RE) technologies. However, RE also comes with a higher production and investment cost, compared to most conventional fossil fuel based technologies. In order to analyse exactly how Romanian electricity consumers feel about the advantages and the disadvantages of RE, we have decided to perform a comprehensive study, which will constitute the core of a doctoral thesis regarding the Romanian energy sector and household consumers’ willingness to pay for the positive attributes of RE. The current paper represents one step toward achieving the objectives of the above mentioned research, specifically dealing with the issue of segmenting household energy consumers given the context of the Romanian energy sector. It is an argumentative literature review, which seeks to critically assess the methodology used for customer segmentation in general and for household energy users in particular. Building on the experience of previous studies, the paper aims to determine the most adequate segmentation procedure given the context and the objectives of the overall doctoral research. After assessing the advantages and disadvantages of various methodologies, a psychographic segmentation of household consumers based on general life practices is chosen, mainly because it provides more insights into consumers compared to traditional socio-demographic segmentation by focusing on lifestyles and not external characteristics, but it is also realistically implementable compared to more complex procedures such as the standard AIO. However, the life practice scale developed by Axsen et al. (2012) will need to be properly adapted to the specific objectives of the study and to the context of the Romanian energy sector. All modifications will be based on the results of previous research performed by us and on a qualitative study among industry experts and consumers.

This paper presents the results of a marketing experiment done on the Romanian software market. The main purpose of this research is to determine how the marketing campaigns of software manufacturers can influence the decisions of software retailers. Through this marketing experimental research an evaluation and an analysis of the impact that marketing policies of software companies have on the retailers from all over the country is made. Three different marketing campaigns were proposed to three groups of software vendors from the most important cities of the country. The total number of software retailers included in this experiment is of 45, and the marketing campaigns proposed by the authors in this experiment refer to the Microsoft brand. Promotion strategies such as: sales promotion by encouraging sales force and promotional pricing or even the policy of partner relationship management have a great impact on three aspects regarding software retailers: loyalty, purchase and resale intention and attitude towards a brand. The results of the experiment show a high interest for the strategy of promotional pricing. The representatives of the software vendors have a positive orientation towards sales promotion by encouraging sales force. Regarding the influences of the manipulations used in the experiment, the greatest impact on the loyalty of the software vendors it has the strategy of promotional pricing. Also the policy of sales promotion by encouraging sales force has the biggest impact on the purchase and sale intention of the software retailers. All three manipulations have also an impact on the attitude towards a brand of the vendors, but the differences are too small to determine which of the proposed stimuli has a greater impact on this aspect. The results of the experiment may help and could have a great influence on the future marketing decisions of manufacturers regarding the strategies and marketing policies used on the Romanian software market. Also, this paper represents a solid foundation for future marketing research that can involve all the stakeholders' categories from the Romanian software market.

The aim of the paper is to examine an area which was not thoroughly researched until present. We refer on how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices are nowadays reflecting its actions to employees / labor force. This paper represents a theoretical research related to the latest developments in this field. We had documented our paper based on actual references on this matter. In order to make correct assessments, this material seeks firstly to examine the level of understanding in respect of internal CSR actions related to employees. It is very important to understand and to briefly describe how previous studies described the link between CSR actions assigned to own employees. Secondly, this paper focuses on presenting and commenting an idea prescribing that pyramids (i.e. the pyramid of Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs and the pyramid of Carroll’s corporate social responsibility) put together generate a clear feedback related to companies’ reactions in respect of CSR for their employees. In a practical manner, it is assumed that each level on the pyramid of Maslow has a correspondent in the pyramid of Carroll and vice-versa. This model is then precisely reflected when looking at the employees and their needs reflected through CSR actions. Thirdly, this paper also emphasizes the importance of the labor unions for employees’ CSR. We discuss about an out-of-the-box role for the labor unions, which should be engaged more and more in the employees updated wishes, one of them being about various CSR actions that need to be focused on employees. We assume that CSR efforts directed in the field of employees would make them more responsible, more eager to work and more productive in their day-to-day work.

Public services market is closely linked to the involvement of the state in economic and social life. The extent and modalities of involvement varies from one country to another, from one period to another are influenced by many specific factors concrete. With the involvement of the state in economic and social life goals should be considered or - declared or not - -especially those interventions effects on the community and individuals. The paper starts from the idea that public service education, the health care and social services ensures the physical and intellectual integrity of the individual, regardless of his income level. In democratic societies are more and more talking about education as the means of personal development, a service available to all, regardless of social class, religion, gender, and access to health care is considered a basic right of the individual. Medical services should be seen as a means by which many social objectives can be achieved in the long term ( equal opportunities, financial security during illness) not as simple care of the sick. The paper includes analysis related to: the structure of social protection in our country, the scope of these services, the relationship between social protection and poverty, the way and the degree to which social protection deepens or contribute to poverty reduction. The economic crisis triggered in Europe in 2008that also affects Romania, negatively influenced the evolution of social funds in key areas of public interest, education, health and social care. This results from: decreasing share of social spending in the state budget, decreasing share of these expenses in the total family budget due to lower purchasing power and thus the obligation of individual to reduce or waive some costs of this kind, central and local government bodies inability to meet certain service requirements such at the level of the population and especially low-income population groups. Located in the crisis situation the state must seek solutions to keep social services at an appropriate level because the quantity and quality of these services have an impact upon quality of life and standard of living of many individuals. The results of the analysis indicates us a reduced benefit for this type of service, in our country, with negative effects over the entire society. The conclusions aim to support the fact that social policy from our country is insufficient in relation to the real needs of the population, being strongly influenced by domestic economic situation and the size of the global economic crisis.

The central focus of universities should be the improving the quality and quantity of entrepreneurs or students with an entrepreneurial attitude. We argue that the academic field of entrepreneurship is at a very low level in Romania on several axes and the University must determine the best fit for them given their students, their alumni, their stakeholders, the region and its economic base and the aspiration of institutions. Entrepreneurship should it be something that will have high and positive impact for students not just another course in the curriculum. Entrepreneurship is concerned with establishing new activities and about being able to perceive new opportunities. Entrepreneurship competence is relevant for all areas of working and business life, in both new and established activities and enterprises. The aim of this paper is to provide an analysis of the present situation and recent evolution of entrepreneurship education in Romanian universities and to discuss these courses and curricula match the demand for entrepreneurial competences. This paper presents a short summary of the status of entrepreneurship curriculum and different challenges. The information collected through the Internet refers to the academic year 2012-2013. The range of theoretical choices, objectives, publics, pedagogical methods and institutional context should be structured around a general framework.

The main purpose of this paper is to present an extended literature review of relevant empirical studies which examine the effect of ambient scent on consumers' perception, consumers' emotions and consumers' behavioral responses in the context of retailing. Compared with other atmospheric stimuli (such as background music), ambient scent has received little attention from researchers. This paper is also concentrated on identifying de principal dimensions of ambient scent (presence versus absence; congruity versus incongruity and pleasantness versus unpleasantness) and examined how these dimensions of ambient scent have an impact on evaluation of a product, of a store or of a shopping mall and their impact on shopping behavior within a store. The paper also presented the Gulas and Bloch (1995) model, a complex conceptual framework on the influence of ambient scent on consumer responses, in their model the authors introduced the influence of mediating factors on behavioral responses to scent. Their model is a first step on the understanding the role of ambient scent in influencing consumer behavior. Davis, Kooijman and Ward (2003) extending and elaborating the Gulas and Bloch (1995) model by introducing concepts from cognate disciplines and examines mediating factors that help shape the emotional and behavioural responses that are stimulated to encompass current research on human olfaction and brings another specific points for future research. Based on the results of the relevant studies the authors of the present paper concludes by identifying gaps in the literature and suggest future research to explore how the use of scent help to create an overall store atmosphere which influence shopping behavior in the context of retailing.

The aim of this paper is to emphasize the possible engines that can boost Romanian foreign trade from a chronic deficit to a more balanced one. In the beginning, we present the main theories and models that tackle the subject. In this matter, the paper starts with the analysis of neo-factors, Porter, the gravitational model, the input-output model, and the terms of trade in order to see the historic thought of trade model development. Following these models, a more mathematical approach is made, using a thorough analysis at the product level. All the computations are based on the combined nomenclature with its XXII classes, being the most exact determinant of traded goods. The paper uses statistic indexes as: Hirschman concentration index, elasticity coefficient, the degree of trade openness, in order to determine the specialization effect of the Romanian classes for a period of twenty one years, starting in 1991 and ending in 2012. This is the point where former, current and future specialized engines of potential trade growth can be established. It is crucial for a country to determine its potential in an open international arena, in order to take the necessary steps to encourage or discourage productive or non-productive areas of certain industry branches. Based on the results and on the previous methodology, a mix of theory with solid mathematical analyses, gives the opportunity to draw up different sets of sustainable development formulas in order to obtain a higher concentration ratio regarding several classes from the combined nomenclature. For Romania to obtain higher gains from international trade, a more sustainable integration in the European Union, it has to stop its chronic balance of trade deficit. Looking at and analysing the potential development of a combined nomenclature class or classes will help improving Romania’s chronic deficit, offering a long term prospective of sustainable development, reducing its foreign debt, improving its balance of trade accounts, and transforming its import driven economy to a more competitive export oriented economy. Achieving these standards can ensure Romania’s future growth and accession to a more privileged seat in the European Union and in the international arena.

In our paper we shall try to present two mechanisms of fiscal fraud used by economical agents and also found in the control actions performed by the fiscal organs at different commercial societies from Romania. The presented mechanisms refer to the fiscal fraud resulted from fictitious acquisitions of goods and services done by Romanian firms which have as beneficiaries other commercial societies which are fiscally registered in Romania. Being empirically examined, the fiscal fraud will be presented through the use of some figures which will describe the detailed operations step by step.For the cases we have chosen to present we will describe the real circuit of goods and money according to the documents. We will also refer to the possibility of identifying the risk of fiscal fraud that results from the reports provided by the economic agents for different state institutions. We will also consider the information provide by the books of prime entry and bookkeeping, documents which have to be written by the commercial societies according to the Law accountancy nr. 82/199, with further modifications and completions. The mechanisms of fiscal fraud in use can be identical with the ones presented in this paper or they can be different as „new elements” can appear; these „new elements” depend on the type of activity performed, the modifications the legislative framework, the performers’ creativity or other external or internal factors which are not identified by the fiscal organs. By identifying the fiscal fraud mechanisms and the way in which they function, the fiscal organs will be given the opportunity to take the necessary measures so that the fiscal resources of the state consolidated budget should not be affected by such operations. It is will known that we can speak of fiscal fraud and shadow economy in any country but ,according to the reports and statistics published by different international institutions, Romania’s shadow economy represent almost 30% from the Gross Domestic Product. The Romanian authorities should carefully think about this phenomenon as it requires strict measures to reduced it.

The Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) represent an important target market for commercial Banks. In this respect, finding the best methods for designing and implementing the optimal marketing strategies (for this target) are a continuous concern for the marketing specialists and researchers from the banking system; the purpose is to find the most suitable service model for these companies. SME portfolio of a bank is not homogeneous, different characteristics and behaviours being identified. The current paper reveals empirical evidence about SME portfolio characteristics and segmentation methods used in banking system. Its purpose is to identify if segmentation has an impact in finding the optimal marketing strategies and service model and if this hypothesis might be applicable for any commercial bank, irrespective of country/ region. Some banks are segmenting the SME portfolio by a single criterion: the annual company (official) turnover; others are considering also profitability and other financial indicators of the company. In some cases, even the banking behaviour becomes a criterion. For all cases, creating scenarios with different thresholds and estimating the impact in profitability and volumes are two mandatory steps in establishing the final segmentation (criteria) matrix. Details about each of these segmentation methods may be found in the paper. Testing the final matrix of criteria is also detailed, with the purpose of making realistic estimations. Example for lending products is provided; the product offer is presented as responding to needs of targeted sub segment and therefore being correlated with the sub segment characteristics. Identifying key issues and trends leads to further action plan proposal. Depending on overall strategy and commercial target of the bank, the focus may shift, one or more sub segments becoming high priority (for acquisition/ activation/ retention/ cross sell/ up sell/ increase profitability etc.), while others (risky/ non-profitable etc.) may be left aside. This entire shift in strategy is considering also growth potential per sub segment. Examples are provided for different strategies considering growth potential of each sub segment.

Abstract: There are many situations in professional life when for various reasons we are employed in jobs that do not meet our emotional expectations our professional capabilities, our passions and therefore performance on that job will not be high. Analysis of the causes of under-utilization of human potential and adoption of appropriate strategies according to employee needs help reduce staff turnover costs. The main objective of the present paper consists in identifying managerial strategies which contribute to the improvement of the employees’ performances by stimulating their motivation, and the extent to which they are used in the managerial practice. Based on literature review we realized an integrated model and developed a classification, that present our own vision regarding performance improvement strategies. Our classification divides strategies for improving employees’ performances into four main groups: by employees’ development, by rewarding employees, by modifying the job description, by employee involvement in the organization. Starting from this model, through two types of questionnaires we have made an empirical research among managers as well as among office personnel, in order to capture both perspectives regarding the pursued objectives. For the present paper we will present only research results obtained for performance improvement strategies by employees’ development because support a higher degree of generality and do not depend on the organization characteristics. A quantitative data analize from the two samples show that there are differences between managers and employees perception when it comes to strategies used in their organizations and also manager did not know which determines employees to strive in order to improve their performance and obtain better results. The strategies to improve the employee’s performances, proposed within this article have the role to show the fact that managers cannot determine every employee to be competitive by using the same methods, and therefore treating each differently person with the aim of creating for that person a favorable context for the development of the performance brings benefits at individual as well as at organizational level.

The goal of this paper was to to assess the communication efficiency within local public administration in Crisana Region. It also aims to explore factors predicting employees satisfaction regarding communication process. Using qualitative research I investigated public servants\' opinions on the communication in local public administration. As an exploratory study I performed a content analysis of information gathered from the interviews organized in the two most largest local public institutions in Crisana Region. The particularities of the internal and external communication are analyzed. In addition, it was taken into consideration the importance of citizen involvement in local government and the requirements for the citizen oriented applications. By analyzing data it was possible to highlight the aspects that please or discontent the clerks regarding the communication with their colleagues, their chiefs, the citizens they serve or other institutions. Therefore every participant in the study presented a positive and a negative critical incident on local communication. It was revealed the crucial role of the dispatch to obtain information by public servants on the one hand and citizens on the other hand. Measures for ensuring the institutions transparency and fairness are described. The public servants emphasized some aspects that are characteristic to the communication within large institution inference. This paper offers a view on the communication process seen from the inside. The collected data are used for verifying the hypotheses regarding the difference in the public servants` perception regarding internal and external communication within local public communication. The interviewed employees stated that authorities granted more importance to external communication than internal communication. Accordingly, is needed an improvement to the means and applications through which internal communication operates because the participants are less satisfied with it. The research findings, certainly reflected the genuine desire of public servants to find better ways to communicate with the public.

In order to remain competitive, the multinational enterprises (MNEs) are forced by the globalization phenomenon (which manifestation has became more and more stringent) to analyze continuously its effectiveness. In this respect, the structure of the business represents an element which might have an important impact for the enterprise’s overall results. This is why, in the last decades, the MNEs granted special attention to business structures and put significant efforts in business restructurings, where the case, with the scope to keep the efficiency and to remain on the market. Generally, the operational business restructuring process follows one of the business model globally developed, namely manufacturer or sales business models. Thus, according to the functions performed, assets used and risks assumed, the entities within the group are labeled into limited risk units (such as toll manufacturer or commission agent), medium risk (contract manufacturer, commissionaire, stripped distributor) or high risk units (fully fledged manufacturer, fully fledged distributor). Notwithstanding the above, there should be emphasized that the operational business restructuring has to be undertaken with maximal care, as it might have important fiscal impact. Having this regard, the purpose of the present investigation is to provide, from a tax and transfer pricing point of view, a systematic and structured analysis of the generally characteristics of business models (manufacturer and sales business models) used by multinational enterprises in the process of business reorganization, with the scope to increase their performance and the sustainable competitive advantages. Thus, by using the fundamental (theoretical) and qualitative research type, this paper is aiming to present the most important characteristics of each business model (general overview of each model, the principal risk assumed, the usual transfer pricing method used for the remuneration of intra-group transactions). The principal investigation techniques (research methods) used were the literature review and the analysis of international regulation in the taxation field. The present paper follows the positive research perspective.

In recent years , weather derivatives have become a common tool in risk management for many sectors. This has its roots in that there is no unique way to determine de value and price solutions that would be generally approved by market-participants, like in the case of the Black-Scholes formula for options on non-dividend-paying stocks is the source for a constant debate between academics and practitioners. One look for fair and truly correct prices, while the others search every-day applicable solutions. To be honest... this is somehow like alchemy. This paper has as purpose the examination of statistical characteristics of weather data, data clearing and filling techniques. The study will be referring to temperatures because that is the best analyzed phenomenon, being the most common. This was also heavily influenced by energy companies and energetic interests, because the degree days were of interest ever before weather derivatives were put for sale. Main ideas are explaining what ways of pricing and valuation are, put into perspective for this financial instrument, taking into consideration that the Black-Scholes Model is not suitable. Also here, we will present the pros and cons that we found for each method. The methods are: the Burn analysis, the index value simulation method (IVSM), the daily simulation method (DSM).On the hole, this paper wants to shed light the weather derivatives pricing methods a mix of insurance pricing and standard financial models. At the end we will prospect the discounting problem, by means of the Consumption based Capital Asset Pricing Model (CCAPM).

This paper presents aspects regarding population and workforce in Maramureş County, compared with the situation recorded in the region to which it belongs, i.e. North - West, at the end of 2010. The paper is aimed at all those interested in these issues. Besides Maramureş County, the North - West Region also includes the counties of Bihor (BH), Bistriţa-Năsăud (BN), Cluj (CJ), Satu Mare (SM) and Sălaj (SJ). Maramureş is known for its wooden churches, its rural architecture, its old traditions - preserved until today - its craftsmen and its impressive landscapes. This paper is based on statistical information provided by the National Institute of Statistics, Department of Statistics in Cluj. In March 2013, the latest data available are those relating to the end of 2010. Thus, based on this information, it pinpoints the fields in which the people in Maramureş are employed at this date, compared to other counties in the region, the wages they get, and the contribution to the county and regional GDP. It also compares labor resource, active civil population and employed civil population, unemployed. After 1989, Maramureş County, as well as the entire North - West Region, underwent major changes. Population decreased from year to year, however the lack of jobs has become a constant reality. The mining of ore, the processing of metals other than iron and the auto industry, which used to cover most of the jobs in Maramureş, entered into a continuous decline, which culminated in the closure of all mines in the county. In this situation, adapting to the new conditions, the current economic reality, is a daily problem for the people of this county. We will try to determine in which fields the people of Maramureş are currently working in, compared to the residents of the other counties in the region, which are their wages and what the contribution to the regional and county GDP is. We will also see the state of the labor resource, the active civil population, the employed population and the unemployed.

The neoclassical theory of the firm deals with the pattern of perfect competition, within which the perfect information available to economic agents provides instant allocation of production factors and access to economic goods. The Austrian School (C. Menger, L. von Mises, Hayek, etc.) supported the idea of minimal state intervention on the markets, bringing important conceptual developments on the theory of the firm. Hirschleifer (1982) put forward the model of social and institutional functioning, arguing that the game theory is able to predict the outcome of the collective behavior and the human characteristics necessary for building the respective institutions.The evolutionary theory provides the firm and the entrepreneur the recognition of the functions of innovation, of generating and exploiting information and of organizing and coordinating production. The evolutionary perspective of the firm assumes the existence of a body of knowledge that is acquired through and builds up the organizational memory, subsequently found in routines, all choices being made based on these routines (Nelson and Winter, 2002). The evolution of the firm is considered to be similar to natural selection, but unlike the classic market selection, the evolutionists suggest the existence of a plurality of selection media. The present research is structured as follows: a brief introduction into the theories of the firm, the second part of the paper analyzes the theories of the firm from an institutional, neo-institutional and evolutionary perspective. In the third part of the paper the evolutionary games are described and analyzed from the evolutionary perspective of the firm. The last part of the paper represents a study of the “hawk-dove” game dynamic replicator. The final conclusions of the paper show that the evolutionary theory brings valuable contributions to the foundation of explanations regarding economic phenomena, indicating new directions for advanced economic research.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze factors that influence the users of the telecommunications smartphone services for increasing the usage of such services. The first approach adopted was to study the literature review related to the technology acceptance models and the second, to test the hypotheses by using SPSS regression analysis. The research was performed in three multinational companies operating in Romania, collecting data from 307 respondents via a web questionnaire survey between 11th – 24th of February 2013. Since many companies have been used in their business the new technology, it is important to link the users’ motivations with the specific of telecommunications services, in order to improve, in the end, the job performance. The findings suggests that the users of smartphone services are very much influenced by practical reasons of getting access to the smartphone services, so that the telecommunications operators should consider the factors in the model to promote and increase the usage. In this paper the conclusions related to the reasons and direction that can make users to increase the usage of smartphone services are coming both, from multiple factor regression analysis, as well as from the analysis of the sample research profile.

The paper tries to identify the contextual factors that influence positively the level of work effort made by the employees who have low quality relationships with their hierarchical superiors. According to the control theory regarding the leader-employee relationship we can state that a higher work effort than the expected one is due to the fact that in certain working environments can offer control to those who normally do not have it, thus serving as substitute of the high quality leader-employee relationships. Studies have proven that for the employees that report low quality relationships with their superior, low competence of their superior, decentralized decision making and low perceptions of policies, high levels of the individual work effort are recorded. The paper highlights the theoretical and practical implications of these discoveries and offers directions for further research in this field.

The aim of this article is to understand the theoretical framework of the social capital concept, based on different approaches identified in the literature and highlight the direct influence social capital has on the entrepreneurial personality characteristics of individuals and organizations. The objectives of the paper focus first on conceptualizing the notion of social capital, by acknowledging the social capital structure and components in the acceptation of the most popular scholars in the research field, the sources of social capital and its role in building social economy; further on, the article explores the influence of social capital in the creation of innovation and economic growth, its dimensions in the entrepreneurial process and the definition of the instruments of measurement, including indicators of trust-generalized and institutional, number of social networks, associational activities-passive and active membership and civic norms. The paper gathers some of the outcomes of different researches conducted in the literature with respect to the positive relationship between social capital dimensions and entrepreneurship, through attracting the right potential of human capital and the required level of financial capital, reducing the transaction costs, identifying new market opportunities and leveraging the social networks, transfer and knowledge overflow and information channels, enabling the launch and the survival of business venture and help gain competitive advantage that would ensure sustainability and success. The case studies referenced in this article use various approaches of highlighting the social capital as a key enabler and not necessarily a generator of entrepreneurial activity, by analyzing the likelihood to launch new ventures based on the interactions with key partners and exchange of information, the sustainability and success of a start up or push/pull factors that determine an entrepreneur to enter the new ventures environment. The article is concluded by a high level introspection on how social capital is created in large corporations, what are the dimensions and the structure of this new “must have” capital form.

The purpose of this article is to outline the main economical and social benefits that can be obtained by adopting an ethical attitude of the organisations which use a performant environmental management. From the idea that the human being is the master of nature, it was passed to the view according to which the human being must ensure a balance between consumption and the use of resources. In order to achieve our goal we identified the factors that lead to long term or even permanent destructive effects over the environment and we briefly present the reasons for which the organizations adopt and implement environmental management systems. Also, the difficulties encountered in implementing environmental strategies have been briefly enumerated and the competitive and economic advantages that can be achieved by adopting an efficient environmental management and the main reasons that grant to the environmental management a special significance were exposed. This theoretical paper emphasizes the importance of the adoption by organizations of a "green behavior" and reveals correlations between sustainability, economic growth and environmental performance in organizations. The analysis of the ethical aspects of environmental management shows the links that can be created between the development of an ethical culture of organizations and the achievement of the environmental excellence. The research provides an overview of the concept of environmental ethics and encloses it within the scope of environmental management. Someone needs to explain why an increasing number of organizations, both large and small, are setting up environmental management systems, making environmental investments and reducing risks over and beyond legal requirements, even when the benefits are not at all obvious, even in the long run. Also, this paper provides some practical examples of organizations environmental problems and points out how these organizations adapted their environmental strategies. The main conclusion of this conceptual paper is that organizations’ competitiveness in any industry and environmental protection are two interconnected concepts and we believe that there can be no excellence in business without excellence in environmental protection or vice versa.

The traditional analysis of unemployment in relation to real output dynamics is based on some empirical evidences deducted from Okun’s studies. In particular the so called Okun’s Law is expressed in a linear mathematical formulation, which cannot explain the fluctuation of the variables involved. Linearity is an heavy limit for macroeconomic analysis and especially for every economic growth study which would consider the unemployment rate among the endogenous variables. This paper deals with an introductive study about the role of non-linearity in the investigation of unemployment dynamics. The main idea is the existence of a non-linear relation between the unemployment rate and the gap of GDP growth rate from its trend. The macroeconomic motivation of this idea moves from the consideration of two concatenate effects caused by a variation of the unemployment rate on the real output growth rate. These two effects are concatenate because there is a first effect that generates a secondary one on the same variable. When the unemployment rate changes, the first effect is the variation in the level of production in consequence of the variation in the level of such an important factor as labour force; the secondary effect is a consecutive variation in the level of production caused by the variation in the aggregate demand in consequence of the change of the individual disposal income originated by the previous variation of production itself. In this paper the analysis of unemployment dynamics is carried out by the use of the logistic map and the conditions for the existence of bifurcations (cycles) are determined. The study also allows to find the range of variability of some characteristic parameters that might be avoided for not having an absolute unpredictability of unemployment dynamics (deterministic chaos): unpredictability is equivalent to uncontrollability because of the total absence of information about the future value of the variable to be controlled.

Regional innovation is considered one of the most important drivers of development at present. Innovation is the tool that can help regions develop regardless of their natural resources and potential. The main purpose of the paper is to foster the innovation at regional level in Romania in order to determine and highlight the need of further measures to increase regional innovation and regional development of Romanian regions in the current context of getting out of the economic crises. Romania is subject of discrepancies not only at European level but at national level as well in terms of economic development and regional innovation. The research undertaken in the present paper is a qualitative research and followes the model proposed by the Group of Applied Economics in the study called Manual of regional competitiveness assessment, and in the study called Romania’s reindustrialization: policy and strategy, study commissioned by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Business, and uses regional indicators of the eight Romanian development regions in order to measure the Competitiveness Index based on three Indexes, namely Economic, Social and Innovation Index. The data used was collected from Romania’s National Institute of Statistic, National Centre of Prognosis and from the Eurostat database. The general objective is to enhance the great role of regional level in innovation and to sensitize the policy makers about the need to introduce a regional level in order to enforce regional innovation, the main way of improving regional competitiveness and regional development. The main findings reveal that the Romanian regions that invested more in innovation have a positive evolution in terms of economic growth over time so it is for the best of a region to invest in innovation, an aspect that should be taken into consideration by policy makers and private sector when planning the investments within a region.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether civil society itself can enhance or stimulate the creation of social entrepreneurs, by studying the traits of the civil society and the various definitions attributed to it. The main question that the paper wants to answer to is Does civil society create social entrepreneurs and the main approach used in this research paper is the theoretical one. By studying existing articles and books on the topic, the paper tries to emphasize the various dimensions that civil society can embrace, as pictured by various authors, as well as how these dimensions can relate to social entrepreneurs and the emergence of social businesses. The paper is not meant to be a breakthrough in the field, but rather to launch a question that is related to very important topics these days, social entrepreneurship, social innovation, social businesses and their connection to a very much debated topic-civil society. The paper is work-in progress and wants to stimulate research regarding the search of the sources of social entrepreneurship, in order to analyze them and better establish them as incubators for the future. It wants to be of use to whoever is researching the concepts illustrated above, as well as for those who want to get in touch with the new buzz words of the academic and entrepreneurial fields. The hereby paper stands, as previously stated, in a theoretical framework and the findings represent a mere analysis of the cause-effect relationship between the characteristics of civil society and those of social entrepreneurs. However, we are of the opinion that it can be a very good starting point for the ones interested in the domain, to analyze more sources of social entrepreneurship or further refine the answer to the question addressed in this article.

This paper seeks to relate a strategy of diversification to inovativeness and to the performance of a hotel. Due to the more increased competition within the area of tourism e.g. hotel sector, the need of analyzing the variables mentioned in the title of the paper has become more and more obvious. The first part of the article regards the literature review for the three variables and thus, like an outcome four hypotheses are stated. The second part consists of developing findings for the studied region of Cluj County based on the presented research methodology. The results show that hotel performance is influenced by customer orientation and hotel innovativeness, while the latest one is associated in a positive manner with learning orientation. The three chosen variables could be considered real driven forces for competitiveness in the hotel sector. Thus, any management team should be aware of the results of this study and should create an appropriate environment within the organization able to sustain an expected performance level by focusing on the mentioned variables. Making a deeper analysis about the performance indicators, the results demonstrate the actual development stage of the hotel sector for Cluj County: above the national average, but with potential of growing, mainly from the perspective of efficiency. At this point, management should be aware about how significant could be innovativeness and learning orientation for creating or improving services and delivering processes. In the hotel sector it is very obvious that due to the increased role of employee the awareness is more valuable than in other sectors. Due to the most relevant market segment e.g. business tourism, the studied county is customer oriented and has a good mean value for sales goal achievement, also. In order to improve the profit goal achievement value, innovativeness and learning orientation have to be considered powerful instruments for management team. Taking into consideration the potential of growth in the Romanian hotel sector, we consider that the three chosen variables - customer orientation, learning orientation and innovativeness, should be further analyzed in respect with other performance indicators. Thus, we consider the study being valuable and relevant because it can be expanded not only to other regions - which gives it practical value, but also by including other performance indicators - for academic value.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical basis for evaluating ambient advertising in relation to the schema. Ambient advertising, a creative form of out-of-home advertising that conveys direct and contextual messages by using and often altering existing elements of the environment in a way that surprises the target audience, appears to be a solution to the increasing clutter from the media. This study draws on the schema congruity theory to offer a better understanding of how consumers are processing information received from advertisements. Schemas are organized structures of knowledge and expectations that consumers develop in order to categorize the incoming information, and that they access every time they are experiencing a new situation. The schema-based approach is important in understanding consumer behavior because consumers are facing an environment filled with similar brands and products promoted by ads that sound and look alike. According to schema congruity theory information perceived as schema congruent offers a confortable feeling of familiarity and generates limited cognitive processing, whereas schema incongruent information generates surprise and triggers extensive cognitive processing in order to help individual make sense of the unusual situation. Taking into consideration the combination of the different levels of expectancy and relevancy there have been identified three congruency situations: extreme congruity, moderate incongruity and extreme incongruity. Existing research shows that moderate incongruent information offers the best results in recall and recognition and also the highest affect levels compared to extreme congruity and extreme incongruity. Based on evidence from literature this study attempts to position ambient advertising in the moderate incongruity category, thus theoretically proving the assumed effectiveness of this promotional tool. Therefore, this paper is a starting point in bringing the light in the under-researched field of ambient advertising and can offer a theoretical basis for future empirical research on the effectiveness of this promotional tool.

The purpose of the current paper is to highlight possible engines that can boost Romanian foreign trade from a chronic deficit to a more balanced one. In the beginning, the main theories and models that tackle this subject will be presented. In this respect, the paper starts with Smith, Ricardo, Manoilescu and Heckscher-Ohlin, in order to see the historic thought of trade model development. Following these models, a more mathematical approach will be made, using a thorough analysis at the product level. All the computations will be based on the combined nomenclature with its XXII classes, being the most exact determinant of traded goods. This paper uses the statistical indicators of Michaely and Lafay, in order to determine the specialization effect of the Romanian classes for a period of twenty one years, starting with 1991 and ending in 2012. This is the point where former, current and future specialized engines of potential trade growth can be established. It is crucial for a country to determine its potential in an open international arena, in order to take the necessary steps to encourage or discourage productive or non-productive areas of certain industry branches. Based on the results and on the previous methodology, a mix of theory with solid mathematical analysis, will gives the opportunity to draw up different sets of sustainable development formulas in order to obtain a higher concentration ratio regarding several classes from the combined nomenclature. For Romania to obtain higher gains from international trade, a more sustainable integration in the European Union, it has to stop its chronic balance of trade deficit. Looking at and analysing the potential development of a combined nomenclature class or classes, will help improving Romania’s chronic deficit, offering a long term prospective of sustainable development, reducing its foreign debt, improving its balance of trade accounts, and transforming its import driven economy to a more competitive export oriented economy. Achieving these standards will ensure Romania’s future development and accession to a more privileged seat in the European Union and in the international arena.