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Artificial intelligence, the latest chapter of the technological revolution, has a tremendous potential to change every area of our lives. This article has focused on a specific form of artificial intelligence, namely generative intelligence, which facilitates the generation of content in all its forms (text, image, video, audio, programming codes, etc.). Thus, generative artificial intelligence has a crucial role in education, allowing for the personalisation of educational content and facilitating the learning process. In the beginning, the paper has highlighted conceptual delimitations regarding artificial intelligence and its applications in education, along with advantages and limitations, highlighting that the adoption of generative artificial intelligence solutions, such as ChatGPT, in higher education in economics has been relatively underexplored in the literature. In order to cover these gaps identified in the literature, have been presented, in the second part of the paper, the methodology and results of an exploratory research, conducted on a sample of 364 undergraduate and master's students at the Faculty of Business and Tourism within the Bucharest University of Economic Studies. The research has provided insight into the perception of Business Administration students regarding these applications. The results indicated a high level of awareness and interest in content generation models and highlighted that users with favourable perceptions regarding the quality of content generated by such applications tend to believe that their integration into academic endeavours can foster creativity and enhance employment prospects.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the impact and importance of ESG in the business and investment world in the past few years and how can we implement ESG criteria into our businesses to continue to have profitable and investable businesses. The research is focused on the role of ESG decisions within organizations and how they can impact the value of a company. The research hypothesis is that there are various decisions of becoming ESG complaint you can take, but not all of them are profitable decisions. So, instead of taking decisions based on the implementing costs and short-term expenses, an organization should take into consideration long-term profits and a possible increase in the company’s valuation. Achieving success involves identifying these factors well in advance before they can adversely impact the well-being of the company. This allows for proactive measures to mitigate any potential detrimental consequences that may arise. This can be accomplished through ongoing monitoring of these variables, creating a dynamic process, and making informed decisions based on a solid understanding of the operational processes and needs of each company. Because of its massive politicization, ESG has become perceived more as a cost center instead of a value center. Business leaders consider that they are being forced to report something without value for their businesses when they should be asked how to turn this in their favor to make business more valuable. This paper also presents the importance of sustainable developments and how they can impact investment decisions. Analyzing the behavior of the biggest investment firms, we can identify those metrics that show if a company’s decisions about ESG implementation make it investment material.

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated multiple transformations globally, with isolation periods alternating with those marked by intense social and economic restrictions, having a major impact on economic production and distribution activities, but especially on consumer behaviour. The recent pandemic has generated a strong contraction in consumption, increasing consumers' risk aversion, and disrupting the way they purchase different foods. Consumers have shifted to sustainable consumption, preferring foods that can help them towards a balanced diet, strengthen their health, and help develop resistance to viruses. This paper aims to identify the most relevant specialised articles, published during the pandemic (2020-2023), addressing sustainable consumption of organic food. They are investigated through a bibliometric analysis, which highlights the main directions in which this international research has converged. In the investigative approach, the authors resort to applying the PRISMA methodology peculiar to this type of analysis; the references selected according to the different objective criteria chosen are subsequently analysed using the VOSviewer software. Based on the review of the literature, the paper also presents possible future research directions highlighting the opportunities for scientific capitalisation of this research topic.

Understanding the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on education is vital for guiding teachers in developing educational tools. AI in education (AIEd) comes not only with opportunities but mostly with challenges for both educators and learners. Finding the proper tools to integrate AI into the learning framework represents a test for current and future generations. Even if most students acknowledged AI as a valuable tool, their interaction with AI in education seems more limited than expected. They mainly concentrated on few tools with higher awareness. This paper examines AI’s support for educational activities, key drivers, and tools for business education. Survey data collected from 254 learners were analysed using multivariate binary logistic regression. Two research questions were formulated to verify if AI supports educational activities and what AI tools support business educational activities. Results show learners appreciate AI for aiding teachers in administrative tasks, personalising learning plans, and saving time. However, learners are unfamiliar with most benefits of AI tools, except computer vision, edge computing, and AI chatbots. The paper highlights the need to increase the use of AI in education to make students more familiar with AI tools and capitalise on them in business education.

The development of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), has a direct impact on the accounting profession in the sense of redefining the role and place that accounting specialists occupy within economic entities. This paper is a systematic literature review and aims to emphasise and synthesise the main challenges regarding the impact that artificial intelligence and other related technologies exert on accounting professionals and the competencies they need to develop or acquire. At the same time, the outline of specific solutions was envisaged, through which accounting professionals can be supported in their efforts to adapt to the new requirements of the labour market imposed by the evolution of disruptive technologies. To achieve the proposed objectives, Web of Science (WoS) was used as an academic database and specific tools for bibliometric analyses, including the VOSviewer application. The results identify universities as the main pillar in the process of the redesign of accounting education, and update of the curriculum in the field as the main measure to be undertaken. The originality of the paper resides in the identification of specific solutions for curriculum reconfiguration in the field of accounting education, the highlighting and overcoming of possible challenges for the redesign of the education process in the field of accounting, under the impact of AI.

The European Union is accelerating its transition to energy independence by 2030 in response to new geopolitical realities. This study aims to demonstrate the advantages of blockchain technology for the energy sector and how renewable sources themselves may lower costs and generate significant amounts of electricity. These networks encourage the use of renewable energy sources in place of conventional ones and enable sustainable consumption reduction at the same time. The paper demonstrates how blockchain may connect to renewable energy sources, most often solar and wind, to grow this industry in a sustainable way. New technologies like blockchain have sparked the emergence of contemporary forms of trade and consumption. The collaborative and circular economies represent a nexus of economic, technological, and socio-cultural phenomena brought about by technological advancements and economic disruption. Blockchain technology offers a wide range of non-financial applications, and its use is acknowledged as a brand-new opportunity for sustainability and energy. The goal of this study is to clarify the relationship between the two and determine whether blockchain technology can be sustainable for the development of the energy market. The paper is addressed to all parties involved in the energy, blockchain, and sustainability industries.

Recently, technology has been increasingly integrated into higher education through gamified learning, which applies game design principles to educational content. The purpose of the present paper is to assess and depict the engagement of students in the field of economics and business in gamified learning and to understand the relationship between engagement and motivation in gamified learning, elements less studied in the context of economics and business higher education, as shown in the literature. The paper proposes an original approach both in terms of the research method and the context of the study. In order to analyse engagement in gamified learning, we use Nicola Whitton's scale and employ an exploratory factor analysis on data collected through a questionnaire-based survey distributed among students at one of the largest universities of economics and business in Romania, namely The Bucharest University of Economic Studies (BUES). The analysis reveals three specific engagement factors: the first factor represents interest in new challenges; the second factor reflects immersion in gamified learning and satisfaction of completing; the third factor is related to students' purposes and clarity of the goals. Our results show that all factors exhibit positive associations with student learning motivation, while the first factor also indicates an association with the gender of the respondents. A good understanding of these factors can contribute to improving the teaching process by integrating gamification into teaching activities.

In this study, we use bibliometric analysis as a quantitative and systematic approach to assess the scientific landscape and present the existing literature, focusing on the consumer buying behaviour of second-hand clothing in the context of sustainability. We observe a decrease in the number of published papers on this topic, as evidenced by the limited number of papers in the Web of Science (WoS) database (41 papers) and Scopus (38 papers). Through cooccurrence analysis, we highlight the importance of consumer behaviour research in sustainable fashion and identify research gaps related to the absence of market segmentation analysis based on consumer behaviour and demographic information in the second-hand clothing market. To address these gaps, our research aims to identify the main factors that influence consumers to buy second-hand clothing products and to examine the profile of customers who make these purchases, focusing specifically on Romania. We collected data from 110 respondents through a questionnaire. Using two-stage clustering and ANOVA, we identify distinct consumer segments that share similar characteristics. These segments show variations in age, income, frequency of purchase, and reasons for choosing second-hand clothing. By addressing sustainability concerns and providing practical strategic options, our study aims to help businesses operating in the second-hand clothing market. Our findings align with previous research on diverse consumer segments with different attitudes and behaviours towards second-hand consumption.

The paper aims to highlight the most relevant elements that appear at the intersection of two concepts: the circular economy and electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), as they are reflected in the mainstream of scientific publications to date. This approach is possible through the use of a bibliometric study, following which current trends and new possible perspectives and research directions could be identified to contribute to the promotion of circularity in the production and consumption of EEE. The bibliometric study also involves the temporal and geographical analysis of scientific production, the semantic analysis of keywords with their graphical representation, and the relationship among them, based on the use of specialised software (VOSViewer and Citespace). The main results refer to the existence of four clusters, grouped according to keywords with a frequency of occurrence greater than 10, which refer to EEE waste management, circular economy, material recycling, and environmental management. Regarding the intensity of keyword use, the top three places are China, product, and urban mining. In the end, the conclusions of the study are highlighted, including the grouping of keywords into thematic clusters, the identification of three periods that have been able to stand out so far in scientific research in the domain. As for the limits of the research, they take into account the database that was subjected to the analysis (in the present paper, Web of Science), the software used, the writing language of the scientific production, and the analysis interval. The article concludes with future research directions.

This paper aimed to evaluate the impact of the current EU energy crisis on Romania’s policies to boost green energy as a solution to balance the national energy mix. Our methodological approach was a mixed one using both bibliometric analysis and qualitative analysis based on experts’ interview. The bibliometric analysis has included 1085 research papers from the WOS database and indicates the main research focus at the international level in the green energy field. The second part of the study was based on 6 interviews with Romanian experts in the energy field (selected from a larger group according to their expertise of more than 10 years in fundamental research and their involvement in public policies and national strategies in the energy field). The interviews aimed to investigate the national opportunities to adopt green energy practices at affordable prices. Our research has highlighted that many of the international research trends investigated by researchers are similar to those indicated by the Romanian experts. Our main finding showed that although Romania has performed better than most European countries in increasing the renewable energy share in the national mix, there is still untapped potential in the field. However, Romania has several particularities, according to the interviews results, such as the national regulation, geographical potential, and the existing infrastructure. To fully develop green energy (according to the objectives of RePowerEU and Green Deal), Romania must better tailor its national policy, while providing a stable and predictable legal framework and increased subsidies for green energy

The global economy has barely begun to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, only to be thrown into a new crisis because of the Russian-Ukrainian war. The war exacerbated the energy problem by causing a shortage of energy supplies for the EU and other countries, affecting quality of life. As a result, establishing energy hubs for collecting, processing, storing, and transiting energy resources between producing and consuming countries has become imperative to manage energy supplies efficiently. However, previous studies have not yet addressed the requirements for setting up energy hubs from a practical point of view. Therefore, this paper investigates the requirements for the establishment of energy hubs, particularly for oil and gas, from a practical perspective. The researchers conducted 13 semi-structured interviews with different energy stakeholders. Using the SWOT analysis matrix tool, the findings assessed the current state of the global oil and gas market, and the main practical requirements for the establishment of energy hubs were identified, along with the elements for implementation. Furthermore, the article highlighted the most pressing practical issues confronting the establishment of energy centres. Finally, the paper laid out a comprehensive practical framework based on the industry practitioners’ views to help establish energy hubs. The framework provides a possible guide for countries to establish energy hubs based on the main requirements outlined in this study. It can also improve the diversity, flexibility, and security of energy supply, especially for countries that rely on sole suppliers, such as the EU

Energy-intensive sectors face significant challenges in meeting the goals of the new European Industrial Strategy and REPowerEU. This study aims to examine how energy consumption and energy mix in four energy-intensive sectors (primary metals; non-metallic minerals; pulp, paper, and printing; chemicals and petrochemicals) in the European Union evolved over the period 2008-2020 and whether there is a real relationship between changes in energy intensity and labour intensity. The results show positive trends in energy mix and intensity between 2008 and 2020 for all the energy-intensive sectors studied. There has been a shift from high to medium and low carbon energy sources, with the extent of this shift being influenced by the technological characteristics and path dependencies of each sector. The most positive change occurred in the paper, pulp and printing energy mix, where lowemitting energy sources increased by 12.2 percentage points. A strong (around 0.9) Pearson correlation exists between energy intensity and labour intensity evolution in the primary metals, non-metallic minerals, chemicals, and petrochemical sectors. The intensity indicators in the chemical and petrochemical sector show the most favourable improvement (a slight decrease in energy use and employment, with a 23.1% significant increase in value added). Typically, 7 to 8 countries account for 80% of the total value added in the examined sectors in the European Union; the energy mix of these countries’ electricity and heat production can support the clean transition.

Nutrition concerns and food waste are a priority for the European Union, and the implementation of Green Pact policies is of major interest to all those involved in the food chain sector. The main purpose of this paper is to conduct an in-depth analysis of scientific production using bibliometrics, to understand the current structure of studies and future research directions on Green Deal policies in the food chain. 672 documents published between 2000 and 2021 were identified in the Web of Science database. Their scientific content was analysed using VOSviewer software on several levels: descriptive analysis, performance analysis, and scientific mapping from a conceptual, intellectual, and social perspective. In addition, to determine research gaps, the 10 most relevant and influential papers are analysed and synthesized. The most productive countries in terms of scientific output are Italy, India, and the USA, the peak being reached in 2021, and the main field approached is environmental sciences. Most of the articles analysed are reviews, highlighting gaps in primary research on Green Deal policies in the food industry. In this regard, several future research directions in the field are proposed

In each field there are works, monuments, and people with a reference role, which represent relevant elements in axiological analyses from that field. The marketing area benefits also from such landmarks, one of them being represented by Professor Iacob Cătoiu, DBA, author of numerous works, with a true vocation for teaching, doctoral supervisor, role model, whose activity has decisively marked this field. The book “About Marketing. Anthology” is a synthesis of the most important contributions of the author in the field of marketing. This paper is a very dense one, an aspect that derives from the depth of the analyses performed and from the author's ability to harmonize concepts belonging to other sciences (psychology, sociology, mathematics) with those related to the science of marketing. The book is also characterized by diversity, enlarging upon topics that address subjects such as: marketing research, consumer behavior, tourism marketing, marketing strategies, marketing modeling, and methods used in teaching the disciplines of marketing. The paper also has diversity in terms of the periods it refers to or the geographical areas analyzed.

This paper aims to discuss the digitalization of European listed companies in the context of the European Green Deal. The digital transformation can support companies in the field of corporate social responsibility, particularly in terms of environmental protection. Companies’ digitalization may have a beneficial impact by adopting ‘smart’ technologies that allow for the efficient use of natural resources and the reduction of pollution, enabling the transformation of business models into sustainable ones within the circular and digitized economy. Based on a large sample of companies listed on the main European Union financial markets, this paper aimed at analysing the extent to which digitalization efforts are part of the companies’ general tendencies of becoming good corporate citizens, especially in regard to environmental protection. The study also showed that digitalization efforts are rewarded in financial markets, with investors providing more capital to companies that digitize their activities and are more socially responsible.

The purpose of the paper is to propose and examine a logical and epistemological tool to measure science as a specific human activity in the social cooperation network. In preparing the very approach of the main issue of the research, a short examination of the concept and typology of science is presented, including Economics. The basic target of the paper is to find and examine a structurally (as deep as possible) variable holding the potential to ensure (as a common measure, perhaps of quantic, i.e., discrete nature) the commensurability of any science. Such a tool is considered to be a species of time, that is, the social time. Essentially, it is shown that science provides a specific outcome, namely, the social time variation, which constitutes the fundamental input to any (other than science) social action/activity. This outcome is treated from an Economics account (not quite the standard Economics, but the evolutionary one), so that one can discover all implications of science(s) from an economic point of view (including, for example, the social entropy affected by the science realm). Finally, the paper proposes a sui generis market structure and functioning – the science market, including the Kuhnian paradigm, to provide a general description (both causal and pure functional) of the Economics of science.

Nationally and internationally, there is an upward trend in terms of ethics and integrity in scientific research. Yet, there are many opinions, both in academia and in society, about the many cases of violations of ethical principles in research. This requires today more than ever that the observance of ethics in research to become an increasingly important and relevant desideratum in the contemporary society. Failure to achieve this requirement can generate serious consequences on university education, especially in the long term, materialized by a series of consequences such as: the decrease in the quality of academic activity; devaluation of the status of university professors; undervaluation of scientific research; underappreciation of doctoral studies; lack of respect at the level of the society. Therefore, the members of the academic community – students, master students, PhD students and professors – must become increasingly aware of the social effects of noncompliance with the principles of ethics and integrity in scientific research. The purpose of this research is aimed at evaluating the perception of PhD students and doctoral supervisors on the observance of the principles of ethics in the research activity within the doctoral schools in economic sciences, as well as the identification of the most important factors with significant influence on ethics and integrity in research. In this regard, the authors of the present paper have carried out quantitative research among the two target groups within the doctoral schools of economic sciences affiliated with the Universitaria Consortium in Romania, respectively, PhD students and doctoral supervisors. The data collected from the 455 respondents (169 PhD supervisors and 286 PhD students) were analyzed using structural equation modeling in SmartPLS. The conceptual model proposed by the authors reveals that the observance of ethics in scientific research is based on professionalism, honesty, academic freedom, integrity, ethical behavior, and the avoidance of violation of ethical principles. The originality of the paper consists in the realization of structural models that highlight the most influential factors in the observance of ethics and integrity in economic research, but also of the relations between them, as well as the differences and similarities between PhD students and doctoral supervisors regarding their perception of ethics and integrity in research. By knowing these factors, academic programs can be initiated that will lead to a higher level of academic integrity in doctoral schools and better results in observing the ethics in scientific research, but also in the training of future researchers in the field of economic sciences.

This paper investigates the dynamics associated with inequality in EU member states. The variation of the Gini coefficient is analyzed from different perspectives: economic growth, certain macroeconomic variables, socio-demographic environment and historical, political and cultural environment. The use of the panel data regression model allows country specific effects control, the results showing that in the context of European convergence, the historical, political, cultural and socio-demographic factors have the greatest impact in terms of income distribution. Starting from the complex analysis of the evolution of inequalities in the last half century and from the experts’ opinions regarding the relationship between the last two crises (from 2008 and the current pandemic), we notice important changes, there is a paradigm shift. The paper proposes a new approach to the economic growth paradigm, based on reversing the dynamics of income inequality in the 21st century and outlines our own vision on support policies to mitigate rising inequalities, in the context of designing a robust resilience strategy and sustainable post-pandemic development.

The present paper aims at investigating potential strategies for advancing university-business cooperation (UBC) in the Mediterranean area. The paper was developed from a real practical problem consisting of a poor UBC, as observed at the University of Bari Aldo Moro (Bari, Italy). In a more particular case, this was translated into a wall perceived by both universities and companies, a wall that was represented by the lack of transparency and the temporal mismatch between the skills of students and the needs of entrepreneurs. In an innovative manner, in the light of the Design Thinking approach, the research addresses potential solutions to solve the identified practical problem, through the lenses of the Double Diamond model. Each step of the model revealed invaluable insights for better understanding the analysed problem and for providing coherent measures to improve UBC. Particularly, it was revealed that collaborations between the businesses and the university must become an integral part of research projects, as well as a key element of academic publications and teaching. Also, strong networks between representatives from the academic and business environments should be enhanced. In a more specific perspective, three main directions (prototypes) were explored in the paper: (a) design of relax and convivial areas which allow students and entrepreneurs to meet; (b) organization of meetings between students and entrepreneurs in a human-centred perspective; and (c) implementation of real synergies between companies and students, based on meetings, formal agreements, mutual knowledge and win-win performances. The paper brings new knowledge on UBC, especially in the Mediterranean area, of both practical and theoretical relevance

As part of a safety-first principle during the COVID-19 pandemics, the vast majority of companies have enabled flexible working environments, reducing the number of employees in the premises. The global best practices have firstly been recorded among the ICT companies which offered teleworking to their employees, empowering safety and flexibility through remote work policies and flexible working hours. Although hybrid working models might become a standard in many industries, only a paucity of papers has examined the relationship between novel working environments and various classes of intangible assets. The aim of this paper is to present the effects of hybrid working models (telework and flexible working hours) on intangible assets (human, relational, structural and intellectual capital). While the existing hybrid work principles have already shown mixed effects on corporate outcomes, its impact on intangible assets remains unrevealed. To address this research gap, we conducted an empirical study. Primary data were collected in the Serbian ICT sector (N=122) using a structured questionnaire developed for this purpose. Data was analyzed with the OLS regression. The results confirm the positive effects of the hybrid working model on intangible assets of ICT companies, which could further propel the financial success of these companies. In general, these results imply that hybrid working models, which are becoming a standard for many industries, would not jeopardize the creation of intangible assets – the ultimate resource of modern companies

The paper analyzes the impact of some decisional factors that shape telework in Romanian enterprises. These factors give us an image at macro and micro levels on the influences and changes that manifest themselves on the behavior of Romanian managers who, during the COVID-19 pandemic, were forced to resort to the organization of telework. The results obtained are a starting point in the development of a structural model. The research was conducted based on an online survey, the questionnaire being administered to a sample of 154 Romanian managers. The testing of the hypotheses of the structural modeling equations was performed using the least squares method, and the software used for data processing and analysis was SPSS 20 and SmartPLS3. The results of the study confirm the theoretical aspects illustrated throughout the article, capturing the mobility and adaptability of the behavior of Romanian managers in a crisis. Telework within Romanian enterprises is strongly and significantly influenced by the action of the factors analyzed in this paper, namely: work organization, performance management, safety and health at work, information security management, and digitalization. Modification of legal and contractual regulations is the only factor that has a weak and insignificant influence on telework.

IoT (Internet of Things) is a concept that defines a world in which all objects are connected to each other via the Internet. The ability of smart devices to connect, communicate and transfer data has enabled the innovation and development of various solutions for industry, business organizations and final consumers. In this article, we have chosen to discuss the solutions related to smart homes. Thus, our paper presents, in the first part, the conceptual delimitations regarding IoT, areas of application, and characteristics of the solutions dedicated to smart homes, showing that adoption of IoT-based smart home solutions has been too little addressed in the literature. Most of the work in the field insists on the technical aspects and only subsidiarily deals with the issues regarding the level of understanding of the IoT smart home concept by potential or actual users and the degree of adoption and use of these solutions. In order to cover these gaps identified in the literature, we presented, in the second part of the paper, the methodology and results of an exploratory research, conducted on a sample of 471 persons, which allowed us to identify the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents (users of IoT solutions), level of understanding the IoT concept, degree of the adoption and, also, the associated benefits and challenges, from the perspective of the Romanian users. We also developed a binary logistic regression model, for in-depth analysis of the results and for correlating the findings of our research with those of other studies

The purpose of this paper is to compare the accuracy of the three types of models: Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models, Holt-Winters models and Neural Network Auto-Regressive (NNAR) models in forcasting the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the countries of European Union and the Western Balkans (Montenegro, Serbia and Northern Macedonia). The models are compared based on the values of ME, RMSE, MAE, MPE, MAPE, MASE and Theil's U for the out-of-sample forecast. The key finding of this paper is that NNAR models give the most accurate forecast for the Western Balkans countries while ARIMA model gives the most accurate forecast of twelve-month inflation in EU countries. The Holt-Winters (additive and multiplicative) method proved to be the second best method in case of both group of countries. The obtained results correspond to the fact that the European Union has been implementing a policy of strict inflation targeting for a long time, so the ARIMA models give the most accurate forecast of inflation future values. In the countries of the Western Balkans the targeting policy is not implemented in the same way and the NNAR models are better for inflation forecasting

Electric vehicles and their environmental impact have become topics of increased interest in contemporary days, as innovative technologies developed and influenced the automobile industry. There is constant competition between gasoline and electric vehicles, the latter one trying to gain market share and change people’s perception about what eco-transportation means and the benefits it can bring. The presented paper recognizes the phenomenon of path dependency and lock-in effect that the automobile industry faces as a result of the dominance of gasolinebased cars and illustrates the pressures executed by these forces. The paper aims at bringing valuable solutions for approaching these issues, by bringing under attention relevant concepts such as skeuomorphs and the network effect. For tackling the topic proposed, the research adopts an illustrative case study technique, that offers a detailed and complex outline of the issues considered in relation to the electric vehicle industry.

The current paper focuses on the impact that automation and digital advancements have had on the tourism industry during the covid-19 pandemic. It also identifies the key players that can help to further improve technological advances in the field. As grim as the COVID-19 pandemic scenario has been, it can also be perceived as a lesson to be learned. By digitalizing hotels and restaurants, by creating automation, and by encouraging contactless payments, it is easier to prevent such scenarios from ever happening again in the future. There are also no organisations that can help with promoting safe tourism for the pandemic scenario, such as the Destination Management Organisations. It is important to take note of all the important actors and encourage cooperation between organisations and between private entities so that these difficult times can be overcome. The current paper proposes a set of solutions that can be implemented to ease tourism back into normality. As interest in the destination starts growing back, proper safety measures, digitalisation and automation, transparent and creative communication are crucial components of a marketing recovery plan aimed to convert the ongoing changes into positive precursors for business improvement in the tourism industry.

Research to identify initiatives to reduce food waste (FW) in Romania is quite limited, and existing studies at the European and international level have highlighted the need to promote models of good practice that can be multiplied on a large scale. In this context, the aim of the paper is to highlight good practices for preventing and reducing food waste in the EU and in Romania, so that different organizations and decision makers can develop better interventions in this regard. The best practices for preventing and reducing FW identified and presented in the paper refer to: the use of digital technology, projects and platforms, organizations involved in volunteering, food banks, mobile applications, social innovation, corporate social entrepreneurship, education, and public awareness. The paper also identified the determinants of food waste, encountered at the end of the food supply chain FSC (Food Supply Chain), as well as good practices to prevent and reduce it, to make it available to organizations, authorities, and households a wide range of models that can be implemented internationally and in Romania as well.

The technology innovation, especially in the case of artificial intelligence, has significantly transformed the work processes and how they are organised and performed. Even if the adoption of advanced technologies usually leads to a higher work performance, there are risks of negative disruptions in the working systems, such as non-ethical use and social negative effects. The paper presents the results of an ethnographic research conducted by the authors, with the objective to identify the impact of the artificial intelligence adoption in the workplace on the professional knowledge and skills requirements and on the upskilling and reskilling strategies. Three different domains were considered: information technology, education, and scientific research. One relevant conclusion of the research is that knowledge and skills requirements should be studied from multiple perspectives, such as profession dynamics, not only from the technology innovation perspective. The research originality mainly consists in the way in which the concept of the level of upskilling/reskilling importance is defined and applied, based on professional knowledge and skills development requirements. By using the assessed level of upskilling/reskilling importance, strategies and related actions may be defined and undertaken. By substantiating this manner of setting up the upskilling and reskilling strategies and actions, the research has a theoretical and practical impact in the domain of talent management.

The new context generated by the series of crises having occurred at the global level (the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war, the price increases) brings to our attention the sustainable development-oriented management of organisations. The purpose of this paper is to outline the importance of adapting management styles to the requirements of the current economic context and to the sustainability-related challenges. The efficient communication, the cohesion, and the development of personal relationships are essential for creating a productive and pleasant work environment. The main research methods used in order to achieve such a goal are: principal component analysis, matching propensity score, binary logistic regression, multilevel binary logistic regression, and structural equation models. The results reveal that the long-term orientation of leaders towards sustainability is influenced by factors such as gender, age, position within the organisation, type of organisation where they carry out their activity, but also by a series of personal qualities and features. This article is a novelty for Romania, as it fills a gap in the related scientific literature on the relationship between the characteristics of a leader and the role of the same in the implementation of sustainability in the organisational environment. The output reflects the appreciations that the employees operating in the organisational environment manifest with respect to the features of sustainability-oriented leaders, as well as to their long-term role in promoting sustainability. Furthermore, the implications regarding the promotion of good practices in sustainability, among both managers and employees, are identified, taking into consideration the dynamic rhythm of the business environment and the ever-complex sustainability-related requirements

Artificial intelligence currently represents one of the most talked about topics, considering the need for sustainable economic growth at a global level. When it comes to education, artificial intelligence is aimed at enhancing systems, ways of learning, as well as at the results of learning, on the one hand, and training the youth so as to accordingly satisfy the requirements of their future jobs, on the other hand. In this context, research on higher education in Romania was conducted, which analysed the students’ opinion on the social impact of using artificial intelligence in education. As a consequence of performing an opinion poll, answers were collected online from students from prestigious Romanian universities. The data registered for the mentioned objective was processed by applying three statistical and econometric logistic regression models. The results of the first binary logistic model show the respondents’ opinions on the need and importance of enhancing the learning experience by using artificial intelligence in education, considering their gender and level of education. Also, with respect to the two characteristics considered the most significant to the objective of the paper, the following two multinominal logistic models have been developed. The results highlight the way in which the use of artificial intelligence in education influences, on the one hand, the graduates’ prospect for a job and, on the other hand, the society as a whole.

The knowledge economy promotes the use of information and communication technology and highly skilled labour on a large scale. The past decades have witnessed a continuous fall in the importance of unskilled sectors and a rise in skilled sectors combined with the emphasis on skills and competencies. Being highly familiar with the use of technology, Generation Z students are very interested in raising their chances of employability in the current digital society. The purpose of this research was to identify and analyse Generation Z students’ perceptions on the abilities, skills and competencies required in the age of artificial intelligence systems. In this respect, the authors used a quantitative research method through an online survey. A total number of 352 questionnaires from students who graduated from full-time undergraduate programs within a Romanian faculty were validated. The data were processed using the SPSS 17.0 statistical software, the subsequent viability tests and analyses involving the use of Cronbach's Alpha coefficient, the Principal Component Analysis, respectively, the correlational analysis. From a theoretical point of view, the paper contributes to the enrichment of the scientific literature regarding the new relationships between human capital and the era of artificial intelligence systems, offering a new perspective on the structure of the needed abilities, skills, and competencies in the digital society. From a practical point of view, the results of the study provide solutions for improving the educational process by adapting academic programs to the demands of the digital society. The results of the research show that, on the one hand, sensorial, cognitive, and psychomotor abilities, and, on the other hand, general knowledge, business and management, and technical skills and competencies, are playing a key role in today’s era of artificial intelligence systems.

Since the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic, most higher education institutions have been forced to exchange the traditional teaching environment for online education, and many chose to continue to use digital education platforms after its end, especially through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) applications and technologies. Our research represents a systematic literature review of a number of 60 scientific papers, aiming to study how the concept of digital economic education based on artificial intelligence is approached in the scientific literature, how artificial intelligence applications are used in digital economic education, and which are the critical success factors and the challenges that this domain is facing. Our findings have shown that most researchers define digital education as the use of technology to support educational activities, while highlighting artificial intelligence and its different applications as an essential element of current digital education, which has the potential to fundamentally transform the economic processes. The large-scale adoption of e-learning systems based on artificial intelligence is influenced by technology, by their superior capabilities in terms of coherently correlating the learning and studying processes, by the teachers’ trust in the results generated by these technologies and by cultural factors, while facing several challenges related to the users’ resistance to change, digital competences, the systems’ accessibility, as well as financial issues. Furthermore, based on this research endeavour, a model system of correlations and elements has been developed, specifically for the digital economic education based on artificial intelligence. This model includes both the success factors and the unique challenges inherent in the particular application areas.

Cultured meat obtained in vitro from animal cells represents one of the recent concerns of specialists, who thus try to solve part of the issues related to animal welfare and sustainable meat production. Beyond the technical difficulties that must be overcome, the acceptance of cultured meat by consumers is not an easy goal to achieve, as it depends on factors acting both at the global and local levels. Since this paper focuses on Romanian consumers, the authors emphasize the importance of developing a general information framework that would allow first their understanding and further their acceptance of cultured meat. For this purpose, a systematic literature review, based on 34 articles, was carried out in order to observe good practices at international level, which led, in the past, to the acceptance of other significant innovations in the food field. Thus, five directions of action were identified: communication, knowledge, trust, perception, and attitudes. Based on these, a model of cultured meat acceptance by Romanian was developed. This initiative is unique in Romania so far and its results can be of interest for Romanian consumers and also for many categories of specialists, from scholars and researchers to practitioners interested in launching new products on the market or policymakers in the field of nutrition, public health, and agriculture. Further research is needed on the relationships between food security and safety, traditional meat production, and cultured meat as an alternative to real meat, before the marketplace launch of this new product

In this paper, based on the incomplete contract perspective, we select the implementation of the Electronic Commerce Law of the People’s Republic of China as a quasi-natural experiment to study the tax compliance incentive effects of platform firms. Our study finds that the Chinese experience helps to improve the efficiency of tax compliance contract enforcement and significantly increases the propensity of platform firms to comply with taxes. Of course, these effects are also constrained by the contractual environment, social responsibility, financing constraints, and market competition. Further mechanism tests show that the incompleteness of the tax compliance contract is compensated by two mechanisms of action, namely the reduction of information asymmetry and the reduction of transaction costs of the tax department, which generate tax compliance incentive effects. The research has important implications for optimising the tax compliance contract of platform firms and reducing tax leakage in the platform economy.

The literature on adaptive learning suggests that it can provide significant improvements to the educational process and numerous studies have found a necessity for personalised learning, which is one of the strong suits of adaptive learning. Adaptive learning platforms require that content be effective, and lack thereof has hindered large-scale adoption by adding the cost of content creation to the upfront implementation cost and creating a 'critical mass' type problem where a platform without content is ineffective and unattractive, leading to lack of interest from users and lack of funding for developing new content. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology has the potential to aid in content creation by taking on a significant part of the workload. This paper aims to explore this possibility and propose an architecture based on current artificial intelligence technologies that will help teachers and experts transform classic course materials into adaptive learning flows. The system is not autonomous and will not replace a human expert but rather will take on some of the more straightforward, but timeconsuming, work. The proposed approach results in a distinct system, independent of the adaptive learning platform itself, that can help rephrase, restructure and enrich the content, resulting in an automated digital narrative, or fragment thereof, that can be exported in a format based on open standards and used within an adaptive learning platform of choice.

In this scientific paper, we will start from the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and try to highlight how the real convergence of the euro area member states was influenced during this period as a result of the implementation of various measures to limit economic activities. We propose to create an aggregate index of real convergence, starting from the theory of optimal monetary zones. After the construction of this index, we propose to calculate an index value for all 20 member states of the European Monetary Union (including Croatia), in the period 2011- 2022. Our aim is to observe how real convergence in the euro area has been influenced during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Something that can be easily concluded from the results obtained. At the end of the article, we manage to classify the member states of the European Monetary Union into 3 large clusters, depending on how their convergence index is compared to that of the euro zone average.

The article analyses the level of digitalization in the European Union (EU) and correlates the results with the Sustainable Development Goals formulated by the United Nations. The paper provides figures on the number of enterprises receiving orders online, the share of enterprises' turnover on e-commerce, the number of employed ICT specialists by sex (female), and the number of individuals using the Internet for interacting with public authorities in order to determine the differences between the member states. The next step carried out in the current article was to conduct a three-year forecast of the indicators listed previously. The methods used to make predictions are Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and Double Exponential Smoothing. The results highlight a projected increase in individuals using the Internet for interacting with public authorities, the rise in e-commerce turnover, the expansion of high-speed Internet coverage, and the growth in the percentage of femaleemployed ICT specialists. Furthermore, the originality of this research lies in providing valuable insights into the correlation between digitalization and sustainable development in the European Union. The forecasted trends indicate positive advancements toward multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These findings demonstrate the EU's commitment to achieving SDG targets related to effective institutions, public access to information, economic productivity, technology access, quality education, and gender equality. The study emphasises the crucial role of digitalization in driving sustainable development and underscores the progress made by the EU in aligning its efforts with the SDGs

Increasing innovation among the European Union (EU) countries became a primary concern, as it can contribute to higher competitiveness, generate new business opportunities, and promote the achievement of the sustainable development goals. This paper aims to examine the extent to which the EU countries’ level of digitalisation and skills adequacy impact the innovation output, as well as to determine whether the level of digitalisation can lead to an increase in the individuals’ competencies and employability. For this research, we leverage a Partial Least Squares - Structural Equation Modelling technique. The data used to achieve the study’s objective was collected from composite indicators computed for the 27 EU countries for a period of analysis spanning the years from 2017 to 2020. As a proxy for the digital performance, we use the Digital Economy and Society Index, while for skills adequacy and innovation output, we utilise the European Skills Index and the dimension of innovation output dimension of the Global Innovation Index. The results indicate a statistically significant impact between the level of digital performance and innovation output, with a moderate effect size, partially mediated by skill adequacy. Moreover, the findings emphasise that a higher level of digitalisation determines an increase in the individuals’ employability and competencies. The study enhances the understanding of the complex relationship between digitalisation, skills, and innovation by shedding new light on the trajectories’ coevolution of the analysed constructs, presenting some implications for policymakers and governments, and providing theoretical suggestions for future research.

The worldwide adoption of sustainable models has been motivated by an increasing awareness of the negative environmental impacts caused by unsustainable economic development models. The paper explores the relationship between the tourism industry and sustainable development goals during the period 2015-2021, using 245 studies from the Google Academic database. Various approaches, such as Word Cloud analysis, correlation network, and word network, were used to identify frequently occurring words and word pairs in the research domain. The R software was used for this research. Empirical results were used to identify the most relevant journals in the field and the most prolific authors. The Journal of Sustainable Tourism addresses specific themes such as “food”, “community”, “sanctions”, and “social”. Sustainability focuses on “culture”, “heritage”, “local”, and “environment”, while the Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes journal represents a niche in the field, covering topics such as “community”, “health”, “well-being”, “investment”, and “growth”. Thus, the results obtained can provide significant contributions to public policies and independently applied practices within the industry, facilitating more informed decision-making in support of sustainable development. This research contributes to the specialised literature by identifying current research trends in the tourism industry and its relationship with sustainable development goals, highlighting dominant themes based on the keywords used. These interdisciplinary connections can lead to deeper understanding and more efficient solutions for sustainable development.

In this paper, we examine whether domestic or global output gap affects inflation in three panels: the European Union, the peripheral countries of the European Union, and the Eurozone. We have also analysed the impact of these variables on inflation in individual countries of the European Union. To find the determinants of inflation, we employ the Granger causality test and panel regression. The first examined period is from 1Q 1997 to 3Q 2020. The period between 1999 and 2020 is divided into two shorter periods – the precrisis (1999 – 2008) and postcrisis (2009-2020) period. The results of the study show that after the crisis the global output gap predicts the evolution of inflation in the Eurozone panel. On the other hand, the domestic output gap predicts inflation in the European Union. In the precrisis period, the determinant of inflation is the domestic output gap, specifically in the Eurozone panel. In the European Union panel and its peripheral economies, the global output gap determines inflation. In Italy, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and the Netherlands, the domestic output gap determines inflation. The global output gap determines inflation in the Netherlands, Slovenia, Estonia, and Latvia. We demonstrated that there are two ways dependency among the variables

Recent evidence indicates that the proportion of manufacturing enterprises undergoing digital transformation and the digital investment made by manufacturing enterprises are increasing, suggesting that digital transformation may affect the production and operation of manufacturing enterprises. This paper investigates the influence of digital transformation on the performance of manufacturing enterprises and the intermediary effect of efficiency and costs. We take the annual reports of 156 listed Chinese manufacturing enterprises from 2015 to 2019 as samples for data collection and apply the textual analysis method to build the digital transformation index of manufacturing enterprises. Our analysis shows that the digital transformation of manufacturing enterprises plays a positive role in improving enterprise performance. Based on the path analysis, digital transformation indirectly improves the performance of the manufacturing enterprise by improving operational efficiency and reducing production costs. We also found that the level of digital transformation is related to the performance of Chinese manufacturing enterprises. A relatively low level of digital transformation does not have a significant impact on the performance of the Chinese manufacturing enterprise. However, medium and high levels of digital transformation will significantly increase the performance of manufacturing enterprises. Our study contributes to providing new ideas to construct enterprise digital transformation indicators. We also offer new insights into different levels of enterprise digital transformation on enterprise performance.

The electrical and electronic equipment market (EEE) is a growing one due to technological developments and innovation. The present paper captures the consumer behaviour regarding the purchase, use, and disposal of these types of equipment in the light of the transition to a circular economy. To illustrate consumer perception and attitudes towards EEE products, we conducted quantitative marketing research on a sample of 1005 urban respondents, representative by gender, age, and size of locality of residence. The research results show a rather rational consumer profile in relation to EEE products, but depending on the category of equipment, their involvement in repair, recycling, or reuse actions is different. There is also a relatively low willingness of Romanian consumers to access second-hand EEE products. The article proves its utility by proposing a set of measures to improve the circularity of EEE products, in which both EEE producers and consumers actively participate.

Currently, to ensure the sustainable development of any economy, a very important role is represented by the transition to the circular economy, which manifests itself differently by sectors and types of products. Considering the need to expand the circular economy, a special role is played by the production and consumption of electrical and electronic equipment. The objective of this article is to identify the factors that can influence the collection of electronic and electrical equipment at the European Union level. The methods used are statistical and econometric ones. Based on a panel regression, the study shows the specifics of the collection of electrical and household appliances, depending on several factors, such as the type and size of the appliances, the amount of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) placed on the market, and the legislative measures taken at the European level. The main results highlight the degree of collection of electrical and electronic equipment according to its type and size; the highest degree of collection being recorded for household appliances. The originality of the paper consists in the identification of the characteristics of the collection of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), using the econometric method, the research being useful not only for the parties involved in the collection of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), but also for the decision makers, in order to improve the collection policies for this equipment.

The present study, relying on the resource- and industry-based views and stakeholders, has developed a model that shows the role of technology adoption, ways to reduce waste to zero, uncertainty in the market and green economic incentives in promoting circular economy practices, and improvement of the sustainability performance of knowledge-based companies. This paper used a quantitative research approach and a structured questionnaire tool, in which survey data was collected from managers and experts of knowledge-based companies to test hypotheses using structural equation modeling (SEM). The statistical population of the research was all managers and experts from knowledge-based companies in the field of electronic and electrical equipment production in Iran, numbering 384 people. The results showed that technology adoption, zero waste practices, and green economic incentives have a positive and significant effect on circular economy practices, while uncertainty in the market does not have a significant effect on circular economy practices. The results also showed that circular economy practices have a positive and significant effect on the sustainability performance of knowledge-based companies. In addition, the circular economy practices and the company's sustainability performance could be improved by adopting of circular economy entrepreneurship as a moderating variable.

The achievement of short-term energy savings through changes in user consumption behaviour is one of the main directions addressed by the REPowerEU program. This paper investigates the perspective of increasing energy efficiency at the level of domestic consumers in Romania by adopting energy efficiency smart solutions (EESS). The research is based on the extended technology adoption model and analyses the behaviour of Romanian consumers regarding the intention to use EESS solutions, in relation to three main influencing factors (awareness, environmental protection considerations, and public policy) moderated by demographic factors. To validate the research hypotheses, a survey was organised between January and March 2023, and structural equation modelling was used to highlight the effects of the determining factors on adoption intention. The research results suggest that all the predictors considered positively influence the behavioral intention to use EESS, with public policy having the greatest effect, followed by awareness. The results obtained suggest that the behaviour of household energy consumers towards adopting EESS is different depending on their age and average income. Additionally, through the IMPA model, a series of managerial interventions are formulated, mainly targeted at the authorities, in order to align Romanian public policies with the objectives of the REPowerEU program, in the context of promoting voluntary measures geared to the lifestyle and behaviour of household consumers by adopting EESS solutions. The limits of the research mainly refer to the lower familiarity acquired as a result of experience in use, in the context of the still early stage of development of the analysed technologies, but also to the exclusion from the analysis of some constructs of the extended model of technology acceptance, such as hedonic motivation or social influences, which would have allowed a more precise understanding of consumer attitudes.

The paper investigates the importance of renewable energy in the energy mix of EU-27 countries, as well as their dependence on imports of gas, oil and petroleum products from the Russian Federation, considering the long-term energy security of the EU-27, as well as the objectives of the RePowerEU plan. The article divides EU countries into two groups using a clustering algorithm, revealing that Central and Eastern European countries share similar characteristics in terms of their reliance on Russian energy imports and energy mix, while Western European countries show significant variation between group members. Cluster analysis is complemented by an investigation using the Random forests methodology based on machine-learning algorithms, which highlights the importance of variables for grouping countries into clusters. Surprisingly, Eastern European countries have a higher proportion of renewable energy sources in their energy mix than most Western European countries, which could be attributed to their recent efforts to find alternatives to Russian energy imports. At the same time, the lack of interconnected infrastructure between EU member states is a significant contributor to the bloc's reliance on Russian Federation energy imports, as evidenced by cases in Finland, Bulgaria, and Hungary.

Developing a strategy to increase happiness is a major focus of a positive economy. The purpose of the present study is to find an answer to the following question: can insurers contribute to happiness? Starting from the ANOVA approach and regression analysis on the Romanian sample, we show that financial factors, self-rated stress level, age, and private health insurance affect the level of reported happiness. This is one of the first Romanian studies to approach happiness from the perspective of a financial health insurance product. From another perspective, for people without health insurance, income is a key factor of influence. Thus, our paper is primarily addressed to insurers who want to improve their sales techniques and to all insureds who want to know other benefits that appear after signing a health insurance policy.

The aim of this paper is to explore weather risk management by application of weather derivatives in agriculture and rate the hedging performance. Meteorological elements highly affect the agriculture sector by influencing the yield of many crops. Weather indices depending on temperature, rainfall and wind speed. The price of hedging is determined by using the Burn analysis applied to the index modeling method. By appliying the weather derivatives in weather risk management we can reduced the yield volatility in agriculture. As the study of Štulec (2017) showed, weather has had a growing impact on the global economy evolution in the last decades, approximately 80% of the world economy is directly or indirectly influenced to the weather. Leggio (2007) states that companies use weather derivatives to stimulate sales and diversify investment portfolios. Contracts with meteorological derivatives make profit depending on the weather (Alexandridis and Zapranis, 2013a). The assets of these contracts are represented by weather indices because the weather is not a physical asset that can be traded.

The topic of food waste has garnered increased attention from researchers, non-governmental and policy makers and it has been named one of the main issues which has to be addressed in order to reach the sustainable development goals developed by the UN. The purpose of the present paper was to identify the existence of different consumer groups based on attitudes and behaviors relate to food waste among Romanian consumers. The study relied on quantitative data which was gathered through an online survey done among a sample of 257 Romanian consumers. The cluster analysis revealed the existence of four different consumer groups in relation to food waste: a) “food enthusiasts” who are fussy eaters, lack any planning of food shopping and have a tendency to see the consumption food as a hedonic experience; b) “food hoarders” who tend to buy food in excess and adopt pragmatic food storage strategies and see food as an indicator of wellbeing; c) “food pragmatists” who tend to buy only what they planned and are likeliest to consumer food that is still edible but is altered in aspect; and d) “home cookers/eaters” who have high cooking skills and tend to eat at home, being the category most likely to identify ways to reuse leftovers. The article ends with a discussion of the saliency of relying on behaviors rather than socio-demographic characteristics or attitudes towards food when defining consumer groups for the purpose of identifying the most effective means of reducing food waste.

“The market for ideas” is placed by scholars and commoners between literary metaphors and catchy paraphrases. However, economics and political science, in addition to the sciences of cognition and communication, have at least something to say about the concept. The marketplaces of ideas entail a mixture of “cathedrae” (governed by the rigors of epistemological adequacy in finding scientific truth), “bazaars” (governed by profit-seeking in the confines of the law of demand and supply), and “agorae” (governed by the democratic rule of law or by the despotic rule of men). Ideas usually become scientific knowledge only after passing the test of reason, which needs to be informed by properly selected methodological toolkits. Far from being scarcity-proof objects, ideas are (serviceable) products (calculatedly) produced by (resourceful) producers, subject to economic scrutiny. Also, ideas are the offshoots of the more often than not overrated freedom of expression (tempered in the political arena by the power of either blunt majorities or active minorities). Thus, it is legitimate to continuously question which are and ought to be the mechanisms for securing the quest for truth, since only true ideas are ultimately prone to sustainable prosperity and peacefulness, though short-sighted profiteering and forced (or accomplice) obedience might suggest otherwise. Scientific truth (i.e., in social sciences) is caught amongst epistemic, as well as (pseudo-)economic and (poor) political filters. The purpose of this paper is to identify and investigate the frameworks for the evaluation and explanation of the markets for ideas, at the crossroads of the “true-false”, “profitable-unprofitable” and “approveddenied” mingled filters. The approach is equally conceptual (theoretical) and contextual (historical), and whilst being inevitably interdisciplinary, it ultimately relies on economic science, serving a dual role: as scientific decoder as well as decodable case study.

In recent years, it has been widely accepted that research and experimental development (R&D) is leading innovations and economic growth, as they are supposed to provide an increase in the well-being of the population. The paper analyses the scientific literature on the linkages between research and development expenditures to advance and promote the quality of life of the population. The comparative assessment of two countries – Lithuania and Greece – was performed based on the analysis of indicators such as the share of R&D financing intensity; human resources management in a new knowledge orientation; share of high-tech products in total exports, jointly with well-being indicators representing quality of life such as consumption level, productive activity; education and natural and living environment. The comparative assessment approach consists of comparative analysis of trends in R&D and the evolution of the quality of life indicator in two selected countries and comparison with a benchmark – the EU-27 average level, in addition to the identification of similarities and differences and their main reasons. To this end, a survey of experts in the selected countries defined the most relevant indicators for R&D and quality of life and constructed a framework for R&D performance and quality of life. The comparative assessment of Lithuania and Greece showed that Lithuania has a higher R&D financing intensity, but lower R&D resources and higher R&D financing outcomes compared to Greece. However, in both countries, the efficiency of R&D financing in terms of high technology products sharing in total exports is less than half than the EU-27 average. Subsequently, both countries should strengthen R&D financing outputs by implementing additional measures. Quality of life indicators related to R&D performance in Lithuania were higher than in Greece during the entire investigated period (2011-2020), demonstrating the need for greater R&D financing for national growth and the well-being of citizens. Finally, policy recommendations were proposed to increase the efficiency of R&D financing for Greece and Lithuania