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You cannot compete in time with airlines on transcontinental runs, but you can outstrip them in comfort, safety, dependability of service, and also show the passenger the countryside. This, we believe, is a permanent market (Edward G. Budd Jr, speech before the American Association of Passenger Traffic Officers, Chicago, 24 April 1957) After numerous studies made by various scientists, after 1800, it has been concluded that people would function more efficiently if they cooperate. However, not only families and communities, but also educational systems encourage competition, because it is seen as the only way to achieve success, by doing that, the power of cooperation is completely ignored. Still, from an economic point of view, cooperation and competition represent essential elements of progress, both being parts of the corporate culture. This paper proposes research in the evolution of alliances in airline companies, the regulations of the domain, with consideration of a competitive labor market, the efficiency and the benefits among consumers.

The nature of work is certainly changing, but from a historical perspective this is not new. The rate of change is faster today, and change is the rule not just an exception over time. This paper shows that an Internet-based business model is becoming more common, and this does not mean the end of organizational employment relationships, but supports the need for greater flexibility of jobs and workers. The study of work and employment, as well as the variability of wider environmental and contextual changes in the nature of paid work and employment relations, are relevant to the functioning of a modern economy. Providing an overview of key trends can help to understand the nature of labor relations in the modern economy. The paper presents examples of both change and continuity in the field of work relations.

The paper analyzes the main factors that affect the balance between the professional activity and the individual resources of the workers. Repeated exposure to ergonomic risk factors can lead to health problems that cause major costs for individuals, companies, and society in general. Psychosocial risks are those aspects of work organization and management, as well as the social and environmental context, which have the potential to cause psychological or physical harm to workers. Workplace risk management measures need to pay attention to the specific risks faced by women and men, young workers, older workers, migrants or people with disabilities, and must design specific prevention and protection measures. Although SMEs have a very important social role, as a source of employment for a substantial part of the workforce, many workers employed in these enterprises are in a position to experience worse working conditions, poor quality of jobs, work and proportionately greater risks to their health, safety and well-being. Research in this area is still at an early stage, given the differences between the contexts in which the interventions take place, as well as their transfer potential. The paper offers an additional evaluation related to this problem, in relation to what works, for whom and in what context, being able to contribute to a better understanding of the phenomenon.

Business ethics reflect the norms and developments of each historical period. On the other hand, everyone needs ethics to build a social infrastructure that is vital for progress. At the organizational level managers generally act on the basis of their beliefs, values and strategies financially motivated, and workers interact in various contexts, marked by ethical controversies. Today, a multitude of factors underlie the ethical dilemmas that affect business and individual decisions, in any profession, organization, at the level of each individual's daily activities. These decisions are not only business critical, but also very important in terms of creating or sustaining the right balance within the firm and between the firm and the society in which it operates. This is why the role of ethics is very important these days, with a significant impact in the direction of gaining business reputation and gaining the competitive edge needed to make business as profitable as possible. Ethical management must be based on principles and guidelines that help managers make informed and correct choices, so that they can balance the economic interests with the social responsibilities of the companies they lead. The paper can guide managers who want to understand their own ethical behavior and of others in the organization, it provides guidance to act in an ethical direction.

The cultural sector is currently understood as a social cohesion vector and the Eurostat statistics show that it triggers the prosperity of the connected activity sectors, in the period 2006-2013, this sectors’ contribution experiencing an increase of almost 27% in the EU GDP. From this perspective, the paper at hand performs a comparative analysis focused on the financing mechanisms of the cultural sector and on their impact, by orientating the thorough research towards the statute of artists in the selected countries. For the comparative analysis, the paper considered a number of EU member states, grouped on geographical spaces (North, West, South-East and Center). The analysis performed within the paper emphasizes the fact that the great majority of these states, understanding the socio-economic benefits conferred by a developed cultural context (national and European), are properly committed, both to financing the cultural sector and to providing a comprehensive statute of the artist, numerous common points having been identified in this sense, as well as significant differences between these states.

Although there has been made considerable progress in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) field in Romania, there are limited research papers presenting the CSR dynamics in the banking system. One of the main objectives of this paper is to highlight the CSR particularities for two of the most important banks operating on the local market: The Romanian Commercial Bank and BRD – Groupe Société Générale. This approach will outline the significant relationships in the CSR development, building on the dominant CSR themes and focusing on both similarities and differences in order to select the appropriate CSR practical framework. The results of this paper reveal a competitive context in the Romanian banking sector for the CSR initiatives, the influence of the marketing forces and particular CSR measures to rebuild banking trust. The CSR commitment of the banks address societal needs through the employee volunteering, as a new form of competitive advantage, becoming a strategic point in the reputational and financial performance.

In the context of high-tech and telecommunication, non-ferrous sector has a crucial role in industries development. Cooper, nickel, aluminum, zinc, lead and tin are used, directly or indirectly, in most of the technologies, especially in high-tech production. The paper present a short index of the global investments for the non-ferrous transnational corporations listed on London Metal Exchange. The non-ferrous investment index presented in the paper refers to the most profitable corporation exports on world, European Union (EU28) and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) level. The export concentration, estimated through Herfindahl-Hirschmann index on world, EU28, CEE and Romanian level, show that the non-ferrous industry is in full process of releasing. The cases presented in the article show that the non-ferrous companies invest intensively in equipment and technologies with superior production capacities, which combat pollution given by non-ferrous processes, research and development for the non-ferrous innovative technologies, and creating new markets. Sustainable and intelligent development is the inflexion point of the non-ferrous transnational corporation investments. The research is predominant in exploration of the transnational corporations’ internet pages and reports, and statistical calculus from international trade websites.

The article presents important considerations on the renewable energy investments from world and European level. The paper points out Europe's position in the current world context. Research is an exploratory one, being supported by statistical interpretations made by the author based on analysis of the "Global Trends in the renewable energy sector" report (2016), United Nations Environment Programme in collaboration with Bloomberg under the auspices of the School of Finance and Management in Frankfurt. Conceptually, the paper presents the most important points of the oscillation investments in the renewable energy sector worldwide. The level of investment in the renewable energy sector offers an accurate picture of the extent of decarbonisation.

The goal of this paper is to play as introduction for the sport management science, both as academic and professional major. The paper provides a broad overview of sport management rather than detailed instructions about how sport management is seen. The professional career in sport management should be built on a strong conceptual foundation. Sport managers who can think critically about sport – related issues will be competent, reflective professionals who have the potential to become influential agents of change. The sport management will face many challenges in the future, as examination of the ethics, social responsibility and principled decision making but in the meantime will offer opportunities towards society.

This paper has set the objective of researching how education is influenced by the information society. The first step was to define more precisely the information space. The second step was to identify how information space intersects with the family space and institutional space educational levels represented by pre-school / school and pre-university (kindergarten, at elementary / middle school / high school). Interrelationship between the above mentioned areas was another objective of the research. All these elements have been investigated through the original intention to identify how the information space can become an educational tool to support the family space, education and institutional space. Also, the aim of this research is to offer some solutions in this regard. Often the educational efforts appear to be blocked by the existence of this space. But this paper demonstrates that Informational space can be an enemy of the educational system or can support systems if we knew the internal structure and mechanisms. We can make the Informational Space to work in order to accomplish the educational scope.

Academics’ have always had an interest in creativity, although the literature on this subject began to develop once the rate of progress in science, technology and other fields started to increase. Currently, it is generally considered that the countries with a less creative population will fail to be competitive at an international level. This principle can easily be applied in the business environment, where creativity is needed in order to innovate and to gain competitive advantage. The paper focuses on creativity in a specific economic sector: the hotel industry, aiming at highlighting the way this extremely needed ability is influenced by cultural values. As a result, the paper presents the influence of three of Hofstede’s socio-cultural values (individualism, power distance and long term orientation) on employees’ creativity in the Romanian hotel industry.

The European social models that emerged in Europe are answers to various problems faced by micro and macroeconomic activity. An insight into the economic situation of all European social models emphasizes that the Nordic model has the highest efficiency in terms of economic results. The states that belong to the scandinavian model are characterized by stable economic growth, strong social democracy, a strong trade union movement, low levels of corruption and universality of the system that helps companies to overcome difficult moments. This paper highlights the micro and macroeconomic policies that have led to economic stability and very good results in terms of living standards. The main hypothesis of the paper assumes that investments in education and workforce improvement led to the growth of the living standards in the Scandinavian model.

The purpose of this study is to enrich the Romanian historiographical research concerning the British interest towards the Romanian Principalities in the nineteenth century. Historians such as Paul Cernovodeanu, Radu Florescu, Beatrice Marinescu and Constantin Ardeleanu presented us with different phases of this interest. Two of them, Marinescu and Florescu, also approached the subject of Stratford Canning`s preoccupation towards the Principalities, but Marinescu did not have access to the ambassador`s correspondence with the British State Secretary, the correspondence being at the Foreign Office Archives, while Florescu focused more on the British Consuls`activity in the Principalities than on the activity of the ambassador at Constantinople. Having access to the papers at the British Archives, this study comes to enrich the view of how the Principalities`space was perceived by Great Britain through the work and the diplomatic papers of a British ambassador in the capital of the suzerain power in a time when the Principalities were going through significant changes.

This paper investigates the soundness and performance of the banking systems from seven non-euro EU countries, outlining the particularities of each sector. Another objective of this paper is to examine the main determinants of bank soundness in the Romanian sector, taking into consideration bank-specific and macroeconomic factors. To account for bank profitability and soundness, it was used both a comparative and an empirical analysis, the period studied being 2004-2012. The main results showed that the financial world is currently under the sign of profound changes, which were generated by the mutations in the international economic sphere. Finally we consider that the analysed banking systems are facing historical changes, being necessary a reconfiguration of the banking sector, towards a new business model, a stricter regulatory and more transparent framework, and a comprehensive mix of economic policies.

In this paper the authors aim to analyze the impact of the implementation of the quality system based on ISO 9001:2008, on the overall efficiency of the organizations. For this purpose non-quality costs will be defined, classified and evaluated and there will be made relevant proposals for highlighting and quantifying them. The approach is focused on studying the effects of the failures in quality and the cost of these failures, but also on non-quality and its assessment methodology and benchmarks to monitor the progress in improving quality. At the end of the paper some methods are proposed to improve the control of non-quality costs.

In recent years, public institutions have come to the forefront of the public opinion requesting quality services in the public sector and increased attention to citizens’ needs. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the importance of the development of a customer service management system in the reorganisation of public institutions based on marketing principles while also identifying further research areas regarding satisfaction determinants for public service beneficiaries. The research was conducted through secondary data analysis retrieved from national and international studies regarding the satisfaction of public services beneficiaries. Results suggest that implementing a customer service model leads to a reorientation of public institutions towards relationship marketing. The originality and novelty of this paper lie in the presentation of a new perspective on public institutions based on customer service. The article is relevant in the context of the need for increased citizen trust and efficiency in the public sector.

The article is a historical trip into the creation of the oldest kind of unspecialized store that exists in the modern commercial landscape and whose pioneering concepts transformed the way in which consumers shop up today. The paper is divided into three sections, each of them contributing to achieve the purpose that is to examine the origins and the business model of the first department store in the world. The paper also enriches our knowledge about the department store and retailing history. In the first section, the author emphasizes on the particular economic context that allowed the creation of big retail surfaces, to the mid-1800s, and describes architecture, atmosphere and retail strategy specific to Bon Marché. In the second section, department store was defined and have been identified its key characteristics. The last section was devoted to the general future trends which can make possible the survival of the department stores in the modern commercial landscape. Finally conclusions were outlined.

Cultural marketing evolved from a set of techniques borrowed from the commercial sector to a relationship-based marketing. This translates into an original, bespoke, and meaningful cultural experience provided to the consumer, while staying true to the objectives advocated by each cultural organization. This article is a literature review aimed at highlighting key phases in the development of marketing in the arts and the cultural events sector. Additionally, the paper analyses some of the challenges that cultural organizations face amidst recent social, economic, and political developments worldwide, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the aging of the population, or the integration of technology, to name a few. Monitoring these phenomena and adapting marketing strategies to confront the effects of major changes is crucial to the survival and development of cultural entities.

The paper aims to address macroprudential policy issues during the global financial crisis, especially in terms of objectives, instruments and challenges that the financial system faces. The methodological approach used in order to develop this paper starts with a literature review, which establishes the role and place of this research. The analysis made is an empirical one, namely a comparative analysis between the macroprudential and microprudential framework. The analysis shows the fact that the financial system is characterized by a high sensitivity to international pressures, so macroprudential policy through its instruments whishes a better investor protection, a diminishing level of systemic risk and financial stability. The macroprudential policy is known to be a flexible policy, with a higher level of transparency and lower cost of implementation. The study emphasizes the vital need of designing and implementing macroprudential policy in order to prevent macroeconomic and financial imbalances and to ensure financial stability.

The present paper illustrates the use of the brand components in the most important campaign debate of the presidential elections in Romania in 2014: the first televised election confrontation between the candidates (Victor Ponta and Klaus Iohannis) in the second round of the presidential election. The research method of case study was selected. The research technique consisted of the content analysis of the two speeches. Finding the elements of the candidate's brand in a single confrontation implies, even more so, his presence in the entire election campaign. Six of the eight components of the brand (adaptability, differentiation, innovation, history, positioning, and segmentation) are used by both candidates with the purpose to influence citizens’ vote.

It is very difficult to deal with ethnic groups in research that aims to obtain information to underline decisions in ethnomarketing; but numerous articles have highlighted both problems and solutions that can be considered in the development of much more appropriate designs for future research. In this article we inventory some of them, based on relevant specialized papers. We believe that the submitted conceptual and methodological aspects provide important clarifications.

Defining the concept of “audit quality” is an important undertaking, as it allows all stakeholders to determine whether the quality of an audit is improving over time or, conversely, is on the decline. Moreover, the unitary definition of this concept allows all stakeholders to refer to the same methodology for determining the audit quality and, consequently, allows different people interested in the quality level of an audit to use the same language when referring to such audit. An important conclusion that emerges from the analysis of the perspectives presented in this paper is that the audit quality level has two main components. That means that in order for an audit to be considered “of good quality”, two conditions need to be cumulatively met: the audit work must be performed in a manner that allows the identification of any malfunctions in the preparation of the client’s financial statements, on the one hand, and the audit firm needs to have the capacity to report any malfunctions that might be identified. Fulfillment of only one of the two conditions is therefore not sufficient for a quality audit; as a matter of consequence, it can be said that the two conditions are interdependent. Therefore, future research directions in the field of audit quality must focus on the parallel analysis of both quality conditions, given that narrowing the studies to the analysis of a single condition can provide information that does not truly reflect the quality of an audit approach.

Each society has its own culture, representing the mental configuration of its carriers, which provides them with a set of tools designed to facilitate solving the multitude of problems related to the existence and activity of both individuals and the entire society. The present paper analyzes two of the known ways of approaching culture: the qualitative one, through the cultural values and the quantitative one, represented by the cultural dimensions. The author studies the specific elements of each approach, the connection between cultural values and dimensions, and proposes the concept of Cultural archetype, in an original sense, independent of those that can be identified in the specialty literature.

Intercultural research has been an extremely attractive field to many researchers. However, it raises many questions and the answers require consideration of some very important theoretical and methodological aspects, which we aim to present in this paper without claiming to exhaust them all.

The employer brand is an important element to be taken into consideration by the management due to its influence in the attraction and retention of talented employees. The purpose of this paper is to explore the dimensions of the employer brand from the perspective of Romanian employees in the IT industry. In order to identify functional benefits components, economic benefits components and psychological benefits components we conducted an exploratory factor analysis using the Principal Component technique and Varimax rotation with Kaiser Normalization method. The 2 factors of the functional benefits component are company values and factor 2 training and development. The economic factors are bonuses and other economic benefits and the second factor insurances. The psychological benefits also include 2 factors: employees’ recognition and good working conditions.

At a global level, sports tourism is one of the most profitable branches of tourism. Millions of persons, from all over the world, travel annually in order to assist or participate in various sports competitions, whether we are talking about tennis, football or handball. This paper aims to analyze the evolution of sports tourism through the most important football competition in the world – World Cup. This event has gathered, since the first edition, a large number of persons. Over time, there have been millions of supporters who have witnessed matches, a number that has grown since the development of the competition, with the increase in the number of games played at the final tournament and the intense media coverage of athletes with whom the fans have been able to create stronger relationships through social media.

Financial performance is often difficult to achieve by economic entities, especially in the current economic context and successful models of some companies constitute examples of good practice for aspirants. Cash-flow explains investment because it contains information about future flows of cash and because investment is made in pursuit of future income. Therfore, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between cash-flow, investment and net income. The target population of the study was the companies listed and traded on the Bucharest Stock Exchange during 2012-2016. The results of this empirical study showed that most of the companies listed and traded on BVB that earn profit constantly generate cash-flow and 65% of the companies listed and traded on BVB during the period 2012-2016 show a satisfactory long-term financial balance.

Hybrid war is a reality; war does not depend only on conventional means, but includes communication and propaganda strategies whose role is increasingly important. In the last few years, terrorist cells have spent and keep spending many energies in a global propaganda business. This activity is a fundamental aspect of the conflict. This promotion campaign serves several purposes: legitimating its authority, recruiting militants and motivating sympathizers, and intimidating and conditioning those whose cells they consider enemies. What draws our attention is the sophisticated level of professionalism they demonstrate in managing propaganda and terror. This paper seeks to provide a broader view of the European Foreign Fighters (FF) phenomenon by analyzing this target group from a marketing point of view in order to lay the foundations for a strategy to counteract them.

In the literature there are studies that deal with intermediaries in banking services (especially), mutual funds and pensions, insurance, real estate, etc. Most of them focus on subjects like investor behaviour, ethical issues and market manipulation. In this paper we intend to observe the stages in the evolution of the Financial Investment Services Companies (SSIF) between 1995-2016 in relation with the number of transactions, the volume of traded shares, the number of issuing companies as well as the economic and political situation of our country. Moreover, our study shows that the number of SSIF's is little affected by economic crises or declines and is rather influenced by the annual net incomes of the population. Basically, SSIF’s are in constant competition with the rest of the financial institutions, banks being a good example.

Lately we are speaking increasingly more about progress, peace, cooperation, understanding and integration in the context of increased efforts to level the inherent differences between individuals or groups of individuals, belonging to different cultural and ideological traditions. But if we do not want all these aspirations to lead to a new Tower of Babel, it must be borne in mind the consideration as a whole and as a particular the real anthropological context of human development, in terms of immanento-transcendental axiology, the two coordinate whose balance determines the progress and the regress of history. From this perspective, the practical approach to an issue so ambitious is obliged to take into account, first the importance both of the spiritual and rational factor understood in its full forming dimension. This paper is intended to be a concise and systematic exposure of the missionary and proselyte thinking and its relationships with the process of secularization in the democratic environment of the XXI century.

The paper, as the title has announced, proposes a discussion about Sandu Tudor's newspaper Floarea de Foc („Fire Flower”), political and literary magazine, published sporadically (1932, 1933, 1936). On January 6th, in the art manifesto Sandu Tudor proclaimed the need for an „authentic universal dogma” based on „clear consciousness”, „good thinking” and „clean thinking”. The value of the publication is confirmed by the various subjects and cross-cultural knowledge of his collaborators, some of the leading Trăirists, modernists or political radicals: Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, Mircea Vulcănescu, Petru Manoliu, Paul Sterian, Camil Petrescu, Ovidiu Papadima, Petru Comarnescu, Arșavir Acterian, Haig Acterian, Dan Botta, , Henri H. Stahl, Horia Stamatu and Octav Șuluțiu. The director Sandu Tudor manages to attract in his review Floarea de Foc („Fire Flower”) the famously Eugène Ionesco, a stern defender of authenticity, and disseminates throught the magazine his polemical pieces targeting the contemporary literary scene and the mainstream of modernism. „Floarea de Foc” („Fire Flower”), was at the same time an ideologically unregistered journal and, consequently, open to all political opinions. In our attempt to reconstruct a truthful image of „Floarea de foc” („Fire Flower”), we combine the documents from the C.N.S.A.S. (National Council for Studying the Security Archives) archive with interwar press.

The regional conflict that takes place now in the middle east from Afghanistan, Iraq to Syria has proven to be incrementally complex and difficult to manage from a geo-political point of view. It is becoming harder to know who are the violent non-state actors and who is backing them, turning what was at first a civil war into a proxy war between the western countries on one side and Russia, pro al-assad forces and Iran. Also, Turkey who at once was considered to be an important ally to the US has now grown closer to Russian interests, bombing kurdish troops backed by the US. In this regard it is becoming obvious that there are a number of threats, risks, and vulnerabilities that arise in an unpredictable manner. In conclusion, this paper analyzes the main solutions that can be adopted in order to control and manage the complex dynamic that are unfolding in Syria.

It has been demonstrated that the reality as we perceived it, is essentially a social construct, and that the media as a pillar in the process of the socialisation of the human individual and a component part of society, contributes greatly to its construction. By extrapolation this principle also applies to the assessment of certain social actors, such as women who manifest anti-social behaviors. The identity of human individuals originates from the assumption of the genre to which they belong and is found in its specific traits. The gender concept is one of the basic categories that are used to classify human beings (Brennan,2002). When it comes to expectations regarding gender-specific behavior, generally the associations between women and anti-social behaviors does not first come to mind. That is why the present paper aims to explore the variety of statutes and hyposthesis in which, women who exhibit antisocial behaviors can be found, in the articles published by the main Romanian newspapers.

In this article I will present in summary, in the first part of the paper, the European legislation on economic concentrations. The purpose of this work will be to analyze the intercultural aspects that affect the evolution of economic concentration operations at European level. The first step will be to determine the countries of the European Union that are most often involved in acquisitions and mergers in the last years. I will then analyze, taking into account the model of Geert Hofstede, whether or not there is a direct link between this evolution and the cultural particularities of each country.

Energy is an essential factor regarding the economic development and for providing a high standard of living to the population of any country. Because energy is produced mainly using classic fuels (coal, oil and gas) for a few decades there are signals regarding their exhaustion. Therefore, mankind should concern more about finding viable alternatives to replace the classical fuels. This way the use of nuclear fuels appeared, then the force of the wind, of the tides and of the photovoltaic cells. However, there are still enough energy resources for further growth of the global energy production. The great consumers are both the major energy producers, only their hierarchy has changed and changes over time. The paper presents all these countries, and also Romania, including its specific developments in recent years.

Advertising of the Over-the-counter drugs is a growing segment. Our research aims to identify the main factors involved in making decisions for the purchase of OTC drugs and to identify what are the ways of informing consumers for this process. To test the hypotheses, a number of statistical tools such as factor analysis, Shapiro-Wilk and Mann-Whitney U tests have been used. The analyzed factors were: (A) doctor’s choice , (b) former own experience, (c) pharmacist’s advice, (d) information stated on the prospectus, (e) opinion of people who bought that drug, (f) opinion of colleagues, friends, relatives, (g) price, (h) brand, manufacturer, (i) information from advertising, (j) quality of advertising. For our analysis, we focused on two main populations: students and employed educated people. The main conclusion of this paper is that recent exposure to OTC advertising is likely to change both related behaviors and decision grids.

Cognitive systems appeared as a response to the real challenges brought by the Big Data phenomenon. It was found that the solutions for solving difficult problems caused by this phenomenon could be brought by using artificial intelligence tools. In this context a convergence between Big Data and Artificial Intelligence happened, which determined the start of a new stage in system development, namely the era of cognitive systems. The potential of these systems is given by the characteristics that differentiate them from other systems. The cognitive systems offered solutions and were used with success in complex projects from the medical and financial sectors. The architecture of cognitive systems is complex. These systems are designed so that they use artificial intelligence tools when processing source content, producing analytical solutions which can be used in the decision process. In this paper base concepts, the characteristics and architecture of cognitive systems, the benefits brought by the development and use of them were presented.

The present paper, as announced the title, it proposes to treat the Association „Burning Altar”, legal stage spiritual movement whose mentor is Sandu Tudor. The „Burning Altar” movement was a group of some of the most important intellectuals (theologians and laity) of the era that, given the deep ties of friendship between them, come together around a common spiritual pursuits. The catalyst was Sandu Tudor. Ostracized under communist totalitarianism, both secular intellectuals and clerics were aware of their duty to discover the deep spiritual levels of Christianity to provide a possibility of human survival as a person in the face of aggression an aberrant modernity. In our attempt to reconstruct as truthful image of „Burning Altar”, of that time, we conjunction the documents from the archive C.N.S.A.S. with memoir literature but also with the interview of the only person who,nowadays, can testify about what the prayer of the heart meant for students, but also for „elders” integrated in this spiritual movement - Father Nicolaie (Nicholas) Bordașiu.

One of the major problem with online shopping is finingd the right product, because finding the right product presumes that we know its name, but in most cases it is not so. For this reason the users need help in the process of online searching/shopping. Recommender systems have became a popular technique and strategy for helping users to select desirable products or services. In the past few years the recommender systems have changed from novelties used by a few big e-commerce sites, to serious business tools that are re-shaping the world of e-commerce. In this paper, we provide a brief overview of the classification of recommendation systems based on technology used to create recommendations, and inputs they need from the customers. Furthermore we analyze a few algorithms used by recommender systems and we will also present some marketing recommender systems and their comparative analysis.

The issue of community participation in tourism development has been brought in front of the sector decision makers and researchers mostly during the last period of time. It could be a source of benefits and it could also create a better relationship between the tourism companies and the community groups. In this paper the author writes a literature review on this subject in order to draw attention on this issue in the Romanian tourism literature and to create an analysis framework for specific cases of tourism development plans.

The decision to vote and choosing among the candidates is an extremely important one with repercussions on everyday life by determining, in global mode, its quality for the whole society. Therefore the whole process by which the voter decides becomes a central concern. Prescribers, supposed to have a big influence on the electoral market, are a component of the microenvironment political organizations. These are people who occupy important positions that can influence the behavior of others. In the political environment, prescribers are known under the name of "opinion formers", "opinion leaders", "mediators" (Beciu, 2009) or "influencers" (Keller and Berry, 2003 Weimann, 1994). This paper aims to review the central opinions on what is the influence prescribers, opinion makers on voting behavior, voting and decisions on whether and how they act?

Unemployment appears to be an imbalance in the national labor market , as determined by the size and duration to a number of issues on the definition, causes, manifestations and possibilities for mitigation . Unemployment is influenced by demographic features , socio-economic and cultural developments that determine its time. Knowing them is important to establish mechanisms for balancing supply and demand on the labor market. This paper aims to make an analysis of the evolution and characteristics of unemployment in Romania in the period January-March 2016 .

Nowadays, social responsibility of companies is a very important issue, both for Romanian researchers and for those from abroad, but also for companies, non-governmental and governmental institutions. It is not anymore only an idea launched by researchers, economists or philosophers, but it is also present in the official debates concerning regulations in the field and their updating at the European and even global level. The present work aims to analyse the social responsibility of the most important companies from Romania and their interest in reporting on the basis of different existent index in the area. The paper is an empirical study based on public information regarding social responsibility of the most valuables companies from Romania. Results are important for researchers, practitioners, institutions interested in contributing to the know-how and practices improvement in the mentioned area.

The dynamics of the financial markets and the significant interrelationships with broader concepts as globalization or sustainable development, have led in recent years to the development of a multidimensional approach of CSR. The credibility of the financial system is based on the financial institutions image given by representative stakeholders. They filter in an objective way the ethical responsibilities of the banks and the legal ones and give them the legitimacy to operate on the market. In order to obtain a realistic framework of CSR in Romanian banks, the article will focus on the transparency of CSR information. The confidence crisis manifested in the banking institutions can best be overcome through an authentic reporting system, which is able to fulfill a set of requirements, from credibility to completeness. This paper highlights the main characteristics of the CSR reports provided by the Romanian banking institutions, based on the stakeholder theory and using international reporting frameworks as Global Reporting Initiative.

The title of European Capital of Culture could help immensely a city and its surrounding region from cultural, social and economic pointd of view. Cultural activity in the city is gaining momentum and new categories of tourists are attracted here. To determine if being a cultural capital influenced or not the growth and/or decrease trend as regards the number of tourists that came to Sibiu in a consecutive period of 23 years, the starting point was that this event had a major impact on tourists. The present paper is a quantitative research based on the number of Romanian and foreign tourists accommodated in structures of tourist receptions with functions of tourist accommodation. The conclusions of this article respond to these questions: Being a European Capital of Culture attracts or not more tourists than usual? The increase in the number of tourists was proportional with the effort of the authorities involved in the project?

This paper aims to identify the recurrent image of the clown and the references to the carnivalesque universe in Max Blecher’s fiction, distinctive elements of his writing, placed under the sign of the tragic. From the perspective of C.G. Jung’s abyssal psychology, focus is laid on the image of the clown, ascated with that of the trickster, an archetype of the authorial shadow transiting through the two worlds, reality/ immediate unreality, conscious/ unconscious. The hermeneutical undertaking attempts to decipher the contextual symbols which point to the duplicitous nature of the character, in the sense of a schizoid identity on the Ego/ Self axis. The conclusions underline the author’s tendency of substituting himself to this fantastic projection, by dissimulating a mask of absurd happiness as an imaginative exercise against biography.

Undoubtedly, the relevance of transport activities in relation to tourism activities is essential, because it is extremely important and necessary to offer feasible information about tourism services to help consumer to choose the mode of travel to destinations ideal holiday. The methods used in the development of this hypothesis were explanation, exemplification (brief presentation of each mode of transport) comparison etc. Analyzing the current situation of national, European and World Wide tourism transportation, the paper proposes practical applications able to explain that the conduct of economic activities as an integral part of the sector of trade and services within a national economy, would not be possible without the involvement of transport, whether by road, rail and air and naval. The results of the analysis are perfectly applicable offering guests the opportunity to reach the most remote corners of the world in a short time, high degree of comfort and affordable price.

The coherence of the global economic system, created by its upswing in the first postwar decades, started to crumble in the ’70s. The destabilizing shocks affected the entire world, but in an uneven manner, in different geographical areas and at different times, being felt most acutely, with devastating economic and social effects, in Third World countries. Although the developed countries were affected as well, they always had means to combat or to diminish the adverse effects of the crises, leading to "gentler" consequences. This paper focuses on four main aspects in postwar global economic expansion, namely: the ’70s – the international monetary crisis and the oil shocks; the foreign debt crisis; the Latin American debt crisis, the Asian financial crises and the current global crisis.

In the present working environment there are three different active generations, generally known as: Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y. For the first time in history, three different generations have to cooperate in the workplace and are in direct competition for a job or a new managerial position. This situation creates new challenges in managing human resources in the hotel industry, where an excellent communication between all functional and operational departments is mandatory in order to deliver quality services. The paper aims to address these issues by presenting the main work values of employees in the Romanian hotel industry. The implications of the findings are discussed, considering the limitations of the empirical study presented and the future research directions.

The paper aims to demonstrate the influence of students’ involvement in extracurricular activities on the development of skills and competencies by means of the factorial analysis. This research is untertaken by means of the questionnaire method, where 728 respondents from five Romanian universities where questionned. The data is analysed through the statistical programme SPSS. Due to the factorial analysis certain influences of the extracurricular activities on the organisational skills, social competencies, communication skills and integration ability are highlighted.