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Our multidisciplinary review paper aims to explore the research paradigms of unethical behavior from different academic perspectives. By doing this, our paper contributes to a better understanding of unethical behavior by drawing knowledge from alternative understandings of such behavior. More specifically, our multidisciplinary inquiry aims to summarize the main findings documented by scholars from different disciplines that conducted independent research on the topic using unique perspectives and ideas associated with the field. As such, in order to gain a better understanding of how unethical behavior is examined through a range of different disciplines and areas of research we assessed the highly cited papers found at the intersection of various categories and research areas such as management, business economics, and psychology, ethics, engineering, and environmental sciences and ecology, public environmental occupational health. Having the goal to offer the most representative research on the topic, we based our review on the highly cited papers examining unethical behavior from the Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science (WoS), the world`s leading scientific citation search and analytical information platform. The results show that the highly cited papers analyzed cluster around two major research themes as antecedents and factors increasing/enabling unethical behavior (e.g. propensity of moral disengagement, psychological entitlement, self-serving justifications, job insecurity, air pollution, polluted social contexts, creativity, favorable attitudes of upper-class toward greed, etc.) and factors deterring or limiting it (e.g. religion, ethical leadership). Given our multidisciplinary review, our study helps provide alternative understandings and important insights on the research of unethical behavior to serve for novel investigations in both practice and theory.

The term internationalization has been mainly used to show the expansion of economic activities of firms outside of their home country where they aim at capturing a bigger market. The Central and Eastern Europe region has gone through a process of market transition over the past few decades, yet the business internationalization process has played an important role in the states’ economies. The aim of this paper is to analyze the firm internationalization process in the new member states and the Western Balkans countries and gain a better understanding of the process and its course over time. Due to different geopolitical circumstances, the Western Balkan countries did not attract as many investors as much as the EU member states in CEE did that have had a constant flow of investments once they were members of the EU.

Both social media marketing and the digital activity of Instagram influencers have transformed the virtual landscape of book promotion. In other words, the growth of the #bookstagram community has given the entire publishing industry the opportunity to interact with potential readers and, by extension, increase product visibility through the social media platform Instagram. With this in mind, the present study aims to deepen the importance of promotion techniques within bookstagram and, moreover, to portray the modern methods implemented as central pillars in 21st century marketing strategies. Therefore, the paper investigates the broad spectrum of online approaches accessible to book influencers in the field of social media marketing through qualitative research, with in-depth interviews as the research method. As promotion can be achieved through a number of valuable techniques, the research focuses on highlighting the bookstagram tour, but also other equally effective strategies in terms of expanding the target audience and maximizing interactions. Moreover, there is the approach of types of posts, the involvement of awards or even touching on divergent topics of the books. Thus, by examining the phenomenon present in social media – influencer marketing and their methods of attracting consumer attention, the paper helps to build on the literature and offers new insights for both publishers and influencers. In particular, the research contributes to the evolving information on influencer marketing and highlights the importance of incorporating social media into marketing strategies to keep the online landscape current and dynamic.

Over the latest decades, technology has been the driving force for most of the transformations that characterize the professional work today. Artificial Intelligence, robots, automation, complex systems and machines, and many other technological inventions do not represent a futuristic vision anymore, but they rather define our current reality, altering the fundamental nature of business and work. Besides their incontestable benefits, inquiries about the powerful impact of these technologies have surfaced, leading to a debate on "existential threat" they pose, since the nature of this technological progress is unpredictable. Therefore, there is a need to undertake proactive measures (such as a regulatory framework) in order to identify and mitigate the risks. In this context, the aim of this paper is to address some ethical issues with regard to the impact the accelerated technological developments have on humankind, mainly on the workforce, and the way the future of work is reconfigured by these transformations. In addition, the paper addresses some implications for the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), highlighting that it is crucial for companies to address the challenges posed by the new technologies in an ethical manner in order to contribute to a more sustainable and equitable future.

This paper delves into the integration of artificial intelligence within Estonia’s education system, showcasing the country’s global reputation for digital innovation. Utilising the method of the case study and the method of document analysis, we explore not only the practical outcomes, challenges, and strategies related to the adoption of artificial intelligence in the Estonian education system but also its economic implications. The research highlights artificial intelligence’s potential to lead to cost efficiencies and economic benefits for the education sector. Furthermore, we address the critical issue of fostering artificial intelligence literacy among students, schools, and universities, pinpointing data privacy and ethical considerations as key areas of concern. The strategies implemented by educational institutions to mitigate these challenges and promote a comprehensive understanding of artificial intelligence are also discussed. In conclusion, the paper underscores artificial intelligence’s transformative potential in reshaping education, offering guidance for other nations and academic entities aiming to successfully integrate artificial intelligence-based technologies. Emphasis is placed on the importance of a supportive policy framework and a solid ethical foundation to navigate the complexities of artificial intelligence adoption and ensure responsible use, while also considering the economic impact on the educational ecosystem and the labour market at large.

This paper intends to analyze how the crisis produced by the Covid-19 infection has influenced the employees, respectively the employers. Thus, we try to see if they still approach the workplace, working hours, etc. in the same way or if their perception has been decisively influenced by this crisis. Certainly, there is an impact on the business environment around the world, respectively in Romania. Thus, employers and employees, like the whole world, had to adapt and reorganize in the given conditions. Some views support the theory that, for employers and employees respectively, nothing will be the same, and the approach and expectations of both parties will be different. Other views argue that this crisis will not cause major changes in perception on the subject. Be that as it may, through this paper we try to analyze in what way and above all, what changes this crisis has produced on the employees, respectively the employers. For the most part, for the employee, the workplace is the place from where he procures an important part or even all of his financial resources. Besides, the workplace is also the place where he can prove his skills acquired in school, the place where he socialises, the place where he develops professionally and not only that. The employer, in general, wants a competent and efficient employee. Both regarding employees and employers, the crisis caused by the Covid-19 infection has produced important changes that we will study in the analysis below. The business environment around the world has seen changes with the situation caused by this crisis that has faced all of humanity. Also, before analyzing, in broad terms, the impact on the business environment, we must observe how people saw the involvement, from a diplomatic point of view, in Romania’s economic development. Economic development must also be supported at the diplomatic level, not only through the other available levers.

Inflationary pressures, but also the uncertainty regarding the duration and severity of the Covid-19 pandemic, have significantly increased in the last year. Moreover, the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, further called into question the upward trend in the inflation rate. In this sense, the sudden and continuous increase in energy, fuel, and food prices constitute new challenges for decision-makers. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution of inflation in Romania from the period 1990-2022 because this constitutes a topical macroeconomic challenge. Compared to the way of presenting the information from the bibliography used and found at the end of the paper, in this paper only the essential aspects, the particularities of the chosen research topic, which finally provide an overview, can be found.

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of financial development on international trade in Upper-middle-income countries. The paper focuses on financial stability as a key element of the financial system and investigates whether economic growth is a conduit through which banking sector development and stock market development influence international trade. Thus far, the impact of financial development on international trade has received limited attention. The study adopts the generalized methods of moments (GMM) approach, employing balanced panel data from 13 upper-middle-income countries for a period ranging from 2006–2017. Using the z-score as a proxy for financial stability, evidence suggests that banking sector development has a positive and significant influence on international trade, while stock price volatility as a proxy for financial market stability, was found to have had an insignificant influence on foreign trade. The study recommends that upper-middle-income countries implement policies or adopt monetary policy approaches that enhance financial stability. Further research should be conducted to investigate other channels as possible transmission mechanisms. This paper contributes to the global discourse of whether economic growth is a conduit through which financial development can influence international trade. Overall, the paper suggests that financial development plays a role in stimulating economic activities, but its impact or effect is subject to the choice of financial proxies use which may be unique based on economic circumstances of a given country.

In an unstable global business environment, reconfiguring global supply chains is a necessary step. Supply chain reconfiguration gives the supply chain the ability to adapt quickly; new supply chain structures allow for increased responsiveness and flexibility to deal with disruptions. The main objective of this paper is to identify the research interest in the area regarding the supply chain reconfiguration. The study is based on a quantitative research method, namely bibliometric analysis. By querying the existing database on the Scopus platform, scientific papers (research articles, books, papers presented at conferences) containing the keywords in the title, abstract, or in the keywords of the documents have been identified. The research results confirm the increasing academic interest in supply chain reconfiguration.

automobile product recall has increased in recent years albeit attendant impact on stock price. Objective: the objective of this paper is to analyse the stock price effect and the stock price response time to automobile product recall for Toyota, GM and Tesla. Prior Work: the paper inclines on prior work on efficient markets and product recall effects on corporate financial value but takes a slightly different stance to focus on automobile recall effect on stock price and reaction time gap. Approach: the paper applied a t-test statistics for difference in mean stock price following automobile product recall announcements. Results: the results show that following the recall announcements, the stock prices reacted negatively at a highly significant value of P

There is evidence that a change in accounting regulation can stimulate global access to a country’s capital market, thereby increase financial performance of firms. Corresponding to the change from the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) to the mandatory adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Nigeria, this paper examines available information in order to confirm whether the change has created desired improvement in the firms’ performance after the adoption in 2012. Three financial performance indicators related to productivity (asset turnover, ATO) and profitability (returns on assets, ROA, and return on equity, ROE) are examined on univariate tests of significance differences in the mean, median and variance of sample for the ‘prior to’ IFRS adoption period (2003‐2011) and the post‐IFRS adoption period (2012‐2020). Accordingly, the Satterthwaite-Welch t-test, Wilcoxon/Mann-Whitney t-test and ANOVA-F-test are applied for the mean, median and variance, to verify the conjectured hypotheses. The results find that slight increase was perceived after adoption for average value of the ATO and ROA, but the considered tests are unable to indicate sufficient evidence to identify the improvement as significant. Contrary, the evidence supposes undesired significant decline in the ROE. The evidence finds the change in the variability, due to the transition to IFRS, for the indicators as significant. The findings have implications for the capital market and regulation; hence, the paper suggests that regulators should monitor firms’ compliance to the standards and extend the use of IFRS to other non-listed companies in Nigeria.

The European Green Deal creates a framework for sustainable business and for the implementation of new models of business and service provision. Sustainable business promoted by the European Union is determined by the enforcement of common measures in all EU member states. The paper aims to clarify a new business model, namely a sustainable business model, adopted by business companies which incorporate sustainability into the management and management systems of the company and make managerial decisions with regard to the protection of human rights and the protection of the environment. By using scientific methods such as a systematic analysis of valid legislation framework of sustainable business, a survey of factors influencing sustainable business, synthesis of acquired knowledge, and the comparison of acquired data, the authors formulated recommendations regarding sustainable business. A key aspect of sustainable business is the business environment, based on the principles of fairness, transparency, environmental sustainability, decent work and human dignity. Sustainable businesses are a benefit to the economy of each EU member state and a source of growth and employment. The benefit of the paper is to highlight of the EU activities, promoting sustainable development and the transition of economies and business companies to sustainability.

he goal of this paper is to better comprehend the importance of ethical behavior related to gender and religion in the Romanian accounting profession. In this regard we started by reviewing the scientific papers approaching the ethics topic of research. Then we conducted an empirical study that analyses students’ behavior when dealing with ethics in accounting field, having as main objective the assessment of the students’ perceptions regarding the importance of the ethical behavior, as potential or current employees in the field of accounting. The empirical research was carried out between May 2022 and June 2022, and the research method used was the survey, the instrument used being the questionnaire. This has been fulfilled by 100 master students in the accounting field from the Faculties of Economics, within the University of Oradea as well as the University of Arad. This paper is going to validate the different importance given to ethical behavior, by accounting professionals in Romania depending on gender. The research questions that this study aims to answer are: Does the accountants’ gender influence the ethical behavior of the accounting profession? And Does the accountants’ religious background influence their sense of ethics? Results obtained document a different level of given significance to ethical behavior depending on gender, but not on religious background. A significant part of those surveyed considers that under pressure or salary motivation from the management of the entity, they could decide to change an accounting policy that could affect the true image of the company.

Trade is at the centre of Europe’s model of economic prosperity and competitiveness. As stated in the new Trade Policy Strategy set out by the European Commission (2021), the trade policy has a key role to play in the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, this role was emphasised even better by the effects derived from the war in Ukraine. As the pandemic hit in 2020, the growth drivers of the EU’s economy relented, among which the external trade, putting million jobs at risk and leading to rise in unemployment and to depression of economic activity, while many companies had to close down. Competitiveness is a term which increased in significance in the last few decades. Trade competitiveness and, especially, export competitiveness is one of the most valuable variables a country must improve in order to increase its overall competitive position among nations and also the welfare of its citizens. The export statistics of many EU’s economies changed since the COVID-19 crisis and later, the war stroke. The research questions this paper addresses are: what is the extent of these changes in which sectors? Have they come to an end or the process of recovery has already started within the EU? What effects has the war in Ukraine onto the EU exports competitiveness? Are there any chances for the EU to maintain its exports competitiveness after these crises? What is to be one and what measures to be taken to recover? After introductory theoretical remarks and a brief literature review followed by a survey of various techniques to measure export competitiveness, the paper shifts its focus on statistical data and analyse how much damage has the pandemic and nowadays, the war caused to the EU’s export competitiveness, and which EU Member States were the most affected, based on statistical data analysis and other various indicators.

People have been moving from one area to another since ancient times in order to exchange products from one nation with those from another in order to obtain what was lacking in the nation where they resided. These were the first product-to-product trades, and the latter was placed into circulation on money as a product-to-product trade. These early types of commerce have evolved significantly, and they continue to do so now as capital flows from one country to another. This phenomenon, which has influenced worldwide economic growth and improved living standards, saw significant expansion in the twenty-first century in the form of loans used to fund economic development in many nations, as well as ownership of financial assets. In the present era, domestic capital is insufficient for countries to thrive and remain competitive in global markets. For emerging economies, foreign investments that enter the host country as debt or money are crucial financial resources. In this paper, we will discuss the data on the development of exports and FDI of 22 countries from around the world and analysed the evolution of FDI, GDP and exports over a period of 40 years to see trends and patterns of FDI and Exports and their contribution to the economic growth of countries. Broken up in groups, the paper will compare and assess certain countries/regions, grouping and pairing them with economies or countries of similar growth/stance. Corroborating this statistics with recent global events and based on the previous statistics, this paper will try to predict the future trends of FDI around the world.

Language is made up of five basic components: morphology, phonology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Morphology in linguistics represents the study of the words, how they are formed and their relationship with other words in the same language; phonology involves the rules regarding the structure of the speech sounds and their sequence; syntax is the study of morphemes and how they form larger units; pragmatics involves the rules for appropriate and effective communication; semantics deals with vocabulary and the way concepts are expressed through words. Thus, vocabulary is one of the constituent elements of the language. Words carry meaning and have their own energy representing the building blocks of communication. According to the context they are used in, their meaning differs, therefore, vocabulary acquisition is crucial when talking about English for Specific Purposes, in our situation, Business English. But how is vocabulary acquisition in second language done? Vocabulary building often occurs through reading, however, it is unlikely for the students in foreign language to acquire the basic specific vocabulary through reading. The present paper deals with the strategies a Business English teacher approaches in order to assist students to learn vocabulary as well as to equip them with methods to turn perceptive vocabulary into context vocabulary. How can vocabulary be taught efficiently? How can teacher provide learners the needed input in order to shift vocabulary from input to output? How can teachers introduce vocabulary in order for optimal retention to be ensured? These are some the questions the present paper addresses.

Bibliometric research has recently gained much interest from academics seeking to investigate a particular topic. This study aims to explore the interest of marketing specialists in investigating marketing-related topics using bibliometric analysis. The paper includes the following sections: general information about bibliometric analysis, research methodology and how the database of articles was designed, data analysis results, conclusions and other insights. In this study, we considered the Scopus database for selecting the set of scientific papers. The applications used in the data analysis process are VOSviewer and QDA Miner. To achieve the purpose of the research, we analysed the productivity and impact of countries, journals and papers on the topic of bibliometric analysis in marketing. We also tried to identify the marketing-related concepts that generated the most interest from the specialists in their bibliometric analysis. The study aims to highlight the favorite topics related to marketing that specialists are interested in exploring through bibliometric research.

E-leadership research has evolved significantly in recent times, influencing the development of the education system, which has been affected by the effects of the pandemic. In order to keep up with the changes, teachers have had to adapt to the ever-changing requirements and opportunities. The topic of the paper refers to the perspective of Romanian pre-university teachers regarding the connection between e-leadership and motivation. The reason I chose to do this research is because e-leadership is a current topic. On the other hand, I am a teacher in the pre-university education system and I started my teaching activity in the middle of the pandemic and I can say that it was a real challenge for me to integrate remotely into a new team. Therefore, I found it opportune to study this subject, the paper being based on the identification of the main advantages and barriers of e-leadership in motivating employees. For this, I will look for the answer to the research question “What is the perception of pre-university teachers regarding e-leadership?”, by sending a questionnaire among teachers. To answer this question, I carried out a quantitative research of a structured survey type, based on a questionnaire with 16 items, addressed to pre-university teachers, regarding the link between e-leadership and employee motivation. This survey was conducted online, in 1st-4th November 2022, through Google Forms, and I processed and interpreted the obtained data, using Microsoft Excel and SPSS statistical software. I hope this paper will be useful to all those interested in this topic, especially PhD students and leaders who want to deepen this topic.

Since 2020, two major crisis impacted the global environment: the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. Both had a major impact on international trade and on the evolution of oil prices which has a direct effect on the logistics industry. The scope of our paper is to investigate the effects of oil price evolution on logistics activities, especially transport. Costs of shipment represent an important component of final prices for consumer products and they can influence the general rate of inflation. This is a major concern among government officials in all countries, as high inflation rates can have negative effects on national economies. Our paper is focused on analyzing price trends on each mode of transport, but also prices for integrated logistics services. The results of our analysis offer insight on the logistic market trends and can be useful to professionals from companies, but also for academics interested in this field and consumers worldwide concerned about prices going up.

Nowadays the corporate sector is a prominent stakeholder in the sustainability field. Companies across the world are starting to look at more environmentally friendly business practices, largely because of the urgent climate situation and because of the highest demand for these practices from the market. Furthermore, sustainability disclosure, formerly entirely optional, has progressively become required in several nations during the past years, especially in the European Union and among businesses and production sectors. Plus, the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD), which requires certain major corporations with EU headquarters to provide sustainability data, was adopted by the European Parliament in 2014. Later, additional regulatory actions have been taken, and in 2021 the European Commission has launched a new political agreement on the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), to respond to the growing criticism regarding the reporting criteria, while increasing the reporting obligations’ level of detail. The given paper is focused on the analysis of the processes of sustainability of Romanian and European companies, more exactly about the most common CSR practices of companies. This paper aims to provide further implications for policymakers, students and researchers whilst promoting sustainability and being of use to business leaders.

Investment determines the sustainability and prosperity of an economy. The paper seeks to (1) give an overview of the roles of companies on the stability of the financial system, based on existing theoretical and empirical work; and (2) to highlight the reasons which expose them to the non-application of their duties against the State. For this purpose, a bibliometric analysis using the Direct Science database was employed. The results of the analysis allowed us to study the search trend by analyzing the distribution of publications, authors, types of publications and fields of research and also showed that the themes of the study are of great scientific interest because of the surge in the number of publications on the role of companies over the last ten years averaging 76.3 per year while 1,690 were on the impact of company behaviour on the stability of the financial system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

Investors are humans and are sensitive to rumours of war and actual war events, which appear to have different impacts on stock market performance. Objective: this paper evaluates a two-stage differential effect of the current Russian invasion in Ukraine on stock market volatility in EU, UK and US stock markets. Prior work: the paper inclines on related prior works on the effect of international conflicts on stock markets. Method: the paper uses stock market data for EU, US and UK for 21 days before Russian troop build-up on Ukraine boarders in 2021 and 21 days during the troop build. It also collected 21 days stock market data for 21 days in 2022 before Russian invasion in Ukraine and for 21 days during the Russian invasion. Data were analysed using the t-test statistics and line graphs for trends. Finding: results show that Russian invasion in Ukraine has significantly caused stock market volatility for EU(FTSE EU), UK (FTSE London) and US (S&P500). However, the EU stock market (FTSE EU) has suffered higher volatility compared to UK and US. In the same vein results show that, the US stock market (S&P500) remains the less volatile and safest investment haven to safeguard stocks during the ongoing war in Ukraine. Implication: The results contribute latest stock market investment information to investors and stock market hedgers to make risk and investment decisions in this conflict times. It also offers an important new case study for business economic classes in higher education business schools, and highlights an agenda for further research. Value: the paper contributes a twostage differential analysis approach (stage 1 troop build-up stage, and stage 2 actual war stage) – and reveals divergent implications of a two stage application and results for stock market analysis.

This paper suggests a new business model based on modern technology for retail. In the age of digitalization, stationary retail is losing market shares to online retail. Therefore, there is an obvious need for change in businesses. The concept developed in this paper combines the strengths of online and stationary retail to benefit stationary retail. In the approach taken in this paper, the basis for change is modern technology. Finding innovative ways to use technologies like NFC, AI, and robotics is regarded as the key factor to sustainable success. As the implementation of modern technologies entails a particular investment, the customers’ opinion on structural changes like these has been included in the consideration. Therefore, a survey has been conducted to find out which level of innovation current customers are willing to accept thus emphasizing the need for certain changes and dissuading specific others. The result of this paper is the modern showroom concept which takes the customers’ opinion into account while implementing the right amount of technology that should pave the way to a sustainable future for stationary retail.

The quest for sustainable economic development alternatives is revolutionising the automobile industry toward a more economic and sustainable products. This paper examines the relationship between green (electric) vehicle products and stock market performance. The prior work inclination is on the innovation and diffusion theories, which provides a lens to examine green innovation in auto industry. The paper adopts a fusion of review and quantitative approach. Data were from the International Energy Agency and Investing databases. A fixed effect panel analysis examine how the stock market reacts to two main types of electric vehicles – the Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV). The result adds to new knowledge namely, the BEV product relates to the stock market significantly at P=0.00002 but negatively. However, the PHEV has a positive and significant relationship with the stock market at a P=0.00001. The results offer practical implications including inter alia, manufacturers’ introduction of more PHEV products into the consumer market has a high propensity to improve the stock market performance; this provides a useful information for stock market analysis and auto industry strategic planning. It also offers a good innovation case material for business schools. This paper contributes the first modelling of two main types of green car on stock market performance.

This paper analysed the impact of interest rate and exchange rate volatility on banking sector stock returns in South Africa considering the Covid-19 pandemic. This paper employed daily secondary data for the period 01 January 2011 - 19 August 2021. The OLS and GARCH approaches were utilized to analyse the relationship between the variables. The results indicate that the interest rates have a positive and significant relationship with bank stock returns as four out of five banks showed positive coefficients in the OLS estimator. Moreover, a high foreign exchange rate leads to a negative bank stock returns as the coefficients from the OLS estimator were negative. The ARCH and GARCH models' results indicate that bank stock returns are determined by their past volatility. The study has managerial implications for the banking sector because interest rate and exchange rate volatility increase the risks associated with the returns, implying that banks should consider various hedging strategies in mitigating these risks. Therefore, banks should consider various hedging strategies while the investors could attentively consider monetary policies during the investment decision process.

Performance management of employees is a significant function of modern human resource management practices. This paper tried to measure the effectiveness of the performance management system (PMS) of some selected Readymade Garment (RMG) factories with the aim to develop a tailored PMS for the management employees. Opinions of 266 employees were considered in this study and one-sample "t-test” was used to test twenty-four hypotheses developed through an extensive literature review. The study found efficiency of the RMGs in attaining the projected outcome of PMS. This paper is one of the pioneers in regards to RMG sector of Bangladesh and the research outcome of which will contribute to enriching the existing body of knowledge of employee performance management in this sector.

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This paper aims to bring to attention an issue which involves both economical and juridical aspects: agents' obligation to give an account to principals, derived from mandate contracts. The legal doctrine, both Romanian and European, has largely debated upon this aspect, particularly the form in which the accounting report must be given, as well as the possibility of tacit extempt from the obligation of the trustee to hand over the management account, in cases in which the contractual relations of the parties are based upon a high degree of trust. As shown in this paper, we believe that a genuine accounting report is required from agents only if the principals explicitly demand it. Also, since the legal provisions on the matter do not expressly impose any formalities for the completion of this report, we believe that it is the principals' decision to establish the form in which the trustees must hand over the accounts.

The economic impact of tourist activity depends largely on the character of the area or space where it is practised (e.g., developed, developing or less developed). It also depends on the administration or, in broader terms, management of this complex activity and finality through consumption. The latter is related to both customer satisfaction and the satisfaction of the travel agency providing services, to the degradation of certain traditions and the disturbance of the economic, social, cultural, demographic and environmental balance in local communities. The globalisation process and the technological evolution determine visible and behavioural changes because competitiveness is related to technological efficiency. Tourism can generate substantial income, thus contributing to regional development and dynamizing the labour market and companies activating in that sector. By allocating various funds, we can improve the quality of services and renovate accommodation facilities, which enhances the popularity of the location and increases income, implicitly. This paper approaches rural tourism and entrepreneurship within a microeconomic approach. It is motivated by the fact that the most common tourist activities are small and medium enterprises, which are not always sustainable enough businesses. Hence, awakening the entrepreneurial spirit is one of the most notable challenges for the actors involved in small and medium enterprise development in rural areas. This paper highlights the role and challenges of small and medium enterprises activating in the tourism field in rural areas. In addition, the paper proposes a way for overcoming the constraints and difficulties imposed by rural communities, based on the connection between the traditional rural community and a human network existing outside the traditional territorial community. This network extending beyond the traditional territorial border may be complementary to the rural community. In this context, strategic cooperation becomes relevant; it is the solution for overcoming the challenges faced by other industries, too. Furthermore, rural tourism allows producers to mobilise (on a wider scale) the local resources redeemed within the mono-farm activities. Thus, they may attain the goal of using and preserving their rural heritage.

The COVID19 pandemic seems to have affected the financial results of the companies operating in Central and Eastern Europe. This paper has as a main goal to analyse the impact of COVID-19 crisis over companies which operate in the pharmaceutical sector. Since two of the authors developed an article in 2018 concentrated on the Early warning indicators and their impact over the medical companies registered in the Bucharest Stock Exchange, the current article analysis the same indicators but extends them at the level of four countries: Romania, Croatia, Slovenia and Hungary. Within the paper the authors will compare the evolution of several financial indicators: liquidity, financial leverage, solvency, annual return, ROE, ROA, so on in context of COVID-19. The main reason for the selection of medical and pharmaceutical sector is constituted by the discussions that these companies benefit from the effects of COVID19.

Nowadays, digital promotion is a new 'means' of communication between companies and the potential customer. One of the basic tools as regards the online promotion in the tourism industry, respectively the hotel industry is the website. This is a complex business card, conveyed by technology, a digital sample provided to the customer, a first impression that may bring less or more value. The website aims to direct all efforts in making known the package/service offered, to provide potential customers with all the necessary information, to determine potential customers to visit and also to act. Thus, this paper aims to analyze how hotels in two tourist resorts situated in Bihor county, namely Băile Felix and Vârtop Arieșeni, are promoted via the website. The paper proposes a specific grid for websites analysis, based on observation, using the Fisher-Rosenberg pattern as a method of scaling and drawing a series of conclusions, of trends and main shortcomings and possibilities for improvement.

Through this paper we aimed to develop a comparison between ARIMA, Prophet, KNN and Neural Networks in terms of stock prices forecasting. After reviewing the literature, we noticed that there is a plethora of studies that address this problem of forecasting, but very few have made comparisons that include ARIMA, machine learning, but also the Prophet forecasting model developed by Facebook, which brought interesting results for certain data series. Based on methodologies validated by other authors, we compared these models in our paper and we sought to obtain promising results regarding performance evaluation. The comparison was made in-sample, the training period being 01/01/2010 - 31/07/2021, but also out-of-sample (01/08/2021 - 31/10/2021). The study was performed for Societe Generale’s stock, using daily observations. Statistical loss functions such as RMSE, MPE, MAPE, MAE, and ME were used for comparison. The results indicated an outperformance of Neural Networks, both in-sample and out-of-sample, this model being on the 1st place according to the aggregated score. It is also noteworthy that the ARIMA model was in second place in-sample, ahead of KNN, but for out of sample these two algorithms changed their positions. On the other hand, the Prophet algorithm performed the weakest, both in-sample and out of sample. Also, we must underlie that all four algorithms had a clear tendency to overestimate the price of Societe Generale, according to the results of the statistical loss functions ME and MPE. Finally, it should be noted that the results were consistent with what other authors found out, especially for the out-of-sample period, where the machine learning models performed best.

The way people carry out their daily activities has changed with digitalization. The digitalization process has highlighted its own effects on the economy as well as on society. Also, the way people travel has changed in terms of digitalization. Opportunities offered by this digitization process bring significant potential benefits. Thus, this paper proposes to make a brief foray and analyze the official documents that speak, plan and design the digital economy, which provides a set of projections of the digitalization of the economy, especially in the field of tourism. The analysis will be theoretical. In addition, this paper aims to give a brief overview of the current framework of the digital economy and to provide an analysis of the degree of involvement of public authorities at national level in the digitization of tourism in European countries and the number of online bookings in the same countries.

The education system plays an important role in human development. It is not only in terms of improving knowledge, solving social problems on many levels but also contributing to the development of the economic activities of a country. Moreover, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial activities are also strongly influenced by the education system of the country. Today, entrepreneurial activities play an increasingly significant role in the development of the country. Therefore, it needs to be paid attention to and focused on the building of an educational environment suitable to the characteristics of entrepreneurship. From there, it is possible to create a dynamic environment, promote business development and start business activities of the country. This paper first provides a brief overview of the role of education in entrepreneurship. Next, the research method and research results are presented on assessing the current status of the role of the national education system in starting a business in Vietnam. The study is based on the analysis of data collected from the report provided by The Amway Global Entrepreneurship Report in 2018 (AGER) on national entrepreneurship in the specific case of Vietnam. Finally, the paper ends with some suggestions and conclusions of the study.