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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.

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.

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.

The pandemic caused by the corona virus is the most serious crisis that humanity has ever witnessed in this century. For Romania, this crisis highlighted organizational problems, structural issues related to the government, problems of an aging and underperforming health system, but also a total blockage of social and environmental actions. All of this are reflected in the national economical situation. The paper aims to construct a post-pandemic perspective, where Romania needs to streamline its governmental functioning system, simplifying and digitalizing procedures for strengthening the risk-management sector and securing the foundations for further growth. The two perspectives analysed are: the social one - by highlighting poverty, healthcare, income inequalities and regional disparities and the environmental one by highlighting the priorities of reducing air and water pollution, protecting the forest fund and conserving the Danube Basin. These two prisms are analyzed through the filtering of national recovery plans, by examining government capacities, the resolutions adopted by state officials, the European 2030 Agenda and the global framework of Sustainable Development drawn by the United Nations.

Migration at international level is a global phenomenon. In recent years the world experienced the highest number of people who migrated abroad. For example, in 2020 approximately 3.6% of global population were international migrants. This was the highest proportion of the global population registered in the last thirty years. The paper analyses some general aspects of international migration. There are detailed migration patterns in various regions such as America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and Africa. Based on the data provided can be drawn some policy implications. Countries of destination should apply policies in order to facilitate the integration of migrants and should provide labour market regulations.

In this paper we study the impact of Covid-19 pandemics on the incoming tourism in Romania. Following the typology of crises in general and the specific nature of the Covid crisis, we will see what effects this most recent pandemic had globally and what economic policies were taken to counteract the adverse effects of the pandemic. We will see that the lockdown and mobility restrictions at European level have led to a free fall of the incoming tourism, increasing the share of domestic tourism on the one side, while on the other hand we observe the tendency of people to move to the countryside. There have been observed some trends that favoured nature tourism, but we also witnessed, that OECD recommends continuing with a more sustainable tourism. We witnessed in 2022 a recovery of tourism in the European Union, which seems to invalidate the trends reiterated by OECD. Through a statistical regression we try to forecast the trend of incoming tourism in Romania, which gives us two possible directions of its evolution. Analysing the pessimistic case, we also identify systemic risks at the level of Romanian incoming tourism, that is focusing on a few countries only, so we see diversification as a very urgent matter for Romanian tourism.

This study aims to reveal to what extent the strategic development objectives of Romania (accession to the EU and NATO) have determined changes in the security policy of Romania between 2000 and 2007.The paper will demonstrate how the security measures adopted by Romania (including in the fight against terrorism) have influenced the economic development of the country. There are numerous debates in the literature that discuss the links between economic development and security (political, economic or military). This study adds to the literature an empirical analysis of a country considered not under a direct threat to security in the region.The research follows a descriptive analysis of the measures in the legislative, institutional and operational areas taken by the Romanian government in the period 2000-2007 in order to reach the start-up objectives (of accession to the EU and NATO). The paper intends to show that these measures taken by Romania did not represent only military and security objectives, but they constituted a platform for the economic development and had economic consequences.

This paper examined long-term relationship building and customer switching behavior among mobile telecommunication operators in Nigeria. The population of this study includes all mobile telecommunication company and their subscribers in Edo State, Nigeria. The samples for this study were drawn from Mobile Network Service Providers and their subscribers. For service providers, three (3) out of the nine (9) mobile network operators were selected (Nigeria Communication Commission NCC, 2020). Morgan and Krejcie's (1970) sampling methods were implemented to choose a sample of 322 mobile telecom subscribers Godden (2004). The paper employed regression analysis to analyze and test the hypothesis formulated. The result showed that long-term relationship building (Two-way Communication, Customer retention Strategy, Customer Loyalty, and Relational Bond) had a positive statistically significant relationship with customer switching behavior among mobile telecommunication operators (Network service providers) at p>0.05. The research recommends among others that players of the mobile telecommunication Industry (mobile network service providers) should embrace the application of long-term relationship-building to achieve, sustain and retain customers' usage of their products, this will enable them to compete better with other players in the industry. Also, they should engage in relational bonding aimed at creating attachment with the customer leading to customer retention and subsequently profitability.

The purpose of the paper is to observe and analyze how the dynamics of macroeconomic factors impact the evolution of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) during the latest crisis (Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukrainian war), through the lens of various market stock indices (BET, BetPlus, BET-FI and BET-NG). After the monthly values of both the macroeconomic factors (inflation rate, unemployment rate, RON-EURO exchange rates, industrial production index, average salary, money supply, interest rate and oil price) and Bucharest Stock Exchange indices were collected, during the period January 2020- June 2023, the descriptive statistics was used to describe all the observed data (mean value, standard deviation, minimum/ maximum value). Finally, the multiple regression was used to see exactly how the Romanian stock market indices are influenced by any changes of macroeconomic factors.

The transformations in the world economy, the globalization of information, the globalization of security issues have brought non-state powers to the position of main actors of the contemporary geopolitical phenomenon, in which transnational, international or supranational organizations play a special role. The unprecedented period of peace and stability that Europe went through at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century is due to the existence of the European Union. The European Union is a relevant actor in the international arena; the emergence of the European Union radically changed the European and global geopolitical balance. Having an extensive network of economic relations worldwide, carrying out crisis management missions and humanitarian actions, the European Union cannot be omitted from any geopolitical analysis. In a very dynamic and unpredictable global geopolitical and geoeconomic context, the European Union launched on June 20, 2023 the European Strategy for Economic Security, a strategy that emphasizes bilateral and plurilateral cooperation - in different formats and degrees of institutionalization, from the G-7 to high-level economic talks, investment partnerships and commodity clubs. The European Union wants to reduce, for the next decades, the economic risks related to dependence on China. The strategy outlines how the European Union - a key trading partner for both China and the United States - is trying to manage its economic dependence on Beijing and avoid the kind of economic rupture with Russia that followed the invasion of Ukraine. The paper aims to analyze what China's "risk reduction" means for Europe and, at the same time, to understand how the European Union's approach to economic security will shape future relations in terms of geopolitics and geoeconomics at the international and regional level.

The accelerated process of innovation and diffusion of digital technologies over the last decades has greatly impacted all areas of society, becoming one of the most significant socio-economic phenomena of the contemporary world, transforming the way things are done, businesses are developed, or diplomatic goals are achieved. Economic diplomacy has been transformed in numerous ways, with new tools, actors and processes being involved, and with an ongoing increase of awareness in its opportunities as well as potential risks. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the impact digitalization has on economic diplomacy under the pressure of digitalization and the related “products” of the digital world (such as Big Data), and to identify, in perspective, the mega-trends and opportunities that shape economic diplomacy in the digital age.

Motivation is an essential component in the enhancement of organizational performance. Motivation theories have emerged over time toward providing insight into the importance of motivation in achieving organizational success. The paper embarks on a comparative study of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Herzberg's two-factor motivation theories to ascertain any relationship and implications for organizational performance. The study relied on qualitative data collected from scholarly articles whereby they were analyzed using the case study approach and expounded thematically. The study bares a correlation between Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s two-factor motivation theories, in which they provided overlapping models on the structure of needs that represents both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The implication of the theories has shown that individual needs differ and that the blend of both the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors, as shown by both theories, cannot be isolated, as the regular application of both factors would produce robust employees energized for higher performance. It is concluded that the success of any organization is pivot not only on the capacity of a manager to organize and coordinate material resources, but also to recognize the divergence of the needs of individuals and develop approaches to satisfy them.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the ICT employment landscape throughout Europe, confirming the importance of digitalization not only for long-term productivity and growth, but also for the economy's resilience against shocks. The current paper analyses the relationship between the individuals’ levels of computer skills and the employment in the ICT sector among the EU Member States in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The levels of computer skills among individuals in the EU were analysed in the context of the need to adapt to remote work, access information and services, and participate in the digital economy. The research methodology involves correlation and regression analyses to assess the relationship between individuals' computer skills and ICT employment among the EU Member States. The results confirm a strong positive correlation between computer skills and employed ICT specialists, while emphasizing the need for comprehensive approaches to improve the EU population’s computer skills through long-term commitment and collaboration among various stakeholders. The research concludes that increased computer skills can lead to job creation and contribute to the digital transformation and economic development of the European ICT sector.

Digital financial literacy has recently piqued the interest of researchers and policymakers worldwide, especially in India. Financial inclusion could be effectively achieved by promoting digital financial literacy. Digitalization and faster internet technologies lead to a greater rural and urban digital divide due to their digital incompetency and illiteracy. Much literature shows that demographic variables namely age, gender, marital status, level of education, social groups, religion, profession, size of the family, APL/BPL, and the size of the landholding has a significant relation with digital financial literacy. Therefore, all these factors should be taken into account when developing financial training programmes to improve digital financial literacy. This paper tries to identify the relationship between digital financial literacy and demographic factors in rural areas of India. A multi-stage sampling technique has been used for choosing the 500 respondents from the rural areas of the Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh for the study.

Tech start-ups and, especially, unicorns have become a hot topic of today business world. Significant amounts of money have been invested in this sector by venture capital funds in the hope of a good return. However, the criteria and determinants of these investments are fuzzy, and the author has identified a gap in the scientific literature. Therefore, the objective of the present paper is to discover the determinants of venture capital investments in tech start-ups. Based on a secondary dataset, a multifactorial regression model is proposed that explains the appetence for investment of venture capital funds into tech start-ups. The model shows that the amount of funding in start-ups will increase as the number of unicorns and exits strengthens.

There are many advantages to using the technologies of blockchain and artificial intelligence in businesses. Since computers and other machines were created, their capacity to carry out a variety of activities has increased tremendously in recent years. In several fields of employment, people have created robust computer systems that speed up processes and cut down on the amount of time needed to complete a task. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how relying on blockchain and artificial intelligence for logistic processes can greatly improve their efficiency. In order to achieve this purpose, analyses were conducted on academic writings and research done by various authors and specialists. Moreover, the method of the case study was used. The results show that, in the logistics sector, blockchain technology and artificial intelligence have several potential advantages and uses, including traceability, transparency, smart contracts, authenticity verification, freight tracking, and cybersecurity. However, there is still confusion and skepticism regarding the use of these new technologies.

The paper pleads for the importance of organizational diagnosis in order to develop new employee-centred strategies. In order to remain competitive, especially in the COVID-19 context, organizations from the IT&C industry needs to improve employee-centred strategies and to align the business processes with these strategies. The empirical research aims to provide through quantitative and qualitative sources an accurate picture of the organizational diagnosis in order to adapt suitable HR processes. The study uses 300 employee responses from the IT&C industry in order to draw the positive elements (eg. good perception of organizational leadership, excellent communication in teams and satisfaction towards adaption to COVID-19 pandemic) and areas to improve (such as for example: workload, internal bureaucracy and integration as well as adaptability and organizational change) resulted from the organizational diagnosis.

The risks derived from climate change and the social inequalities of the economic model en-danger the continuity of society as we know it. The investment community is developing financial products in order to channel the environ-mental and social transition process, with green bonds and social bonds being key instruments to facilitate the change of model. In just a few years, investments made in assets that respect environmental sustainability, social responsibility and good management practices have in-creased from 12% to 42% of total investments made by investors around the world. The current paper it is intended to discuss the regulation and evolution of green bonds since its inception in 2007, globally and nationally, focusing on the principles of implementation, benefits and role of the COVID-19 pandemic in issuing green bonds.

This paper analyzes the consequences of the diplomatic conflict that began in 2014 between the European Union and the Russian Federation caused by the political and military crisis in Ukraine. In March 2014, the leaders of the European Union condemned the actions of Russia in Ukraine and imposed the first restrictive measures against Russian Federation. In turn, Russia took retaliatory measures materialised in an import ban on certain agricultural food products from the EU. The aim of this research is to identify and evaluate the impact of the sanctions and countersanctions on the economy of the Russian Federation and on bilateral trade between Russia and EU member states. This article will focus on the following main objectives: analyzing the evolution of trade relations between the two major powers in the period 2014-2019, determining the factors that may explain the decline in bilateral trade during the period mentioned above and the factors that may explain why some EU Member States have suffered higher losses than others. In order to achieve the proposed objectives, both qualitative and quantitative analyses were used. Official documents, academic articles and studies conducted by various prestigious think-tanks were analysed. Also, the research is based on consistent trade data between the European Union and the Russian Federation.

The present paper attempts to deal with two classical themes in a new and fresh context. The amount of works on leadership and entrepreneurship is vast, but the authors identified a gap in the research of these concepts in relation with tech start-ups, a domain that developed significantly in the recent period. The authors performed a detailed literature review, followed by an interview with a selected panel of entrepreneurs in Romania. The results of the study highlights few important trends related to the leadership traits of Romanian entrepreneurs. The results also confirmed a positive mindset and attitude which triggers an optimistic outlook for the Romanian entrepreneurial ecosystem.

This paper’s objectives are the following: describing the impact of the COVID 19 crisis on the mechanism of export-import operations; the evolution of Romania’s export-import activities during 2020-2021 and identifying some recommendations meant to help companies fight the sanitary crisis’ effects. The study is based on a theoretical research investigating the impact of the sanitary crisis on the management of an export-import operation. Due to disruptions in global supply chains, the companies operating in the field of international trade had to redefine their operating strategies for the foreign markets. The magnitude of these changes related to the transactional mechanism specific to export-import activities will lead to profound mutations in the global supply chain, with benefits in term of resilience in all phases of the supply chain.

The East-West Romanian labor market disparities occurred and have been amplified by the rapid regional economic progress based on entrepreneurial spirit, corroborated with specific market opportunities. The end of the second millenium marked the liberalization of the Romanian labor market due to the transition from the planned economy to the open economy. As a result of this transition, the economic globalization phenomenon occurred and shaped Romania, both positively and negatively. However, at the beginning of the twenty-third century, some Romanian economic sectors are facing serious issues as far as the labor force is concerned, or rather the lack of labor force. The objective of this research paper was to explore the East-West Romanian labor market disparities under the influence of globalization and entrepreneurship through the lens of socio-economic indicators. Results confirm that the Eastern Romania is encountering serious labor issues with direct effect on particular economic sectors.

This paper aims to present how new industries have emerged taking advantage of related businesses crowded in specific areas - first, through a review of the current literature on the evolution of industries within clusters; second, through a case study that disseminates the theoretical findings. Undoubtedly, as the findings of previous studies have shown, new industries are increasingly important to the world economy due to their technological power of modernization. Because their potential is as great as their uncertain outlook, it is no surprise that these new industries are growing within clusters, already confirmed in the literature as drivers of competitiveness and economic development.

European Union banking industry is subject to numerous changes in the daily activities performed, having to adapt the business to a wide range of impacting factors. Among these, the blockchain technology has a significant potential in updating the current context, aspect highlighted by academic environment, researchers and innovation specialists. Current research paper has the intent to identify the areas where the blockchain technology could impact the EU banking industry, analyse the scenarios and make possible praises for the evolution of business in banking.