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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.

One of the main limitations identified in the specialized literature is represented by the insufficient quantification of the environmental externalities in the process of carrying out the economic analysis within the cost-benefit analysis for the urban mobility projects specific to the local public authorities. Cost-benefit analysis is an essential tool for prioritizing public investment. The research methodology used in this paper includes data analysis, observation and data modeling. The purpose of this paper is represented by the analysis of the monetization of the environmental externalities specific to the economic analysis of the projects in the field of urban mobility of Oradea Municipality. Economic analysis involves estimating the contribution of a public investment to the economic well-being of a city, region or country and is very important because it also includes the economic and social benefits of an investment. In Romania, the economic analysis is mandatory for all investment projects that involve conducting a feasibility study. Socio-economic analysis involves making fiscal corrections, corrections for externalities and transformation into accounting prices. Externalities can be positive or negative and can be caused by production or consumption. Negative externality is an external cost and positive externality is an external benefit. In performing a cost-benefit analysis when an investment is analyzed from an economic point of view, externalities must be quantified from a monetary point of view. Shadow prices are monetary values attributed to externalities. These shadow prices are used in economic analysis specific to cost-benefit analysis. Shadow prices are assigned when market prices are not known accurately or when it is difficult to quantify certain costs. An example of a shadow price is the value attributed to the emission cost of one tonne of carbon dioxide. A limitation of this paper is represented by the fact that we analyzed only the environmental externalities specific to urban mobility. In future works I want to expand the research of other externalities and to carry out the economic analysis at the level of investment projects of local importance.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a non-economic, external, and unpredictable shock which directly affects the real economy, having the potential to degenerate into an economic and financial crisis. The paper aim is to find an institutional and structural way by which the economies could manage such shocks without covering unspecified risks or handling unknown uncertainties. In fact, the paper proposes a sui generis immune system of the economy which consists in endowing that economy with an anti-fragile potential to oppose against perturbations (either external or internal), no matter what kind, or their intensity, and even to gain from those perturbations. The proposal is analogous, from structural and functional point of view, with the biological immune mechanism, but it is designed on institutional bases (both discretionary and automatic). The anti-fragility property is more relevant and productive than other similar properties, such as: robustness, resilience, homeostasis and so on.

The author is addressing the problem of systematic inclusion of the topics of social economy into the accredited higher education study programmes in Slovenia. To support the actuality of the research problem, education in social economyis shown as public policies priority on national and European level. The paper aims to answers the question of existence of social economy courses in the study programmes on business (and business-related management) and the question about correspondence of the content of these courses to the needs for competences of actors in the sector of social economy. The paper also presents different types of inclusion of the topics of social economy into the systems of higher education in Europe with the purpose to show possible directions for further development of social economy education in higher education system in Slovenia. The results of the research aim to have didactical, developmental and advocacy value and applicability.

The maritime industry faces the challenge of implementing a digital culture inherent in the 21st century and a modern way of doing business in shipping, maritime ports, and a more expansive, within a whole maritime logistic chain. The main question is the implications for marketing when the maritime business's digital transformation is an emerging issue. The paper is designed using the PEST impact matrix. The systematic literature review, literature analysis, and synthesis are the main methods applied. The most important results are political, economic, social, and technological changes of modern maritime business and their important implications for maritime marketing. These implications revealed the nature of change, the anticipated impact of change, opportunity or threats, and marketing's strategic response to the contemporary external environment.The paper fills the current literary gap and draws attention to the trends of the marketing, business organization, and human resource management in the maritime industry. All is linked with digital culture, which is still developing within the maritime industry.

It is valuable to take note that the majority of financial reporting pundits are in agreement that the financial reporting system of a country depends on several factors that include the legal, economic, and cultural background; The development of tasks performed by accounting is persistently inspired by needs of practice. It is clear of that accounting schemes play an essential role in the market economy, particularly in face of globalization of capital markets, where increasing need for comparable, transparent financial statements for the companies. Rather, it is proposed to present information that is used in making reasoned options amongst alternative uses of limited resources in the conduct of business and economic activities. The present paper discusses the possibilities to improve the accounting policies and procedures in Jordan and other Middle East countries in accordance with commitment of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Throughout this study we used a qualitative approach, to outline an overview of the history of financial reporting and its evolution from the origin, to the growth and development of accounting systems by studying a considerable amount of bibliographic material, using different textbooks and journals on accounting theories but also public information presented by the accounting organisations and the government of the two analysed countries. Furthermore, the paper reviewed the achievements made in the convergence of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), in the Middle East countries, in Jordanian context and in the European Union, specifically the case of Romania. International financial reporting standard (IFRS) implementation in Jordan has departed through several transitional phases wile in our previous work we noticed that Romania can be considered a benchmark of high degree convergence to IFRS.

Nowadays, tourism plays an essential role in economic growth and development in many countries. Tourists have different travelling motivations and behavioural manifestations, helping tour operators decide suitable for them. Developing a dark tourism niche concept is a necessary step for correct use of it in theory and practice. Dark tourism is an important concept studied in the past twenty years in worldwide literature. This empirical paper aimed to determine the tourists’ motivations for travelling to Romania’s dark tourism destinations and establishing them. A quantitative research method was applied based on a survey using a non-probabilistic technique based on convenience sampling. Secondary, it was studied the relationship between motivational determinants and tourists’ attitude-behaviour in visiting dark tourism sites (Theory of Planned Behaviour, TPB). The survey conducted online was primarily made of 40 items evaluated on the Likert scale. It has been used a sample based on 475 Romanian respondents: 72.3% who had already visited a dark tourism destination in Romania, and 27.8% who stated they planned to visit one. The theoretical framework has analysed five constructs as motivational determinants in the relationships with behavioural construct attitude (TPB). The results show support for two of five research hypotheses (H1 and H4). Dark experience (H1) and Unique learning experience (H4) have a significant and positive effect on Attitude. We did not find any significant effect of Engaging entertainment, Casual interest, and Emotional recreation on Attitude. Hence, H2, H3 and H5 are not supported. Based on these results, the government can develop tourism economic and marketing policy to develop dark tourism as important post-communist niche tourism. The practitioners can develop and promote tourism packages and products by applying the correct use of dark tourism sense. The present scientific paper’s originality is given by the lack of literature review studies based on empirical research on this topic. Limits of the research and future research directions are also pointed out in the conclusion part.

This paper follows the already existing literature to address three main pressing concerns that Romania is currently facing with respect to sustainable development and economic growth, which has likely been impeded as a direct consequence of the ongoing sanitary crisis. The research questions of this paper were asked with the consideration of finding possible solutions to the current developments. These questions were “How will the global health crisis project on Romania’s GDP growth in 2021 and going forward?”, “To what extent can Romania face its current challenges with respect to the budgetary pressures?”. The research itself was conducted using the R programming language with quantitative data, namely quarterly GDP starting from 2005 Q1 onwards and its main objective is to simulate Romania’s GDP to answer the aforementioned questions. Therefore, this research is empirical in the sense that it derives the simulated data from real data which was taken from Eurostat. The main findings of this research were that Romania’s GDP could grow by a mean 3.2% in 2021, which is more conservative than the existing institutional forecasts made by the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the Romanian National Commission for Strategy and Forecasting, implying that the majority of the simulated outcomes have been in that respective range of values. Moreover, this research also finds that consumption is expected to increase by approximately 4.2% and that the budget deficit relative to GDP could go as low as to negative 7.8%. This paper creates value for future policymaking as it proposes solutions which could help Romania going forward. Thus, this paper creates value for not only the policymakers but the society as a whole.

This study analyses existing literature review studies on banking sector performance. Specially, this research aim is to identify topics of interest and development niche for this vast field. The paper presents a content analyses of 14 literature review on banking sector performance studies, selected using clear and transparency methodology. The content analysis of the papers identified that themes are diverse: banking performance and efficiency analysed using the DEA (Data Envelope Analysis) method, banking efficiency and risk, banking efficiency and competition, mobile banking and bank profitability. Based on selected papers this study identified that in recent years number of systematic literature revie studies increase, in the same time traditional literature review are decreasing.

Insurance services are a special category of services, characterized by a high standardization and at the request of customers to protect themselves from a number of financial losses that they may suffer as a result of risks. For this reason, it is very important that insurers provide quality services to customers. Customer satisfaction is paramount for attracting new customers and retaining existing ones, thus achieving a loyal customer base. They will recommend the insurance company and other potential customers if they are satisfied, thus increasing the market share of the insurance company. The quality of insurance services and the relationship between the insurance company and the client have been the subject of many studies over time, most often being followed by the impact that the quality of services has on their behavior. Starting from the identified problem, I set out in this paper to look at how consumers' perceptions of the quality of insurance services influence their perceptions of their relationship with the insurance company and implicitly their behaviour towards it. Starting from these approaches, we aimed in this paper to see what is the meaning given by the consumers of the insurance services of the company Allianz Țiriac to the concept of quality of insurance services. Our study consisted of an extensive process, carried out in several stages of work, namely: elaboration of the questionnaire addressed to the insurance company's clients, establishing the sample, collecting data based on questionnaires, centralizing and processing the data and interpreting the results. The case study took place over a month, on a sample of 300 people, most of the respondents are between 26 and 45 years old, who work in the private sector and came monthly between 1800-290 lei. The GAP analysis highlights some aspects of the services offered by Allianz Țiriac. A negative GAP highlights the unfavorable aspects of the services provided by the insurance company and raises an alarm about the situation of the company.

Marketing communication for green brands and products should not be seen exclusively as a means to attract and impress consumers with the most beautiful and spectacular green messages. All messages communicated to the public must have a solid foundation, which most of the time can be represented by the attributes of the green product or by its benefits for the environment, community and for the current and future generations of consumers. In this regard, marketing communication, as part of the green marketing strategy, faces several challenges. On the one hand, green communication has the role of educating and informing the public about the specific benefits of green products in order to determine the public to adopt a pro-ecological behavior. On the other hand, the communication approaches must respond to the exigencies of the green field, in order to avoid the social and ecological criticisms, as well as the categorizing of the organization's actions as part of the greenwashing phenomenon. Therefore, the purpose of this theoretical paper is to identify the typology of green marketing communication strategies. The paper is based on secondary data sources, namely the literature on green marketing communication, focusing on specific communication strategies. This study reviews and synthesizes 39 relevant articles related to the researched subject, which have been identified in academic databases. In literature have been identified five defining criteria for communication strategies, along with specific strategic alternatives. We note the need to continue the research in this field, in order to develop other strategic alternatives that respond to the specific problems of this market and that offer the opportunity for green brands to position themselves effectively.

This paper aims to analyse the determinants affecting the trading of services and examine the causality between the trading of services and the factors affecting the trade. For the study, the fixed effects panel data regression has been used. The results indicate that as the income of a country increases, its trade in services also increases. The use of the internet and mobile phones are also important indicators of trade in services and an increase in their use reduces the cost of trading services. Free trade agreements play an important role in developing countries like Brazil and China for trading services. The paper has been organized as follows –the first section gives a brief introduction about services and the objectives of the study, the second section is a discussion about the existing literature, section three gives the data and methodology used for this study, the fourth section provides the results and analysis, section five concludes the study, and the last section discusses some of the limitations of the study.

Although, there is no generally definition for the term “Emerging Markets”, there are two representative features for emerging countries. First, these markets are characterized by rapid growth which is usually expressed in terms of income levels and population. The term of emerging economies refers to nations with social and business activity in the process of fast growth and industrialization. Emerging markets countries are assumed to play a decisive role in international trade and finance as well as to contribute significantly to the global economic growth. Entering an emerging market is not easy. Opportunities in the emerging markets come with their own set of challenges. Doing business in Emerging Markets reflects the challenges and opportunities facing international businesses and professionals when operating in emerging markets. There is intense competition among emerging countries to capture their share of the global economy. Emerging markets are commonly considered relatively riskier than developed markets as they carry supplementary political, economical and currency risks. As a result, these markets could be good investments for diversification purposes. These economies are growing fast, so the information that is defining them is easily outdated as their structure is quickly evolving. My research contains a theoretical introduction, literature review and also applied statistics on a dataset. In this paper I apply linear regression using IBM SPSS Statistics in order to measure the profitability for 51 banks from China during the period 2016 to 2019. The purpose of my research paper is to analyze the profitability of Chinese banks using two important profitability indicators: Return on Assets and Net Profit Margin. ANOVA is used to verify if the regression model is a good fit for the data. Also, I present descriptive statistics that show a general overview for the variables. The variables that are in the center of analysis are Return of Assets and Net profit Margin. For a more detailed analysis, Pearson Correlation was performed in order to verify the association between the variables that are in the interest of my research paper.

This paper presents a comparison between the net present value (NPV) and the optimal solution of the linear program in order to offer an alternative perspective on the decision process. In the decision process, companies have to use more tools in order to make the right decision and to increase their values. So, using these two tools, namely, the net present value and the solution of the optimization problems, the companies will put together the expected benefits of the fixed asset investments and the available or potential resources. Using only one of these tools means that the company is oriented either to the future benefits of the fixed asset or to the investment capacity, with all technical or financial restrictions. The NPV is determined by using the standard formula while the optimal solution for the resource allocation is obtained by using the Simplex Algorithm and The Big M Penalty method. The comparison and combination of these indicators are used in the company's acquisition process and create some debates on the results in the acquisition process. The significant advantage of this paper is the improvement of the decision process in acquisitions by providing information from both the internal business environment and the external environment. Also, this comparison combines technical and financial information, which will make the decision of acquisition more reliable. There are some limits to this research. One limit is that it does not consider the possibility of delaying the investments since the NPV compares the now-investing to never-investing attitudes. Another limit is that the Simplex Algorithm offers a restrictive horizon of the decision since its components are expressed in positive integers. These two disadvantages may be discussed in further research, firstly, by appealing for the cost delay for making the right decision at the right time, and secondly, by using the fuzzy number in order to make the decisions in the fixed assets acquisition process more flexible. This last recommendation could replace the sensitivity analysis, which is a more complicated way to make the decision more flexible.

The paper introduces the concept of excessive pricing within the framework of the competition policy. Charging high prices by an undertaking is a natural freedom in the context of a market economy. Still, a company that detains an important market power has a special economic and social responsibility to ensure that its conduct does not distort competition or negatively affect the consumers’ welfare on that market. A company in such a position is deemed to poses a dominant position on the market. Specifically, in regard with the notion of excessive pricing, a dominant undertaking should not make use of the opportunities arising out of its special market power in such a way as to gain trading profits which it would not have benefit if there had been sufficiently competition. The paper briefly analyzes the method used when establishing dominance, as well as various forms of abuse of a dominant position on the market, finally focusing on the evaluation of excessive prices. Relevant excessive pricing cases are presented, covering 45 years of European experience, since 1975 to the present day. In regard with the evolution of the methodology for analyzing potential excessive prices by the competition authorities, the cost/tariff comparison as part of the United Brands test is a cornerstone in the European jurisprudence. The notion of ‘economic value’ is for the first time used in 1978 and criteria set in the United Brands case provide for a 2 steps approach to the assessment of excessive prices. Other ways of assessing excessive pricing are dealt with, as the European Court of Justice observed that economic theorists have not failed to think up several methods to deal with the issue. Yardstick competition and the elimination of the excessive costs from the evaluation are examples of such alternative methodologies used when analyzing excessive prices. The paper concludes with the presentation of the recent European Commission investigation into excessive pricing in the pharmaceutical sector, and proposes the idea that monopoly companies’ tariffs might be easier to evaluate in the context of excessive pricing.

Social media, and social networking, have changed the business landscape, both for companies that have adopted them and for those that have not. By definition, social media represent platforms where members share content with a wide audience, with the focus on the content, while social networking sites are more centered on conversations and groups having the same interests. Facebook, which pulls the line dividing the two types of interactions, has 600,000 regular users worldwide and welcomes companies, organizations, and brands to use its platform to connect with their audience. Almost all social networks have incorporated a measure of social media, allowing users to become curators of the interesting content they find, sharing links, images, and short personal stories. Businesses which have learned to create content and engage in conversations are already ‘in the stream' – and more and more, internet users expect they will be able to interact with their favorite brands. Companies that have embraced this have a definite advantage over those which have not. The aim of this paper is to investigate the role and economic impact of social media on businesses. It aims to investigate the benefits available from the use of the internet and social media sites for businesses. Social media have a positive impact on businesses and offer an opportunity for their audience to find them on social media. It helps to reach to their targeted audience, stay engaged with them and respond to their questions instantly. It is a great way to evaluate their competition by monitoring their social media pages. The paper focuses on the multiple positive impacts on business in terms of brand recognition, customer engagement, revenue, and customer service. It emphasizes the importance of social media in the growth of businesses, being also a great tool to evaluate their competitors and how they are using social media for their growth. By using social media, business are taking every opportunity to increase awareness of trade and development opportunities in a way that drives changes in behavior and inspires action. Doing so connects a certain industry with business opportunities abroad and leads to sustainable development in partner countries.

The start of a crisis, whether it is a financial, health, or any other crisis, is a negative macroeconomic phenomenon, with consequences for both the entire world and the European Union. The coronavirus epidemic manifested itself in European countries in the spring of 2020, leading to the emergence of economic imbalances amid slowing and shrinking economic activity. The measures taken by European states are unprecedented compared to those adopted in the previous crisis, ranging from financial support to individuals and legal entities, deferral of taxes and other debts, legislative changes, and the acceptance of work from home in more and more branches activity, which until this period was not possible. This paper aims to study and analyze the evolution of public debt and budget deficit in the European Union, but also the measures taken by the Member States in the context of COVID-19 compared to those during the financial crisis in 2009. In addition to this analysis, in this paper, I intend to identify the growth rate of public debt in the Member States in 2009/2008 compared to 2020/2019. To compile this paper, I will use statistical data taken from the Eurostat website on public debt and budget deficit, but also data taken from the European Commission`s AMECO database, section “Economic and Financial Affairs” which includes forecasts on public debt for the year 2020. Regarding the research method used, it consists of both descriptive analysis, dynamic macroeconomic analysis using graphs, and comparative analysis according to the objectives pursued throughout the research. Comparing with the way the information is presented in the bibliography used and found at the end of the paper, in this paper are found only the essential aspects, the particularities of the chosen research topic, which finally provides the overview.

The paper presents some philosophical practices and categories that can be successfully applied in organizations, trends that come from the openness manifested by aesthetics, a field of philosophy that although initially was dedicated to the art and concept of beauty, now it shows an opening for everyday life, where the interpersonal communication is present. The application of concepts and categories specific to aesthetics was developed in the form of applied philosophical norms and concepts, and will positively influence the communication process that takes place in organizations at all its levels. The aesthetic concepts may be involved in other activities of the organization, such as marketing, building branding or in promotion and advertising actions, or active participation to building messages and press communicating, preparing the company's mission statement, organizing events, presence and promotion of the organization in online, activities that will take into account and compliance to some rules derived from aesthetics. The elements taken from aesthetics are the form of some categories, defined since antiquity by Aristotle, synthetically reformulated by Kant, and contemporary, they are adapted to other forms of the social application, in a new applied concept called the organizational aesthetics, which can be successfully introduced into the practice of any organization, with beneficial effects on the organization as a whole, but also on the community in their areas. The introduction of the new concept of aesthetics applied in organizations can have a wider area of implementation than that of organizational communication, such as social actions of the organization, with effects in developing the social responsibility applied in the community and to increase the organization's reputation, both within the community and in the business environment where it is located. The paper also indicates some adaptations of organizational communication for periods of crisis, with the recommendation to include in the communication process rules and concepts specific to applied aesthetics, in order to maintain the current trend of including them in business consultancy, offered in the form of specialized services of philosophical practice, through the new specialists called the organizational philosophical consultants. Other philosophical practices and the ethics applied in organizations are briefly presented in the paper, projected to support leaders and managers in making optimal decisions, which can benefit from professional organizational consulting and ethics services, which are promoted through a new specialization in Romania, that of the philosophical counselling and the consultancy applied in organizations and communities.

More natural than analytical thinking, design thinking provides solutions to common dilemmas. Fundamentally, it is a human centered and collaborative approach. It all starts with empathy, through the help of a deep research. Furthermore, banking success resides from understanding customers, not exclusively from profits. It is necessary to figure out human thinking, the needs and desires of customers, in order to have a portfolio of appropriate products and services. This is where success comes from. Having this desideratum, the paper analyzes the characteristics of the design thinking method and the digital elements that appear in the banking sector. Certainly, the biggest challenges in the banking system are generated by the digital transformation, by emphasizing the relationship with customers and current social trends. Consequently, Bank of America is an example of a successful application of the design thinking method. Likewise, the beneficial impact that the design thinking method can have on the bank’s employees should not be ignored. Through this research paper, there was analyzed the environment of the banking system which is influenced by design thinking.

This paper presents the impact of inventory level on the financial ratios, namely Return on assets and Debt to assets ratio. This study is designed to help managers to establish an efficient inventory level to obtain a high ROA and a low D/A, which indicates that the company is doing well in managing its resources, can attract more investors and can meet financial obligations with its resources. Determining the inventory level that generates a high ROA and a low D/A is possible using the Primal or Dual Simplex Algorithm. Primal Simplex Algorithm has some limits in determining the inventory level, so the Dual is preferable. Using Dual, the company can simulate more production plans until the optimal stock level is obtained. Also, the Dual Algorithm can help managers to identify the initial optimal solution in the shortest time possible and to re-optimize this solution until the ROA and D/A have the expected value. This possibility of re-optimization is important nowadays due to the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the sales: the company can model the production plan whenever the demand is changing and can simulate the production process which generates the best ROA and D/A that can be obtained even if the revenues decrease or the liabilities increase. This paper presents the initial production plan created by the managers, a worst-case scenario (most common in crisis), where the turnover decreases, the ROA is low and D/A is high, and a best-case scenario (the ideal one), where the turnover increases and ROA and D/A have optimal values. Forecasting inventory level, and therefore ROA and D/A has also the advantage that it could avoid a potential conflict of interest between shareholders and managers. Despite these advantages, there are some limits: firstly, using Dual Simplex Algorithm on determining the inventory level that generates a high ROA or a low D/A makes managers simulate several times until the optimal solution is obtained and secondly there are some short them debts that are not considered. The first limit would be removed in further research, by using fuzzy numbers.

Abstract Elite higher education institutions are notable for developing a significant number of graduates who assume leadership positions. This highlights the importance of integrating the two fields of elite education and leadership education. This paper seeks to address the central questions of how leaders will be cultivated and what elite higher education institutions will look like in 2030. To explore these inquiries, a case study was conducted at a German graduate school using the future workshop methodology. The process involved four creative workshops and an online survey, employing both top-down and bottom-up approaches. Through this participatory process, an image of the future of an elite graduate school for leadership in 2030 was developed. This image can serve as a starting point for contemporary higher education institutions to prepare themselves for and actively contribute to shaping a promising future.

Promotion has been and it is considered by famous authors as the key to any successful business in tourism. This fact reveals the need for this activity in any tourism business, at any level. The literature associates the promotion activity with the marketing activity but the practice has shown that the promotion can take place in the absence of a marketing plan or a promotion strategy. Moreover, promotion in tourism is closely linked to human activities without being able to specify an exact moment in history when these activities began to take place. Thus, this paper aims to make a journey through history to mark the moment of the promotion as an individual activity, which is interfering with the marketing activity. At the same time, by reviewing the specialized literature, this article wants to make the transition to the new communication paradigm, identifying the guidelines and its implications at the level of the tourism enterprise. The article presents the results of a theoretical, qualitative research, creating the theoretical framework for the development of tourism promotion, from antiquity to the present based on the review of the literature. The conclusions of this research highlight the contrast between the first manifestations of the promotional activity, the characteristic elements of the old paradigm and the new communication paradigm.

The first part of the article presents a short theoretical approach of unemployment, and the more consistent part is based on the statistical analysis of unemployment at the level of Bihor County. The analyzed period is represented by the years 2019-2021. For the current analysis, we have chosen the problem of unemployment during the pandemic, from a theoretical but also concretely applied perspective, since unemployment represents a complex psychosocial and economic phenomenon, and its dimensions and dynamics highlight the state of a society, but also the concerns for the implementation of active policies, which aim at increasing the employment rate, but also the quality of life. This paper analyzes the dynamics of unemployment in the period 2019-2021, but also the job protection measures implemented by the public employment system. Thus, the objectives of the research consist in the analysis of the unemployment indicators in Bihor County in the pre-pandemic period and in the pandemic period and of the special measures adopted in order to solve the problems generated by the health crisis. The used research method was the analysis of documents; we have analyzed the Activity Reports of Bihor County Agency for Employment (AJOFM Bihor) for the years 2020 and 2021 and the legal regulations adopted in order to protect employees and employers during this period. The analysis of statistical data revealed that the maximum number of unemployed people in the records of Bihor County Agency for Employment (AJOFM Bihor) was recorded in March 2021 (6,280 people), and the unemployment rate on this date was 2.36%. Two measures adopted by the government and implemented by the National Employment Agency through the County Employment Agencies had a major impact in maintaining jobs during the pandemic: technical unemployment and reduced working hours. Thus, in 2021 compared to 2020, the

The importance of the role played by SMEs in the global economy and their contribution to job creation, added value, innovation and growth is widely acknowledged, therefore it is extremely necessary to support their development. In order to be competitive, SMEs also rely on external financing, not only through financial institutions but also through direct participation in the capital market. Managers place great emphasis on financing their businesses, and most of the European companies relying primarily on bank loans as their most important source of founding, unlike in the United States of America, where the activity of stock exchanges is much more developed. This paper aims to study a shared analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of SMEs in Romania regarding financing through financial institutions vs direct participation in the capital market.

Foreign direct investment (hereinafter referred to as FDI) are an important segment of economic-financial activity in the national economy. Being so important they deserve special attention from the politicians as well as an analytical review in scientific terms. FDIare one of the key factors for promoting the country's sustainable economicdevelopment. They have economic and financial impact, but their legal aspect is also very important. This paper elaborates the concept of foreign direct investment, their impact on the national economy and the legal basis of foreign direct investment. As an analytical case is used the Republic of Kosovo, whose institutions are creating policies and are adopting laws for an appropriate environment that affects the attraction of foreign investors and investments. The focus of this paper is the analysis of the concept of FDI, the legal infrastructure, the factors that impact the attraction of investments, and their role in the economic development of the country. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role and importance of FDIfor national economic development as well as the legal security of investments in the Republic of Kosovo. In the elaboration of the paper was used the literature of foreign authors, statistical reports of local and international institutions as well as local legislation dealing withthe regulation of this issue. The main methods used are descriptive methods, methods of analysis and synthesis, statistical methods, legal methods and comparative methods.

Banking operations are increasingly moving from traditional to digital. Special attention of the paper is drawn to the concept of online customer experience. Montenegrin banking sector and customers are not lagging behind the world trends, so the focus of the practical part of research is, through a specially designed questionnaire, online customer experiences, in the opinion of the customers of the bank is ready to provide excellence in the online environment. The aim of this paper is to gain insight into the basic concepts of online customer experiences, which models are used, what are the constraints, and where the areas for improvement are.

This paper examines interconnectedness between Covid-19 and six nested subsystems of our planet: people, economy, society, anthroposphere, biosphere and planetosphere. It argues the complexity inside of them and in their interactions. The main question is what paradigmatic shift related to sustainable development economics did Covid-19 initiate, and what are the changes in paradigmatic manifestations of a post Covid-19 sustainable economic theory. Through comparison between neoclassical economics together with neoclassical paradigm manifestations, and what should be changed to avoid business as usual and enhance environmental economy, the paper concludes that much of everyday economic intellectual constructs and activities, including dominant economic theory is the part of the present reality that is not sustainable and has to be changed.

The paper outlines the types of diplomacy. This brief paper does not include all known and analyzed types of diplomacy. From a certain perspective, diplomacy is also a way of dialogue, of communication between states. Diplomacy seeks to settle and resolve conflicts or remedy differences of an economic, social and other nature. If, for various reasons, they do not find a solution with the help of diplomatic means, only military means are used. From the oldest information about diplomacy, we are informed that the people, respectively the leaders had a certain inclination to try to resolve conflicts, first, through diplomatic means. Even if this process is not necessarily a short-term process, it is preferable to resorting to military means. The latter would cause real disasters and much more material and even human damage. If this happens, it means that at least from a theoretical point of view, negotiations and diplomatic activities have failed. In all this context, it is imperative to take into account the specifics of the actors in question, their language and culture, history, geography, socio-cultural and political influences and, obviously, other elements that could directly influence or indirectly, the activity and the external relations. Thus, without limiting ourselves to these factors, we must admit that the existence of several types of diplomacy is generated. A good external relationship implicitly determines the advantages of those who are involved, advantages of an economic, commercial and other nature. In this way we can distinguish several types of diplomacy, among which we mention: British, German, French and Italian. In general, each state seeks to achieve certain objectives, and to achieve them it is involved in the international diplomatic sphere. Involvement in the diplomatic sphere also means cultivating foreign relations with as many states as possible, especially those with which it seeks to develop business relations, partnerships and agreements in various fields.

The e-commerce has changed the way companies conduct business in Romania, leading to lower costs and greater expansion possibilities. The Romanian e-commerce market is constantly growing and exceeded 4.3 billion Euros in 2019. There are several types of e-commerce, according to the nature and dynamics of the transactional relationships, but this paper refers to the most common and relevant for the end consumer: the business to consumer (B2C) e-commerce activities. The purpose of this paper is to present the major barriers to B2C e-commerce adoption perceived by Romanian consumers, from social, behavioural, educational and economic perspectives. There is still a large gap between Romania and the other European Union countries regarding the adoption of e-commerce. Even though the Romanian e-commerce market registers a double-digit yearly increase, it has not yet reached its maturity level, as only 23% of the Romanians made at least one online purchase in 2019, compared to 63% of all the European Union citizens. The most significant barriers to e-commerce adoption in Romania are social and behavioural, followed by educational and financial. 43% of the Romanian population didn’t shop online due to the need for human interaction when shopping, lack of trust or force of habit, compared to 23% of the Europeans. 7% of the Romanians consider themselves not skilled enough to shop online and 5% did not engage in e-commerce activities because they do not possess a payment card, although most of online shops accept cash on delivery as a payment method. Moreover, 80% of the Romanian buyers prefer it instead of card payment. From the managerial point of view, understanding the major perceived barriers the Romanian consumers face when purchasing online is an important endeavour of the e-commerce companies. Consequently, they can adjust the business models, promotional activities and advertising efforts to help consumers overcome their perceived barriers to e-commerce and therefore, expand their clients’ base.

The present paper intends to present the impact of different factors, such as - the legal standard breached by the host state, the method used in calculating the damages and the requested amount, on the damages awarded in ICSID - International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes – concluded cases in which the Tribunal ordered the Respondent to pay damages to the Claimant, and that damages had been calculated based on the market value. Usually, the Company Valuation process is driven by economists following the frame settled by the International Standards, which recommends three main categories of valuation bases: asset approach, income approach or market approach. The damages valuation in ICSID Cases are made primary following the same rules, and in the present paper will be presented the ones using the market value approach. We will present three regression analysis based on the 7 cases that are meeting these conditions, cases that were started against countries such as: Russia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Slovak Republic, Georgia or Macedonia. The industries from which these cases aroused are different, we are talking about petroleum industry, tourism, bank and finance. Going further in analysis in order to see which was the breach identified by the Tribunal, we can see that there is not any direct link between the valuation approach and the legal standard breached by the Respondent but we can find a direct link between the standard breached and the amount awarded. In the cases presented in the following pages we will see that in some cases we were taking about expropriation and in other about breaching the fair and equitable treatment that the host state must insure to the foreign investor. Anyway, these cases had a common aspect, and that is the fact that were other valuations approaches were presented by the claimants, those had higher values. The present paper is an analysing study, using the statistical instrument of regression, based on a previous paper published by the authors in which was presented a briefly description of those cases in which the ICSID Tribunal decided the amount of damages to be paid by the Respondent, using the market approach.

The exchange of information between market competitors has been analyzed from multiple economic perspectives. Taking into account the competition policy and its antitrust rules it is important that the exchange is evaluated exactly by the people who participate in discussions and meetings, because there is a real danger that the exchange of economic information might turn into a cartel. Thus, companies represented at meetings where such discussions take place are exposed to serious sanctions from the competition authorities, which can affect not only their commercial reputation but also the solidity of their market position. Cartels represent illegal agreements between undertakings and are one of the most pernicious anti-competitive practices, being targeted by competition authorities around the world. They create allocation inefficiency and reduce companies’ incentives to provide new or better products and services at competitive prices. The companies involved in a cartel are sanctioned in all European jurisdictions with fines up to 10% of their turnovers. The information exchanged may consist in future prices or future quantities, individual data about costs and demand, statistical data, aggregated data. The analysis of the competition risks over the collusive potential of information exchanged has to be done on a case by case basis and the undertakings should take into account factors like the market’s concentration degree, the elasticity of the demand on the market, the age of information exchanged, the public/non-public character of the data and the frequency of the information exchange. Sometimes it is difficult to draw a clear line between the legitimate exchanges of information on the market and the illegitimate exchanges. This paper analyzes the good practices in the field, as well as concrete examples of information exchanges to be avoided by companies, based on the enforcement activities of the European Commission and of the Romanian Competition Authority. The impact of COVID-19 outbreak over the antitrust rules on exchange of information is tackled in the paper as well, as unprecedented approaches are put into practice by the European Commission. The paper concludes with practical recommendations for the business environment, presenting the do’s and don’ts framework in a concise manner. Compliance with the antitrust rules regarding the exchange of information is a need for most of the undertakings, regardless of size, especially for those that are part of trade associations and / or professional organisations.

One of the main topics of debate in the specialized literature is the analysis of the efficiency of public and private investments and the impact of investments related to economic development, especially at the level of the European Union. The research methodology used in this paper involves data analysis, observation, modeling and interpretation of sensitivity analysis results. I will present the performance of the operational programs in Romania from the two 7-year multiannual budgeting periods of the European Union, 2007 - 2013 and 2014 - 2020. The purpose of this paper is represented by the analysis of investments made through European funds in Romania as well as the way in which the efficiency of these investments can be increased so that European money can lead to an increase in the quality of life in our country. In this paper I want to contribute to the development of literature by analyzing the limits of the use of European funds in Romania in the field of infrastructure and in a future paper I want to extend this analysis to other countries in the European Union. The absorption rate in the period 2007 - 2013 at the level of Romania was about 90%, Romania losing about 2 billion euro, enough money to achieve 400 kilometers of the highway at an average cost of 5 million euros per kilometer. From my point of view, the money received from the European Union has changed Romania for the last 14 years since the accession of 2007. Regarding the financial allocation for the period 2014 - 2020, there is a 72% increase for the Regional Operational Programme, so that for the regional development the beneficiaries have available 6.86 billion euros compared with 3.96 billion euros as they were allocated per funding periods 2007 - 2013. The North East Region, which is one of the least developed region in the European Union, has a lower allocation than the West Region, one of the most developed regions in Romania. This aspect is paradoxical and does not support the balanced territorial development and the reduction of the gaps between the regions.

Innovation is the key to sustainable growth, development and competitiveness, and also the engine of the economic clusters. Nowadays innovative processes are conducted within clusters where each component plays its own strategic role at the highest rate of specialisation. The development of the clusters relies on the cooperation between companies, universities and R&D institutions and local, regional or national authorities. First of all, a cluster emerges due to the spatial proximity of businesses, but the real motivation consists in the need for cooperation; the effect, along with the rational use of resources and the activities’ specialisation, relies in the enhancement of competition, a positive outcome for the economic environment. Within a cluster, the partners share resources and develop future strategies; the mostly known positive outcomes are the specialised labour force, products of higher quality, cost reductions, powerful networks of suppliers and clients, etc. In our paper we aim to assess the cluster phenomenon in Romania and we seek to determine the catalysts for the emergence of the cluster partnerships in Romania. Our approach is bidirectional: firstly we assess a correlation between the economic clusters, as a cause, and as effects, the number of working persons, unemployed persons and recorded turnovers of the regional businesses where the clusters exists; secondly, we analyse the presence of clusters in the selected regions as an effect caused by the size of the active labour force, unemployed persons, number of higher education institutions, population of 25-39 years old, working specialists and technicians and lastly, the recorded turnover, in our opinion, all these six factors being the most relevant for the development of clusters. We considered suitable for our statistical approach to calculate the Pearson coefficient and also to apply the ANOVA method being able to assess also the extent of each factor’s influence on the development of the Romanian clusters. In the last part of this paper the findings are tested by using the Student’s and Fisher’s tests.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the changes that Albanian cultural dimensions’ scores have undergone over time. Hofstede’s Value Survey Module 2013 (VSM 2013) has been applied to examine the six dimensions of culture; power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation and indulgence. The survey data (N = 387) was collected in the two largest private hospitals in Albania. Globalization, technological developments, economical flourishing and crisis, war,and peace, influence the shifting of national cultural dimensions’ scores toward negative or positive values (Hofstede et al., 2010). In this study we aim to show the shifting of Albanian culture value scores in time and compare the results with the ones predicted by the researchers of the field. The results obtained show a negative shift on Albanian culture dimension score of power distance, individualism,long term orientation and indulgence, and a positive shift on masculinity and uncertainty avoidance values. Implications for researchers of the field are discussed in the paper.

Any accounting firm need to develop a system of quality control (SQC), which have the purpose to offer a reasonable assurance, that the accountants or the auditors, and their personnel, respect the professional standards and any legal or regulatory requirements, and the reports issued are appropriate, with the circumstances. The quality control system contains polices and their implementation is achieved through a system of procedures. A company can have a system of quality control, but only as a form, and as result, it is very important for everyone to be able to assess, how effective such a system works. An effective quality control means more than compliance with rules and provisions, and this is the reason why, for an accounting firm, it is very important, not just to have the system, but, also, to have some methods to evaluate how effective this system is. A lot of benefits can result from a robust SQC, regarding competitiveness on the market and the financial performance, and through monitoring controls, an accounting firm apply tests to ensure that controls are designed and works properly. The paper has the purpose to identify whether the accounting practices, small and medium, know how to evaluate the effectiveness of quality control system, and in connection with is, whether they have enough information to develop a set of indicators, which could measure the effectiveness of the firm’s SQC The research is based on descriptive statistics applied on the results of a survey addressed to small and medium practices in accounting and auditing. The results can make their contribution to disseminating how to design the system of indicators used to evaluate the effectiveness of the quality control system. The findings of the paper are not very optimistic, but if, at least it draws attention to the importance of building a set of indicators to measure the effectiveness of the quality control system, the objective has been achieved.

Nowadays, there are numerous initiatives in response to contemporary socio-economic challenges. One possible response could be the social innovation phenomenon defined, according to Avelino et al. (2017), as the changing of social relations and involving new way of doing things. In this context, the aim of the paper is to discuss the empowerment and the social innovations concept by developing the empowerment mechanisms under a social psychology point of view, at one side, and exploring, in an empirical way, how people are empowered through transactional linkages, the translocal network. In particular, it is necessary to identify which translocal empowerment dimension is present across the European countries via the selection and the analysis of the possible social innovation proxies. To do this, it is necessary to comprehend the social innovation determinants at the macro-economic level across the European countries. Using the Akgüҁ multivariate regression model (2019), the paper studies the role of one possible social innovation proxy: the social protection expenditure. Under a methodological point of view, this model is used since it allows the combination between the traditional macro-level variables and the innovative ones, such as cultural norms and fear of failure; and it permits the inclusion of the country-specific characteristics. It also takes into account the macro-economic circumstance, the international financial crisis of 2008 until 2017. This period of analysis permits to control if the international economic crisis in 2008 might have influenced in some way the translocal empowerment dimension and brings together a panel data of different indicators from different data sources, such as Eurostat and Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), which provides measures of the entrepreneurial behaviour within countries. As part of the robustness check, we have used social innovation measures that could include country fixed effects accounting the heterogeneities across European countries. What emerges from the present empirical study is that the translocal network could be considered as a crucial factor for the social innovation implementation, since social innovation actors might access the local resources, developing, at the same time, the ability to interface with the local institutions, present in the current socio-economic system.

Every business has a series of objectives to achieve. Most of the businesses in the field of commerce follow a certain strategy in order to achieve a higher level of turnover or profitability. Over time, the importance of stores in general and supermarkets in particular has increased, with the transition to a consumer society. The consumer behavior thus becomes an important aspect for the way organization generally or the marketing departments develop their strategies. In order to achieve their goals, it is important for companies to be able to attract and maintain a large number of customers. The general trends in this regard, that can be identified worldwide, can be easily observed in the city of Resita also, reason why it can be studied a direct connection between the number of customers and the level of development of the stores. Whether we speak about supermarkets or small, proximity stores, it cannot be denied the fact that the commercial area has gain power and has been extended very much over the years. Still, each of these faced a new threat, namely the expansion of online stores, reason why many of them try to adapt in the digital environment also. Every analysis, however, depends on two perspectives: the consumer perspective and the managerial perspective. The present paper aims to present an overview of the first one, offering the possibility of further development from the managerial point of view. The first part of the paper consists in a theoretical background regarding commercial management, presenting general aspects regarding the consumption phenomenon, while the second part consists in a study carried out on a sample considered representative for the population in the city of Resita, in order to achieve the perspective of customers regarding the development trends of retail businesses in this part of the country.

This paper presents a multidisciplinary research that brings together areas such as finance, behavioral economics, fractal theory and management. Each of them presents a specific methodology for quantifying and measuring the analyzed phenomena. The present paper uses the multidisciplinary approach to the results of applying specific methods in areas such as psychology or exact sciences in the field of managerial finance, areas that apparently have nothing to do with each other. The results obtained from this approach highlight new knowledge, approached from a different perspective. The development of managerial finance science, a field of high interest at the moment at the level of companies, is at the heart of its financial decision-making. The paper analyzes the financing decision of enterprises both from the perspective of listed companies on the capital market as well as of the non-listed companies, and the scientific relevance of this research lies in the various conceptual clarifications presented. The degree of novelty brought by this research is supported by the innovative approach of the financing decision by addressing some elements of fractal theory, behavioral finance and managerial finances. At the same time, the paper highlights the theoretical and practical aspects of innovations in financial decision making. The impact of research results lies in the ability of the models approached to be used by any manager of a company in taking a financing decision in the context of efficient and innovative quantification of risks and performance. The risk associated with a particular form of financing is analyzed and quantified according to the specificity of the selected form of financing. This paper analyzes the defining characteristics of the risks associated with the financing decision taken by the managers of projects inside companies, taking into account the objective characteristics but also the subjective ones. This paper analyzes the innovative elements brought by the modern theories like behavioral finance, game theory, mechanism design-theory, managerial finance and others that have an impact on the financial decision process both at the enterprise level and from the perspective of the decision-making subject.

The paper aims at revealing certain core service elements and features of the nowadays economy that come from services' economics but have general validity. The approach is purely theoretical and we make no mathematical or empirical propositions or developments. The roots from the classical economic thought and from the services literature concerning the service feature are also underlined as characterizing the whole economy developed to the level of a generalized market. The capital role of the business literature (and especially of the marketing developments) in the field of service and services is evoked, but the concern of the paper is for the economics approach, underlining that the most common approaches of this last one are scanty in involving the issue of serving and of service immaterial marks in its very substance. Certain details describing the characteristics of immaterial activities brought by the services economy literature are also evoked, in the purpose of seeing that their validity is not limited to the only most immaterial economic activities, but it is general, at least in the immaterializing nowadays economy. Thus the necessity of including their approach in the scientific theoretical perception of economic phenomena can be revealed, and the importance of capturing such marks in general economics is shown. Therefore, the presentation is focused just on those traits that are not particular (neither for material production, nor for immaterial), but consistent with all the economic activities, no matter their degree of materiality or immateriality. The paper concludes that such elements and approaches should be more profoundly included in economic analyses and more accurately described in theoretical plotting of nowadays economy. Such a research will be of use to scholars and generalists, in improving their approaches and in directing their researches on attempts to take into account widened (and thus more realistic) horizons, if compared with the most usual (rather particular) ones.

The paper examines the effects of trade openness, particularly, import openness and FDI inflows on life expectancy in Nigeria using annual time series data spanning the period from 1981 to 2017. The methodology involves the ARDL approach to cointegration and error correction modeling. The empirical evidence indicates that while import openness adversely affects life expectancy in the country, the effect of FDI inflows is positive, but not significant. Further evidence are that increase in the level of per capita income and government recurrent expenditure in health enhance life expectancy, while inflation adversely affects it. In view of the empirical evidence, the paper recommends, as measures to enhance life expectancy in Nigeria, imposition of restrictions on some categories of imports especially consumer goods (while encouraging domestic production of same through investment-friendly policies, programmes and initiatives, to meet domestic demand for consumer goods), deliberate and conscious effort to enhance the level of per capita real income through encouragement of investment to boost employment, increases in general government expenditure and, expenditure in health in particular, and control of inflation by the monetary and fiscal authorities using appropriate policy instruments.

This paper offers another perspective upon the well-known indicators of Modern Portfolio Theory (created by Harry Markowitz): arithmetic mean or geometric mean for return on financial assets, standard deviation or variance for financial risk, and covariance or correlation between the assets included in the portfolio. This perspective consists of modelling these statistical indicators, using the triangular fuzzy numbers, due to the advantages they have. The first advantage of the fuzzy approach is the returns on financial assets, and the financial asset risks are expressed in intervals with minimum and maximum values, called the triangular fuzzy numbers. This advantage makes the decision of investment more accurate, especially considering the volatility of financial assets. Using triangular fuzzy numbers in estimating the returns based on history of trading, can overcame the fact that past performance is no guarantee for future results, due to the different possibilities of fuzzification. In this paper, the returns will be fuzzified considering the mode value (the most frequent value in a given period of time) of the returns from the past period. This statistical value will help the investors to evaluate the frequency of the last returns and to estimate the most probably frequent value of the returns for the next period. So, the estimation, not only the decision, will be more reliable. The second advantage of using the triangular fuzzy numbers in modelling the financial return and the financial risk is their membership function, which allows the investors to evaluate their investments, depending on the membership degree. The returns of the assets that are closer to the mode return, will be most likely the returns for the next period. The returns that are closer to the limits of the fuzzy intervals, will be less probably the returns for the next period. This assumption has its own gap: the market should have the same conditions as the last period.

This paper analyses the importance of stakeholders’ actions on the effectiveness of the European competition policy. The national governments, European decision-makers, advisory institutions and civil society take the form of interest groups that have expectations, invest resources and advocate on competition policy. The paper follows the process of adopting a specific strategy (insider/outsider), depending on the type of the interest group and it divides the organizations in those with ”strong ties” and ”weak ties”. The goal of each interest group is to arrive at the main European competition law authority, the European Commission. As it has the full power to investigate cases and manage the process, as well as implementing decisions based on proposals, influencing this institution represents a real challenge for the stakeholders. In this process, some relevant aspects are the perfect timing for lobby, the dimension of the lobbying coalitions and also the capacity of attracting supporters of the cause. Interest groups do not have equal amount of influence power nor the resources but they do change the policy, according to their particular interests, by choosing the right strategies, partnerships and means to influence the decision-makers.

Imperfect competition represent a known issue on modern economic analysis. Monopoly case classical induce a worse solution for consumer side but in the oligopoly competition scenario it will be possible to obtain a solution close to perfect competition situation. In this case, two of the most well-known game theory models in imperfect competition are Cournot model, respectively Bertrand model. First one offers an output equilibrium solution, while the second one, advocating for price competition, highlights an equilibrium solution in terms of price. Alongside these two models, in the last period, we can also note an increasing interest for the Cournot-Bertrand mixed scenario. All these three behavioral types can be identified in the real market. This paper aims to analyze a duopoly market, with linear demand and cost functions, as well as product differentiation characteristics, where a Cournot behavior is adopted by one firm and a Bertrand behavior by the other one. Both firms manage to survive on the market and a stable equilibrium will be manifested if there is sufficient product differentiation. In a very low product differentiation / very high product homogeneity scenario instead, the adjustment process proves to be a divergent one, undermining the equilibrium stability. In a homogenous products context, the Cournot-type firm will produce the perfectly competitive output level and the Bertrand-type competitor will leave the market. The selling price will match the marginal cost and duopoly profit will be null. Even with just one firm on the market, the basic threat of a Bertrand – type potential competitor, warrants a very prudential behavior while also further ensuring the perfect competitive outcome level. The paper is looking to also analyse in detail the existence of Nash equilibrium point, its local stability and uniqueness, as well as the product differentiation impact on this equilibrium and players surviving potential on the market. The final part of the paper contains a simulated study case for price, quantity and profit evolution for various values of model parameters.