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Entrepreneurship on the small and medium size is considered to be the ‘economy engine’, at the same time it represents a reservoir of jobs. Self employment through an entrepreneurial initiative for micro business could be a way of subsistence income generation. There are plenty of educational programs focused on entrepreneurial skills, but they are mainly focused on the educated segment of potential entrepreneurs to teach them how to start a business. Specific ones are addressed to youth to access programs that are financing start-ups for bachelor degree graduates. There are also disadvantaged groups, as women, Romany, migrating, refugees, persons over 50, unemployed in rural areas, persons with disabilities that are interested in finding a source of income by starting their own business, but they are facing with limited knowledge, less self-confidence, lack of fund and not supportive attitude of the environment. The ELIEMENTAL Braking Down Barriers for Enterprise Project aims to high light the barriers of the disadvantages groups from 4 countries (Greece, Poland, Romania, UK) in staring a micro business and designing a training program. Knowing the barriers, that are considered by the studied group to be most important issue that are keeping them away, give us the opportunity to act on and to design tools for overcoming. After analyzing the results of a survey on the barriers and need of the targeted groups, it was designed a training program with two components: a training course and a mentoring to be tested on the target groups. The results of the testing process were partially unexpected from the evaluation point of view of the skills improvement. It was offered a different approach angle and new issues of concern on the training process design. The paper is presenting the results of the training and the discussions about the mentoring process.

The epistemological positioning of scientific approach involves the diversity of the viewpoints of academics and specialists, exclusiveness not being considered. This paper aims to reflect own contributions to the development of management theory and management practice in Romania. First of all, the proposed scientific approach is a positivist approach, because it envisages the interposition of own reflections, an observation of what is happening in the market, an authentic presentation as it is. The main objective of this scientific research is to highlight the importance of social media as a mean of business development by creating new opportunities through promotion and a better brand visibility in the market. In the literature we have outlined a number of methods to assess the way in which companies approach the CRM: call method, the interview, the questionnaire, etc. Quantitative investigation of this paper was conducted based on assessment questionnaire, addressed to the employees of some Romanian companies. The qualitative investigation was conducted at the end of the research, based on analysis and structuring the information obtained. In this paper there were analyzed three elements: management position with the implementation of a CRM system; CRM to SCRM transition and the use of the new SM technologies in the implementation of a CRM system; applying of a SCRM system using social media platforms. As a result of the conducted study it was found that the media is one of the main trainers of public opinion, if not the main, controlling the public sphere. It conveys information, but also it controls and steers the public opinion. Thus, SM can form quickly enough media crisis to lower the public favorability for certain companies or politicians. In this way, by resorting to specific Social Media tools, the companies can obtain crucial information for evaluating the consumer satisfaction, information that would be more difficult to obtain traditionally.

Along with the appearance of the informational technology, social networks and online shops, communication has received a new meaning, a new aspect and a new set of rules. It seems that the act of communication has completely moved on the internet. On-line is a very dynamic domain, new for everybody and with a lot of opportunities to exploit, an environment that offers interactive communication with instant feedback from the consumers when they shop on line. Such knowledge is essential in the management of any modern organization that knows this type of communication is an efficient business strategy to be successful on the market. The quantitative research with the theme „Virtual Communication - modern business communication” presented in this article aims evaluating internet users' opinions, attitude and behaviour regarding online communication in order to identify the best solutions regarding on line communication.

The modern times that we all are living, asks us to relate and communicate more and better. The technological boom that helps us communicate faster and easier but the ability to communicate is held only by few. In the business world, communication has become one of the most powerful progress instruments through which charismatic managers raise their business trajectory and through which they send constructive ideas towards the coworkers. The modern manager has to improve constantly their communicative proficiency in order to maintain and improve his company position. The markets evolution, globalization and the prolonged crisis make the managers’ adaptation process to more be accelerated and those who can’t keep up to risk losing the competition and bankruptcy. All these can be easily avoided if the manager has good communicative competence and preoccupations towards perfecting the communication process in the firm he manages

The managerial functions are used for leading the organizations to their final targets. The managerial decisions have to be implemented by the conveyance of the working tasks from the top to the bottom of the company structure. At the same time, the reporting of the acquired results is delivered in the opposite direction. It is obvious that the communication system is substantially linked with the managerial functions. The role and the importance of the managers are in accordance with the level of the action(s). To be efficient and effective the communication between the levels and horizontally has to reach a proper format. The case study presented in the paper is an opening for a larger research on the effects of communication on the process of management.

This study aims to emphasize how performance indicators can be improved by implementing an appropriate management. The counterbalance of a poor funding from the state budget for a program can be achieved by using the levers of the management process functions, particularly referring to the planning and organization. The comparative method of the research data is applied to the institutional performance indicators obtained for four consecutive years. The analysis of the results obtained in the study undertaken reflects an appreciable improvement of the performance indicators over a comparable funding from the state budget related to each of the four years for which the comparison is made. The study value lies in presenting a specific case of a management policy aimed at improving performance indicators in virtually unchanged terms of a poor funding.

Regional development is a primary objective, representing the essential element in ensuring a decent standard of living and a quality level of life in the entire national environment. The study puts forward inter-regional differences from the viewpoint of the gross added value as a result of economic activity. Nevertheless we can distinguish regional differences in terms of inclination for some economic activity categories. The share of counties in the total value of the VAB leads to the classification in 5 typological classes on which we can identify economic development factors.

New Economy is characterized by a strong IT development, leading to a knowledge society. The EU set out the basic rules and starts programs in order to support efforts to align the businesses, citizens and governments to the new era. eEurope program establishes priorities that the community supports them as forms of integration and intra-alignment. Effects of participation (non) in this transformation, of entire economic and social, may reveal itself through the benefits and risks offered by eCommerce, eGovernment, eBusiness, etc. There are presented European policies, directions, actions and trends of public and private business. Union will act in favor of factors of globalization, increasing thus the degree of globalization of most industries. The decision to participate in this program for a New Economy will also be the decision of inclusion or exclusion of a country (its citizens) to a better life, at the top of the development and expectations.

The paper carries out a short literature review on public sector and public marketing terms. The findings of the paper’s study shows that the Romanian public sector should give more importance to marketing activities, as 87% of the respondents sustained when asked about their necessity. Within a public institution, the marketing specialists should cooperate with research& development, sales and financial departments. The study results reaffirm the importance of the 4 P of the marketing mix when making an offer, and place them on the top positions.

The actual challenges for public and private organizations are the EU space and globalization. Romanian authorities – public administration institutions, are confronted with a profound process of transformation as a new EU member that has to come to the same expectations and performances as the others. At the same time the business organizations – companies, national and multinational, are concerned about the new markets, competition, customers and regulations. Both types of organizations have to renew their view about the role of marketing and to restructure their approach and behavior accordingly. We shall examine the most important issues they have to deal with and will propose a generally correlated action plan to be taken into consideration. As this period of time is under the economic and financial crises pressure we also take into account the effects of economic decline and re-launch.

The budget of the European Union (EU) is financed by the member states’ own resources and has different types of sources. A tax which represents the percentage of a member state’s Gross National Product into the European Union’s Gross National Product is one the main source for the budget. In addition, trade fees, duties, a fee applied on value added tax (VAT) are relevant contributions in financing the budget of the EU. In order to achieve a high level of welfare, the UE is funding a lot of actions at the community level. The EU support is reflected by structural funds, which generate a lot of benefits for the member states, encouraging the competition among them. The paper discusses about the involvement of the EU in funding the member states, taking into consideration the current context of the economic crisis. This crisis period, starting with 2007, creates new situations for which the UE has to adapt its offer of structural funds towards the member states. The situation of member states, the distribution of structural funds, main domains for investment in the current context and ways of actions is analyzed, in order to obtain an overall perspective on the EU support.

The public sector copes with the economic crises taking such decisions meant to stop the regression of the economy, to reduce the public expences, to minimize the unemployment and other consequences that could show up. As we know, an important element/variable to be considered when taking these kind of decisions is the citizens'needs and expectations. For better results, the public sector decision making process can resort to the usual marketing feed-back loops to estimate the reactions to the decisions and the impact that could be shown, not only by insatissfaction, reactive attitude, but even revolts, sabotages, strikes a.s.o. In the following lines/paper we try to speak about: Promotion versus communication; the Marketing feed-back loops, in general,and especially the Feed-back loops in the public marketing; the Models of reaction and retroreaction to the crisis circumstances and, finally the conclusions regarding the public sector decision making process, based on such mechanisms, under the economic crisis conditions. We shall try to show that the decisions impact on citizens can be,properly, adjusted, based on the outcome data of the created feed-back loops. The knowledge of the nature and extent of the impact of the administration decisions on the citizens would lead to the anticipation of the citizens' needs and expectations and taking the decisions that have a lighter impact or last on a short term/or have a shorter life. Through an adequate marketing communication and processing, the public institutions can adapt their decisions so as to diminish, as much as possible, the negative impact on citizens, in view of offering them an acceptable minimum protection and creating a climate of surety and trust, mutual respect, dialogue and co-operation in taking the decisions.

By starting with the statement of Alfred Marshall: "The most valuable of all capital is invested in being human" we can consider the quality of human resources in general and quality of educational resources, especially as a decisive factor for economic growth together. The specialists appreciate that there is a very close relationship between technological progress and investment in education with involvement in all areas of life: economic, political, social and cultural. In terms of the current global financial crisis, when the pressure is on the level of education of human resources and their degree of competitiveness, we need an act of high educational quality and more efficiency. After defining the terms in which it operates - competitiveness, quality, efficiency, educational act - it is, in part, a description of the state of the Romanian educational system and causes that have generated the current situation. The aim of the paper is devoted to exploring the effects of an educational point of view of low competitive and to continue with a short general diagnosis of the latter. At the end of the paper we will try to find some concrete measures to increase the competitiveness of the Romanian educational act. These comments will obviously be accompanied by a series of point solutions to adjust - together - the offer of the Romanian education with the demand that exists on the labor market, in terms of the current crisis.

The tourism development analysis is of maximum importance in the context of increasing the integration level of the Romania’s economy into of the European one. Various methods are used by specialists for evaluating and disseminating data on the evolution, in order to provide information to policy makers. The regional structure of Romania’s tourism is one of the basic elements for designing its economic prelaunch and development strategies, integration into the European economy and of course for establishing tourism policies. In the selection of the better way for the analysis an important place, has the multiple factor analysis that focused on disseminate the correlations between the specific tourism indicators and the indicators of economic growth. Consequences, the tourism policies could be seen as an instrument for providing the structure stability and as a way of harmonizing the European and national commercial interests through the use of promotion and protection measures. Regional structural are utilized like criteria for the utilization of multiple factor analysis or canonical analysis. We are proposing hereby such a unified method. Our proposed model defines of structure of the tourism regions, the stability degree and the intensity of the measures to be used for restructuring the tourism offer structure (existing and estimated). The case study was made on Romania’s tourism statistics. The modification of the tourism structure can be done only through several promotion and protection measures strong enough to facilitate the new trends.

National policies and public marketing of destinations should cover measures on broadening the supply of travel agencies, on intensifying promotion actions for the offered touristic product. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to choose modern means of promotion so that tourists remain informed on existing and available accommodation, accommodation rates, recreation and entertainment means, booking and payment methods. This paper aims to discuss about a suitable public marketing in the way of supporting the tourist destinations.

The STIQE 2004 paper presents the identified triplets at macro and micro level of the socio-economic system. Through the important triplets identified are the following: European Union (UE) – State Members (SM) – European Citizens (ECz); European parliament will (PW) – national commitment (NC) – personal desire (PD); sustainable development(SD) - environment protection(EP) - quality of life(QL); economics(EC) – social climate(SC) – politics(P); material resources(MR) – financial resources(FR) – human resources(HR); life security (peace)(LS) – food security (survival)(FS) – environment security(ES); agriculture development (AD) - industrial development (ID) – infrastructure development (IsD); jobs/salaries (JS) – affordability/ expenses (AE) - quality of life (QL). It was also proposed a way of the triplets identification, a system to organize and link them on two dimensions: micro and macro level, and to get possible final structures by linking the two plans. The output, through a geometrical approach, has to be a system of interconnected triplets able to provide potential effects on the whole by action (modification) one point, than could be use for national strategies design and effects estimation. According with the opinions expressed at the conference we decide to revise the fundamentals of the theory. So, there were settled some criteria of knots identification, triplets assemble and plans definition. The main delimitation are euro/national areas, micro/macro levels and socio/economic approaches. The revised fundamentals are based on a more structured view, able to conduct us to a better triplets assembly as a whole. Also, the selection of the knots is made more carefully taken into account the future step of their evolution and dependences expressed by mathematic functions. At the same time there were identified potential factors of knots influence. It is a step back on the theory development, but it allows a better analysis and structuring of the elements taken into account, that could be a crucial decision in reaching the right composite of the system.

Tourism and traveling industry represents, at international level, the most dynamic economic sector. At the same time, the most important job creator and a source of national economies recovering. Being a complex activity, tourism industry is putting together the efforts of a lot of economic entities - public and private, national and transnational - each one is contributing to the development of the tourism area they are interest in. Their activity must not take into consideration only on the spot effects they should count on a medium and long term planning able to assure a sustainable development of tourism destination. The tourism it selves could not be appreciate a “good” or “bad”, “positive” or “negative” but it consequences, very spread, could be evaluated so. During the last years it becomes more evident that the ethics in tourism should be taken into consideration as a component of tourism sustainable development. From this point of view it is necessarily to pay more attention to the quality of tourism products so that should offer in the same time “the perfection of the taste” and “the taste of the perfection”. It is a true challenge for all marketing specialists to find out WHY the customer is choosing something in place of another, creating a dynamic of choose related with: analyzed market structure, brand position on the market, product development.

There is a general agreement at the conception (theoretical) level about the imperative of a public-private partnership and there are various efforts do it. It is also taken into account the experience of other countries of the European Union or other developed countries able to support and to assist with their previous experience. Public – private partnership aims to high light the role of the two components in general development of society, regional, economic and company development and increase of competitiveness. All of them are subordinated to serve the objective of satisfying the population economic and social requests and/or needs. Efficient communication establishment between the two environments will conduct, for sure, to the development of a segment of satisfied citizens, employees, owner and vice-versa. The public – private partnership in tourism industry could be developed in various ways. It could start with public – private strategies, joint proposals of regulations, up to growing business together and so on. The present paper aims to underline the main issues of public – private partnership and to propose few models applicable in tourism industry. The proposed models offer an image about better usage of both environment expertise and facilities (power) some of them still open opportunities for Romania.

Frequently, the „Japanese miracle” was a subject of discussion. The book „The Strategist Brain Power – The Business Art in Japan”, by Kenichi Ohmae (Japan, 1975) when the business environment was confronted with serious problems. The book brings, also in Romania (1998), a number of tools that can be used by businessmen in working out strategies ment to lead to performance. Even if the author is declaring himself „an enemy of governments and bureaucrats, and a great supporter of entrepreneurial initiative and private companies”, we believe that the use of the strategist’s comprehenhsion can be „a very powerful weapon, comparable with the laser” for the eradication of some problems in the public services sector. The paper aims at transposing some strategic schemes used in business, in public services, especialy by the idea of extent of freedom versus constraints.

New communication techniques offer, to all stakeholders of an European project, instant information about the launch, implementation, results etc. All successful international projects are connected through a good communication between team members, team and funding organization, project (project manger) and public. The marketing techniques should be used in all stages of the project development: call for projects, designing, proposing, negotiation, implementation, finalization and results. We will focus on the importance and benefits of the recommended forms of marketing used at the launch of an European project in order to increase the visibility of the financing organization and its aims. The most important used tools are: press releases, leaflets, brochures, newsletters, reports, personalized papers, visit cards, banners, posters, web-sites, public presentations, events, etc. The paper will be focused on the manner of the above mentioned techniques selection according to the targeted applicants. In our opinion, the marketing importance of European funding projects is very high at this moment due to the fact that Romania has to access large amounts of funds as an European Union new member state. The government plays an important role in dissemination of information to all potential project beneficiaries.

Integration process of Romania in the European Union after January 1, 2007, assumes new connotations and implications, meaning the change of access to sources of funding. Structural Funds allow both, state institutions (public sector) and private organizations (private sector), to propose and implement projects. There are many areas where the two sectors: public and private, can do joint projects with higher impact on the socio-economic climate. Knowledge management, project management, partnership are theories and tools that can be used for the purposes of better harnessing of resources held and implementation of change in Romanian society

Taking into account the economic and social importance of research-development activities as far as the technologies and the political measures are concerned, in the context of food security and of population’s food and nourishment, the necessity for developing a strategy and research-development activities in the field is obvious . The research-development activities in the milling and baking industry focus on processing the agricultural resources (wheat, rye, corn etc.) with a view to making bakery products. The research-development activities in this field cover the totality of the processes in terms of technological-biotechnological-technical-economic aspects, ensuring the basic and industrial processing of the bakery products, the integrated specific biotechnologies and all the services which integrate the supply-demand relations on the bakery products market in the context of the population’s food-related behavior.

The various forms of economic cooperation are so many channels for the Romanian economy to connect itself to European and International Economy. That is why, by making use of R&D (Research & Development) cooperation mechanisms, Romania could access - even in times of transition but with the help of its national highly qualified labor force - peak technology sectors. By developing production capacities in cooperation with companies from the European Union, Romania’s affordable (cheap) labor, natural resources, commercial facilities could be driven to the technology of the third millennium. Cooperation with regard to marketing and sales is leading to the integration of the Romanian market into the European one, increasing the awareness of market requests and improving negotiation skills. High technology, new technique, trade under the auspices of international competition are steering the capitalization and management of natural, human, financial and information resources, facilitating both the integration processes and the economic and social development.

Romania, as well as other countries from the East Europe, is crossing a transition period, due to the political changes from 90’s years. At the same time there are fundamental modifications in all socio-economic areas. One of the most important domains is the education sector, at all his levels but especially at the academic ones. The connections between the academic life and business environment could be considered as fundamental issue of the economic development, linkage of the national values to the Europeans, integration facilitator. From this point of view the education management has a very important role and it has to be related to the expectation of the business environment. To be able to offer the best product for on the labor market, the academic management has to be designed according with the business management principles. The business environment was forced to accept and implement the market economy fundamentals to survive under the new conditions. The orientation of the business to the European Union is shows by the trends of the exports and imports significant increased in the last years. New questions rise from the future evolution taking into account the enlargement of the European Union and the Romanian integration expected for 2007. In our opinion the educational and academic sector passed the first evolution step represented by the apparition and development of the private sector and the connection with the European and international similar institution. These tow direction open a new window for changing ideas and organize the education sector on new basis. The enlargement process of the European Union will make the education management face with new challenges. We consider that the cybernetic approach of the linkage between education management and business management could offer viable solution for both sectors and socio-economic development.

The concept of project management earns, since 1990, more and more adepts due to the fact that it has proved to be a useful tool in handling socio-economic challenges. The training on project management and the certification of the professionals knows a very fast development in our country. The EU uses the project management as a way of solving the pre-accession preparation and also to integrate the state members into the matrix of Union. Romania is ending the pre-accession period with no impressive results in getting EU project funds. This is why one of the important concerns of the business environment and public administration is the projects management and, most of all, acquiring the knowledge of this new concept. The questions we are focusing on this paper are: Are we prepared to do structural funds project proposals? and What else do we need? The paper will analyze also the advantages and disadvantages of using project management as a managerial approach on solving companies and/or public administration institutions problems. Also it is very important to know the criteria needed for performance in project proposals. The Romanian government programs regarding project management for the R&D will be presented as a form of education and potential integration tool in EU projects framework. On the other hand, we shall show the steps to be taken for developing skills in project management for public servants and business people as well.

The infrastructure (transport) is essential for the economic development of a region. If we are taking into consideration the tourism industry and other tourist activities, the importance of the infrastructure is higher, due to the fact that the attractiveness is increased by the comfort and the easiness of reaching the targeted places. The public administration plays a huge role in developing projects for improving the infrastructure or for rehabilitating it. We are presenting different situations and the roles played by the public authorities together with the options they have for public investment projects.

The last years reflect, in term of macroeconomic development, the continuing advances in market-oriented reforms in the most countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Transition in this economic area includes the restructuring of politic, economic and social systems in accordance with the European Integration Directives and local industry policy, with the movements of the economic environment. Our proposed model tries to define the structure of the basic industry components, the stability degree and the intensity of the measures to be use for restructuring the industrial offer and Romanian regional structure (existing and estimated). This model is design as a link between the Pareto’s model and the Markov’s Chains transitions. The target of industrial policy is to obtain an economic environment that characterizes a stable market economy.

The marketing theory started by questioning if is it science or art and finalized by declaring that ”marketing should be the philosophy of the company approach according with the needs of target market”. The tool for marketing strategies implementation is marketing mix (MMix) by the 4P or 5P. This mix of components offers the possibility of harmonizing the purposes of companies and customers. A new concept of Total Quality (TQ) has been developed and implemented, firstly by the industrial companies and later on by others (even public administration organizations). This approach is an integrative strategic philosophy and behavior, focused on TQ objectives and the adoption of a new managerial style – Total Quality Management (TQM). In our opinion the MMix and TQM are complementary philosophies to approach companies. The paper is an out come of a survey regarding the way the top management perceive MMix and TQM and how they are complementary.

The tourism could be one of the important sectors that create the GDP. That is why its evolution is important for any country. The transformation of the national economies from Eastern European countries caused major changes in tourism and its management requirements. Romanian experience during the last 16 years demonstrates that managerial skills are closely related to the tourism companies’ performances. At the same time, there are different other factors that indirectly influence the evolution of this sector. In our opinion, the managerial skills are dependent of the level of decision making as a result of the organization autonomy degree, the later one being directly influenced by the type of property.

In Romania, the agro and rural tourism started as potential sources of living and become an alternative for the classic tourism. As we rise up on the presented papers in 2003, even if there is a significant development of the rural tourism, it is not very attractive to the Romanian people. The study made on County Dambovita area, shows that an important reason of the poor attractiveness of agro-tourism in mountains rural area is the les proper marketing of the services. Based on these conclusion and taking advantages on the public administration area, it was started a program of public and private marketing of rural tourism. The main stages of the programme were: 1) the evaluation of specific indicators of rural tourism like staying overnights, net using capacity in function and quality of provided services; 2) provide information and advertise the area facilities and natural environment using the public administration infrastructure; 3) make the link between the owners of tourism capacities and public servants by a briefly marketing training; 4) re-evaluation the indicators mention above. The results of the programme implementation prove that the public and private marketing, used in partnership by local authorities and of rural tourism services providers, could be a tool of better development. Never the les, the win-win situation rise up from the benefit of general economic development of the area obtained due to a larger flux of domestic and foreign tourists.

The Union was constituted and functioned based on the principle of unification of the norms with a view to generating a superior level of the standard of living of its citizens. It follows the same desideratum but this time by grouping a continually increasing quantity of resources (natural, human, financial etc.), to the detriment of quality, we could say. After ’90 the enlargement was more powerful than before this seems to change the mechanisms of new members inclusion. I our perception the inclusion process was replace with a “communicating recipients” process. In this context it was talked about the effects that the integration of Romania into the European Union will generate at the level of the trading companies, which will materialize into a series of mutations concerning their marketing and management. The first question is “Why?” the Romanian companies have to approach and implement the principles of top management, learning from the experience of the West-European countries. This question would be even more pertinent for the joint or foreign companies developed in Romania. These companies have brought their own know-how, developed in their countries of origin, many of them members of the European Union (some even founding members), and so it is normal to ask the question: “What is the logic of the appearing of these mutations and of the need for changes in the management processes?”, “Why do the management principles, methods and techniques have to be revised?”. The shortest reply is “Due to the mutation inside the EU”.

The paper “Modern Leadership by applying a crisis-adjusted management” is a scientific approach that tackles a current issue, much discussed and assessed from many viewpoints and interests. To substantiate this issue, it is necessary to have a general view over the global context of the economic crisis, its social, economic and political effects, whilst highlighting a set of principles and policies that create the foundation for a management used by modern leadership in times of crisis.