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Cultural intelligence (CQ) and emotional intelligence (EQ) represent key competencies of multicultural leadership in the new normal global business environment. This paper aims to present a comparative quantitative study concerning emotional and cultural intelligences in USA and Romania, backed by a brief geo-linked bibliometric literature review. The bibliometric analysis is performed with VOSviewer for the works focusing on these two variables published in USA and, respectively, in Romania. Inspired by the findings of this comparative analysis, it is performed a quantitative research based on 604 questionnaires distributed to managers in USA and in Romania, and on statistical processing using SPSS software. The statistical results show that both CQ and EQ constitute significant vectors in developing multicultural leadership and organizational performance in a multicultural business environment for both USA and Romania. The comparative study reveals a higher level of CQ and EQ in the Romanian business environment than in USA. The difference could be explained by the focus on rationality and profit maximization in the American business education. The contribution of the paper comes from these findings and they can help researchers and practitioners to stimulate their efforts in improving CQ and EQ competences.

The purpose of this paper is to present a knowledge management approach to complex crises, having as a reference the multiple crises generated by COVID-19, crises we are living with, and for which we cannot anticipate a specific end due to the knowledge absence concerning this complexity. A complex crisis is a system crisis that induces new crises in connected systems. The knowledge management approach shows that understanding complex crises and managing them needs an excellent understanding of these crises’ knowledge gaps and the knowledge dynamics phenomena able to describe their manifestation and evolution. There is no a priori knowledge or model to give us the key to coping with these crises and designing the best solutions for all the problems generated by them. The present research is based on qualitative research of the significant literature by using the Grounded Theory. The findings show that a knowledge management approach offers new insights into the complexity of these phenomena, which can be symbolized by the Black Swan metaphor defined by Nassim Taleb in his seminal book The Black Swan. The impact of the highly improbable.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the complexity of the COVID-19 crisis by using the grounded theory approach. It is a new approach based on a data set constituted from published papers, reports delivered by official organizations or research institutes, working papers, and public information in media. Each of these documents presents data, information, knowledge, and ideas, usually from a single perspective. The present research uses the method of grounded theory and constructs an integrated model of analysis that explores the complexity of the global crisis induced by COVID-19. For the present research, the data were extracted from published papers focused on different aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic induced economic crisis. That means a meta-analysis of the initial quantitative data but performed from a semantic perspective. The findings show that COVID-19 induced economic crisis is a complex phenomenon that is influenced directly and indirectly by the health system crisis, governmental policies, and behavior of people. The integrated model we got can be used as a tool in a further investigation for a deeper understanding of the complexity of COVID-19. The originality of this paper comes from creating a meta-analysis with the grounded theory of different aspects investigated in a series of papers and constructing a dynamic model capable of approaching the complexity of this Black Swan phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the challenges universities have during crazy times and to show how to design knowledge strategies to navigate successfully through the changing economic landscape. Crazy times mean times of rapid and unpredictable changes in the economic environment, times of crises, and disruptive phenomena. For such kind of new realities, the deliberate strategies designed for a predictable future cannot help anymore. They should be replaced by emergent strategies, which consider a moving time coming from the future towards us. Universities are knowledge-intensive organizations, and knowledge is a strategic resource. Designing knowledge strategies and integrating them into the university business strategies becomes a new necessity. Our research is based on a conceptual analysis of time perception and strategy design for strengthening the university competitiveness in a changing environment. We make use of the known-unknown matrix and search for those generic strategies which contribute to the renewal of intellectual capital and achieving a competitive advantage in the new global market of higher education. The quest for becoming a world-class university and the pressure of the ranking systems require a special focus on designing and implementing knowledge strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the latent variables which support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in becoming learning organizations. These latent variables represent abstract ideas that cannot be measured directly in practice, and they need to be explored by using different sets of other variables or indicators defined specifically for certain research of the business environment. The concept of “the learning organization” has been introduced into knowledge management literature about 30 years ago, but due to its complexity and high level of abstractness, its implementation in real life or organizations produced insufficient results for developing a well-defined model and a convincing managerial approach. However, the attractiveness of the learning organization is so appealing that researchers continue to investigate the complex mechanisms and processes supporting it. Our research is such an effort in exploring the latent variables for the small and medium-sized enterprises from the North-Easter region of Romania in their drive of becoming learning organizations. Our research is based on a comprehensive literature search and a quantitative approach supported by a survey and statistical processing of the collected data. We processed 950 valid questionnaires obtained from 147 small and medium-sized enterprises from the North-Eastern region of Romania. Statistical processing was done by using specialized software. We perform a Factor Analysis with IBM SPSS v.19, and then a Confirmatory Factor Analysis with AMOS v.18. Finally, we obtained six latent variables that support the transformation of SMEs into learning organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the knowledge entropy processes within organizations and how they are reflected in the knowledge management and organizational intellectual capital. Entropy is a very powerful concept, which can be found today in almost any branch of science and technology. It was introduced by Rudolf Clausius in 1865 in Thermodynamics, then used in the communication theory by Claude Shannon, and expanded by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen in economics. However, dues to its extensive use in so many different research domains, the concept of entropy became fuzzy and sometimes misleading in applications. Also, its statistical formulations based on the Boltzmann theory made the entropy understanding rather difficult and its interpretations on the edge of coherence. Knowledge entropy is an extension of information entropy and used within the framework of knowledge management. Our conceptual analysis aims to shed light on the appropriate use of knowledge entropy and its potential in knowledge management research and practice. Since knowledge entropy is associated to all transformational processes in knowledge creation, knowledge sharing, knowledge acquisition, and knowledge loss, we may say that knowledge management can be interpreted as the process of managing knowledge entropy within organizations.

The primary purpose of this research is to present the evolution and current state of knowledge regarding the dematerialization of banking products and services in the digital age. The paper discusses the central issues regarding the dematerialization of money, the dematerialization of securities and the dematerialization of the contract, trends with direct impact on the possibility of dematerializing the products and services offered by banking institutions, by means of an investigative discourse and viewpoint into and over the shift from tangible to intangible monetary assets. It mainly explores the impact of dematerialization on certain processes performed by banks (customer enrollment and management) and on certain products and services offered by banks (payment services, lending services, etc.) from the perspective of the latest technological innovations and the influence exerted by fintech companies. The chapter clearly establishes the synergy link between environmental factors (increased competition, technological advance, legislative changes) and the ability of banking institutions to adapt to new conditions by changing the business model. The research ends with a series of conclusions regarding the way in which the tendencies towards dematerialization affect the activity and the business model adopted by the banking institutions. The content of the research report is useful both to the managers in the financial field and to the authorities that legislate this field, especially to those in Romania, who can use the conclusions of the report to elaborate policies in order to advance the degree of digitization of the Romanian banking system.

The intellectual capital research and practice entered in the last years into a visible decline due to some barriers in understanding its intangible nature and designing Newtonian metrics for its measurement and reporting. Inertial thinking is very powerful in promoting new approaches for the need of a new perspective in working with intellectual capital. Unfortunately, even some top journals in the domain of intellectual capital remained trapped into this Newtonian logic and standard statistical analysis, as a result of the mind-set of their editorial staff and reviewers. The purpose of this paper is to present a critical analysis of the intellectual capital research and practice today and to reveal some of the most important barriers in understanding the complexity and nature of the intellectual capital. These barriers manifest like myths in approaching the research into intellectual capital, myths that create a false reality and false research questions, which enter into collision with the real life of companies and their business. The paper identifies seven myths which created a Newtonian version of the non-Newtonian reality, and a golden rule for further research into the intellectual capital of organizations. The conclusion of the present critical analysis is that we need a new approach to understand the complexity of the intellectual capital and new metrics to measure it.

The purpose of this paper is to present some of our research results concerning the intellectual capital of universities. This is an important topic of the intellectual research area since universities are knowledge intensive organizations. They contain b