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In an economic, social, and technological changing environment, creativity represents a competitive advantage for customer service-oriented organizations. As previous studies have not considered the role of creativity in the financial sector, this framework perfectly applies to the banking domain in which a permanent adaptation of the products for online communication is of paramount importance. Building off the 4Ps of creativity theory and the componential model of creativity, the present paper exploratory investigates the role of creativity in new product development processes in the banking system. A set of 30 semi-structured interviews with key specialists has been conducted. Focusing on the leading bank in Romania, and the largest in Southeast Europe, namely Banca Transilvania, the research emphasizes the way creativity is defined with respect to organizational performance, the role of creativity in developing good quality products, and the stimuli that trigger creativity in relationship with inside and outside stakeholders within the new product development process. The results show that, in a banking context, in which creativity implies a flow starting from idea generation to its implementation, the new product development process is based on multidisciplinary teams, mutual collaboration and communication, and attention to customers’ needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International non-governmental organizations (INGOs) operate worldwide to fulfil important needs and issues faced by global communities, but they are highly dependent on donations. Social media facilitates communication with potential donors but exposes them to fake news. This study examines the effect of a set of predictors of social media users' intention to donate online to international NGOs, using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as a conceptual structure. A self-administered online survey was used to collect data from 1629 potential donors to INGOs, and structural equation modelling with SmartPLS 3.0 was employed for assessing the model. The study reveals that social media usage and INGOs' brand reputation positively impact the sharing of fake news, perceived risks of online donations, attitude towards online donations, and brand image of INGOs. Communication specialists could utilise these insights to boost online donations towards INGOs in the age of misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Scientific Bulletin of the Politehnica University of Timisoara: Transactions on Modern Languages / Buletinul ştiinţific al Universităţii Politehnica din Timişoara: Seria Limbi Moderne is the property of Politehnica University of Timisoara, Department of Communication & Foreign Languages and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

he last years can be characterized as a period of crisis and changes all around the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The present work analyses the impact of the pandemic on the forms of communication in the Romanian school education system, in the transition from on-site classes to online classes in German schools. It is further investigated which differences can be found in online compared to face-to-face teaching, which strategies were used to replace the missing communication aspects and whether online learning has a negative impact on communication between teachers and learners. The research relies on 16 semi-structured interviews carried out with teachers from Romanian schools where German is taught as a mother tongue. The interviews show that direct eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, and non-verbal communication in general are all inhibited by conversation through a screen. Thus, it implies a less intimate, direct connection, and the potential for difficult interpersonal connections, which causes the students’ interest and attention to decline. For the new medium, it was also vital to re-evaluate the conventional pedagogical approaches. Fortunately, technology has made great strides and offers a variety of options, although communication has suffered greatly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The press in the native language, an area of great importance for the ethnic identity of each nation, was an essential milestone in the life of the Germanspeaking communities throughout Romania. It was the barometer that faithfully illustrated the wishes, hopes and expectations of this minority in the new constitutional framework. The press also revealed the image, the concerns and the ideological orientations of the population, but also the desired relations with the Romanian state authorities and the links with the German nation. The present article entitled "The Contribution of the Banat Swabians to the Development of Typography and the Press in the 18th and 19th Centuries" offers an overall picture of the most important stages in the evolution of the Banat products of the printing press. The article focuses on the political, social and financial difficulties of the German minority in Banat, as well as their outstanding achievements in the cultural and editorial field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work investigates the contribution of cartoons to the political opinion-forming of their viewers. Through the visual framing, from the caricaturist's subjective point of view, one aspect is emphasized, one problem is illustrated. By questioning certain facts or exposing things through the cartoon, the author challenges the viewer to think along, opens up new perspectives and helps him to form political opinions. The article aims to highlight the topics and the formal, content-related and stylistic structures according to which the cartoons from the Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung für Rumänien (ADZ) published in 2019 contribute to the political opinion-forming of its readers. It is important to determine which of the above-mentioned characteristics are mainly used to reflect, in excerpts, those states of affairs which the newspaper has put on the agenda of its readers and which have thus gained predominant importance. In order to investigate this, the following hypothesis is put forward which can be confirmed or disproved by analyzing the characteristics of political cartoons: The cartoons published in the ADZ contribute to the political opinion of the viewers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The press in the native language, an area of great importance for the ethnic identity of each nation, was an essential milestone in the life of the Germanspeaking communities throughout Romania. It was the barometer that faithfully illustrated the wishes, hopes and expectations of this minority in the new constitutional framework. The press also revealed the image, the concerns and the ideological orientations of the population, but also the desired relations with the Romanian state authorities and the links with the German nation. The present article entitled "The Contribution of the Banat Swabians to the Development of Typography and the Press in the 18th and 19th Centuries" offers an overall picture of the most important stages in the evolution of the Banat products of the printing press. The article focuses on the political, social and financial difficulties of the German minority in Banat, as well as their outstanding achievements in the cultural and editorial field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at providing an overview of the Banat calendar press products during the interwar period, focusing on the place and duration of the publication on one hand, and on their structural and thematic features, on the other hand. The starting point of the study is an attempt to define this functional type of text by drawing out its characteristics. The article offers an overview of the structure, content and function of the German-language calendars of Banat during the interwar period, with the intention of underlining their peculiarities. The analysis of the calendars has shown that they are a living proof of the way of thinking and acting, but also a reflection of the cultural and linguistic identity of the Banat Swabians of that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "The Contemporary Election Campaign in Romania: Approaching the Electorate through Online and Offline Communication Channels; Case study: The European Parliament Elections 2019" deals with the elections for the European Parliament in Romania and sets out to examine how two political parties, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the coalition Union Save Romania- PLUS (USR-PLUS), have approached the electorate through online and offline communication channels. The text is based on the following research question, namely how do the political parties operate on the social platform Facebook in the month before the elections? If we assume, that the social platform Facebook is to be seen as a feedback carrier, then we want to examine how and to what extent the interested citizens show a feedback reaction to the posted content. This article is also based on the following hypothesis: The newly formed coalition USR-PLUS deals with a greater variety of topics through its online and offline communication channels than the already well-known and established PSD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work investigates the contribution of cartoons to the political opinion-forming of their viewers. Through the visual framing, from the caricaturist's subjective point of view, one aspect is emphasized, one problem is illustrated. By questioning certain facts or exposing things through the cartoon, the author challenges the viewer to think along, opens up new perspectives and helps him to form political opinions. The article aims to highlight the topics and the formal, content-related and stylistic structures according to which the cartoons from the Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung für Rumänien (ADZ) published in 2019 contribute to the political opinion-forming of its readers. It is important to determine which of the above-mentioned characteristics are mainly used to reflect, in excerpts, those states of affairs which the newspaper has put on the agenda of its readers and which have thus gained predominant importance. In order to investigate this, the following hypothesis is put forward which can be confirmed or disproved by analyzing the characteristics of political cartoons: The cartoons published in the ADZ contribute to the political opinion of the viewers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "The Americanization of on-line political communication in the external election period; Case study: An analysis of the Facebook profile of the Romanian President Klaus Iohannis" highlights the peculiarities of the Americanization of political communication in general and creates the transition to adapting this model to social media in Romania, with particular focus on Facebook. The analysis revolves around electoral time with a focus on non-election campaign time, assuming that political actors must continue to be communicatively active in order to be present in the mind of the electorate. The article sets out to investigate Iohannis' Facebook media profile during the external election period, starting with the research questions, whether the characteristics of Americanization are noticeable in Facebook communication and whether the frequency of posts during non-election campaign time experiences a descending change. 685 Facebook posts will be analyzed between November 21, 2014 and November 23, 2017. The research is based on a quantitative content analysis completed by a trend analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to highlight a significant part of Luther's work, i.e. his collection of sayings but also the idioms that have become so famous. This paper focuses on analyzing sayings and proverbial idioms and attempts both to describe their thematic emphases and to pinpoint their linguistic features (stylistic, semantic and syntactic particuliarities). The analysis and grouping of communicative activities as inferred from these short texts according to the criteria of discourse analysis represents another focal point of our endeavor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "The Debate about Anglicisms and its Implications on the Teaching Process of the German Language in Romania" aims to answer two up to date questions. The first question is, if the use of Anglicisms in the textbooks has a negative impact on the teaching process of German as a foreign language in Romania. The second question is how this "phenomenon of Americanization" can be explained and be managed. In this respect, we enumerate several reasons why Anglicisms have occurred in several languages over the world in the last decades. The analyzed samples are extracted from the German language manual "Deutsch mit Spaß" for the grades nine to twelve, which is considered to be the most used textbook for teaching German as a foreign language in Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]