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The beginning of 2020 brought one of the most frightening threats experienced by human civilisation: the COVID-19 pandemic. In an attempt to minimize the negative effects of this pandemic, public administrations, governments and various organizations have implemented restrictive measures - such as the so called “social distancing” – in order to reduce the intensive and quick spread of the virus. Because of this, many sectors of the economic activities all over the world are adversely affected. It is estimated that many workers will be laid off due to the reduction of the activity in the companies where they work that are highly affected by bankruptcy. This paper has as one of its main goal to identify and analyse the risks that will affect the labour markets in the context of the COVID-19 crisis at the level of the entire economy. The paper highlights also the importance of the cultural and creative sectors. Economic agents have to better adapt to this crisis, by creating new working conditions, including teleworking conditions. During the lockdown, cultural institutions tried to maintain the connections with the public via the Internet. The pandemic brought unprecedented challenges for testing both public and private organisations capacity to adapt to these critical situations. As a direct consequence of the main measures taken in order to protect people’ health the interruption of activities had highly affected the labour markets but also the cancellation or delays of many events with the loss of important financial resources. The lockdown has led to a decrease in cultural consumption that had been affected even before this crisis as statistical data proved. We consider that one of the most affected economic sectors by the epidemic was the cultural one, which is why these sectors have to find new ways to reach the public. One of the possible reforms of the cultural and creative sectors is the development of cultural platforms that could achieve the much-needed digital transformation of these sectors.

Today society has to face complex crises. COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted global vulnerabilities, inequalities and their interconnections with the whole human society, in terms of health, education, social, legal regulations, infrastructure and economic issues. We consider viable, sustainable and resilient alternative solutions had to be identify in order to support socio-economic development by supporting cooperation, collaboration, and solidarity. Crisis might be seen as a wake-up call to the whole world suggesting the need to reconsider globalization. Local communities welcome collaboration, co - working, co-creation such as to better support mostly vulnerable people. There is a high demand to involve more and more NGOs in rebuilding sustainable, smart, inclusive, competitive and resilient socio-economic development. The paper aims to highlight some of the new visions that support the need to involved more local communities, organisations and NGOs. From a methodological point of view the paper focus on qualitative research, namely telephone interviews with NGO leaders. Interviews were carried out in order to identify what efforts leaders are willing and able to make such as to support a sustainable, inclusive, and resilient development. The leaders suggested solutions that promote mainly innovation, digital transformation, online transactions, and other, human oriented decision-maker alternatives. NGO leaders are aware that they might have an important role in promoting socio-economic development by implementing sustainable practices in non-profit organizations. Our research highlights as main results some of the challenges and barriers NGOs have to face. One of the key factors refers to identify some viable financial alternative solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial literacy is a need for people responsible for their money. The decisions people made in respect with the money have impact on their future. Their responsibility and the risks assumed increase as long as employers and government responsibility and assumed risks in this respect decrease. Financial education is based on principles such as: active long life learning, individuals needs oriented, part of the early education provided by schools, basic concepts on financial issues and risks oriented. In Romania, financial education is part of school based curriculum. The Ministry of Education recommends all schools interested in delivering financial education programs schools a syllabus for an optional subject focused on financial issues. Banks are also interested to contribute to financial education. They help schools in conducting financial education programs and, additionally, they developed their own financial education programs.

The paper debates the topics of intercultural competences and intercultural dialogue. The main research whose results are being disseminated through this paper are part of a national research project, Equality of chances and intercultural dialogue, project granted by competition and which benefits from the expertise of a dynamic team of University Professors and lecturers as well as enthusiastic PhD students. The authors present the results of their academic and research activities involving students (both Romanian and foreign) studying Economics in foreign languages (at the Faculty of Business Administration taught in foreign languages, English section within the Bucharest University of Economics).

It is obviously that all over the world, mostly after 2000, a new approach for urban development and for regional development emerges. We choose Romania taking into account also the idea that it has old tradition in cooperation mostly within the areas near the borders where diversity and multicultural environment can allow more space for diversity management and for tolerance. One of the main challenges for the creative communities and for the creative industry sector and for those who engage within is how to encourage longer-term growth of these small lifestyle businesses. It seems that there is quite difficult to identifying creative workers due to their diversity (understood in a complex sense, in terms of cultural diversity that is more relevant for creative communities than ethnic, religion or other way to look traditionally for diversity).

Within the framework of creative economy the creative and innovative management represents a strategic issue to consider when stimulating the enhancement of competitiveness among companies and countries. Creativity, innovation and new product development

The COVID-19 crisis, along with the other associated complex crises, has amplified the gap that exists in terms of the number of women reaching leadership positions, despite the quality of their work and their important contributions in various fields. This paper aims to explore women's leadership qualities, and perceptions regarding leadership, based on quantitative data originating from four studies. Concerning the research methodology it includes qualitative research and a comparative analysis of global studies. The paper focuses on women, looking mostly for the proportion of women within organizations, and the main characteristics of women's leadership. The analysis then turns to Romania, where we have identified the proportion of women leaders. The main goal of the paper is to investigate the representation of women leaders in EU countries and in particular in Romania. The results of the study illustrate that favorable work conditions have a greater impact on women's aspirations to become leaders. Extrinsic structural inequalities, such as bias against women in certain professions, and gender, racial and other discrimination, are barriers to women's access and advancement in leadership positions in the workplace. Intrinsic individual characteristics of successful women leaders, namely conscientiousness, respect, confidence, acceptance, and resilience have facilitated their success in obtaining and maintaining leadership positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital transformation is essential for companies not only by adoption of new technologies but also by engaging in sustainable development of economies, of circular economies and by empowering people to adapt and embrace new challenges in order to face the new challenges. Collaborative economy, based on innovation, use of collaborative platforms may support responsible growth of economies. According to the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), Romania ranks 27th of 27 EU Member States in the 2021 edition of the Digital Economy and Society. Romania has to take action for identifying, implementing policies to support collaborative economy and digital trasnformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This scientific article is an empirical observation of the smart city concept and how it can be developed sustainably and inclusive on long-term. The paper also highlights some of the most significant trends in the development of smart cities and cultural-creative local communities. The main results of the research showed that a viable model of smart and sustainable development of a city can be considered Vienna, a city whose development is based on a quadruple-helix collaboration, holistic strategy, top-down approach and a multi-dimensional vision. The paper also showed that new information and communication technologies will continue to innovate smart development strategies, and the biggest international corporations will become step by step leading trendsetter of future cities, transforming utopia into reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]