Abstract The book "Cultural Hybridization in the Contemporary Novel" attempts a bold feat: to present, out of a diversity of works in contemporary English language literature, some books that are truly valuable for the reader. It invites us to ponder on some of the hottest topics the world is currently facing, including the mixture of cultures, migration and its consequences on today's culture and literature, the longing for home and its spiritual meaning.
Abstract This paper aims at the balance between the citizen and the public authorities with public services as an interface. Public services place themselves at the crossroads of many elements such as: needs of the citizen, social need, public will, public resources, private availability, and civic sense. Without claiming to have identified all factors that converge to defining / structuring the public services (PS) / services of general interest (SGI), the paper tried to highlight some of the most important. The social need is covered at the macro level and it represents what society - as a whole - needs. Citizens' needs are more specific, individualized and custom-designed, rundown by gender, age, education, social condition, financial strength, religion, living environment etc. The public will is an expression of what the Administration encompasses in mid- and long-term national strategies and addresses in detail the PS / SGI in sectorial policies where responsibility is assumed. Public resources include in our assessment all resources at the disposal of the Administration at some point. Private availability can be expressed through various forms such as public-private partnerships, development of complementary private sponsorships, donations etc. A balanced public service can also benefit of citizens' civic sense. Even if they are completely satisfied with the services at hand they understand that it would be without sense to unnecessary ask for them just only because it's free.
The Romanian society is crossing one of the most important stages of its transition toward the integration in the European Union started with January 1st, 2007; this will define the final processes bound for the socio-economic reconstruction. Based on the previous experiences, an assumption rose up that, at this moment in the Romanian society there are two systems - business and public administration, placed on opposite, antagonistic, unfriendly sides. At the same time, there is the opinion that a proper public and private marketing could be the link between them. The link between these systems should make the relation useful to create and handle the cooperation and cooperation climate in these two environments. The paper aims to present the systems, their characteristics, the opinion about the other, the identified link components, and to propose a solution for the link improvement. A small survey of the membersí opinions, in both systems, will be the base of the analysis. The first stage is to analyze each environment as an independent system: business system (BSy) and public administration system (PASy). We will present the structure, characteristics, interactions with other socio-economic components, etc. The second stage will focus on the role of public and private marketing as tools of feedback reaction of the systems to the general environment dynamics. The marketing behavior is typical for the BSy and its level of marketing knowledge is higher than the poor level of marketing knowledge in PASy lacking the marketing attitude about public services.
The economic crisis affected the Central and Eastern European economic spatial structure and reshaped perspectives at the European Union and international levels. Whereas Western Europe's stable economic system has entered maturity, Eastern Europe's economic landscape is still constantly evolving and improving. From a geographical perspective, based on standard distance and the standard deviational ellipse method, we examine the space-time evolution of the Central and Eastern European economy from 1995-2015. During this period, the Central and Eastern European economic spatial barycenter moves northeastward, and the economic distribution scale extends north-south in space. At the same time, the demographic barycenter moves northwestward, with an intense contraction in space. By comparing the economic and demographic standard deviation ellipses, we found a large degree of spatial differentiation, which gradually decreases. This trend shows that in Central and Eastern Europe, the economic development and demographic distribution is not symmetrical, and there still is large potential for the internal market. We propose that Eastern European countries such as Romania and Bulgaria, which have an abundant population, can increase investment in their home market by linking up with Asian countries. This connection can enable them to make full use of external capital, mine demographic advantages and exploit the benefits of being the hub of both Europe and Asia.
The industrial products and services supply was analyzed in the present paper through the statistical indicators of the industrial production, applied for Romania (2005), both at macroeconomic and regional level (on development regions). The first part of the paper presents some of the methodological reglamentations used in determining theindustrial production statistical indicator, according to the European Union statistical practices (Pack, 2000; ***ìMethodology of short-term business statisticsî, 2006; Peneder, 2001). In the second part of the paper, the authors analyze the main industrial policy previsions in Romania in order to accelerate the process of resource allocation among and within the various sectors, to improve the competitiveness, to attenuate the discrepancies between the economic development level of Romanian regions and to become part of a common European industrial policy. Regional analysis is a domain largely studied by Kangas, Leskinen, Kangas, 2007; Leskinen, Kangas, 2005; Rondinelli, 1996; Banai-Kashani, Reza, 1989.
The crisis caused by COVID-19, made us rethink our perception of the way of life. Traffic restrictions, isolation, quarantine, the need for social distance have generated new behavior by transferring null activities in the online environment. The advantage today is that the 21st century is characterized by the presence of information technology and its rapid development. The telecommute proposed by Nilles (1994), became in 2020 a very topical concept, due to the special situation in which the whole of humanity is. Although both employers and employees have refused the teleworking formula for a long time, it has now become the only possibility to maintain an acceptable level of activity. The rapid evolution of ITC technologies and applications, the entry on the labor market of the M generation have contributed to the increase of favorability for telework, in 2018 it being included in the Romanian legislation. The methodology for this article was to analyze the Romanian Classification of Activities in the National Economy (CAEN) to find out in which domains do Romanian SMEs prefer to activate and to find out the resistance to telecommuting as a way of work by finding out which of these economic sectors have implemented day to day teleworking long ago and which will. An empirical analysis of every domain was complemented by the survey results to verify to which extent telecommuting is feasible in Romanian SMEs, especially during and after the Coronavirus pandemic. It was necessary to analyze of Eurofound statistics regarding living and working during the COVID-19 pandemic to find out correlations and differences between the authors' findings and the EU27 baseline.
AbstractSavings and investments are not unconditioned universal ways for the economic development and growth of a country. They accomplish only the motor role in a healthy macroeconomic ambiance, but in the context of a coherent and consistent long-term policy, as well. Only in these circumstances it can become reality the virtuous circle of high savings – large investments – economic growth.For the insuring of the sustainability of the economic growth there will be the need of more effort, which indicates the fact that success is obtainable and that the political efforts in this direction will be rewarded.
Innovation and knowledge-intensive economy are considered crucial for addressing challenges and opportunities currently faced by Europe. The present paper aims to provide inputs for building a long-term vision aiming to promote innovation and knowledge economy for fostering smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. We analyze microdata from the 2016 Innobarometer "EU Business Innovation Trends" (Flash Eurobarometer 433), covering 14,112 companies from 30 countries in order to shed light on main drivers and results of business investments in innovation. We focus our analysis on high-tech industries and knowledge-intensive services. Additionally, expected positive impacts of innovation in knowledge-intensive sectors are explored in terms of job creation, digital economy, environment protection, health, transport, food quantity and quality, development of smart cities, etc. Our results are useful for designing an improved support for the emergence and impact of knowledge-intensive economy.
While targeting waste reduction and maintaining the value of products and resources in the system as much as possible, undertaking circular economy practices at the company level is a way of achieving entrepreneurial sustainability. This paper explores entrepreneurial decision models for adopting circular economy practices, focusing on European SMEs. Decision tree models are applied on data from Flash Eurobarometer 441 in order to uncover business strategies in relation to the implementation of circular economy practices at the company level and with the optimal level and nature of investments in the circular economy for improving economic performances of companies. The main findings of the article offer a better understanding of the relation between characteristics of European SMEs and their decisions in the field of circular economy. Such results are relevant from both macro and micro perspectives, as they can be used for customizing circular economy programs and intervention strategies for various groups of SMEs, as well as for supporting sustainable entrepreneurial decisions.
Natural ecosystems are extremely exposed to the ever-increasing changes in population growth and the expanded need for resources. The economic capitalization of their constituent elements makes their degradation and conversion more profitable than conserving them. Nevertheless, mankind is mindful of nature's value, and over time has developed its policy and means of protection and conservation to help it integrate its actions so that they respect the paradigm of sustainable development. Most of the ecosystem's functions are, also, economic. The process of determining the economic value of an ecosystem is a laborious approach that involves specific instruments that depend on many variables. These variables are induced by the innate/ natural transformations of the biogeographical environment or by particular situations generated by extreme phenomena. This study addresses the economic value of natural areas (with the example of the Bucegi Natural Park –B.N.P.) in a methodological context focused on international studies, with results in certain protected areas in Romania. The established report managed to provide an economic value obtained both from the revenues generated from the costs for visitors and jobs and through the capitalization of the non-commercial benefits. As an important element in our investigation, we took into consideration the pressures and menaces identified in protected areas. Natural activities (geological and geomorphological events, climate changes) and anthropogenic events (e.g. development of residential and commercial spaces, transport corridors and services, tourism activities) associated with negative elements (pollution, hunting and overfishing, degradation) involve costs. Dedicated by ever-changing legislation, inadequate financial support, and a faulty management approach, they tend to balance the scale against the benefits. The economic valorization of the components defining a protected natural area serves as an advantage for all involved parts. This must be performed within the limits of the actual legal framework but in the spirit of protection and respect for nature in all its' forms.
Sustainable innovation at a company level drives economic, environmental and social improvement at a national level. Recent evidence has shown that businesses have increased the managerial attention and investments dedicated to sustainability. This paper aims to identify the most important drivers supporting companies to develop innovation activities oriented towards making the business models more sustainable. We explore microdata from the 2016 Innobarometer "EU Business Innovation Trends" (Flash Eurobarometer 433), covering 8635 companies from 29 countries. Using statistical classification methods, we identify the most important factors that are related to innovation activities that have the potential to shape the efficiency of raw material usage and environmental protection. The most relevant factors emphasized by our analysis are: innovation performance of the country (innovation), percentage of the company turnover invested in innovation activities, percentage of total turnover invested in acquisition of machines, equipment, software or licenses, percentage of total turnover invested in company reputation and branding, including web design, percentage of total turnover invested in software development. Also, our analysis highlights the skills that are needed the most by companies in order to support their innovation activities targeting sustainability. Our results are useful for better understanding the attention that is given to sustainability by innovative companies, and what the main factors that boost innovation dedicated to sustainability are.
