THE MANAGEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE WORKERS – KEY FACTOR OF SUCCES

The traditional companies are built on familiar bedrock of buildings, plants, and inventories. Competitive advantage is viewed in terms of scale and volume stemming from high-capacity use of machine-based factories. Such an approach fails to recognize how the leverage of knowledge is becoming a key to long-term success. Nowadays, organizations must recognize that power resides in the minds of their best people, who are diffused throughout the business and the organizations are becoming more dependent on people than ever before. The recruitment and the employment of knowledge workers are becoming very important issues from Romanian managers. The competitiveness is the only chance to deal with a very challenging market, especially after European integration. In this paper we present the results of a survey of the opinions of Romanian managers about the most effective strategies for recruitment, motivation and retention the knowledge workers. The study investigated two groups of managers: the first group included the managers who never were involved in activities related to human resources, and the second, the managers who have been involved. The managers from the first group chose theoretical the strategies they considered most effective; the managers for the second group indicated the strategies they applied.knowledge management, human resources management

Lobby – A Strategy for the Romanian Entrepreneurs

Romanian enterprises can use an easy handled and legal instrument with the purpose to influence public power in law’s elaboration and application. As a strategy, lobby must be, first of all, an ethical activity. In the present international environment, lobby becomes a useful weapon for Romanian enterprises if they want to survive in the strong battle of international competitivity.Lobby; Strategy; Tactics; Influence; Competition; Public image.

The impact of information technology on the Romanian markets and e-commerce

The present paper has as an objective the concise analysis of the tendencies we could identify regarding the E-commerce in Romania. These tendencies have been identified after a research, analysing the secondary sources of information we can find in Romania. Starting from the hypothesis that in Romania, on line shopping is at the border between necessity and fashion, we present you a short list of the most used sites with on line shopping in order to have an idea about the dimension of this sector in Romania. Although the method has its limits , we think that it is the most appropriate way to offer some figures about the new industry that is going to develop in Romania. The paper also intends to identify possible tendencies of the near future in E-commerce taking into account the worldwide features of this process. Another aspect we want to point out is the impact of the information technology on the marketing and on the Romanian markets, both final markets and intermediate ones. In this new era of information technology, established marketing concepts seem to be assuming a completely different meaning; the ways of viewing the market and the possibilities of influencing it are taking on a new dimension. Technology plays a prominent part but the human part remains the same. Several studies have been conducted in the last 25 years with regard to Internet use and E-commerce by different analysts, pointing out that the computer power of processing data has increased thousands of times, whereas the processing power of the human brain has been the same.E-commerce; information technology; business market; consumer market; marketing

Hospetitiveness – the Empirical Model of Competitiveness in Romanian Hospitality Industry

Our interest is focused on an important sector of the national economy: the hospitality industry. The paper is the result of a careful analysis of the literature and of a field research. According to the answers of hotels' managers, competitiveness is based mainly on service quality and cost control. The analyses of questionnaires and dedicated literature lead us to the design of a competitiveness model for hospitality industry, called "Hospetitiveness – The empirical model of competitiveness in the Romanian hospitality industry". The model has three levels: the first level (the base) is represented by decisive factors of competitiveness: human resources, innovation, services and costs, which influence all hotels' operations. The second level consists in the inclusion of competitiveness factors’ attributes in the organization’s processes and operations, in order to reach the objectives and obtain competitive advantage. This is the level where all the competitiveness factors are transposed in objective measures, in order to make them easily understood by the employees. The third level illustrates the dimensions of competitiveness as results of the impact of the decisive factors on the organization’s internal processes and operations. These dimensions are: customer satisfaction, market position and internal and external social responsibility. The model is dynamic, being the starting point for specific models in hotel management (e.g. business or seaside hotels’ management), and also the base for a best practices guide that translates competitiveness factors into key competitive advantage.competitiveness, hospitality industry, hotel management, competitive advantage

CULTURAL AND MORAL VALUES- DETERMINANTS OF TURISM SATISFACTION

In the tourism activity, the cultural impact is very significant. The national cultural values generate the tourist or employee behaviour , but also the organizational values can influence this behaviour . And finally, the regional culture could be the main travel motivation. The tourism behaviour is under the influence of cultural and moral values. We can consider that in fact it is a result of national culture. The research of tourist behaviour under ethic perspective is a new approach in the Romanian academic research, but frequently in the international research frame. In this paper we want to examine the impact of cultural values over the tourist behaviour and over his satisfaction. The research, made in different hotels in Romania, is based on the questionnaire - used as an instrument in finding the information -and on the application of specific techniquesin analyzing the information. The conclusions show significant differences in the perception of tourism services’ quality, depending on cultural differences and interactions.tourism, ethics, cultural values, tourist behaviour, satisfaction

COMPETITIVENESS IN HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY: ROMANIAN STYLE

In this paper is presented one of the important sectors of the nationaleconomy, at least from its potential for development perspective: thehospitality industry. The research interest is related to finding out the mainfactors of competitiveness in this field. This research attempts to identify theessential aspects of competitiveness in the hospitality industry. Theobjectives pursued refer to: discovering the degree to which the concept ofcompetitiveness is understood and capitalized on by the managers in theRomanian hospitality industry; identifying a set of factors considered decisivein raising the competitiveness of Romanian firms in the hospitality industry;identifying the strategic concerns of firms operating in the Romanianhospitality industry, in order to establish the connection between strategy andthe competitiveness of the firms belonging to this sector.As a result, the hypotheses are: in the hospitality industry there areparticularities which influence the firms’ competitiveness and strategicorientation; preoccupation towards raising competitiveness and strategicorientation is influenced by the type of exploitation and the number of stars(level of comfort); in the hospitality industry, managers focus on cost controland service quality as decisive factors of competitiveness

The impact of innovative commercial technologies on students’ behaviour of an economic university

In a dynamic business environment, implementing innovative commercial technologies facilitates the winning of new competitive advantages in the retail industry, given the manifested influence on consumer buying behaviour towards commercial units, as well as the significant contribution to the development of modern shops image. This paper presents the attitude of students from the Bucharest University of Economic Studies towards the adoption of innovative retail technologies within hypermarkets in Romania, based on a selective marketing research, conducted on a sample of 359 students from undergraduate and master cycles. The main objectives focused on identifying: the image of certain instruments belonging to the innovative commercial technologies in terms of usefulness in the process of buying; the intention to use innovative commercial technologies; the perception of the main advantages and disadvantages of using innovative commercial technologies in the buying process; the importance of commercial technologies in relation to other attributes underlying the development of a hypermarket image. Research results show a relatively low level of awareness among buyers, due to a reduced exposure to innovative commercial technologies, but a relatively high availability of acceptance in the purchasing process. Thus, there is a favourable assessment of the utility of commercial instruments in the buying process and a relatively high intention of use. The paper also highlights the influence of innovative commercial technologies on store image and loyalty of buyers