COMPARATIVE ASPECTS REGARDING CONSUMPTION AND CONSUMERS IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Consumers are considered, within the European vision, the “life force” of the economy. Although the technological means are increasingly available, both European SMEs and consumers are still suspicious of conducting cross-border trade. Single European market has the potential to become the largest market in the world. Currently, it remains largely fragmented along national borders, forming 27 mini-markets. The European Commission’s aim is to achieve a more integrated internal market such that consumers from each Member State have an equally high level of confidence in products, traders, selling methods, as well as consumer protection – no matter where they decide to make their purchases within the EU. The paper presents a secondary analysis of data regarding the many differences in terms of Europeans’ consumption patterns for different product categories (as a percentage of total expenditures). For example, the share of household budget used to purchase food is highest in our country and lowest in Luxembourg.. Also, the largest proportion of family budget allocated for utilities (water, electricity, gas) we find in Bulgaria, and for cultural activities – in Austria.consumption, consumers, European Union, Single Market, consumer policy

ASPECTS OF INNOVATION WITHIN ROMANIAN ENTERPRISES, COMPARED TO OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

The article approaches a key topic of the European economy, namely the issue of innovative enterprises, aiming to provide a more objective picture of the place occupied by our country in the European context in terms of innovative performance, the prevalence of innovation in Romanian companies, the typology of these innovations and these companies compared to other EU states. Emphasis will be placed on the characteristics of innovation in Romanian enterprises, on the differences in the degree of innovation among the developing regions of our country, but also on the difficulties local enterprises face in trying to innovate. Our paper will rely on a secondary analysis of data from multiple databases, reports, studies developed by European and Romanian institutions

The Quality of Life of Employees in EU Member States. Issues Related to the Nature and Organization of Work

The quality of life of employees has become one of the main concerns of European employment policies in the last ten years, with the strategies that were developed taking into account the new emerging risks related to the changes in the way work is organized (flexible work arrangements, increased work intensity in order to meet deadlines, increased share of highly skilled non-manual workers, etc.). The article presents a comparative analysis between member states with respect to the quality of the life of employees, from the point of view of the nature and organization of work, focusing on one of the negative effects of overworking, especially in non-manual occupations in new member states, which has increased in incidence in the last years: stress

Comparative aspects regarding safety and health at work in European enterprises

Safety and health at work has, according to the European policies, a key role both in increasing employment, including through the prevention of premature withdrawal of employees from the labor market and in increasing competitiveness and economic performance of European enterprises. The paper makes an initial brief presentation of the main provisions of European and national policies on health and safety at work, then continues with an analysis of statistical data regarding the situation of health and safety at work for employees in EU-27. A special attention is paid to detailed analysis of recent data, from the National Institute of Statistics, on the situation concerning occupational accidents and professional diseases in our country, including factors that determine them, depending on sex, residence area, age group, economic activity, number of absence days due to health problems caused or aggravated by work.

Organizational Innovation – A Means to Enhance Quality of Life for Employees in Knowledge Economy

This paper provides an overview of the latest significant researches, both in academic and public institutions, both theoretical and empirical, both in Europe and worldwide, on organizational innovation. It synthesizes the different approaches especially on the effects of innovative practices on the employees’ quality of life, as they emerge from the empirical research conducted in different organizations and countries, mainly in organizations of knowledge-intensive business services sector, specific to knowledge economy. Organizational innovation is a new way of organizing the business practices of the organization, including knowledge management, in workplace organization or external relations; it refers to practices that have never been used before by the company. Knowledge-based organizations are built on intangible assets, on the knowledge, experience and competences of high-skilled human resources, who represent the most valuable resource of these organizations. The secondary data analysis we conducted showed that workplace innovation leads to employees’ welfare, health and therefore to their motivation and loyalty. Unfortunately, in the last five years, the percentage of European companies that adopt new, innovative forms of organization (“discretionary learning” forms), meant to ensure better working conditions, decreased. Moreover, in Romania there is a lack of harmonization between legislation and the development of activities specific to the knowledge economy; that is why the conclusions of the paper consist in several guidelines for Romanian business environment in order to improve the “golden collars” employees’ quality of life

Internal Communication and Social Dialogue in Knowledge-Based Organizations

Knowledge-based organizations are constructed on intangible assets, such as the expertise and the values of the employees. As a consequence, motivation and professional excellence of employees are the main objectives of management teams. For this type of organizations, considered as true “knowledge systems”, the employees represent the most valuable resource that is not motivated only through financial means, but also through internal communication, autonomy or social rewards. The research of Eurofound shows that knowledge-based organizations have a low number of trade unions, while professional associations are more relevant for them. There is no tradition to defend through negotiation the working conditions of employees, thus it is important for managers to use the best practices, in order to increase the employees’ loyalty. We conducted a qualitative research concerning the quality of professional life of employees in five sectors of knowledge-based services: advertising-marketing, IT, banking and finance, research and development, and higher education; 15-20 employees from each sector were interviewed. Some of the questions referred directly to trade unions and affiliation, and also to internal communication. Although the results showed a different situation in each of the five sectors, there are few common characteristics: descendant communication is more frequent than ascendant communication, trade unions were reported as missing, unrepresentative or not very active, and the greatest part of employees in this sector are not affiliated, facts that limits the possibility of maintaining employees’ motivation on long term

Workplace Innovations as Reflected in the Romanian Economic Press

Workplace innovations are designed to optimize production processes in firms and improve employees’ working conditions; few researches on this topic have shown that workplace innovations increased employees’ job satisfaction, as well as a sense of responsibility and autonomy, but also employees’ overall well-being, especially regarding to work–life balance and health. Workplace innovation includes aspects regarding work organization (job autonomy, self-managed teams, flexible working etc.), organizational structure and systems (devolution of decision-making to employees, fairness and equality, supporting employee initiative etc.), learning and development (high involvement innovation, staff learning and development, shared knowledge and experience etc.), workplace partnership (social dialogue, representative participation, involvement in change, openness and communication, integrating tacit and strategic knowledge etc.). This paper aims to highlight the main characteristics of workplace innovations in Romanian firms, as they are presented in some economical, business and academic, journals in our country. The research methodology consisted of a content analysis performed on four Romanian economic journals two from academic area (Management and Marketing and Management Dynamics in Knowledge Economy) and two from business area (Cariere and Biz). The dimensions of content analysis included the different types of workplace innovations and their effects on organizational performance as well as on employees’ quality of life at the workplace, the size and the source of capital and economic sector of firms that innovate in human resource management, barriers and drivers to the implementation of workplace innovations etc. The period for journals content analysis was 1 year, between January 1 and December 31, 2013. The paper contains a case study for each journal, including abstracts of the most relevant articles on the workplace innovations and related topics

Management style in Romanian advertising agencies

The survey aims at identifying to what extent advertising agencies (especially Romanian ones), as organizations that depend on the creativity of professionals they hire, use a democratic management that focuses on values meant to offer working satisfactions to these professionals (autonomy, flexibility, cooperation, indirect control, participation in decision-making, etc.). The presentation of the results of the empirical research of management style in Romanian agencies (as showed by the analysis of the press in the field and by the answers to the questionnaires sent by e-mail to the managers of a number of agencies) is followed by a series of proposals for its improvement, in order to become a participative management

ANDREEA NICOLAESCU, The Situation of Employees in Cultural Institutions. A Comparative Analysis Between Romania and the Countries of the European Union

This article starts with a presentation of the role played in society by culture in general and by the cultural industries, in particular, complemented by a detailed definition of the concept of cultural industry. The more extensive part of the work is dedicated to the analysis of data referring to the workforce in the cultural industries. The article takes into account indicators which reflect, on the one hand, the situation of the personnel in the cultural sector as a whole, and, on the other hand, according to fields of activity. The approach based on fields of activity aims at outlining a comparative image between the countries of the EU countries, but also a more indepth analysis of the data available for Romania

COMPARATIVE ASPECTS REGARDING CONSUMPTION AND CONSUMERS IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Consumers are considered, within the European vision, the “life force” of the economy. Although the technological means are increasingly available, both European SMEs and consumers are still suspicious of conducting cross-border trade. Single European market has the potential to become the largest market in the world. Currently, it remains largely fragmented along national borders, forming 27 mini-markets. The European Commission’s aim is to achieve a more integrated internal market such that consumers from each Member State have an equally high level of confidence in products, traders, selling methods, as well as consumer protection – no matter where they decide to make their purchases within the EU. The paper presents a secondary analysis of data regarding the many differences in terms of Europeans’ consumption patterns for different product categories (as a percentage of total expenditures). For example, the share of household budget used to purchase food is highest in our country and lowest in Luxembourg.. Also, the largest proportion of family budget allocated for utilities (water, electricity, gas) we find in Bulgaria, and for cultural activities – in Austria