CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ROMANIAN CONVENIENCE MARKET

Consumers find convenience – understood as a quick and effortless shopping and consuming processes – anywhere where providers make life easy for them, and not just in a few selected convenience channels. Seen this way, the concept of “convenience” clearlyconvenience, on-the-go products, consumer behaviour, convenience channels

National and Regional Women Entrepreneurs’ Networks

Women Entrepreneurship tends to become worldwide a driving force both in terms of number and gross revenues, playing an increasing role in the process of wealth creation and innovation. The dynamic networking phenomenon is helping to strengthen female entrepreneurship’s positive impact. The network can offer psychological, managerial and financial support by providing information, innovative and adapted consultancy and technical assistance to women entrepreneurs and aspiring ones. This paper outlines the main forms of networking and their impact, both at national and regional level, as instruments of economic development and as a response to business women’s need of dealing with a highly complex and fluid environment.

WOMEN-ENTREPRENEURS: A DYNAMIC FORCE OF SMALL BUSINESS SECTOR

The field of Entrepreneurship is experiencing worldwide not only a renaissance but a revolution in which women tend to play an important role. Are women entrepreneurs good for the economic development? What is their contribution to a healthier economy? Is Entrepreneurship more suitable for males than females? How strong the gender stereotypes are and how can they affect business success? Is Entrepreneurship an attractive career path for women? What kind of motivation and personality is needed for women in order to succeed as business owners? What are the main field women entrepreneurs are represented? How successful are their businesses? Is there a gender gap in entrepreneurial ventures growth? How attractive are the women’s businesses to the venture capitalists? Are women business owners underrepresented in stories in the media, business school teaching materials and academic journals? How to increase the visibility of key role models? How to better educate, prepare and coach women entrepreneurs? These are the main questions this paper will answer in the light of U.S.A. vast experience in theory and practice, a country where women business owners are a driving force both in terms of numbers and gross revenues. The authors will also identify methods of applying this knowledge to the specificity of emerging entrepreneurial culture in Romania.Entrepreneurship; Women entrepreneurs; Motivation; Women entrepreneurs’ profile.

The Networking Organization as a Reaction at the Commerce Globalization

One of the main globalization process effect is the increase of dependency among the economic actors. Networking is the response to the companies’ need of dealing with a high complex and liquid environment. The network brings to its members the opportunity to share risks and uncertainty. Based on cooperation the network is a new dynamic form of organization that allows each member to follow its own objectives. In the field of commerce the enterprise developing internal and external networks has higher chances to increase its competitiveness.Globalization; Networking; Internal network; External network.

RETROSPECTIVE AND TOPICALITY REGARDING THE INSTITUTIONAL ORGANIZATION AND THE ROLE OF THE EXTERNAL PUBLIC AUDIT IN ROMANIA

The research objectives aim at analyzing the institutional organization evolution of the public sector resources management supervising function, as well as the development and role of the external public audit in Romania. Although the external public audit has a quite short history in Romania, related to the country's accession to the European Union and the requirements that had to be met, our research horizon is much wider, being delimited by the institutional history, for over 150 years, of the supervising function of the public sector resources use. Thus, the research also addresses the financial control, as a precursor to the external public audit. The research methodology is qualitative and interpretive. Following the research horizon, the institutional history, the evolution and the role of the external public audit in Romania are addressed by reviewing the relevant literature, the normative (constitutional and regulatory) framework, as well as the publications portfolio of the Romanian Court of Accounts. The research is useful and relevant as it offers a panoramic image on this important activity in the public funds management and reveals the historical landmarks, which generated significant transformations in the field

THE IMPORTANCE OF TOURISM FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN ROMANIA

The tourism and travel industry represents, worldwide, the most dynamic sector of activity and, at the same time, the most important job generator, as well as a source of recovering the national economies. Tourism is a complex activity because it generates the circulation of massive sums of money, thus contributing to the development of various economic activities which are favourable to the environment protection and to the globalization process emphasis. Tourism itself cannot be considered as a "positive" or "negative" action, but its very diverse consequences can be evaluated in this manner. In the process of sustainable development of tourism, it is necessary that an increased attention be paid to the quality of the touristic products, which should simultaneously offer "the taste of perfection" and "the perfection of taste".touristic destination, sustainable development, touristic potential

Constraining Holocene hydrological changes in the Carpathian–Balkan region using speleothem δ18O and pollen-based temperature reconstructions

Here we present a speleothem isotope record (POM2) from Ascunsă Cave (Romania) that provides new data on past climate changes in the Carpathian–Balkan region from 8.2 ka until the present. This paper describes an approach to constrain the effect of temperature changes on calcite δ18O values in stalagmite POM2 over the course of the middle Holocene (6–4 ka), and across the 8.2 and 3.2 ka rapid climate change events. Independent pollen temperature reconstructions are used to this purpose. The approach combines the temperature-dependent isotope fractionation of rain water during condensation and fractionation resulting from calcite precipitation at the given cave temperature. The only prior assumptions are that pollen-derived average annual temperature reflects average cave temperature, and that pollen-derived coldest and warmest month temperatures reflect the range of condensation temperatures of rain above the cave site. This approach constrains a range of values between which speleothem δ18O changes should be found if controlled only by surface temperature variations at the cave site. Deviations of the change in δ18Ocspel values from the calculated temperature-constrained range of change are interpreted towards large-scale variability of climate–hydrology. Following this approach, we show that an additional ∼0.6‰ enrichment of δ18Oc in the POM2 stalagmite was caused by changing hydrological patterns in SW Romania across the middle Holocene, most likely comprising local evaporation from the soil and an increase in Mediterranean moisture δ18O. Further, by extending the calculations to other speleothem records from around the entire Mediterranean basin, it appears that all eastern Mediterranean speleothems recorded a similar isotopic enrichment due to changing hydrology, whereas all changes recorded in speleothems from the western Mediterranean are fully explained by temperature variation alone. This highlights a different hydrological evolution between the two sides of the Mediterranean. Our results also demonstrate that during the 8.2 ka event, POM2 stable isotope data essentially fit the temperature-constrained isotopic variability. In the case of the 3.2 ka event, an additional climate-related hydrological factor is more evident. This implies a different rainfall pattern in the Southern Carpathian region during this event at the end of the Bronze Age