Corporate Social Responsibility and the Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Being currently under the pressure of the various imbalances induced in the natural and social environment and faced with the deficiency of its own incremental growth, the economic system – which is exclusively focused on the economic performance – is currently going through a stage of global structural changes meant to connect it to the simple values of the community, society and even humanity as a requirement for its survival and development through the sustainable competitive advantage. Taking into consideration that globalization tends to quickly standardize technologies and to equalize the rates of profits, the area of competitive advantage is extended beyond the area of economic factors (product differentiation, cost reduction, etc.) in interferential areas, where factors such as social responsibility assumed by corporations become levers to increase competitiveness. Corporate social responsibility circumscribes the company’s set of obligations to the stakeholders (individuals, groups or organizations that are directly or indirectly affected by the actions, goals and policies of the corporation) in a certain system of reference. The multiple groups that make up the reference society of a corporation lead to a multitude of expectations. The legitimacy of these expectations embraces various degrees of validity. Responsibility is a continuous dynamic process meant to harmonize and balance the interests of various groups and the roles they play in relation to and for the purpose of the common good. So far, no system of indicators has been unanimously accepted and no methodology has been crystallized for measuring the effect of the social effort made in the sphere of social responsibility. Nevertheless, research performed over the past years has shown that an ethical behaviour involved in the issues of the natural, social and business environment has an obvious positive influence on the reputation and sales of the corporations. The corporations’ competitive strategies should include – apart from specific goals such as market share, product differentiation or smart promotion – the goal of harmonizing stakeholder expectations. In this context, the commitment to social responsibility becomes an important pillar in gaining the partners’ and the public’s confidence, along with a recognition that would strengthen the company’s market position and its commitment to a competitive sustainable approach.responsibility, social performance, sustainability, competitive advantage

Determinism in Assessing the Consumer’s Ecological Behaviour

The discrepancy between the amplitude of erosive processes set off in the environment and the level of the measures taken to stop or to counter-balance the pollution effects, limited by the way of life, technologies, knowledge and conscience, entails high demands for the society as a whole and for each individual. This approach aims the addressing of the issue of consumer’s ecological behaviour as a process of conscious assumption of responsibilities for environmental preservation and manifestation of attitudes oriented to promoting the values of the ecosystem and delimitation of specific behavioural typology. In this respect, we proceeded at the holistic analysis of the domain’s inherent and specific conditions that allowed detection of influencing factors of the adoption of an ecological behavior and their synthetic structure into three groups of determinants: economic, psychosocial and organizational. In these three major coordinates, there are designed types of ecological behaviour, their effectiveness being at the intersection of the projections of different degrees of intensity considered on the chosen axes. Based on deductive reasoning there can be determined orthoscopic actions that are focused on eliminating the cause that generated behavioural deviations.ecological behaviour, determinants of ecological behaviour, typology of ecological behaviour, ecosystem relationship

Applicative Approach to Risk Management

Order, symmetries, correspondences and proportionalities that served ashypothesis for any economical theories are frequently infirmed by the contemporary reality. The new theoretical approaches take into consideration chaos, as an endogenous feature of simple nonlinear systems and synergetic of some minor variabilities with multiple resonance and interactions that could induce major changes in the systems behaviour. The higher the variability of a phenomenon, the higher is the probability not to obtain the estimated result. The expansion of globalized markets at planetary level and the volatility of some variables that have an impact on the whole system expose any business to an entire range of risks, thus the businesses administrations have the responsibility of risk management and avoiding of the blending of exogenous and endogenous risks, as an absolute condition of survival.risk, interaction, management, risk evaluation, decision.

Characteriologic Context of Service Assessment

Powerfully marked concept by the new economic paradigm, the service quality imply and economic parameters and psycho-social dimensions, leading to a multidisciplinary, sectorial and sequentially approach, in an effort to create an object-oriented reference framework to ensure recognition by the consumer and social accreditation. Service diversity and specificity require the evaluation and the analysis of the quality based on typological coordinates of definition operationalization. The conceptualization of quality is characterized by dynamism, systemic approach, integrating and procedural feature in an evaluative-comparative approach. The fundamental importance of quality in the competitiveness and prosperity of an enterprise resulted into the completeness of its approach as overall quality across the entire lifecycle and on the level of every organizational structure, its acknowledgement on top management level attaining at the consumers’ as well as own employees’ satisfaction. As a dichotomy approach, the evaluation of quality is performed in the context of its perception relativization by the consumer’s standards of quality and by services standards of the provider, requiring the implementation of some value-regulatory systems specific to the types of services on sectorial and private level. The simplex of values, granting identity of appreciation tends, in time, by its cognitive balance to preserve a common definition basis of quality and to and to complementarize through the motivational balance, the interests of the consumer and the provider, noting that the economic operator’s margin is determined by the perceived performance.quality; need; satisfaction; utility; value; simplexy of values.

THE POTENTIAL FOR WATER DIFFUSE POLLUTION WITH HEAVY METALS IN ARIEȘ RIVER BASIN

The potential for water diffuse pollution with heavy metals in Arieș river basin. Arieș river basin is found mostly in the area of mining extractions from Apuseni Mountains. Its position causes a high vulnerability of water courses to pollution with heavy metals derived from mine waters. In this sutdy, in order to determine the potential for water diffuse pollution in Arieș river basin, two main factors were integrated in GIS software, respectively: the potential for surface runoff and the localization of the sources of water pollution with heavy metals (quarries, mines, blank depositions, decantation ponds). The highlighting of the potential for water diffuse pollution was achieved by computing the DPPI index for each river sub-basin. The index was computed by multiplying the average values of the Flash-Flood Susceptibility Index for each river sub-basin by the number of difuse pollution sources (quarries, mines, blank depositions, decantation ponds) within the sub-basin units. The results relieved that the most exposed areas to pollution correspond to water courses from Valea Șesei, Roșia Montană, Valea Buciumanilor river basins and implicitly Abrud river basin, which contains the last two mentioned river basins. The validation of the results was performed by  consulting the data reports offered by the Agency for Environmental Protection from Alba county, which confirm the severe water pollution with heavy metals

Pain in photodynamic therapy

Photodynamic therapy is a modern treatment with applications in several medical specialties, which has been intensely studied in the last years. The main indications in dermatology are actinic keratosis, superficial basal cell carcinoma and Bowen\u27s disease- common skin disorders in which photodynamic therapy proved its efficacy. At present, the use of photodynamic therapy for the treatment of other skin disorders is profoundly researched. Pain is the most common and redoubtable adverse effect of photodynamic therapy and it is the most important factor affecting the patient\u27s adherence to treatment. The aim of this article is to look over the most recent medical studies regarding pain in PDT, with emphasis on the factors affecting the occurrence of pain and the most recent strategies for controlling photodynamic therapy- related pain

Green Accounting in Romania - a Vision to European Integration

The paper debates solutions, points of view and a commune language for Green Accounting. The main purposes of our research are the following: 1.Define the object of Green Accounting 2.Scope 3.Theory and specific practices 4.Disclosure and financial analysis 5.Romanian experience in Green Accounting. How to define Green Accounting? Is Green Accounting a part of Environmental Accounting? How to ensure the balance between business interests and envinronmental protection? Are environmental goals based on Total Quality Management? How to design for Environment? This are some questions proposed to be discused in this paper.

Creating the Cartographic Database and Informatization of the Systematic Cadastre Works Process

The main objective of this paper is to correlate the current cartographic database with the old one, in the systematic cadastral works. Implementing a GIS and a geodatabase containing the cartographic database is necessary for identifying the buildings in the systematic cadastral works. In order to obtain the actual mappingdatabase, a Phantom 4 PRO drone was used, with a 20 mp resolution camera. For determining the ground reference points there were used two South S82V GPS receivers with double frequency L1, L2, in base-rover radio mode. The existing cartographic database has been taken over from the Cadastre and Land Registration Office and integratedinto the newly created geodatabase. With a unique GIS database, the process of identifying new buildings with old land data is done in a fast and efficient way. The accuracy of the new cartographic database provides greater security identifications, which can be affected even in the office, especially for those owners who have not submittedthe stage of identifying the land. The exploitation of UAV photogrammetric measurements come in support of specialists carrying out systematic cadastre works, especially in the context of the low price per building imposed by the National Agency of Cadastre and Real Estate Advertising