Advancing Strategic Management Through Sustainable Finance

In a VUCA world dominated by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity as it is the case today, strategic management is redefined by the necessity to acquire strong organizational capabilities of agility and resilience, simultaneously with a prominent orientation toward adoption of measures destined to meet climate change and social challenges.  The environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria are the new must when designing corporate programs, starting to be adopted by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as well, but with different success rates. High-profile ESG programs tend to be launched and developed mainly by organizations that integrate them into evolving business models and strategies, thus translating gradually to sustainable strategic management frameworks. Nevertheless, to adopt sustainability in business requires concomitantly acquiring financial performance and having access to disposable financial capital. The paper explores the current challenges of sustainable strategic management in parallel with the academic discussions on shareholders’ value creation, investigating the relation with available sustainable investments’ practices. The long-term and short-term financial performance of sustainable business practices are investigated, as well as the orientation of professional investors regarding ESG programs, as presented in recent literature. The authors discuss the importance of knowledge in adopting sustainability in business, the organizational maturity in adopting sustainability in day-to-day activities, as well as the impact of regulatory stimulus and of financial performance on investing in ESG programs. Finally, the paper tackles the necessity to make available more financial resources alongside a gradual transformation of managerial mentalities oriented toward measurable and well-defined planned sustainable strategic management

Challenges for the University Intellectual Capital in the Knowledge Economy

Universities have always been fundamental institutions in any society due to their enduring mission of creating new knowledge through research, of training generations of professionals, and providing service for community. They have a long life cycle and need to adapt continuously to their changing environments. In the last decades, the emergence and development of knowledge society put forward new challenges to universities and to managing their intellectual capital. The purpose of this paper is to present three main challenges for the university intellectual capital in the knowledge economy, and to discuss how these challenges can be achieved. These challenges are the following: 1) to unfold the Gordian knot of the canonical model of intellectual capital; 2) to go beyond the Newtonian logic in intellectual capital evaluation and reporting; and 3) to integrate intellectual capital in the strategic thinking of the university. All of these challenges are strongly related to the university performance

Generation Y Students: Using Facebook for Communicating with University Staff and Professors

As the ICT develops, universities have to learn how to reshape their communication practices and views on learning environments. Today’s students, members of the Y Generation, are digitally natives who wish to, desire and might benefit from the use of Social Network Sites (SNS) communication with their teachers and College administrative staff.The main objective of this paper is to present a manner of using Facebook for faculties in order to better communicate with students. Thus our research is based upon previous examples from academic literature and upon a pilot study conducted online, using a self-administrated questionnaire applied on students from the College of Communication and Public Relations at the National School of Political Science and Public Administration in Bucharest. Based on their answers, this article proposes some recommendations for using Facebook for university staff and professors.  Keywords: communication, educational management, digitally native, Facebook, university, Y Generatio

Social Entrepreneurship – a Perspective of the Young Romanians

More and more nonprofit organizations employ business strategies to be more effective and to achieve their social goals. Social entrepreneurship is an option for increasingly more people who want to change the society for the better. The study investigates how Romanians understand the role of nonprofit organizations in society, as well as which are the perceived differences between nonprofit organizations and social enterprises. Of special interest is the Millennials` view, an increasingly more important part of the society. The results lead not only to a better understanding of the way the social system is perceived but also to identifying how to involve Millennials in the social economy

Perceived Factors and Value of Online Master Degrees in Romania

oai:ojs.www.managementdynamics.ro:article/8In the last #ve years, online master degrees were introduced in the educational offer by major higher education institutions from Romania. Although there were few pure online master degrees, the demand for such degrees has been continuously growing. More recently, a legislative measure discouraged the existence of a pure online learning degree, despite the success these degrees enjoyed and the positive opinion of employers. In this context, the present study aims to measure the perceived value and satisfaction of online master degrees among graduates of this type of degrees, the factors that influenced their choice to enroll in an online master program, and the perceived opinion of employers towards online master degrees. Findings reveal an overall increased satisfaction and perceived learning among graduates. We also found that the demographic characteristics and the grades students received during the years of study and at the graduation exam (dissertation) are strong predictors of perceived value and satisfaction with online master degrees

M-commerce – Facts and Forecasts. A Comparative Analysis within a Triad Framework: India, Romania, and the United States

The present article aims to advance a comparative analysis among three countries - India, Romania and the United States - placing mobile devices, internet infrastructure and m-commerce at the core of the investigation. The scope of the study simultaneously covers the landscape and dynamics of m-commerce and of related objective indicators, bringing to the fore figures, facts and forecasts corroborated from the latest reports, statistics and articles. In this respect, it adds up to the extant literature by systematizing report outputs in a unitary comparative framework and by generating inputs for further research endeavours on the subjected factors associated with m-commerce evolution

Aspects of Price Competitiveness in the Context of Preparing for Accession to the Euro Zone. New Challenges for Entrepreneurs. Romania’s Case

In the process of preparing a state for the accession to the Euro Zone it is essential to analyze the price competitiveness of that state’s economy and the challenges that entrepreneurs will have to face in the new economic environment. In the present paper the authors want to capture some aspects of the competitiveness of the Romanian economy and implicit its entrepreneurs with emphasis on price competitiveness, whereas accession to the Euro Zone implies giving up to the independence of exchange rate policy, with a huge impact on price competitiveness. For this purpose this study will highlight a few elements on the relative importance of price competitiveness of entrepreneurs’ exports performance. The process of accessing Euro Zone creates significant changes in the existing way of conducting business and impacts significantly entire business environment – and this will become evident also for Romania

A Managerial Perspective on Common Identity-based and Common Bond-based Groups in Non-governmental Organizations. Patterns of Interaction, Attachment and Social Network Configuration

The paper approaches the common identity and common bond theories in analyzing the group patterns of interaction, their causes, processes and outcomes from a managerial perspective. The distinction between identity and bond referred to people’s different reasons for being in a group, stressing out whether they like the group as a whole — identity-based attachment, or they like individuals in the group — bond-based attachment.  While members of the common identity groups reported feeling more attached to their group as a whole than to their fellow group members and tended to perceive others in the group as interchangeable, in bond-based attachment, people felt connected to each other and less to the group as a whole, loyalty or attraction to the group stemming from their attraction primarily to certain members in the group. At this level, the main question concerned with the particularities of common identity-based or common bond-based groups regarding social interaction, the participatory architecture of the group, the levels of personal and work engagement in acting like a cohesive group. In order to address pertinently this issue, the current work was focused on a qualitative research which comprised in-depth (semi-structured) interviews with several project coordinators from non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Also, to make the investigation more complex and clear, the research relied on the social network analysis which was indicative of the group dynamics and configuration, highlighting the differences between common identity-based and common bond-based groups

Fixing the Central Parity and the Evolution of the Currency within the Exchange Rate Mechanism II in the Countries that Joined the Euro Zone

The present paper presents the models used by the countries that joined the Euro zone after 2000, in fixing the central parity and the evolution of the local currency towards Euro, when participating in Exchange Rate Mechanism II (ERM II). It synthesizes the main theories for determining the equilibrium exchange rate. It also presents the modality of putting them into practice in the countries that had already become members of the Euro zone. The better we know the other countries’ experience in the respect of the joining process to the Euro zone, the better will Romania be able to prepare itself for adopting the unique European currency. Thus, we will be synthesize the main approaches within literature and also in the economic policy deciders’ practice concerning the estimation of the equilibrium exchange rate and implicitly, of the central parity. The paper presents the modality of fixing the central parity and the experience of participating in ERM II for a number of member states that joined the Euro zone after 2000: Greece, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta, Cyprus and Estonia. For these states we also analyze the evolution of the currency towards Euro while participating in ERM II. Starting from these examples, we explain the advantages and the disadvantages in fixing the central parity over/at/under the value of the exchange rate on the market at the moment of joining ERM II and we underline the problems that might occur in the case of choosing a central parity that is not compatible with the equilibrium value of the exchange rate