Linking the double helix of learning and work to the triple helix of university – industry – government in the Europe of knowledge

The present paper presents results of research in progress. Its purpose is to highlight the relevance of the helix logic for the understanding and speeding up of the processes of innovation and learning in the knowledge based society with a particular emphasis on the European higher education and research area, more specifically Romania. Two representative models are presented and considered promising for their applications in education and research strategizing: the „Double Helix” of Learning and Work and, respectively, the „Triple Helix” of University-Industry-Government. The paper is based on (1) the authors' experience in Romanian higher education, from various university management positions to government positions related to higher education and (2) the author’s experience of dealing with the business environment during the transition, experience encompassing areas from policy generation and implementation to evaluation of projects and research. This experience is captured by a critical exploration of the realities addressed in the paper and turned into an academic piece of qualitative research by using the conceptual artefacts approach. The specific difference the paper presents consists of providing a common framework for analysis for the two models which are based on the same logic, but were developed in different contexts both from a conceptual and an operational point of view. The paper also puts forward the hypothesis of the convergence of the two models with arguments that contribute to including the issues presented on the research agenda of the sociology of science and the theory of the policies fostering learning and innovation. The conceptual limits of the Triple Helix model are underlined, as well as the distortions that might appear during the implementation under real conditions of the partnership for innovation among universities, industry and government. Some elements of qualitative diagnosis of the degree of Romania’s readiness for the adoption of the Triple Helix model are also presented. The paper puts forward the proposition for the convergence of the two models for further international research and study with the very practical view of finding means to render this proposal operational at both institutional and strategic levels.double helix of learning and work; the triple helix of university – industry – government; emerging economies; university governance; higher education quality; triple helix of university – industry – government.

Stakeholder Analysis of the Romanian Energy Sector

One of the basic components of the management of a programme of reform is the Stakeholder Analysis. It allows understanding and assessing the programme environment and provides to the management information defining the negociation position in the programme implementation. The paper undertakes a stakeholder analysis of the Romanian energy sector in relation with the programme of the reform of the energy policy of Romania, as a member state of the European Union. Using a matrix diagram, stakeholders are classified in different categories. This matrix diagram is the result of evaluation of the interest and of the power of these stakeholders over the Programme. In conclusion, both key stakeholders who have power and are most interested to develope the Programme and those who are not favourable in Programme development but have power and can adversely influence the Programme.stakeholders; power; finance; programme of reform; investments.

Asymmetric Conditional Volatility Models: Empirical Estimation and Comparison of Forecasting Accuracy

This paper compares several statistical models for daily stock return volatility in terms of sample fit and out-of-sample forecast ability. The focus is on U.S. and Romanian daily stock return data corresponding to the 2002-2010 time interval. We investigate the presence of leverage effects in empirical time series and estimate different asymmetric GARCH-family models (EGACH, PGARCH and TGARCH) specifying successively a Normal, Student's t and GED error distribution. We find that GARCH family models with normal errors are not capable to capture fully the leptokurtosis in empirical time series, while GED and Student’s t errors provide a better description for the conditional volatility. In addition, we outline some stylized facts about volatility that are not captured by conventional ARCH or GARCH models, but are considered by the asymmetric models and document their presence in empirical time series. Finally, we report that volatility estimates given by the EGARCH model exhibit generally lower forecast errors and are therefore more accurate than the estimates given by the other asymmetric GARCH models.stylized facts, leverage effects, asymmetric GARCH, volatility modeling, volatility forecasting

Indexes of Regional Economic Growth in Post-Accession Romania

The European Cohesion Policy is designed to yield concrete results, furthering economic and social cohesion and reducing gaps between development levels in the various regions. Considering the context of the early post-accession period, posing significant challenges to regional development in Romania, we have investigated, based on three indexes that we advance in the methodological section, the pace of development, comparatively, in the eight development regions of Romania. The results of the study, further presented, can serve as a basis for more detailed empirical investigation of the phenomena theoretically approached in this paper.cohesion, regional development, integration, intellectual capital

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

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.

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

Models Of The Intra-Regional Trade Influence On Economic Sustainable Development In Romania

This paper estimates the impact of trade between Romania and EU (export and imports) on sustainable development (defined through the following ratios: GDP growth and employment level) using dynamic forecasting and vector auto-regression (VAR) methods. Logistic regression forecasts the evolution of the GDP based on the evolution of exports and imports in the light of the Lisbon agenda, and the time horizon of 2010. Using data regarding intra-regional trade, the model may predict the GDP evolution, and, consequently, the economic sustainable development in Romania, as a new member of European Union.sustainable development intra-regional trade, economic integration, regression, model

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.

Paradigm Shift to the European Business Model. Extreme Light Infrastructure – Nuclear Physics Project. Study Case

The multipliers of paradigm shift in economy are abundance, change of micro and macroeconomic equilibrium, and increased intensity in creativity at the level of economic processes. Authors starts from the hypothesis that in the field of economics and business, a number of enthusiastic approaches to paradigm shift must be taken with some reservations as functional market have their specificity, the public choice logic is very well represented, the idea of social learning is present more than in other fields and the principle of economic rationality has great applicability. The most important characteristics of the new European industry are: is based on three pillars: strong educational system, scientific research and high-tech; advanced research is an integrative industry; the results of the advanced research are an Open Source. The analysis is based on the quadruple helix logic, authors analyzing the Extreme Light Infrastructure - Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP). As development of a country could be based on few advanced research projects and it is possible to use this experience for the whole region, new engines of the European economy, will be: nuclear research, extreme intensity light research and astronautics, the new industry will develop a large range of activities and jobs which will modify the labor map and the relocation of large companies to Europe will be one of the concrete result of the stimulating the advanced research.   Keywords: Paradigm shift, business model, infrastructure, technological challenge