ROMANIA WITHIN THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE KNOWLEDGE-BASED SOCIETY – THE NEED OF CATCHING-UP THROUGH ARTICULATED STRATEGIES

The major challenge for individuals, firms and countries, as well was, until recently, to ensure sustainable global competitiveness; but, into the new circumstances of the knowledge-based society, this seems to be an even harder to get objective – especially for the entities which have not reached yet a minimal level of measurable performances on the defining coordinates of the knowledge based society. The conclusion – not only logical, but also necessary – is that any strategy aiming the transition to the knowledge-based society must integrate a series of well defining and indispensable elements. The measure of its efficiency and effectiveness will be given by its ability to ensure a sustainable competitiveness in the global, knowledge-based economy.knowledge-based society, research-development-innovation, strategy, innovative performance and competitiveness

STUDY ON COMPETITIVENESS AND CORRUPTION IN ROMANIA. DEPENDENCES AND INTERDEPENDENCES AT MACRO AND MICRO LEVEL

Competitiveness represents the long term objective of any particular entity – country or firm; that’s why all the strategies – no mater the level – aim to obtain and maintain competitiveness. But, if we look closer to the world competitiveness ranking, we can see an important impediment of Romania’s competitiveness (at macro and micro economic level as well): generalized corruption. There are some well proven (through theoretical and methodological studies) dependencies and interdependencies between competitiveness and corruption – at national and firm level as well – which we would like to emphasize by this paper for a better understanding of the context and in order to extract some lessons for the future. Classification-JEL: K4, L2, N4, O1national and firm competitiveness; global competitiveness index; private and public corruption; corporate corruption/ethics indices; corruption perception index

FROM BUSINESS CORRUPTION TO BUSINESS ETHICS – NEW CHALLENGES FOR THE COMPETITIVE STRATEGY OF THE FIRM

The word corruption became a hyper used one in the last few years into the public discourse – related with politics, business or public administration. In Romania’s case it was (and still is) especially related with the requirements of the adhesion to the European Union. All the infrastructures and superstructures of the society are suspected of being (more or less) contaminated by the corruption scourge – according to different studies and reports (made by national and international organisms) measuring the corruption level and its perception. The main idea of this study is to review and analyze the existing literature (which is mainly foreign) in the field of business related corruption – private-to-public corruption and particularly private-to-private corruption, form that is generally neglected and less examined in Romania – in order to identify why and how is possible and necessary for firms to make a shift from business corruption to business ethics. The competitive strategy of the firm can emphasize ethics among the core values of it, source of long lasting competitive advantage, a key resource of surviving into the global economic world and competition.business related corruption, private-to-public corruption, private-to-private corruption, business ethics

Knowledge management – a source of sustainable competitiveness in the knowledge based economy

Confirming the well known thesis knowledge is power, A. Toffler argued that the knowledge based society represents the acme of the human society development and P. Drucker said that the developed countries passing through the knowledge based society represents the biggest change of the modern world. That made possible and helped the emerging of the managerial revolution (defined as knowledge applied to knowledge itself) at the firm’s level. Under these circumstances, knowledge has to be seen as a strategic resource – source of competitive advantages and of managerial performances as well. Considering this, a firm’s management have to define a coherent behavioral model in order to seriously take into account and to valorize the knowledge management as a source of sustainable competitiveness into the knowledge based society.knowledge based society; competitiveness; knowledge management; managerial revolution

NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS BETWEEN CONCEPT AND REALITY. SOME INSIGHTS FOR ROMANIA

Competitiveness represents, now more than ever, one of the most desirable attribute an entity (country, region or firm) is looking for on the global arena. The evolutions that took place (for the last few years) into the "real world" and into the "academic field" as well, emerged into generating some new and/or enriched approaches, translated into new and/or improved theoretical frameworks able to embrace national competitiveness. After emphasizing two of these, the paper stops at the most well known (and recent) global report on competitiveness and analyzes it - with some special insights for Romania, in order to identify some of the characteristics of the Romanian competitiveness facing the demands of globalization.

CHANGING THE PATTERNS OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY – THE EMERGENCE AND EVOLUTION OF THE BRIC COUNTRIES

The world is (permanently) changing – and from time to time major shifts occur and redefine its patterns of evolution. The global economy within it gets new leading actors and defining features, new power balance and architecture. This is inevitable in order to develop. Sometime of these shifts seem to be the result of a scientifically grounded, well defined and consciously applied strategy, and sometime it seems to be the result of some kind of a Brownian movement (something like: “it just happened”). In this paper we analyze the fascinating “case” of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). Having some (a few) common features, but actually being very different (in most of the aspects), and in an absence of a unique mission, vision and development strategy, the four countries have started to be seen as an entity (given their previous evolution and based on forecasting studies) – not only able to change the patterns of the global economy, but, more than that, able to lead it in the (almost near) future (the year 2050). This very optimistic projection of Goldman Sachs obviously has (and still have) its critics, but the governments of the BRICs took it very seriously – by assuming the theory and organizing annual common meetings – the best of the validation! The impact of the global crisis (and recession) on the BRICs is a major challenge for them and the opinions also vary a lot in this aspect – from “BRICs didn’t experience the crisis yet” to “BRIC will offer the best models of recovery”; we just have to “wait and see”.BRIC countries, development, EU, crisis, models of development

Competitiveness and Corruption in Romania - Forecasting in the Context of the Romanian Integration into the European Union

Competitiveness and corruption are now - more than ever before - two real challenges for Romania on its way to the European integration. The theoretical approaches to those concepts did not get to a unanimous and happy end and the real figures that evaluate them are not at all pleasing for Romania. Our country registers low positions in the world and European hierarchies both regarding competitiveness and corruption. But, still it looks forward for its integration into the EU. The gaps that separate Romania from the European average scores are significant and by this paper we try to forecast some development directions and to estimate some time horizons in order to reduce the gaps, by significantly increasing competitiveness and diminish corruption.Competitiveness, Corruption, Forecasting, Integration, Gap Reduction

INTERRELATIONS BETWEEN ECONOMIC FREEDOM, KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY AND GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS – COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ROMANIA AND EU AVERAGE

Economic Freedom, Knowledge Economy and Global Competitiveness are three of the many and very different dimensions which characterize the level of a country’s performance. This paper tries to present these three important directions, the specific indicators that measure them – IEF, KEI, GCI – and the relationship between them. Also, it will try to demonstrate that countries with free economy can turn into knowledge and competitive economies. Furthermore, it will make a comparative analysis of Romania with the EU countries’ average in order to identify for Romania which pillar’s scores it has to improve.economic freedom, knowledge economy, global competitiveness, Romania, European Union

Valorificarea capitalului intelectual - criteriu pentru performanta manageriala in societatea bazata pe cunoastere

If we can see the knowledge society as an essential part of the “external environment” of the firm management, that brings with it some specific opportunities and threats, we have to consider the intellectual capital – that integrates the two basic resources: knowledge and human – a key ingredient for the “internal environment” of the firm management, which determines some strengths and/or weaknesses that lead to the success or the failure of the managerial effort of the firm operating under the circumstances given by the emergency of three processes with global spread: the economic globalization, the managerial revolution and the knowledge-based society. Having as starting point the premise that Peter Drucker emphasized years ago: the managerial revolution represents the third essential change into the dynamics of knowledge, when knowledge is applied to knowledge itself, we have to accept the priority of the human factor – which generates, uses and valorizes knowledge in a never ending process of interaction with the environment. By continuing with this logic, we can not ignore that, even if there is no unanimously recognized approach about the meaning of the intellectual capital, it appears recently a quasi-unanimous recognized opinion regarding the first place that the intellectual capital has to take as source for the competitive advantage of the firm and strategic resource for its management. More than that, in a time when knowledge becomes the strategic resource for any of the human activities, firms shift through a new managerial paradigm that characterize “the civilized business” and promote management intellectualization. By this way, the valorization of the intellectual capital of the firm could become vital criteria for the managerial performance in the knowledge – based society.intellectual capital; managerial performance; knowledge-based society

FROM FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE FOR SHAREHOLDERS TO GLOBAL PERFORMANCE FOR STAKEHOLDERS

The global business environment (at every of its levels and by any of its forms) is more and more competitive and challenging for firms nowadays. On the other hand, firms themselves exercise a growing pressure and influence over the society (by their economic, social and environmental – wanted or not – outputs/effects). There is no doubt about those facts. Under these circumstances, new theories and practices emerged, in order to bring together and make long term peace between firms/businesses and society (as a whole and considering each part and category of it as well). Stakeholders’ theory and corporate responsibility theory come into discussion when we talk about business cooperation and sustainable development, according with the future generations best interests. As a result, together with the new theory and philosophy of the firm, we (and firm management) must consider a new paradigm when measuring corporate performance: the transition form shareholders to stakeholders brings with it the transition from financial reporting to social reporting, in order for firms and their management to be able to manage and measure global firm performance (financial, as well as social and environmental, in the idea to positively answer to all the interests stakeholders have – a request of doing well by doing good). By this paper, we would like to analyze how the transition from satisfying shareholders interests theory to satisfying stakeholders interests’ theory changes the way management seeks for and measures corporate performance, and how this shift is perceived. In order to do this, we will bring together the Most Profitable Fortune Global 500 versus 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World and will analyze: the correlation between financial performance and social performance; the measure these two kinds of performance leverage each other – in order to achieve global corporate performance by satisfying all kind of stakeholders’ interests.global corporate performance, financial performance, social performance, stakeholders