Consumption and hysteresis: the new, the old, and the challenge

Consumers are reluctant to change immediately their consumption patterns when confronted with budgetary changes, in spite of fluctuating economic conditions. Their reluctance evokes the notion of hysteresis used by economists to describe the persistent influence of past economic events. The importance of hysteresis in economic research represents a natural consequence of the development of economic sciences and of the pursuit of understanding economic systems’ evolution by taking into account their ‘memory’, their conscience of the past. The present paper represents an attempt to review some of the most relevant approaches to hysteresis in economics and to emphasise the impact of the phenomenon on macroeconomic consumption in Romania. The paper aims at reviewing the application of hysteresis to economic models, and subsequently at constructing a two-phase research on households’ individual final consumption in Romania during 1990 and 2016, employing both the unit root and the so-called ‘true’ approach to hysteresis. The research results indicated the existence of hysteresis at the macroeconomic consumption level, thus revealing several implications for economic policy, inaccessible through the standard economic models

The Impact of Major Crises on the Behaviour of the Consumer of Tourism Services - A Perspective on the Impact of the Covid-19 Crisis

Tourism is one of the industries that has experienced spectacular growth in recent decades, while obviously influenced by socioeconomic developments and transformations. Recent crises have left their mark on the development of international tourism and the behaviour of tourism services consumers, at the same time revealing tourism's surprising resilience and pace of recovery from the effects of these crises that proved superior to other industries. In this sense, the health problems associated, especially with international tourism, attract the interest of researchers from a wide area of social sciences and medical disciplines. This article aims to briefly present a perspective on the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on tourism and the behaviour of the consumer of tourism services, starting by highlighting the characteristics of consumer behaviour during major crises and bringing into focus particular aspects of the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the industry and tourist behaviour

THE FUTURE OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND MONETARY UNION: CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS FOR A SOLID CONSTRUCTION

The article aims at analysing the debate regarding the future of the European Economic and Monetary Union as a core structure that will be capable to ensure the development of the European Union and to reach the fundamental goal of the free movement of the capital. Considered by many built on a week foundation, the discussion regarding how the European Economic and Monetary Union must be restructured became an urgent problem to be solve in the light of the last ten years political and economic events (international financial crisis, euro crisis, the radical view of several European political leaders elected after 2014). Our research focuses on different points of view regarding the future structure and regulation framework of the European Economic and Monetary Union as a critical qualitative research in order to put together the advantages and disadvantages of such opinions and the validity of arguments in their favour. Our research has as starting point the 2012 Four Presidents Report and the 2015 Five Presidents Report facing the opinions of the academia and the European financial market reality. We analysed different future developments proposals in order to identify the validity of concepts such as a banking union, new tools and mechanisms designed to contribute to the accomplishment of a functional Economic and Monetary Union. The article ends with several conclusions regarding the process to develop a deeper Economic and Monetary Union in the EU

Challenges of Hotel Branding. An Overview of the Romanian Seaside Hotel Industry

Brands have well-known advantages for companies, from ensuring product differentiation to themuch appraised and hard to gain brand loyalty. Due to the particular features of services, service branding requires specific attention, andalthough it was given less consideration than product branding in the dedicated literature, duringthe past years a certain amount of attention was also bestowed on service branding. The highly competitive environment of hotel industry has claimed use of brands and brandshave become vital to their marketing strategies. In the hotel industry, brands have become qualitycues and have gained their place among the factors the purchase decision is based on. The paper is aimed at presenting several facets of branding in the hotel industry, and at brieflyasserting the current state and challenges faced by the Romanian Seaside hotel industry related tobranding

Consuption and cosumers in the present economic context

Due to the multiple interdependences emerged from the coalescence among consumer behaviour, economic and human behaviour, the vast interest in the study of consumer behaviour has led to important developments, the field being permanently enriched with new contributions. Nowadays consumer behaviour is interpreted not solely through the act of buying, but also as far as its impact on our lives, on the way we perceive our own image and ultimately on our state of being is concerned. At present, the world economy is affected by the global crisis which has left its mark on the lives of consumers almost in all markets of the world. The obvious effects and their constant mediatisation emphasize the impact of the crisis and add to the already installed state of uncertainty. The current context shaped by the economic crisis is remodelling mentalities and re-lays the foundation for a new conceptual model of determinants of consumer behaviour, thus favouring the advent of a new type of consumer – more conscious, more rational and more attentive. However, bearing in mind that these new consumers were forced to emerge due to an unfavourable economic context, there raises the question whether the new consumers, given the opportunity by the improvement of the economic conditions, would go back to their past habits, or is this a lasting change in their behaviour? This paper is aimed therefore at presenting the current frame of consumer behaviour manifestation and the main influences considered to have an impact on consumer behaviour during the historical development of the field, at describing several tendencies in consumer behaviour determined by the present context and offer a perspective on whether these changes and transformations in consumer behaviour moulded by the present economic and social context are lasting or are merely the transient effects of a malevolent conjuncture

CUSTOMER ORIENTATION IN THE MARKETING ACTIVITY OF ROMANIAN COMPANIES

Market orientation is used to describe the actual implementation of the marketing concept or in other words induces the idea that organizations which are market-oriented act according to the marketing principles. The scope of this article is therefore to nvestigate and empirically assess the perceived impact of customer orientation as main component of market orientation on business performance using a sample of Romanian companies. The research results reveal the importance of this dimension and of the items used to assess customer orientation on business performance and represents a starting point for further research in the field

Reward Management Practices-Evidence from Constanta County, Romania

Modern companies are aware of the importance of their human resources. The humanresources management field raised numerous research themes that have been debated in thespecialized literature. One of these themes concerns the relationship between the specific practicesregarding human resources field and the level of performance achieved by the organization and itsmembers. In this context, one important subject proved to be the reward practices used by the companiesin order to motivate and achieve a certain level of performance. The results of several specialized studies reflect a better image on this particular field within theRomanian companies. This paper intends to analyse specific issues based on an empirical study on the companieslocated in Constanta County. The use of modern reward practices such as supplementary variablepayment correlated with individual or group performances was targeted. The results indicate anarea with underdeveloped practices and challenges to be faced

The High Performance Work Practices and Labour Productivity in Romanian Companies

Human resources management practices represent an intensely debated field. One particularissue concerns the influence that some of these practices generate over the performance level of acompany. Specialists have identified the concept of high performance work practices and discussedthe relation existing with the labour productivity level registered by the companies. An image of this relation in the case of the Romanian companies is presented based on the dataoffered by the European Company Survey and other specialized studies concerning the humanresources management practiced in local companies. This paper intends to analyse the specific results of an empirical study on the companies locatedin Constanta County. The specific issues considered are the impact of recruitment policies, trainingprograms, and reward system on the employees' productivity. Further research could narrow the field of analysis by considering the data for a specificeconomic sector in order to obtain results that are more accurate

A VIEWPOINT ON ECONOMY STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS REGARDING THE PROMOTION PROCESS OF TOURISM PRODUCTS USING ONLINE MARKETING

Among the tools that are used in promotional activity in tourism, the online marketing opens the possibility to promptly create offers, meet buyers' demands, and strengthen customer relationships. The online marketers consider that the Internet is a modern technology that allows firms to connect business partners, to identify more rapidly the consumers' needs, to understand and answer on individual demand. The aim of this paper is to emphasize the importance of online marketing in the process of promotion and distribution of tourism products, starting from an empirical research conducted among economic sciences faculty students. The results of this work may provide a partial image of the young people's opinion about online marketing as a tool of marketing communication, and may be approached as a modest guide for tourism marketers in the process of creating, promoting and distributing tourism offers

The Romanian Banking System –Key Dimensions and Visibility of CSR Practices

The concept of corporate social responsibility has received broad attention from both academics and business sector during the past decades. The field has grown and so have the theories and specific terminologies on CSR. Moreover, the approaches on CSR cover several perspectives such as, but not limited to marketing, public relations, stakeholder relation, strategy, or impact on financial performance. The concept has also permeated different economic sectors. Without receiving as much attention as other sectors, the research results on CSR in the banking system revealed interesting findings. In this paper, we aimed at briefly reviewing the evolution of CSR and its application in the banking system, with a particular focus on the case of Romania. Subsequently, we conducted a concise analysis of the evolution of the banking system in Romania, and examined the CSR practices of the first three banks, ranked according to the value of assets and market share