Assessing quality and total quality in economic higher education

Nowadays, there are countries, systems and cultures where the issue of quality management and all the items implied are firmly on the agenda for higher education institutions. Whether a result of a growing climate of increasing accountability or an expansion in the size and diversity of student populations, both quality assurance and quality enhancement are now considered essential components of any quality management programme.higher education, quality management, total quality management

O noua provocare a invatamantului superior din Romania - universitatile antreprenoriale

Learning and teaching have always been at the core of economic change and development. For long time there was a search for suggestions, ideas, plans and projects of how educational systems can be made more relevant to the needs of the societies they were established to serve. Implementing the Bologna principles and following the priorities of Lisbon strategy, Romanian education system and, particularly, the higher education system, reconsiders and rebuilds its vision and mission as well as its entire strategy. In this regard, the following basic elements are considered in the paper: •What is learned must be relevant to the needs of the people in economy. Educational providers need to be in touch with labour market requirements; •Effective learning must be judged on the basis of the outcomes that result, rather than on the inputs required; •Ways must be found to facilitate learning rather than to simply supply instruction; •The valueing of research and innovation within educational organizations must be increased; •Tailor made “entrepreneurial” education towards the necessities of the market, especially focused on small and medium size enterprises; •The lifelong learning –education permanence- should be continuously developed and be linked to the market requirements. The role and the main influences that higher education system will have over economic and human resources development are underlined. Also, appreciating that entrepreneurship becomes more and more one of the most important factors of development, the education and economic development are linked through the concept of “entrepreneurial university”.higher education, economic development, entrepreneurial university

RESPONSIBILITIES IN MANAGEMENT OF TOURIST DESTINATIONS

Over the past six decades, tourism has experienced continued growth and diversification to become one of the largest and fastest growing economic sectors in the world. Over time, more and more destinations have opened up and invested in tourism development, turning modern tourism into a key driver for socioeconomic progress. Tourism has become one of the major international trade categories. Today, the export income generated by international tourism ranks fourth after fuels, chemicals and automotive products. For many developing countries, it is one of the main income sources and the number one export category, creating much needed employment and opportunities for development. There are many roles and various responsibilities in the management of the tourist destination and marketing. These are lead in different ways, in different countries, but, in general, they are divided among the national, regional and local levels. The national level is normally responsible for more strategic roles, while the local level is responsible for the operational elements.tourism, sustainability, re-launching strategy

A Global Vision over Benchmarking Process: Benchmarking Based Enterprises

Benchmarking uses the knowledge and the experience of others to improve the enterprise. Starting from the analysis of the performance and underlying the strengths and weaknesses of the enterprise it should be assessed what must be done in order to improve its activity. Using benchmarking techniques, an enterprise looks at how processes in the value chain are performed. The approach based on the vision “from the whole towards the parts” (a fragmented image of the enterprise’s value chain) reduces the focus of the benchmarking process of the enterprise. This is the reason why we introduce a new concept: “benchmarking based enterprises” (BBE). Accordingly to this, the enterprises, particularly corporations, gather common features, accept their industry leaders, adapt to their specific features and accept a new vision of benchmarking shifted “from part to the whole”.benchmarking based enterprises, value chain, corporation, SME

A Global Vision over Benchmarking Process: Benchmarking Based Enterprises

Benchmarking uses the knowledge and the experience of others to improve the enterprise. Starting from the analysis of the performance and underlying the strengths and weaknesses of the enterprise it should be assessed what must be done in order to improve its activity. Using benchmarking techniques, an enterprise looks at how processes in the value chain are performed. The approach based on the vision “from the whole towards the parts” (a fragmented image of the enterprise’s value chain) reduces the focus of the benchmarking process of the enterprise. This is the reason why we introduce a new concept: “benchmarking based enterprises” (BBE). Accordingly to this, the enterprises, particularly corporations, gather common features, accept their industry leaders, adapt to their specific features and accept a new vision of benchmarking shifted “from part to the whole”.benchmarking based enterprises, value chain, corporation, SME

NEW PATTERNS IN SCHEDULING WORKING TIME

Flexible work arrangements should focus on providing employees with more options for when and how they do their work. Organizations can provide a suite of flexible options to enable employees to choose the arrangements that best balance their work with family and lifestyle preferences. In this paper we intended to investigate the flexibilization process of working time determined by the new trends of work organization. For this purpose, the various aspects of working time in a company were analyzed in connection with the employee’s life cycle.flexible work time, time preference, work arrangements

Corporate Sustainability and Organizational Change. Case of OMV Petrom

Many corporations have recognized the importance of being perceived as socially responsible to the environment, employees or local community. They have worked hard to be labeled as sustainable organizations. Corporate behavior, however, implies a gap between theory and practice. Therefore, we consider it necessary to study how to transform corporations into sustainable organizations based on organizational change models. The paper brings an original contribution to the study of organizational sustainability by introducing a framework for sustainable organizational change using organizational culture components and Deming's Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle of continuous quality improvement

Ways to Reduce Consumer Complaints: The EU Perspective

Organizations are currently concerned with meeting consumers’ demands and needs by creating products that meet their expectations. Addressing wider issues of consumers’ protection and relying on a detailed research of the latest data from the European Union, our paper analyses and synthesizes ways to reduce consumers’ complaints on products and services purchased, based on a series of causal links and interrelated activities. It is a dual approach in order to link quantitative and qualitative arguments as well as the analysis of correlations between efforts and the recorded effects in the domain of the consumer’ protection. Based on data provided by the Flash Eurobarometer 332 there were determined the existing influences in consumers’ protection, calculating correlations among a number of indicators registered in the European Union in the field of consumer protection. Based on the relations established between the indicators that describe the domain of the protection of consumer, a model that centres on complaining in case of problems, indicating the main ways to reduce these complaints was developed and built

O noua provocare a invatamantului superior din Romania - universitatile antreprenoriale

Learning and teaching have always been at the core of economic change and development. For long time there was a search for suggestions, ideas, plans and projects of how educational systems can be made more relevant to the needs of the societies they were established to serve. Implementing the Bologna principles and following the priorities of Lisbon strategy, Romanian education system and, particularly, the higher education system, reconsiders and rebuilds its vision and mission as well as its entire strategy. In this regard, the following basic elements are considered in the paper: •What is learned must be relevant to the needs of the people in economy. Educational providers need to be in touch with labour market requirements; •Effective learning must be judged on the basis of the outcomes that result, rather than on the inputs required; •Ways must be found to facilitate learning rather than to simply supply instruction; •The valueing of research and innovation within educational organizations must be increased; •Tailor made “entrepreneurial” education towards the necessities of the market, especially focused on small and medium size enterprises; •The lifelong learning –education permanence- should be continuously developed and be linked to the market requirements. The role and the main influences that higher education system will have over economic and human resources development are underlined. Also, appreciating that entrepreneurship becomes more and more one of the most important factors of development, the education and economic development are linked through the concept of “entrepreneurial university”

A Global Vision over Benchmarking Process: Benchmarking Based Enterprises

Benchmarking uses the knowledge and the experience of others to improve the enterprise. Starting from the analysis of the performance and underlying the strengths and weaknesses of the enterprise it should be assessed what must be done in order to improve its activity. Using benchmarking techniques, an enterprise looks at how processes in the value chain are performed. The approach based on the vision “from the whole towards the parts” (a fragmented image of the enterprise’s value chain) reduces the focus of the benchmarking process of the enterprise. This is the reason why we introduce a new concept: “benchmarking based enterprises” (BBE). Accordingly to this, the enterprises, particularly corporations, gather common features, accept their industry leaders, adapt to their specific features and accept a new vision of benchmarking shifted “from part to the whole”