Browsing: 2016, Vol. 24, Issue 2, December

Introduction. Although, it is widely used, there is no consensus among researchers in defining the concept of sustainability The various scientific debates available in the literature consider that the concept of sustainability should be approached in an integrated manner, which involves the maintenance and the improvement of the welfare at the economic, environmental and social level, taking into account both the importance of the processes and the output of the system.

Aim of the study. The paper aims to clarify the concept of sustainability through an examination of different opinions and controversies existing in the literature regarding this concept. Also, the paper presents the concept of sustainability analyzed from the perspective of system and proposes a definition of sustainability by exposing the sufficient logical conditions for a system to be qualified as a sustainable system. Are analyzed concepts such as: logically vivid system, autopoiesis, weak sustainability, strong sustainability, sustainable development.
Keywords: system, sustainability, sustainable development, logical conditions
JEL Classification: A10, O17, P00

Introduction. The macro environment refers to that side of the external environment that has the capacity to influence the companies’ activity, while acting indirectly through their microenvironment. Additionally, the macro environment’s influence can be remarked especially on a long-term perspective, being sometimes weak and somewhat uncontrollable. In this regard, some examples can be offered, such as: the unexpected activity of the volcanoes (especially after being “asleep” for a longer period of time or even after declared “inactive”); the unexpected devastating and destructive natural phenomena, such as, typhoons, hurricanes, tornados, or even floods;the unpredicted droughts; and economic phenomenon having the capacity of spreading world-wide a high and unexpected pace, such as the global financial crises.

Aim of the study. This paper focuses on the companies’ economic, social and research – development – innovation potential in terms of the macro environment. Moreover, the study takes into considerations the nowadays key elements, perspectives and challenges concerning this subject. Furthermore, this approach is a theoretical one, chosen due to the necessity of presenting the essential macro environment’s elements influencing and affecting the companies’ economic, social, cultural, technical, political and legal evolution in the marketplace, while taking into consideration elements such as competitiveness, open market, consumers’ behaviour, needs, wishes and desires, infrastructure and research – development – innovation potential. The first part of the paper focuses upon the main characteristics of the key components of the macro environment, such as, the economic, socio-cultural, technologic, demographic, natural, political and legal elements. The second part of the scientific study tackles the aspects related to the companies’ potential, in terms of their economic, social and research – development – innovation perspectives. The conclusions, limitations as well as future implications section presents the basic ideas that result from this study, as well as the elements that could be improved or even further addressed into the near future.
Keywords: macro environment; companies; economic, socio-cultural, technical, natural, demographic, political and legal elements, research – development – innovation potential, Gross Domestic Product (G.D.P.), infrastructure, financial and monetary factors, economic perspectives and challenges.

Introduction. The study acknowledges business environment’s role in the context of economic integration and points out to a few correlation that exist at present in the marketplace: competition, globalization, economic growth and sustainable development.

Aim of the study. This paper is focused on presenting: business environment’s role in the context of economic integration, in correlation with competition, globalization, economic growth and sustainable development, the economic integration and the role of the European Union at an international level, Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and sustainable development and Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) future with predictions and perspectives for 2020 and 2030.
Keywords: Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), Business Environment, Economic Integration, competition, globalization, economic growth, sustainable development

Introduction. If we wake up in the morning or we are walking on the street, we will see that everyone use gadgets and all sort of technology in order to be up-to-date with news or to tellsomeone else about them. We are all using all sort of applications and social media portals to be connected to our friends.

Aim of the study. The main purpose of the paper is to illustrate the importance of the new neural networks improvements for artificial intelligence, in the help of building new ways of management of employees and new ways of marketing strategies. Artificial Intelligence helps understand the need of the customer and to deliver what he really wants. Facebook Graph is a search tool that can be used also by company’s employees to improve their strategies of personnel and marketing.
Keywords: facebook graph, artificial intelligence, new ways of search engines, search engines AI

Introduction. Leadership has become a major topic in various domains such as sociology, political science, psychology, history, management or business for several decades and has spawned a huge number of empirical and conceptual researches. Today’s challenging and turbulent times require more than ever authentic and strong leaders both at the micro and macro level.

Aim of the study. The aims of the paper are to briefly define the concepts of leadership and leader, and to present the case of Carlos Ghosn, the chairman and chief executive officer of the Renault-Nissan Alliance. Since the beginning of his professional career, Ghosn has proved to be a leader par excellence. Our research is based on a literature review.
Keywords: leader, leadership, Carlos Ghosn, Renault-Nissan Alliance
JEL Classification: M10

Introduction. Current leadership is different from the one belonging to the last century’s society, and in the future, it will certainly be different from today. The difference is not one that relates to the philosophy and physiognomy of shape, but one that is structured on the philosophy of science dynamism and the complexity of social, economic, financial, informational and cognitive dynamics.

Aim of the study. This paper aims to highlight that in an open society, in which general management and even educational management move significantly towards complexity, leadership too will embody forms and formulas that take o leader out of traditional form of leader-hero, virile and good at everything, loved and followed, in favor of a teammate leader, a node network leader, one who will play a creative, innovative and distributive role, a cognitive and universal leader. This change of philosophy and physiognomy towards the creation of creation and innovation, towards knowing, encouraging and protecting those that step outside their limits, is what I consider as one of the fundamental characteristics of the leadership of the century that we just stepped into.
Keywords: leader, leadership; management; present, future

Introduction. Talent management could be defined currently as ,,all the systems and processes that enable a company to attract, develop and retain employees with highly qualified” but given different interpretations we observe that ,,talent management” has a different meaning for each company. Some organizations aim to manage talent throughout the company, while others are just managing employees with high potential.

Aim of the study. This paper aims to highlight that talent management is applied differently from one organization to another depending on the type and stage of development where they are. Approaches to this subject differ so greatly from one company to another, that a process for some is “nice to have”, and for others it is a process having a significant impact in business. Yet top companies have created worldwide selection networks through which talented peopleare recruited to be hired within such (Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, etc.). The budgets meant for identifying people with high potential are especially generous and therefore these companies have long-term collaboration with universities in various countries. It is true that talented people have a few areas in wich they excel and companies need to support them to develop these skills/competencies but at the same time, they have to ,,cultivate’’ also their social skills in order to integrate into organization and thus to help them but also the organization to develop harmoniously and be permanently competitive.
Keywords: Talent, organization
JEL Classification: M11, M12, M14, M54

Introduction. Leadership is often considered a desired way of managing things. It reveals specific personal characteristics through which leaders involve people into processes. Coaching has to do with a specific way of interaction between a coaching manager and the people receiving the benefit of it. In fact, a coach behaves like a proper leader and a coached individual like a follower. At the same time, leadership is different from coaching.

Aim of the study. Main objectives of this paper are the following: to explain the leadership process in relationship with coaching, to provide a set of measures to develop life coaching from leadership way of thinking and to identify the young generation’s perception on coaching. The study reveals similarities between leadership and coaching, as well as differences and contributes to a better understanding of these concepts, based on a literature review. The research based on a questionnaire explains the effects of leadership on coaching process based on the students’ perceptions. Therefore, the paper includes a case study for higher education sector.
Keywords: leadership, life coaching, personal development, life model, student-professor relationship

Introduction. The impact of leadership on economic welfare is therefore perceived from a double perspective: on one hand, company true leaders, exerting positive influences on the organisations they lead by providing jobs and by increasing revenues to the sate budget and, on the other hand, national true leaders, holding the mechanisms for stimulating, by their actions, both consumption and investment and, thus, for sustaining a sound economic growth.

Aim of the study. This paper has as main purpose to reveal, via a series of examples taken from real life, the dependence of economic welfare on good leadership, irrespective on the context of manifestation of the latter. Be they company leaders, therefore leaders acting at microeconomic level, or national leaders, herein embodied by governmental leaders, monetary authority leaders or presidential leaders, making decisions at macroeconomic level, true leadership is a continuous source of well being for any economy, as it represents the coagulation of miscellaneous economic touch constructive ideas and facts.
Keywords: company leaders, national leaders, economic welfare, microeconomic context, macroeconomic approach
JEL Classification: I31, O11, O12, M10, H20

Introduction. Research on stereotypes and stereotyping (Acker, 1990; Bergeron, Block & Echtenkamp, 2006; Carton and Rosette, 2011; Heilman, 2012) has so far shown that female leaders, in particular, can experience increased threat when attempting leadership positions in organizations.

Aim of the study. In this article, I explore the many ways in which stereotypes can undermine women performance in leadership and I discuss the factors that may help women become less vulnerable when faced with negative stereotyping. These factors are analyzed at various levels – the individual, the organizational and the situational/contextual levels. In the end, I suggest some ways designed to increase women’s belief in their leadership abilities as well as some interventions meant to determine organizations to become “aware” of their unconscious biases when evaluating women job positions and performance.
Keywords: negative stereotyping, stereotype threat, vulnerability, reactance, growth mindset
JEL Classification: M10, M20