Author: Sorin-George Toma

 Pages: 97-104Introduction. In the age of risk and uncertainty, countries and companies are competing in a turbulent global environment. In this respect, they have to face a plethora of different challenges, such as the COVID- 19 pandemic, disruptive technologies, demographic explosion, or climate change. A highly interconnected global economy imposes countries to compete not only for resources and markets but also to seek to hold a better place in this huge world economic network.Aim of the study. The aim of the paper is to present the evolution of the world’s largest economies in the period 2017-2020 by taking into account…

Pages: 28-34 Introduction. Customer experience constitutes an important concern of the top management of business organizations as it represents a prerequisite for achieving their long-term objectives. In this respect, knowing, analysing, and managing the customer experience has proved to be a highly effective tool for any company in obtaining and preserving its competitive advantage. Aim of the study. The paper aims to define the concept of customer experience from multiple perspectives and outline its main characteristics. In order to achieve the goals of the paper, the authors employed a research methodology based on collecting, analysing, and synthesizing quantitative information from…

 Pages: 7-14Introduction. Management and marketing are the two of the most important global functions for a retail operator. Presenting the marketing strategies in retail industry is essential to understand the challenges of the competitive business environment in nowadays society.Aim of the study. The goals of this paper are to present some ofthe retail marketing strategies that influences the retail industry. The methodology was based on a quantitative research method. The paper contributes to a better understanding of retail industry and to enhance the scientific literature regarding marketing strategies in this field. Full text sources

Introduction. During the time, especially in the last fifty years, leadership has increasingly become a major subject in the management literature, a subject of much thought, writing and teaching. While the importance of leadership is generally accepted all over the world, there are as many definitions of it as there are organizations. In spite of the fact that the business literature on leadership is so voluminous, there is not an agreed-upon definition of the concept of leadership. Leadership is not only intensely studied, but also practiced in different organizations. How to lead effectively an organization depends on many factors such as the organizational culture, the behavior of the followers, and the personal traits of the leader. The vast majority of successful leaders are multi-dimensional individuals.

Aim of the study. The aims of our paper are to present a short biography of Steve Jobs and to highlight his contribution to modern leadership. Our research is based on a literature review. The S. Jobs example illustrates how a transformational leader as him can be a key factor in successfully turning round the fortunes of a company as Apple. The paper facilitates a better understanding of modern leadership, emphasizing the case of S. Jobs, and provides a platform on which to build further studies on the same subject.
Keywords: leadership, Steve Jobs, leader, Apple
JEL Classification: M1, M19

Introduction. Starting from the observation that globally there are many voices questioning the level of adaptation of the current educational system to the realities of the contemporary world, we shall briefly present a couple of views on how the European and the American education of the future might look and also the way in which the academic leadership should manage this process of change. Since any vulnerability may represent in certain circumstances an opportunity, based on an existent analysis, as well as on some personal opinions we shall present the way in which the Romanian academic environment could develop. Believing that nowadays the exchange of experience and the know-how between different branches of the society are the key to obtaining a booster effect that will allow the occurrence of a synergy between them, we are proposing a vision through which the academic environment can take advantages, seizing on the experiences of the business environment, the effect of “leapfrogging” to eliminate the distance between the academic environment and similar systems in other countries with tradition.

Aim of the study. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the trends that mark the evolution of leadership in the Romanian academic environment from a systemic perspective to integrate the past, present and future. In our approach we start from an analysis of how the multiple transformations that took place within the Romanian society in its whole has influenced the academic environment, emphasizing especially the moments of rupture caused by the numerous reforms started and never completed and the problems of chronic underfunding faced by the system.
Keywords: leadership, academic environment, change, trends

Introduction. People in general, leaders especially, are influenced by the organisational culture and the other way around. Organisational culture represents a determining factor regarding the display of leadership, since these two processes create each other, adding value and consistency to one another. Moreover, organisational culture can be created and developed in a fluctuant business environment, in which the external factors influence its progress. The development of society has incessantly been emphasized by the relationship between the sexes, by their individual evolution, but also by the interdependency between them.

Aim of the study. Considering the fact that, in the current turbulent economic environment, certain qualities such as flexibility, intuition, development of communication networks and motivating the employees represent values that are considered to be “feminine”, one can assert that, in this case, gender is an opportunity. However, if we should take into consideration the impact of culture, of certain mentalities and misconceptions that are still present, regarding the woman’s standing in society, economy and politics, we can state that gender is a discriminating factor, because there is still the tendency to consider men as being better leaders.
Keywords: leadership, leader, organisational culture, opportunity, discrimination
JEL Classification: M12, M14

Introduction. A scientific approach to management was initiated for the first time in America in the late 19th century. Scientific management arose mainly from the need to increase efficiency in America, but other key factors were the spread of big businesses and the expanding application of science in industry. The aims of our paper are to present the emergence of scientific management in America and to emphasize the contribution of some of the most representatives American authors to its development. The methodological approach is literature review.

Aim of the study. Our paper shows that scientific management was essentially an American achievement that provided useful lessons for the whole human society.
Keywords: scientific management, efficiency, Taylor, America
JEL Classification: M10, N61

Introduction. Organizing the manufacturing processes constituted probably the most difficult challenge in the American automotive industry in the 1920s. A. P. Sloan Jr. was one of the greatest captains of industry and shaped General Motors Corporation into the largest automotive manufacturer of the world. His creative approach on how to mix a degree of decentralized responsibility with centralized control remains a useful example for every corporate leader.

Aim of the study. The aim of our paper is to emphasize the contribution of Sloan Jr. to the development of leadership. The methodological approach is literature review.
Keywords: A. P. Sloan Jr., leadership, General Motors Corporation, organization
JEL Classification: M1, L23, L62

Introduction. The analysis of the social-economic systems prove us that the whole is distinct from the sum of the parts. The concurrence of the components forming a system produces cumulated effects whose value exceeds the sum of effects of the components considered individually. Interactions at the level of parts help us understand the causes that sometimes generate spectacular outcomes of the system composing them. As a matter of fact, organizations exist because they mean more than the sum of the parts. Synergy facilitates precisely this pulling together of the members of an organization around a joint vision. From this perspective, we can connect organizational dynamics to the components of organizational culture.

Aim of the study. In this article, we aim at making a summary analysis of how synergy has intensifying effects by cooperation among the departments of CSOL-UB, but also between the latter and other entities: TEAM WORK, AERS, CARO, CAEN, SPHERAA SCHOOL, etc. Synergy analysis at the level of CSOL-UB leads us to the conclusion that cooperation among its departments generates benefits to the partners as well.
Keywords: synergy, network, intensifying, analogy efficacy, systems
JEL Classification: M00, M19

Introduction.In the past decades, regional development has been a permanent source of interest among researchers and policymakers all over the world. The importance of entrepreneurship in the development of the national regional economies has been recognized largely in the specialty literature

Aim of the study. The aims of the present paper are to emphasize the importance of the rural entrepreneurship involvement in the regional development and to analyse the results of a research regarding the cooperation between the stakeholders of the local and regional development. A set of two hypotheses has been tested by using the data of a sociological survey focused on entrepreneurship and on the potential entrepreneurs from the rural area, belonging to five development regions. The results of our research highlight that the relationships between the rural area business environment and the other actors involved in the regional development (local public authorities, professional associations, institutions centred on regional development) are influenced by the framework of organisation and cooperation with the local business environment.
Keywords: entrepreneurship, potential entrepreneurs, public administration, regional development
JEL classification: P25; M13; R58