SEA 5 – INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES BETWEEN TRADITIONAL AND MODERN METHODS @ The Romanian Academy, Iasi Branch
SEA 5 – INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES BETWEEN TRADITIONAL AND MODERN METHODS @ The Romanian Academy, Iasi Branch
The academic event hosted by the Romanian Academy, Iaşi Branch, brought together participants from Romania, the most important higher education institutions and research centers, as well as from Germany, France (Sorbonne), Israel, Kosovo, Algeria, Uzbekistan, Malaysia and others.
Following the selection and census, some articles have been published in the conference volume, ISBN: 978-606-624-946-1 or in the official journals of the event: SEA-Practical Application of Science, Cross-Cultural Management Journal, Network Intelligence Studies and Management Intercultural.
The purpose of the SEA international scientific conferences is to enable the academia, research, and corporate entities to boost the potential of the “Share, Empower & Awareness” environments, by providing a forum for exchange of ideas, research outcomes, business case and technical achievements.
The central theme of SEA 5 was “INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES BETWEEN TRADITIONAL AND MODERN METHODS”.
The conference was particularly focused, but not limited to the following panels:
- Interdisciplinary ecosystems: perspective on design, development, and deployment.
- Pedagogy and psychology in traditional and modern research methods.
- Innovations in research.
- Research management, analytics, quality assurance and validation processes.
- Social, cultural and ethical dimensions of traditional and modern methods.
- Best practice in research methods.
The SEA conference constantly promotes original articles of basic research outcomes, experimental development, case studies and best practices, critical analysis and discussions, statistics, assessments and forecasts on Sharing, Empower and Awareness environments.
Opening ceremonies
In the opening of the Conference the distinguished Presidium has addressed Welcome messages to the audience, as follows:
From Romanian Academy – Iaşi Branch, Mr. Associate Professor Florin Alexandru LUCA – President Committee to study the issues of marketing, Mr. Academician Mihai Voicu conveyed the message that wished good thoughts and success to participants in Conference works.
Professor Constantin SASU, Director of the Department of Management, Marketing and Business Administration from the University “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, in his speech, stressed the role of marketing in the social sciences emphasizing the interdisciplinary nature of marketing, establishing a connection with sociology, psychology, and statistics.
Associate Professor Adriana MANOLICĂ, Chief Marketing Collective, at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University delivered a lecture under the theme “School else”. Since we synthesized speech: “The UNICEF announces that 2030 will be more graduates than in all of human history gathered in one place. No more than 15 years before. So we are moving towards an inflation of diplomas in the context of a market unable to absorb them. Should not we do something? Should not we change the school curriculum? And this question should not remain rhetoric!
A whole world understood that ingredient that must distinguish in education should be human creativity. Each child is extremely creative, but – once enlisted in the cohorts of students – is directed at suppressing the given native, to be placed in some molds. But it is precisely that feature will give place in the world. Exactly for that feature came to Earth. To avoid fueling future inflation, it should be a positive drift. Education is the only chance of greening. It is a harmonization of the individual and society, while preserving the individuality of each.
So my opinion is that the school should be judged not Modern vs. Traditionally, but otherwise. ”
Professor Dumitru ZAIȚ, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Founding Editor and President of ”Cross-Cultural Management Journal”, gave a lecture on “Methodological Options in economic research and management” in which resorted to an attempt to release a logical form of a system of selection rules methodological research in economics and management: “I’ll do it in an approach that would rather stay than providing reference designs with regard to methodological option the research, which remains open and subject anyway referee researcher subjective concerned. What follows here is only an approximate scheme of unexplained logic of a methodology suitable choice.”
- ”Position regarding the issue: its placement in context, identifying the factors and variables, rational estimation of possible relationships etc.
- Achieving and expression of logical nature of relations (associations, correlations, causal dependencies and pseudo causal distinctions between what is explicit causal dependency and an association or a statistical correlation – plausibility, event, probability …)
- Considering specificity and scope volatility (Economics and Management): subjective intervention (decision) and unanticipated and uncontrollable objective.
- The mandatory preliminary analysis of the factors and variables: the rational logic is more important, more meaningful and more convincing than the statistical test (not sampling plausibility and truth)
- Appropriation methodology and method – specific methodological framework: a priori methodology is not suitable problem domain, circumstances …
- A crossing rational methodology: identification of compatibility (sample size, shape, distribution / allocation, co-or multicollinearity …)
- Why does economic research appeal to heuristic approach, constructive, qualitative and abductive”
Session 1 – Presentations
Chair:
Dan SERGHIE – The Romanian Foundation for Business Intelligence;
Ovidiu Aurel GHIUȚĂ – University Ștefan cel Mare
Efrat Kedem-TAHAR: THE KIBBUTZ THAT WAS – WHAT IS LEFT FROM THE ORIGINAL CONCEPT
The aim of this article is to analyze the meaning of the ideological, social and financial crises undergone by the Kibbutz Movement in Israel, which has existed for the past one hundred years. The paper will discuss in detail the values of cooperation, democracy and equality that were the guiding principles of the Kibbutz Movement for dozens of years. The difficult economic reality forced upon the entire State of Israel during the 1980s did not pass over the Kibbutz Movement, which consists approximately 1.7% of the population of the State of Israel and approximately 2.2% of the Jewish population in Israel. This crisis compelled the Kibbutz Movement to make internal administrative and organizational changes in order to survive it. The paper will describe the measures taken in the mechanism that was sealed and preserved for dozens of years on many levels – administrative, social and economic; amechanism that required a drastic transition from being based on agriculture to industry and production, all while preserving the Kibbutz way of life and core values.
Cristina Anca COLIBABA, Irina GHEORGHIU, Ovidiu Rusalim PETRIS – PALLIATIVE CARE AND MEDICAL COMMUNICATION
This article outlines learners’ difficulty in acquiring and practicing palliative medical skills necessary in medical procedures due to limited technologically state-of-the art language learning support to facilitate optimum access for medical students to the European medicine sector and offers as a potential solution the Palliative Care MOOC project (2014-1-RO01-KA203-002940). The project is co-financed by the European Union under the Erasmus+ program and coordinated by the Gr.T.Popa University of Medicine and Pharmacy Iasi, Romania. The article describes the project idea and main objectives, highlighting its focus and activities on developing innovative guidelines on standardized fundamental medical procedures, as well as clinical language and communication skills. The project thus helps not only medical lecturers and language teachers who teach medical students, but also the medical students themselves and the lay people involved in causalities.
Laura DIACONU MAXIM, Andrei MAXIM – IMPORTANCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE FOR THE SUCCESS OF USA LOW-COST AIRLINES. SOUTHWEST AND JETBLUE CASE STUDIES
The aim of the present paper is to investigate the role played by the organizational culture to the success of the USA low-cost airlines, taking as example two major operators: Southwest Airlines and JetBlue. This exploratory research was conducted using two methods. An analysis of the secondary data offered by the specialized literature was followed by primary data collection, through structured interviews with the representatives of Southwest Airlines and JetBlue. The results show that the success of the two low-cost airlines was based not only on their cutting costs strategies, but also on the organizational culture they have promoted during time. This organizational culture is based on closed relationships between the employees, clients and suppliers, among which the communication is simplified and transparent. These particularities of the two operators have made huge differences between them and other low-cost airlines in terms of resilience to the economic downturns, increased number of transported passengers, of revenues and profits.
Andronicus TORP, Zoltan Istvan MAROSY, Anca Alexandra PURCAREA – MINDFULNESS –MAY DIMINISH STRESS AND INCREASE ENERGY.
Mindfulness is increasingly being applied in companies as a means to increase, among others, employee wellbeing and energy, and in the same time to diminish stress. This paper argues that there seems to be scientific evidence showing that certain mindfulness techniques may diminish stress and increase energy, yet it seems that there is a period in the beginning of the mindfulness practice where the techniques have the opposite effects. These findings seem to be contradictory to past findings, which indicated that only two thirds of people practicing mindfulness techniques have positive effects from that practice. It may be that everybody can have positive effects from the practice of the mentioned techniques, just that some need to practice for a longer period before obtaining these positive effects. Further scientific studies seem to be needed in order to clarify the full spectrum of effects and consequences of practicing different mindfulness techniques, and just as important, if these effects are valid for everybody.
Gyula Laszlo FLORIAN, Csaba PAJOS – AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF THE IMPACT OF MARKETING PERFORMANCES ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCES IN THE CONTEXT OF ROMANIAN SUPPLY CHAINS
In order to achieve the desired performances and the increased value added to the final consumer, organizations need not only to integrate their core businesses and align them to business strategy but also to embrace the marketing philosophy. After presenting the main issues in operationalizing the marketing performances, we propose an empirical research using a working dataset of 64 firms from various industries to analyze the relationship between marketing and organizational performances. The research methodology employed is based on structural equations modeling. Results document that marketing orientation influences organizational performances in the framework of the supply chain management strategic approach to organizational performances.
Parallel Session 2 / 1 – Room for Debates – Presentations
Chair:
Irina Teodora MANOLESCU – Alexandru Ioan Cuza University;
Florin Alexandru LUCA – The Romanian Academy
Pasarica Armand Eugen, Popescu Mioara – Prediction of GDP in Romania using back-propagation neural network
During the last years, neural network becomes one of the instruments used in modelling and forecasting the GDP.
This article provides an interesting parallel between neural network back-propagation and the regression models. The GDP in emergence economies like Romania is strongly affected in positive and negative manner by some non-linear factors, such as exports, fiscal policy, agriculture, constructions, retail, etc and this is the main reason of using artificial intelligence to catch as accurate as possible the GDP fluctuations. But the maximum potential of neural network will be seen only together with the econometrics techniques. For both the testing and validation, the correlation between actual data and the predictors proved to be greater than 0.95 when using neural packages implemented in MATLAB.In conclusion neural networks constitutes an extremely powerfully instrument which has to be included in tool-box of any researcher in the process of GDP modelling and forecasting.
Irina BONCEA – FROM BRAIN DRAIN TO BRAIN NETWORKING
Scientific networking is the most accessible way a country can turn the brain drain into brain gain. Diaspora’s members offer valuable information, advice or financial support from the destination country, without being necessary to return. This article aims to investigate Romania’s potential of turning brain drain into brain networking, using evidence from the medical sector. The main factors influencing the collaboration with the country of origin are investigated.The conclusions suggest that Romania could benefit from the diaspora option, through an active implication at institutional level and the implementation of a strategy in this area.
Alexandra CIOCLOV (PETCU), Petru ȘTEFEA – ACCOUNTING CHALLENGES – CAPITALIZING HUMAN VALUE
Assessing the performance of business organisations has been a priority for all stakeholders, and this is the reason accounting has continuously evolved to better assist investors in their decision-making process. However, given the increasing importance of the service industry, the focus in evaluating business performance is also on employees’ performance and employee-centred organisational policies that would further stimulate the knowledge-production at the firms’ level. As many accounting professionals have already understood, accounting faces the challenge of a continuous adaption to the necessities of the business environment, thus admitting that it should provide the grounds for a sustainable and generalizable methodology for intellectual and, more particularly, human capital recognition.
This paper offers a literature review on intellectual capital management and reporting, leaving room for the debate upon the choice of instruments that would ensure an accurate presentation employees’ added-value to organisational performance. It also presents a schematic approach to further develop the subject, describing the proposed methodology for further in-depth research.
Vlad S. PETCU, Alexandra CIOCLOV (PETCU) – Performance Analysis of projects implementation in HEIs
According to the European Commission, Romania is still facing significant mismatch between the skills of graduates of tertiary education and the market needs.
This paper is highly relevant for the future implementation of HEIs, since they have a strong economic role and they can significantly influence long-term national social and economical development.
Romania did not manage to materialize community funds allocated for the 2007-2013 programming period to its full potential.
Accordingly, the proposed thesis intends to analyse how Romanian HEIs were able to manage community resources attracted by grants and how the implemented projects achieved their set objectives.
According to the data collected so far, the results will show that the performance of the projects is directly dependent on the proportion of fully dedicated staff in organizational design of the project.
The originality of the undertaken study is that it starts from a realistic approach, according to which the rules of the game should be adapted, depending on the players (in our case – HEIs).
Florin G. MISCEAC – EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE POLICY: A DIACHRONIC APPROACH
As the world’s biggest donor, for the developing countries, the European Union is an example of how to solve complex problems in a more and more interconnected world. Article hypothesis is represented by the fact that European values and principles have been established and developed around the construction of a new action concept, designed to meet the challenges of the European space. This paper analysis the context in which were formed and developed EU values and principles, basic elements in construction and development of European Development Assistance Policy. Which were the philosophical, political, economic and social determinants that contributed to building the European values and principles? To what extent geopolitical context changes have influence the evolution of development cooperation policy of the European Union? What are the effects that development policy has produced, analyzed from a diachronic perspective? These are the questions we will answer during the work, critically analyzing the literature and empirical data from the field.
Andrei R. DELEANU – CHINESE FOREIGN AID: VISIONS AND INSTITUTIONS
With the start of this new century China entered into a new phase of aid, after 3 decades of double digit growth China has become the world largest exporter and second largest economy today. In the light of these economic developments China has become strong enough to significantly increase its presence as a donor of official development aid (ODA). One of the main traits of Chinese aid is that economic co-operation is linked to development assistance and there is not a clear distinction between them. Economic co-operation is seen as the ultimate goal and development assistance plays a part in that. Analysing the evolution of foreign aid policies and its institutional framework would offer a better understanding on how China intends to achieve that goal and this article tries to provide that. A foundation needed for a further in depth study of its foreign aid policies.
Andreea C. BENDOVSCHI – THE EVOLUTION OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Technological evolution becomes more and more a daily reality for businesses and individuals who use information systems as for supporting their operational activities. This article focuses on the way technological evolution changes the accounting practices, starting from the analysis of the traditional model and trying to determine future trends and arising challenges to face. From data input to consolidation and reporting, accountants’ function and operations are dissected in order to identify to what extent the development of new concepts, such as cloud computing, cloud accounting, real-time accounting or mobile accounting may affect the financial-accounting process, as well as the challenges that arise from the changing environment.
Andreea IANCU – HUMAN SECURITY – BUILDING THE POST-2015 DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK
This article approaches the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals agenda through the human security paradigm. It suggests that the human security paradigm represents “the missing link” from the development agenda. Therefore, this analysis explains the necessity for extending the development agenda by including the human security doctrine. The first part of the article discusses the relation between human security and development. The next section analyzes the values of the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals. The last part evaluates the improvements that the inclusion of the human security on the post-2015 development framework may bring. The results of this analysis present illustrate the opportunity of deepening the MDGs agenda with a more realistic and ethical approach, through the inclusion of the human security paradigm within the development agenda.
Cristina PRICHICI, Bogdan Ş. IONESCU – CLOUD ACCOUNTING – A NEW PARADIGM OF ACCOUNTING POLICIES
In the current economic background companies invest in finding complete solutions for the integration of all business functions (sales, logistics, accounting aso.), control, centralized coordination and harmonization of systems and financial management operations, data storage and resilience of services as well as cost savings. Technological trend of recent years brings forward the concept of cloud computing, an innovative model of processing and storage of data that allows companies to run business processes on IT infrastructures in conditions of economical optimization.
Cloud computing allows companies to effectively and economically use IT applications and infrastructures through the model “use as you need and pay as you go”. However, before deploying the data and applications in the virtual environment, organizations must take into account the implications of such a decision on the financial reporting process. In this respect, the paper aims to analyze the impact of cloud computing technology onthe main operational modules used for obtaining accounting data for financial reporting.
Alexandrina D. CRUCEANU, Ionel MUNTELE , Mihaela-Daniela CAZACU – MEDICAL TOURISM IN VATRA DORNEI RESORT
Both at national and international level,medical tourism in general and the therapeutic in particular tend to be more and more often prescribed and utilized as an extremely efficient alternative therapeutic practice in treating various medical affections with almost the same positive results as the ones obtained after therapies/treatments under medication,but with fewer financial resources.Vatra Dornei resort owns a great diversity regarding both natural therapeutic factors (climateric, mineral, hydromineral, pedologic therapeutic factors, moffettes, aerosols etc.) and the spectrum of affections treated (from simple anaemia to complex disease of the locomotory,muscular system,etc.). Practiced since the 19th century,medical tourism (which turned Vatra Dornei resort into a “Meca of recovering”) has represented and continues to represent at present an important attraction factor for the tourists who choose to spend their holidays for recovering and maintaining health state.
Alina Petronela NEGREA – NEW APPROACHES TO EXPORT COMPETITIVENESS
The economic literature and the political discourse typically look at international competitiveness mainly by the means of export market shares. However, globalisation, production fragmentation and the growing importance of global value chains (GVCs) increasingly challenge traditional approaches of export competitiveness and call for a more accurate and disaggregated level of analysis. Due to the growing fragmentation of production, a country exports now include a significant amount of imports of intermediate goods which are part of the export value. In this case, a simple analysis of the evolution of exports can distort the international competitive position of a country. The article suggests a new approach based on the value-added content of international trade measured by means of global value chain analysis.
Alexandra GALBIN – Constructing organizational discourse. A symbolic action in improving work.
Social constructionism, a postmodern approach with epistemological assumptions, brings new resources for organizational interventions. A key element in organizational development, the discourse plays an important role in fashioning the future of this. This article presents the organizational discourse as a symbolic action in which discourse influence behavior of members and reinforces mindsets. Discourse shapes the relations between individuals, and creates mental frames. Create change by changing the discourse generates fresh new possibilities and innovative forms to look at a situation. Constructing a positive organizational discourse offers a great potential for social change and address challenges and advances thinking in the organizational field.
Crina Mihaela VERGA – The Political Liability of a Republic’s President
The objective of this study is to make a comparative analysis of the political liability of the head of state in parliamentary republics and in semi presidential republics. The paper introduces the concepts of “non-responsibility” and “inviolability” of the President, concepts concerning the notion of liability. The approach is based on the comment on the constitutional provisions which regard the political liability of the President and on observing how to apply in practice these provisions. As a result of using comparative method, the implications of this study refer to a better knowledge of the regulation of the political liability in certain states which allow an efficient reception and enforcement of the constitutional provisions on the matter.
Adriana Radan UNGUREANU – Competitive advantages in a nanotechnology value chain
The value chain analysis is one of the most important methods for understanding the industrial world. The main task of the value chain that links producers and buyers consists in understanding where or how exactly the value added is generated. In the case of products incorporating nanotechnology, most of them are still in the trial phase into laboratories, but there are some examples of good practices where nanoproducts discovered their way to the market. This paper tries to present two cases of value chains for nanotechnologies applied to textiles by identifying the competitive advantages and focusing on getting some answers for a better understanding of the entire process from production to the final user.
Ovidiu-Aurel GHIUȚĂ – The connection between brand and vote explanatory models
The present paper provides a literature review on voting models and attempts to present branding as a voting theory model as an integrating model of the other generally accepted models.
There are no infallible voting models that people use in order to guide their electoral choice. The decision model actually differs with each person and can change in time, even if for the same person, and can turn into a model that represents a combination of all other models.
MARKETING EVOLUTION: FROM MARKETING TO BRANDING
This paper presents the origin, evolution and stage in which the marketing concept is nowadays, particularly that the concept and its applicability are in a continuous change. This change is largely caused by changes at the micro and especially macro level.
As research sources I used scientific articles especially textbooks popular worldwide and in Europe. I considered this spreading literature relevant for our analysis because practitioners work and use this literature as a guide, especially because the high notoriety of these textbooks leads to the construction of a perception about marketing definition among the general public and practitioners.
Sorin BRICIU, Dimi OFILEANU – VALUE STREAM MAPPINGIN THE ROMANIAN FOOTWEAR INDUSTRY
Mădălina Laura CUCIURIANU – GLOBAL TRADE. THE KEY TO TRANSATLANTIC COMPETITIVENESS
Global trade has an important characteristic in terms of open global markets by means of eliminating barriers to trade and investment. The United States and the European Union, two major international actors and competitors in the economic field, have both the opportunity to change the global trade by concluding the negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. For this reason, this paper tries to find the connections between global trade and transatlantic competitiveness in the way that the global trade can be considered a key to transatlantic competitiveness. The United States and the European Union are global actors and competitors in the global economy and the play field is the global trade. In order to be aware of the importance ofglobal trade in the transatlantic competitiveness, this paper includes also an analysis of the concrete actions that both economic powers are taking in key-sectors of the transatlantic economy.
Marilena-Raluca GROSU – THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE STATE OF POVERTY AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Social movements emerge as part of and in response to the prevailing relations of power. They emerge to make visible identities rendered invisible, abnormal or excluded by these relationships, to challenge currently dominant ideas as to how society should be organized, to draw attention to needs not currently attended to under existing social arrangements, or to argue that existing arrangements need protecting and deepening.
The scholars agree that relatively few social movements emerge specifically around the issue of poverty, in particularly poverty as defined by lack. However, if poverty is a product of prevailing relations of power, to the extent that different movements emerge to challenge or deepen these relations, then social movements are necessarily relevant to the existing status of poverty and the likelihood that it may change.
Niculina N.FRIJAN (Karacsony) – Theories and practices regarding the child who commits criminal acts and is not regarded as criminally responsible
At European level crime among children represents a contemporary issue and in Romania, the philosophy of the new penal code approved by Law No 286/2009 is shaped around punishment. Prevention policy in Romania and juvenile justice objectives relative to age criteria outlines two different legal manners to address children’s liability under the law. One is targeting the category of children between 0 and 14 years of age, which consideres the absolute inability of criminal responsibility and one that provides criminal liability starting from the age of 14. The sensitivity of the issue of children involved in unlawfull acts and the inventory of responses to it brought me to the necessity of research the types of approach and diversity of social services built around this target group.
Anca-Simona HROMEI – THE EVOLUTION OF THE RETURN RATES IN THE CASE OF ROMANIAN MERGED COMPANIES
Nowadays, merger transactions are more and more popular, even at the level of Romania. Together with this trend, the need to identify whether these restructuring operations lead to the expected results becomes increasingly evident. This paper aims at analysing the financial performance of 87 Romanian companies from the trading sector, which participated in merger deals during the year 2011. It was considered that the three years’ evolution of the return on equity (ROE) and the return on assets (ROA) rates could offer a complete image of the financial condition of the companies and the way these were influenced because of participating in the merger. These return rates were also compared with the medium levels recorded nationally for the same activity sector. It was found that in terms of both ROE and ROA the absorbing companies were negatively influenced, the medium-term financial performance being affectedbecause of the restructuring, their majority even failing to reach the average sectorial levels.
Ciprian IFTIMOAEI – GOOD GOVERNANCE: NORMATIVE VS. DESCRIPTIVE DIMENSION
The concept of “good governance” was used for the first time in the 1989 World Bank Report – Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth. A Long-Term Perspective Study – and has already made history in international studies, especially after the breakdown of the communist regimes. The governance has to do with authority, decision-making and accountability.The good governance is defined as the capacity of the government to manage a nation’s affaires, to provide economic development, welfare for citizens, and social protection for the poor.In this article,the concept of good governance is analysed according to two main dimensions: the normative dimension which comprises principles, values and norms that are guiding the international community and the governments in the management of policymaking process;the descriptive dimension which refers to the practical aspects of implementing the good governance’s standards as policies, programmes and structural reforms with the aim of solving or ameliorating the problems of developing countries.
Maria M. VOINEA – Why is important to do the performance analysis?
This paper deals with the importance that should be given to the performance analysis, mainly the one of the profit and loss account, for being able to take the best financial decisions. Profit and loss account is considered the tool that measures business performance. Although appears a question mark on the confidence you need to attach to this result because it arises from the application of the accounting standards and regulations. And there are many possibilities for recognize revenues and expenses, cutoff, income or revenue, expenditure connection, which asks a little caution about the importance given.The aim of the paper is to see how helps the economic analysis in the process of decisions making.
