Management

More and more companies use press releases to promote a new product or service or to announce a big project which can increase their competitiveness. Through this cheap instrument the actual organizations maintain themselves continuously active in the eyes of target groups. Writing good quality press releases requires experience and skill and knowing and respecting of some important rules.

Continuous improvement implies a focus on solving a series of quality problems, reducing inventories, eliminating waste and increasing productivity. However, it is clear that being lean, cost-effective and of high quality is not enough and it does not guarantee the growth of any business. This paper aims to highlight the importance of operational excellence, which is a concept referring to an effective focus on customers in order to achieve excellence at business level.

In Romania almost 99% of the companies are SMEs. For now the only certainty for Romanian economy is the fact that the ability to “invent” new products and services for clients, the capability to offer quick and creative responses to the complex problems which appear in the organization and the capability to find always new ways to improve key-relationship between stakeholders, are becoming the key-factors for differencing and creating the competitive advantage for today and tomorrows success. If we take into consideration the present evolutions which state that the SMEs are the new knowledge-based firms, it’s necessary that in order to be globally competitive, Romanian companies have to support and enhance individual creativity and to use employees knowledge as a way to increase firms profitability. For Romanian SMEs the necessity of change is becoming more and more urgent. This is why reengineering is becoming fundamental for all organizations. The companies which had the biggest s...

The dynamics, the turbulence and the incertitude from the business environment significantly change the perception of the young on career, amplifying their motivation and interest for competence but also the preoccupation for a good knowledge of the opportunities and threats from the labour market. In this article we aim to identify the orientations of the students from the economic field in regards to their own career and to make a comparative analysis of the outcome of a quantitative research undertaken this year, in two economic universities from two states of the European Union facing similar economic and social phenomena. The conclusions of this study represent a solid base to initiate certain actions, with the help of which the university could significantly contribute to the career success of future graduates.

In order to be competitive marketing has a tremendous role, companies’ interface with consumers is essential, companies have to make use of advertising and intellectual property rights, and these are not at all easy things to be done. Being competitive means not only ensuring for yourself the necessary intellectual property rights, in order to move forward, but also to respect others’ rights, in order not to lose what you previously won. Our paper aims to present the main ways of competiting through these elements and to analyze the present ways of winning in a competitive environment.

In the context of accelerating globalization, organizations need to face increasingly high challenges related to competitiveness. However a permanent adaptation to the impact of environmental factors involves actions that imply significant costs with a great impact on the profitability of the organization. In this regard, planning the launch of new products or services requires a strategic approach, a structural analysis of the costs and the identification of opportunities to increase optimization with the aim of increasing the effectiveness of the product policy.

Economic growth rates vary dramatically across countries over long period of time creating big differences in the standard of leaving of its residents. Using the general framework developed by Barro on a panel date for more than 150 countries with observations computed 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 40 years period, and annually, during 1961-2000, we found that economic growth is positively correlated with a higher level of health and education, and an increase in: savings, openness of the economy, development of the financial system, capital formation, FDI, and real interest rate. Therewith economic growth is negatively correlated with a higher level of GDP per capita, and an increase in: government consumption, inflation rate, budget deficit, fertility and population growth, unemployment, and current account deficit. In this framework, the evolution and the perspectives of the Romanian growth determinants is mainly positive, although its competitiveness has to grow in order to overc...

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is becoming an ever more important component in the interaction between the business environment and the world in which companies operate. The term attracts interest from both people who apply it in their day-to-day activities and, also, from the academic field which is involved in its study, in order to help create future responsible managers. In order to familiarize ourselves with the current situation, we decided to determine the perception level students had in relation to this concept, not forgetting the fact that they might be employed in companies operating in this specific field and, also, that all of them are members of the community where these organizations function. Our study is based on the interpretation of a series of results extracted from a survey conducted by applying a questionnaire by using the online platform SurveyConsole. The study revealed numerous aspects previously deducted from our own observations, but there were also...

Research work on Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma has become increasingly present in the literature in the field of operations management and business excellence and has extended to other areas as the need for process improvement is more prominent. Whether it analyzes theoretical aspects regarding the development and the evolution of the two methodologies or of the most recent merge between the two, known as Lean Six Sigma strategy or simply Lean Sigma, or it presents results of studies undertaken in different industry or service sectors, the knowledge provided by the articles, books or studies currently available is vital to all researchers, specialists in the field and to all businesses. In this consideration we propose a detailed review of the most significant findings drawn from studies concerning the evaluation of the performance of Lean Six Sigma strategy as pure theory or as evidence from organizations performed in the time-frame 2003 to 2014 that seeks to underline the les...

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is becoming an ever more important component in the interaction between the business environment and the world in which companies operate. The term attracts interest from both people who apply it in their day-to-day activities and, also, from the academic field which is involved in its study, in order to help create future responsible managers. In order to familiarize ourselves with the current situation, we decided to determine the perception level students had in relation to this concept, not forgetting the fact that they might be employed in companies operating in this specific field and, also, that all of them are members of the community where these organizations function. Our study is based on the interpretation of a series of results extracted from a survey conducted by applying a questionnaire by using the online platform SurveyConsole. The study revealed numerous aspects previously deducted from our own observations, but there were also...

This paper aims to provide an analysis of the labor market in Romania and to observe the perceptions of the employees regarding their careers in the Romanian business environment. Our primary goal was to understand the changes in behavior and to find solutions to reduce the risk of deterioration of relationships employee - employer, the risk of high employee demotivation, of an increased staff turnover and of a significant decrease of staff performance. The research method was based on a questionnaire survey; information collected was then statistically analyzed using Microsoft Excel. The 150 employees revealed their interest in developing a career, their availability to form new useful skills to perform in the currently-available or desired future positions and their concern for work-life balance; some of them showed an interest in a euro-career or even an international one. The results of our research can lead, on the one hand, to a better decision-making process in human resource...

This paper aims to highlight the link between competitive business higher education and action learning as an appropriate method for improving the educational process. A really competitive university should focus on both information and capabilities and should permanently adapt to its students and to demands in the work market. Although many ideas are very well understood by simply reading a text or seeing a documentary, every process is really “felt” only when “doing things”. My paper aims to present the general benefits of action learning, by having as a case study a course of Operations Management. I use as a sample my students from the Faculty of Management (second year of study), in the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania. Students have to meet both the perspective of traditional learning and action learning. Students have participated in many projects looking as simple games (i.e. they have to organize themselves in teams in order to produce snowmen, hats, pancakes,...

Any significant management action can be assessed both in terms of success of immediate goals and as effect of the organization ability to embrace change. Market competition intensifies with the development of Romanian society and its needs. Companies that offer different products and services need to impose certain advantages and to increase their performances. The paper will present modern tools for measuring and evaluating organizational performance, namely: Balanced Scorecard, Deming model and Baldrige model. We also present an example for Balance Scorecard, of an organizations belonging to the cosmetics industry.

In the early twentieth century, the Taylor model improved, in a spectacular maner the efficiency of the production processes. This allowed obtaining high productivity by low-skilled workers, but used in large number in the execution of production. Currently this model is questioned by experts and was replaced by the concept of "continuous improvement". The first signs of change date from the '80s, with the apparition of quality circles and groups of operators on quality issues, principles which are also found in other continuous improvement strategies like: TQM (Total Quality Management), TPM (Total Production Maintenance), Kaizen and Six-Sigma. All these strategies are based on an active participation of the workers. Within this framework, many companies organize autonomous teams of workers responsible for organizing their work and improve economic performances.

Education is one of the main pillars of wealth, prosperity and competitiveness worldwide and thus it deserves special attention when creating macro strategies and policies, as education leads to increased added value in the future (growth potential). This paper aims to address a series of major issues in tertiary education by looking especially at the distribution by field (specializations) in the Romanian education system. Our paper is built on a brief literature review and on an analysis of the Romanian higher education, by taking into account official statistical data in this field. We observed there is an imbalance between supply and demand in education, if we consider the number of graduates and the needs of our economy. We believe our results are useful for decisions-makers at both macro-level (state) and micro-level (universities) in formulating their strategies, in order to offer specializations in correlation with the labor market demand.

In today’s global economy, many companies’ managers consider strategic alliances as a key strategic alternative. Even if it is true that strategic alliances can be a really powerful competitive tool, managers should pay attention to all potential risks before involving in a partnership. This paper aims to address a series of issues that may arise when forming a strategic alliance.

In this paper we aim to explore the topic of Schein’s career anchors in a particular local context (business higher education in Romania). In order to so, we studied the literature on career anchors and applied the test for 86 students of Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Faculty of International Business and Economics, 1st year of study. As expected, we observed a higher negative correlation between general managerial and lifestyle anchors and a series of other general relationships. More than a half of the respondents are autonomy-anchored and more than a third seem to have the entrepreneurial creativity anchor. We are cautious with respect to the results, since people without work experience might find a series of statements very interesting, but value them incorrectly based on a series of assumptions they make. For our small sample we could not validate the hypothesis that women are more lifestyle oriented than men.

Organizations' competitiveness is an effect of their current strategic and tactical movements and also a cause, a driver of future performance. This paper aims to analyze competitiveness in dynamics, by taking into account the impact of organizations' potential of competitiveness on their current actions, which of course will lead to a higher or lower level of competitiveness in future.

The phenomenon of labor migration has grown a lot lately, due to globalization, economic differences between countries and transfer of information. At European level, Romania is one of the most affected countries by the brain drain phenomenon. Other countries, such as Portugal, are facing a "mixed" phenomenon, with Portuguese people leaving the country and foreign people coming to Portugal. Our goal was to understand the causes and how they can be managed its economic and social effects