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Economists anticipate the future of the economy based on objective analysis, but for these forecasts to be taken into consideration by the economic environment, they must be founded on knowledge of the processes that drive rational expectations and opportunity decision-making. Due to these factors, the chapter we propose examines the emergence of these opportunities as a consequence of economic progress occurring primarily in innovation-based economies. Firstly, entrepreneurial opportunities are significantly influenced by innovation, as a result of both the numerous inventions produced by local entrepreneurs in developing economies and the entrepreneurial practices of those in advanced economies, where innovative concepts are generated and then exported to emerging economies to be implemented in particular local environments. Secondly, there are several different circumstances in which entrepreneurs innovate. A significant focus has been given to the SME sector over the last decade since it dominates emerging economies and contributes to development, but not to its maximum potential due to unique innovation challenges; lastly, strong institutional environments and efficient innovation systems are required to generate opportunities since they have a significant impact on entrepreneurs’ innovative behavior and assist in explaining why individuals with basically similar characteristics act differently in various contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the latent variables which support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in becoming learning organizations. These latent variables represent abstract ideas that cannot be measured directly in practice, and they need to be explored by using different sets of other variables or indicators defined specifically for certain research of the business environment. The concept of “the learning organization” has been introduced into knowledge management literature about 30 years ago, but due to its complexity and high level of abstractness, its implementation in real life or organizations produced insufficient results for developing a well-defined model and a convincing managerial approach. However, the attractiveness of the learning organization is so appealing that researchers continue to investigate the complex mechanisms and processes supporting it. Our research is such an effort in exploring the latent variables for the small and medium-sized enterprises from the North-Easter region of Romania in their drive of becoming learning organizations. Our research is based on a comprehensive literature search and a quantitative approach supported by a survey and statistical processing of the collected data. We processed 950 valid questionnaires obtained from 147 small and medium-sized enterprises from the North-Eastern region of Romania. Statistical processing was done by using specialized software. We perform a Factor Analysis with IBM SPSS v.19, and then a Confirmatory Factor Analysis with AMOS v.18. Finally, we obtained six latent variables that support the transformation of SMEs into learning organizations.

The development of strategies, actions and programs on sustainability through innovation has been taking into account within the current essential and disorderly train of events. The issue of designing mechanisms was considered by institutions and organizations, which innovate on sustainability, the way of speeding the progress, as well as the process of learning on sustainability. There has been always a concern over forwarding the incremental innovations, which actually improve or renew the already existing ideas and practices at the level of system, or even the SoS systems' level, together with a new focus over the technical, social-human and environment or markets interspaces. The main issue regards the type of changes necessary on transforming the sustainability (new institutions, public politics, strategies of settlements, new ways of thinking and business practices). The analysis of innovative part within the process of economic and social change should gather interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and trans-disciplinary research. Although there is an obvious agenda of integrating the sustainability within the process of innovation, the long-term approach has not been provided with a phasing and the process has been quite complex. The current global process has been characterized by a socio-technological dynamism of an accurate changing management, more exactly by the oscillation between intervals of normality and steadiness and disorderly and volatile intervals that influence the design way of strategies, since these should understand and integrate the new dynamics of change, of markets and of the external environment. The traditional approach cannot show such mixtures of dynamics and cut-off over the markets and stakeholders. This paper emphasizes the synergic assortment between the systematic control of innovation for sustainable development focused on the internal environment and that based on a mix between the concept of innovation enterprise in context of enterprise systems engineering, the dynamic capabilities for spectral selection in a multiple dynamics and option thinking as a paradigm well adapted in innovation. The dynamic capabilities, seen as “strategy of creating the strategies” have offered a quick qualitative image, so that this approach has been combined with the paradigm of real options, within a frame that proposes the active control over the extended performance of innovation enterprise. The novelty has been offered by the possibility of emphasizing some mechanism of inter-correlations between innovation enterprise, the dynamic capabilities, as strategic tool of high level and the real options, as tool of option thinking on one hand, and the capabilities for innovation on extended way, on the other hand. Adapting the paradigm of dynamic capabilities to the oscillation between the normality or steadiness times and those full of disorder and volatility, by means of real composed options, has offered a dynamic image of relative performance, during a complex process. Viewing the performances progress in two steps and two volatilities has been quite significant, since it offered the possibility of some immediate actions of reconfigurations and conformation to.

Throughout the present paper we want to argue the idea that higher education is strongly linked with research, innovation, and competitive advantage and thus plays a crucial role not only for the individual and societal development but also in the process of delivering the National and European Strategy, to drive forward growth. Universities are the main actors responsible to provide the highly skilled human capital that Europe needs in order to create jobs, successful businesses, and prosperity. The ambitious aim to become a world-class university has its roots not just in rational (financial) considerations, but also in the symbolic role of such universities. The rankings made the competition between the states very visible and thus, are most commonly recognized as an indicator of success due to excellence-driven policies. Within this work we bring arguments and examples about which are the most efficient strategies of world-class universities. The first section of the paper we argue the roles of universities within nowadays economic and social world. The second section of the paper highlights the conceptual issue of world-class universities, the motivation and the determinants of such a goal. Within sections three of the paper we benchmark the key factors of two main international ranking (the THES and SJTU) and we analyse the successful strategies of famous world-class universities. According to the research conclusions and to our considerations we suggest that a valid option would be for universities to follow the international trend towards becoming a world-class university. Also an opportunity would be to develop themselves into learning organizations.

Industry 4.0 revolution find a real interest of entrepreneurs but in the case of frontier and emerging markets it is difficult to find a reliable source of long-term financing. The decoupling of the technological evolution from the evolution of the access to financing capacities must be analysed from different point of view (financial, legislative, socio- technical). In Romania, as a frontier market there are only few alternative investment solutions capable to respond to the long-term financing demand of performant projects. The main interest is to understand the strategies for adaptation of venture capital fund (VCF) at real conditions. Venture capital funds (VCF) represents a particular form of private equity investments, scale down and more focused on innovative start-up (or even expansions on technology or markets) projects (the typical value is 10 mil Euro). This form of investments is a personalized response to the general problem related to the actors that do not have tangible assets for collaterals and / or cannot demonstrate the ability to make a profit. In the case of VCF, as a vehicle oriented on innovation and technology, the business plan represents the main element for project portfolio selection in the context of matching the interests of investors with the interests of financed firm’s managers. This contribution is especially important for the case of frontier and emerging markets characterized by additional restrictions (access to strategies, liquidity problems, and agency costs beyond a simple monitoring). For Romania, it is essential to adapt VCF investors' objectives to all phases (selection, evaluation, contract signing and restructuring, progress monitoring, stimulating value-added and, especially, closing the VCF cycle) to real conditions and considering the performance indicators balancing with the value creation mechanisms specific of industry 4.0. This work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the development strategies of an innovative Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for sustainable and responsible investments (SRI). This contribution represents a premiere for the Romanian capital market, an emerging market with low liquidity and limited diversification possibilities through alternative investments, because it highlights both the integration of specific tools for sustainable development and the possibility of obtaining good performance (risk-return) through the link of alternative instruments and strategies. Starting from the analysis of sustainable and responsible investment possibilities (SRI), it is justified the feasibility of integrating an active investment strategy, by using an innovative Hedge Fund architecture oriented towards sustainable and responsible investments (called HF-SRI). In this case, a natural and flexible integration of the sustainability principles in emerging capital markets can be achieved. In addition, the possibility of applying the satellite sub-portfolios method in the global analysis of the performance management combined with the risk analysis is justified. The case study presents an intuitive, simple, but effective model based on applying the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to the eight risks identified by experts, grouped into three categories and associated with a HF-SRI architecture type with two basic sub-portfolios, oriented on innovative alternative instruments: venture capital funds (VCFs) and exchange traded funds (ETFs).

The main problem facing tourism companies, but not their only problem, is lack of finance. Banks provide financial solutions, but expensive ones, difficult and inconvenient but with their own money, companies cannot grow too much and then surely we have to look at what other chances, what other possibilities the companies have for financing themselves. One possibility is financing through the securities market. This chapter includes an array of information about funding and capital markets as well as how to attract investors to support a company’s development.

The paper aims to identify the competitive advantages of the tourism sector in Romania and to conduct radiography of the SMEs in this sector, including their concern in which regards the R&D activities, as part of smart specialization strategies promoted by the EU. There are also studied the opportunities in exploiting the Romania’s competitive advantages by the SMEs in the tourism sector through development of innovative clusters in the area, which enhance the performance of R&D activities and increase the competitiveness of companies. There are also analysed the sources of funding from EU programs for the 2014–2020 financial framework as support for increasing competitiveness and regional development through support and intelligent promotion of tourism sector. At the end of the paper, solutions and courses of action (policies) in this area are offered, leading to national and regional sustainable economic development.

The business environment preponderantly utilizes commercial relationships based on agreements, either under the classic form or under the form of the confirmed offer of the notification bill of the penalties perceived for the non-payment at a certain term. The New Civil Code yet offers the possibility that, beyond these penalties, the debtor's prejudice may be repaired by the culpable creditor by means of the legal instrument of recovery of damages. Thus, it is restored the balance of the bona fide creditor as well as the establishment of the previsioned business plans.

The recent crisis and turbulences have significantly changed the consumers’ behavior, especially through its access possibility and satisfaction, but also the new dynamic flexible adjustment of the supply of goods and services. The access possibility and consumer satisfaction should be analyzed in a broader context of corporate responsibility, including financial institutions. This contribution gives an answer to the current situation in Romania as an emerging country, strongly affected by the global crisis. Empowering producers and harmonize their interests with the interests of consumers really require a significant revision of the quantitative models used to study long-term consumption-saving behavior, with a new model, adapted to the current conditions in Romania in the post-crisis context. Based on the general idea of the model developed by Hai, Krueger, Postlewaite (2013) we propose a new way of exploiting the results considering the dynamics of innovative adaptation based on Brownian motion, but also the integration of the cyclicality concept, the stochastic shocks analyzed by Lèvy and extensive interaction with capital markets characterized by higher returns and volatility.

Promoting entrepreneurship in Romania is essential to support sustainable development in post-crisis period. The main attributes that recommend SMEs as innovative leaders are: the capabilities, knowledge, strategies and organizational development. Considering the low efficiency of current strategies due to volatility global business (constantly changing customer expectations and identity, disruptive technological change, acceleration of innovation-based competition, market orientation for higher returns), as well as reduced potential of Romanian SMEs to achieve critical profitability, new research is required on how to ensure financial resources. Given the progress of science and technology, and the changing of the paradigm of global competition, the interest will refer to technological SMEs that have the capacity to generate growth and new jobs.The problem of technological SME financing is critical in Romania. The banking system is not interested in these types of projects and the capital market is still inaccessible for this type of investments. The government efforts to solve this problem are limited by the lack of appropriate tools, markets and institutional architecture. In this case is necessary to analyze new innovative financing solutions better adapted to the current dynamics of the technological entrepreneurship.We are considering the development of innovative solutions based on market functionality and institutions that could contribute to the robustness of the central pillar of promoting entrepreneurship in Romania as an emerging country. This approach will result in a natural, sustainable and flexible current business environment support, with multiple implications at the micro and macroeconomic level. The implementation of innovative financing solutions in Romanian SMEs is a complex initiative, but the results are visible immediately, contributing decisively to the development of entrepreneurship through a simple, concrete, based precisely on solving the main current issues promotion and financial support.

The global crisis (2007-2009) and the European sovereign debt crises (2011-2013) have led to major changes in the SMEs financing. The recovery after the mentioned turbulences is slow and it requires the creation of new financial instruments that allow SMEs maintaining/ developing the existing business solution, but also the creation of new start-ups. In the emerging European countries the situation is even more critical because SMEs access to conventional financial solutions was seriously limited. Governments should respond more actively to solve the growing difficulties faced by SMEs in accessing finance (injections of capital in loan guaranteed programs, direct lending programs, micro-credit loans and other guaranties), but should be designed also other interesting innovative schemes (public-private partnership, special dedicated investment funds with flexible structure).

Romanians were exposed in the last century to a range of natural or man-made disasters, mainly earthquakes and floods. The transition of the country from a Communist authoritarian pattern of emergency preparedness to a democratically civilian emergency system challenges the assessment of emergency preparedness and adds more complexity in designing a better and efficient system. The aim of this paper is to briefly describe the risks and institutions dealing with disasters, to assess the emergency preparedness, the uses of Knowledge Management Systems and Foresight Methodology approaches and to discover the shortcomings of the Romanian Emergency System. The empirical study designed as a reality check focuses on the perception of the local leaders of the emergency system regarding the most probable risks, and the uses and utility of long term strategic planning and foresight methodologies, using the Delphi technique. Lessons drawn from the Romanian transition could provide an interesting case study for other emerging democracies.

The SMEs financing issue in the current post crisis context has changed. The access and the new financing conditions complicate the restart of engines of the development for all types of firm’s activity. The paper presents an analysis of possible innovative financing solutions, particularly for SMEs. The use of these instruments is beneficial not only for SMEs, not only for short or medium period but also it results a multiplication effect with impact on the economy. In the case study an innovative application called Financial Monetary Fund and based on the concept of supply chain management SCM (FFSCM) is presented.

Romanian social enterprise sector had a typical development in the Eastern European countries, emerging from state’s role to withdraw from solving social problems, caused by the fall of communism, in comparison to the case of Western European countries where social enterprises emerged from active effort of the state to promote social enterprises as a solution to its massive economic problems. We are trying to understand the way social enterprises developed and which is their current status in Eastern Europe in compari‐ son with the Western Europe, to further explore the sector’s evolvement in Romania. We have analyzed an important turning point for Romanian social enterprises, represented by the entrance into force of the Law on Social Economy. Largely, this chapter wishes to explore the potential social enterprises can have in the Romanian economic, political, and social environment newly regulated by the Social Economy Law. In order to achieve this, a series of case studies has been carried on with Romanian social enterprises. Attention has also been paid to the way theory of dynamic capabilities can be applied in the case of social enterprises and to policy recommendations, which would facilitate the transfor‐ mation of potential to visible impact.

The paper contains analyses about the effects of global warming and climate change. The impacts of climate change may be physical,ecological, social or economic. Evidence of observed climate change includes the increasing temperature, CO2 emissions, droughts, floods, etc. Human activities have contributed to a number of the observed changes in climate. This contribution has principally been through the burning of fossil fuels, which has led to an increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. It is predicted that future climate changes will include further warming, sea level rise and a probable increase in the frequency of some extreme weather events.

The study aims to create an integrated framework of analysis allowing the optimization of government decisions to intervene in case of a major terrorist attack for limiting the consequences and restoring order and functionality, based on a set of specific models. This initiative is due to the lack of knowledge in this area of research and it is justified by the existence of new risks, as the risk of terrorism. Internationally there is a growing trend in conducting researches on the extreme risk events, which should lead to an intensification of scientific knowledge at national level.

Considering the illegal markets in the European Union member states, the valences of drug trafficking get more and more worrisome, both of the proliferation level, and the size of the financial transactions, the European markets being the most profitable in terms of heroin and cocaine consumption. The article focuses on the analysis of the theoretical aspects concerning the EU illegal drug markets, for identifying and understanding their peculiarities. In this context, we will emphasize the characteristics and dynamics of these markets, their national and european economic mechanisms, the profits made by organized crime networks and also, the impact of these activities on the formal economy

The Society perceives the dangers as threats, challenges and risks. Risk is defined as direct and assumed threat. Most of all, the highest risks in modern society are likely asymmetric.They include the whole sphere of human activity and they are accompanying man in almost everything he does. As long as the world is diversifying and is ranking, the more numerous and more acute become asymmetric threats.Because asymmetry is difference, meaning the possibility to act differently and to react differently, in order to capture, destroy, win strategic initiative and freedom of action and, therefore, to defeat. We present a series of theoretical issues related to risk analysis and risk analysis techniques: scenario technique and probability-impact matrix technique. In the second part of the paper an analysis of critical infrastructure and types of asymmetric risks are presented. The third part of the paper presents a study of portfolio risk using GARCH models (1.1),considering the daily returns of RASDAQ-C and BET indexes and the RON / USD exchange rate, and also an analyses of the achieved results will be considered.

It is known that the environment and the human society often support the actions of some dangerous phenomena of different origins,natural or anthropogenic, that may cause destructive and brutal disturbances in some systems or default situations. In the following, some natural catastrophic events observed nowadays and their overall costs are presented. In the second part of the paper hazards and their risks assessment are described and also we emphasize the types of hazard, their effects and their associated risk assessment.The third part of the paper presents a study of portfolio risk using GARCH models (1.1), considering the daily returns of RASDAQ-C and BET indexes and the RON/EURO exchange rate, and also an analysis of the achieved results will be considered.

Illegal markets constitute the source of income for organized crime. In the context of contemporary illegal market conditions, it needs to be noted that with the restrictions of national borders declining and the increasing mobility of goods, money and services, transnational business opportunities have created new global markets. The globalization of trade facilitated access of foreign markets and the advantages offered by technological innovations led many enterprises to expand their activities across international borders.

In the last years the humanity assists to the fundamental changes in economy no matter the level from which is regarded. These changes are so fast and intensive that many times the humanity is confronting also with adaptation difficulties and also with the collapses of some value systems which have proved themselves incompatible with new realities to the world level. So, we’ve became the witnesses of a world in which the commercial bounds and the capital fluxes between countries have grown so much that the globalizat ion of the world economy is a reality. The globalization is a term used to describe a multi -causative process which has as result the fact that the events which takes place in some part of the globe have more and more wide repercussive on the societies an d on the problems from other parts of the globe. There isn’t any definition of the globalization in a universal accepted form and, probably, not even final. The reason consists in the fact that the globalization sub -includes a multitude of complex processe s with a variable dynamic, touching diverse domains of one society. This can be a phenomena, an ideology, a strategy or all together.

The management of crises caused by terrorist attacks proved an insufficient capacity of the governments to manage extreme risks in most of the recent cases. After the ‘90s, the philosophy of terrorism changed and it therefore requires immediate governmental intervention. The mega terrorism that occurred on the private insurance markets triggered the loss of the functionality character. A financial analysis of the terrorism processes, considered as catastrophic risk, by using the risk theories, risk management and financial risks is proposed. This kind of analysis should include the specific aspects of the terrorism processes. Also, an insurance system based on the public-private partnership against the catastrophic risk is proposed. It will be demonstrated that the main problem is the assessment of risk in the very low demand for this type of risk coverage.

There are two major types of international equity flows. In the economic literature there are only few publications in the field of explaining bilateral correlation between Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) in a robust analytical framework. We consider Lipsey-Razin model to highlight the major differences between the two types of investments (FDI with better control and supervision versus FPI with less control over domestic firms). The re-allocation of investors between FDI and FPI after European integration is very interesting especially in the context of euro macroeconomic cyclicity which leads welfare parameters an early withdrawal.

Starting from the definition of the clusters that Michael Porter formulated in 1998 the paper investigates approaches of clusters in practice in different fields and countries inside or outside European Union,captured in the scientific literature. The aim of the investigation is to find the positive aspects and the challenges of clusters and further to select those which can be used in order to build a development strategy in cross-border areas based on clusters approach.

In the aftermath of the recent global crisis, the modern firm should proactively respond to the disruptive changes in the dynamics of markets, new technologies and the new architec‐ ture of the competition. Shen, Norrie (1999) proposed the following set of capabilities for the next generation of production systems: the integration of the firm with all its management systems and their partners to better respond to the global competition and to the move‐ ments in the markets; distributed structure based on knowledge; heterogeneous environ‐ ments (software and hardware heterogeneous distributed in the production and operational environment); interoperability opened and capable to integrate new systems in an dynamic way; efficient cooperation with suppliers, partners and clients, integration human-machine; agility (the ability to adapt to a new environment in the case of rapid changing); scalability (additional resources could be easily incorporate) in every point location at every level with‐ out affection to the inter-organizational interdependencies; a good tolerance to different types of errors.

The purpose of this research is to analyze the performances of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the aftermath of the recent global crisis and the new problems associated to a weak banking system. SMEs from emerging economies have experienced critical situations both in the global crisis (2008-2010), but also in the context of the European sovereign - debt crisis (2010-2012), both characterized by multiple shocks for all type of businesses. In the case of SMEs the interest is to understand the mechanisms that influence the robustness and the resilience in turbulent periods but also the way of thinking the architecture of future investment strategies in order to realize an optimal development in the wake of crises. In addition, we should mention the impact of these turbulences on the psychology of owners/ investors with a new attitude/ preference for another set of businesses, characterized by lower risk. In this case it has become essential to observe a set of basic values such as profit margin per sold item and the market share. It is essential to maintain the market share in critical and turbulent period, because it is registered a decreasing demand for products and services and, at the same time, a fluctuation of prices. In the literature it is proved that investment strategies should consider a lot of critical technical, but also non-technical elements like the impact of the retail price on the supply in the context of the dynamics of the market, the quality and the specific features of the product in the context of the technological progress, financing solutions adapted to the product/ market. The external environment after crisis is essentially changed and the way of thinking strategies is also different. To better understand this new paradigm, very important for the strategy of SMEs, a simple but efficient quantitative methodology for understanding the dynamics of investments in turbulent periods is also presented. Key words: small and medium enterprises (SMEs), investment strategy, performances and dynamics of firm, global crisis, critical and turbulent period.

The modern consumer behavior has been very complex in the recent context of budgetary restrictions occurred after the global crisis, but it has also been changed and influenced by different selections of strategies in order to purchase and use the products/ services. The supply results have also been changed, according to a better response to consumer needs, specific to the new consumption cycle. The consumer reaction to the green products/ services has been highly influenced by the economic consequences. A new role of experience and adaptability of consumers could be seen as completed by anticipation strength. A more aggressive response related to the quality of products/ services on their entire life cycle, but yet quasi-ignorance in the aspects of environmental consequences it still result. The main objective of the paper consists in offering a better understanding of the new philosophy of Romanian consumers based on different simple models of replacing generalized durable goods (GDGs) in a simple, but intuitive analytical framework. The impact of Rabla programs over the eco-friendly products consumption within the proposed hypothesis has been strongly limited by the economic component (by the costs associated to maintenance, the energetic products consumption and the environmental taxes).

The recent financial crisis, the growth of the frequency of extreme risk events are motivations for a new analysis of the mechanisms and processes that implies high risk and high uncertainty. The new dynamics and the severe impact of the extreme events (natural hazards, terrorism, technological accidents, and economic/financial crises), but also the complexity of interventions have motivated the scientific community to find new efficient solutions for decision making process dedicated for crisis management, especially for solving the following aspects: time urgency, the complexity of event, the volatility/ rapidly changing of event/ decision conditions, the chaotic surrounding environment ingredient, the human behaviour in critical situations (emotional stress), the consequences for decision failure, poor data, frequent interruption during the decision making process. Extreme risk events are no longer only high impact low probability events. Indeed, the literature demonstrates that these types of events are more frequent and also their impact is also more critical. The governments are responsible not only for the post crisis management of extreme events. In this case, better knowledge could offer opportunities to reduce the impact. Emerging aspects regarding the integration of the concept of hybrid DSS in the treatment of extreme risk management will be presented. The efficiency of using intelligent ingredients in decision support systems (DSS) is linked to the human limits but also on the dynamics of huge data in the context of imprecision and uncertainty. Different applications for the use of hybrid DSS in flood and drought risk management, asymmetric risk and crisis management exercises will be also presented. Many extreme risk events are associated with modern human environment and in this case the spectrum of risks is changed with a difference between the perceived possibility and reality (Renn, 1992). Extreme risk is expressed by the potential for the realization of unwanted, adverse consequences to human life, health, property, or the environment. In Kaplan, Garrick (1981) is proposed the risk triplet (S-scenario, P-likelihood, D-possible consequence), a framework that responds to the nature of disaster events that can occur, how likely is a particular event, what are the consequences. Decision makers in extreme risk environments should respond in a new different manner because modern crisis management requires urgent developments toward better, more elaborated and appropriate means for extreme risks. Extreme risk management needs to