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The Covid-19 pandemic is the most disturbing event in the lifetime of most of our planet’s citizens. The lockdown measures directly impacted many areas of our lives, including the educational sector, because locking down countries meant implicitly locking down the educational system. Moreover, what was first considered a temporary solution for an extraordinary situation began to look more and more like a medium to long-term general rule. Nevertheless, the questions are: are we all ready to move the entire educational process online and fully understand the challenges and implications for all stakeholders involved? This two-part research aims to provide some answers to these questions by identifying and analyzing the perceptions of Romanian engineering students enrolled at “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi (TUIASI) regarding the changes registered in the past year once the emergency e-learning situation started. The first part of the research was conducted between April and May 2020 through an online survey among 134 engineering students. It aimed at identifying the students’ perception of the online learning systems provided by their university, considering the significant speed with which changes were imposed. In addition, this research phase focused on students’ access to resources and knowledge to use and integrate online learning into their study routine. The second part of the research was carried out after almost a year of e-learning between March and April 2021 and consisted of six online focus groups with 36 students and aimed at identifying the main advantages and challenges students experience throughout the online educational process. The research revealed that although students are digital natives, they still have difficulties harnessing e-learning’s advantages and integrating them into their study routine. Another significant aspect refers to the changing role of the professor perceived not only as an instructor but as a mentor during a time of crisis. The study results can offer higher education institutions insight and valuable information that can be used in designing and implementing online and hybrid activities and classes that better fit the students’ needs and expectations in terms of e-learning.

Some of the constructs in the field of performance management are intuitive or not empirically validated. This study provides a data-driven framework for measuring and improving the performance through synchronized strategies. The ultimate goal was to provide support for increasing business performance. Empirical research materializes in an exploratory case study and a statistical analysis with econometric models. The case study revealed that a company can improve its performance, even in periods of growth, being characterized by consistent investments. The statistical analysis, performed on a restricted sample of companies, confirmed the results that were provided by the case study. The measurement of performance was made by capitalizing on financial and non-financial data precisely to intensify the interest for corporate sustainability. The obtained results, contrary to previous research that showed that economic value added (EVA) is negatively influenced by the increase in invested capital, open up new research perspectives to find out whether, at the industry level, performance appraisal that is based on EVA stimulates the development of a business’s economic capital. The research has a double utility: scientific (by providing an overview of the state of the art in the field of performance management) and practical (by providing a reference model for measuring and monitoring performance).

This article includes a review of the concept of Digital Innovation Hubs (DIH) and its evolution to date. In April 2016, the European Commission launched the Digitising European Industry (DEI) Strategy to strengthen the European Union’s competitiveness in the field of digital technologies, ensuring access of any business in Europe to a nearby digital innovation centre, i.e. a DIH. It is an opportunity that is still under-researched and under-exploited. It presents extraordinary potential for access to technology, innovation, equipment and resources at a higher level than small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), or other institutions can access in the normal course of business operations. A DIH is a one-stop shop type of structure that helps organisations to become more competitive by improving processes, innovating products and services using digital technologies. A one-stop shop offers support services to organisations in a particular region, through cooperation via a platform partner. Support services that might be offered by a DIH include awareness building of digitisation technologies, exploration of innovations, development of visions and strategies for businesses, training, access to funds and investments, collaborative research, promotional and networking events, etc. Through a DIH, an organisation can thus connect with investors, access knowledge about digital transformation, connect users and potential partners, as well as refine their business and marketing development strategies. This article provides an overview of the concept and the opportunities for business and marketing development through DIHs. In addition, it highlights the importance of this opportunity at the collaborative as well as research and development level of an organisation.

The present linear economic system needs to be redesigned in order to protect the ecosystems and ensure a sustainable integration of resources. One of the industries that have raised concerns in the last years due to its increasing inefficient use of resources and negative impact on the environment is the fashion industry. Sustainability and transparency have become increasingly important as a response to the consumers’ and companies’ growing concerns in mitigating their impact on the environment. The article describes one of such companies that has managed, through its business model, to disrupt the traditional business modus operandi. The research centers around how the business of The RealReal successfully operates through the application of certain principles of the circular economy.

To carry out the review, the study was designed in such a manner as to enable us to: (a) identify the degree of interest that researchers displayed for scientific grounding of concepts they operate with and (b) identify the degree to which new lines of research have been shaped on determinants of financial performance. Based on a sample of 45 articles which analyzed the corporate financial performance, published during 2014–2019, was established a database which details: the researches’ topic; dependent and independent analyzed variables (and the indicators used for their assessment); samples; sources of data and periods in which they have been collected; results of the research; and authors’ contributions in defining the concept of performance. In terms of study’s first aim, we have shown that authors are concerned with grounding concepts with which they operate, but they mostly focus on the determinants and not on the financial performance. In terms of determinants of the financial performance, the study reveals that the research is more detailed and they extend the analyses with new variables (such as ethics of stakeholders, corporate lobbying, corporate culture, green credit or non-financial reporting) for explaining the dynamics of the financial performance.

SMEs (private small- and medium-sized enterprises) are the base of any economy and from here innovation usually starts. But every SME has to understand that in order to succeed they have to make strategic decisions, to plan and to properly implement appropriate action plans in order to achieve high financial and non-financial performances, by accessing the concept of open innovation. There are different types of innovation that an SME can implement and there are plenty of ways to do it, as shown in the present paper. This article provides important information regarding the decision-making and implementing of an innovation management system in SMEs and investigates the organizational capabilities to manage the open innovation system, giving the example of BIOCOMP, a Romanian SME manufacturer company that embraced the innovation strategy in order to save and rise its business to the next level, making it the leader in its field of activity.

Computer security, cyber-security or security of information technologies is the field that has to do with the protection of the computer infrastructure and/or telematics and all the information contained in it. This area includes any type of software such as databases or files, hardware, computer networks and anything that involves confidential information on a computer. Security audit assessments have become key tools for organizations due to the increasing number of cyber-attacks. Increasingly, organizations need to strengthen their defenses against data breaches, cyber-crime and fraud, and to ensure a more robust security posture. Considering the aforementioned aspects, this paper introduces the digitalization process within organizations, the cyber-security types of threats and countermeasures, followed in the end by the current approaches of the security and privacy mechanisms implementation and the development of a security and privacy framework along with the necessary phases for its implementation within organizations in every industry.

Events impact people directly and make use of multiple tools in order to offer unique experiences. Events can generate the right emotions that make people interact more with the brand or buy from a certain organization. For creating an event and having sustained success, organizations must adapt constantly and introduce new media and access new instruments in the implementation of their communication strategy. This article outlines the conceptual investigation of the impact and attitude formation in the context of event-based marketing and public relations strategies conducted by an organization. The impact of events on the attitude toward the brand or the organization is very important today, due to the experiences created for the public and the ability to interact with them through various channels and tools. This article introduces the necessary terminology from the industry of events and project management and outlines the new trends in event planning and communication. It shows how events work, how can they be planned, and the best channels to be used to promote them.

Companies constantly thrive to enhance their performance in order to achieve their environmental, social, and economic goals. One way to achieve these goals is to integrate some effective management tools, such as an environmental management system (EMS), that can support sustainable development and value creation. Based on the literature, in this study some EMS integration dimensions were identified that can be used to assess its influence on business performance. The study was conducted on SMEs listed on the AeRO-Bucharest Stock Exchange that voluntary apply the ISO 14001 EMS, using a quantitative approach. To assess the EMS integration score, principal component analysis was used. Using logistic regression analysis, business performance probability (quantified by return on assets) was estimated for each company included in the final sample. Fuzzy logic was further used for modelling the influence of EMS integration on business performance probability. The research results showed that EMS integration has different effects on business performance probability, considering the influence of activity field and environmental management experience. This research assertion could be extended for all the listed Romanian companies or for major companies at the EU level.

The study analyses the dynamics of the financial performance of the companies in the textile industry in Romania and aims to identify its main determinants, corresponding to the different stages of the economic cycles. The selected sample was mixed; therefore, the econometric analysis (based on panel data) was performed on accounting data collected from secondary sources (for 2000-2019). Because some of the companies in the sample showed negative financial results, the financial performance was assessed based on sales’ volume. The regression model used included seven determinants related to the company (internal determinants) and three external variables (GDP growth rate, inflation rate and unemployment rate). The results of the analyses indicated that (for the whole period) 51% of the sales dynamics can be explained due to the variation of the determinants included in the model. The analysis at the level of internal determinants indicated that all seven variables have a significant statistically influence on financial performance. From the perspective of macroeconomic determinants, the study showed that performance is negatively and significantly correlated with the inflation rate and unemployment rate. Applying the regression model to distinct periods (pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis) provided very useful information from a practical point of view.

The term “creativity” is quite often used around us, especially lately, as today most people strive to be creative. The main reason for this is that creativity seems to represent an advantage in front of others. Entrepreneurs are extremely proactive and it is this orientation towards action which leads to their success in business, but also in their personal lives. The “creative entrepreneurship” has become a term which refers to the business activity of entrepreneurs belonging to the creative industries. The creative entrepreneur is the type of entrepreneur concerned with the creation and exploitation of creative or intellectual capital. He or she is an investor in his or her talent, but also in that of others. The aim of this paper is twofold: to offer an overview on creativity and creative entrepreneurship, and to make a comparative literature review of the creative entrepreneurs’ characteristics.

Trends in the current literature emphasize the role of the organizational context in employee performance appraisal processes (e.g. Levy and Williams, 2004 , Armstrong and Ward, 2005 and Murphy & DeNisi, 2008 ). The current study aims to develop a comprehensive research framework in order to investigate the employee performance appraisal systems and processes based on main organizational contextual dimensions, in highlighting the relevance of customization according to a company's specific organizational context. In addition, focusing on a strategic approach on human resources management, the study offers insights on the role of organizational context in developing employee performance appraisal systems that could contribute to higher performance in overall organizational strategy implementation.

The actual dymanic of the industrial wave created by the concept Industry 4.0 is streaming a serial consequences for the main market consumers which are the direct beneficiaries of comodities or daily consuming goods of food,automotive,gadgets and textile/garments industry.Upon the actual researches available from Aachen University and World bank statistics as Birnabaum report, if many of the products which belong to food and textile are defined by standard parameters, so far less dependable of human working factor as direct making of product,the ready made garments production which now is more to be confused with fashion industry,is crossing a period of high challenges to be solved, fighting with the risks to be shrinked until disappearance.The key players which are involved in the whole commodities industry could be defined as the final customers or consumers looking for a permanent variety of items(1),main suppliers of production means(2) and in between we find the producer(3).This one need to handle the pressure of low market prices, frequent economic downturns and motivation of their main resource which are the people either defined as “blue collars” or “white collars”.

The purpose of this study is to review literature on topics of performance and co-creation. The study has two premises: performance includes economic and behavioural aspects; co-creation produces direct and indirect effects on performance. In order to validate these two, we took into consideration all studies available on WoS platform. Applying different selection criteria, we obtained a sample of 14 studies published between 2016 and 2020. Through observation, comparison and logic deductions we were able to appreciate the authors` interest in identifying new research directions. Thus, we show that: a) co-creation has a direct impact on performance, competitiveness and value for stakeholders; in this context, performance is regarded as a multidimensional concept with wide implications in various fields such as management, financial, marketing, innovation etc.; b) co-creation has an indirect influence on performance through elements like: brand, product-service systems and cross-sector partnerships. These aspects are empirically validated in different context. The results of our research prove to be useful from two points of view: theoretical (because the study presents in an authentic manner the state of the knowledge on performance and co-creation) and methodological (because it offers support to all those interested in finding new research directions).

Nowadays, project-based work is no longer a challenge for a today company. Optimizing the workforce, better managing the results, delivering in time, quality and budget (the triple constrains [1]) are just a few of the advantages. Still, to re-organize an entire company into a project-based organization requires a lot of efforts and energy across its departments and teams. However, some companies step forward and change the project management methodologies multiple times. That brings another wave of changes, stress and reorganizations combined with a complex organizational phenomenon, which requires far more effort than just to replace the current tools and technologies with new ones [2]. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to reflect and present the results of the workshop called “Going Agile – the journey”, which was held on Project Management Forum 2019, a Conference organized inside of Continental Automotive Romania for all project managers working in the company. Based on the focus group technique there was identified the main struggles associated with the adoption of Agile methodology within Automotive Industry, the similarities with the plan-driven methodologies and willingness to advance the agility in company’s daily working life.

Starting with the modern binary number system in 1679, followed by the universal computation as a result of the Boolean algebra in 1847, then continued in 1948 with “Mathematical Theory of Communication”, capacitors and microchips between 1950s and 1970s, Apple I desktop computer in 1976 and until 2020 when we have devices as smartphones, computers, laptops, smart houses, cities and cars, all these inventions are small but realistic steps that built the current concept adopted by the humankind, called digitalization. Considering this impactful concept during our research, we propose to perform a literature review regarding its implementation in industries as medical, banking, automotive, along with generic examples from undefined ones, followed by the risks and disasters as a result of cyber-attacks, which can be seen as disadvantages of implementing this concept. In the end, we propose to discover the effects on the virtual business environment by exemplifying the cyber-attacks and analyzing them.

The social environment in which corporations operate is affected by their actions but equally corporations experience the pressures of society. The idea that the economic environment is currently in a transition phase from the knowledge-based economy and society to the innovation economy and society is strongly emphasized by the policy makers and experts’ publications and reports underlining the pressure the companies are under in order to adjust to the environmental and economic changes and to become more competitive. The paper aims to develop and test, in a textile company from Iasi, a performance assessment model based on fuzzy modelling techniques. In order to assess corporate performance Balanced Scorecard approach was considered based on fuzzy technique. The corporate performance using lagging and leading indicators suggests that business performance should be evaluated not only by using financial indicators but also by simultaneously considering non-financial indicators. This way, it is possible to evaluate the business performance from a strategic perspective, taking into account not only past results but also leading indicators. The fuzzy it is suitable for industrial firms to monitor the performance indicators that can contribute to a sustainable competitive position.

The software development industry is one that is under a constant pressure to deliver products that are innovative, fast to market and better suited to the costumers’ needs and expectations. In this context, the traditional approaches to product development can become obsolete, as the market and the end-users are dynamic and rather unpredictable and the latter’s active participation can sometimes make the difference between success and failure. The Agile approach, on the other hand considers extensive collaboration with all stakeholders paramount in all the stages of the software development process and for this, a variety of requirements elicitations techniques are used in order to obtain extensive input that leads to designing and developing enhanced products and applications. This paper presents the requirement elicitation process and techniques used in the development process of an open collaboration and innovation platform – CRE@TIVE.BIZ which is an experimental model dedicated to create a community where all relevant stakeholders from three specific creative industries, namely design, fashion design and crafts, can meet, interact, gain access and share information, knowledge and resources.

At present, the content of sustainability reports tends to appear in forms and units that are not easy to convert in comparable unitary terms. We have advanced the design of a composite index of sustainable development that would evaluate the performance of the companies as a time function and that would ensure the integration of sustainable development indicators in a relevant and useful manner.The proposed model is wished to be an advance in the assessment of the sustainability of companies. We have used the simulation method, and the impact of every indicator on the global sustainability of the company was determined with the technique of analytic hierarchy process. The model refers to the fashion in which the environmental, economic and social indicators can be associated in sub-indexes and finally in a global index of the company's performance.The results of the proposed model show that it is feasible and easy to apply at company level, although, none of the ways to express quantitatively such a complex concept as sustainable development could not be perfect. The disadvantage of the model would be that the fashion the weights of the indicators are determined is not direct and precise.

A high level of human resources motivation to share knowledge acquired during training programs or other training activities may be crucial for companies in achieving targets for customers and high organizational outcomes. The recent investigations of the roles of socio-technical, cultural and non-work factors and the technological development underlined the importance of the organizational context factors as outstanding drivers for employees motivation to share knowledge among their colleagues and to improve work performance. This article conducts a literature review and aims to identify the contextual factors determining employees motivation for exchanging knowledge at the workplace and, thus, improving the overall organizational performance. There will be also proposed the dimensions of motivation for knowledge sharing taking into account the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, based on the self-determination theory (SDT). Therefore, by analyzing the types of motivation according to self-determination theory, it is highlighted the importance of contextual factors in increasing knowledge sharing motivation in organizations. In this paper, we try to provide a framework to analyze the role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in determining a high level of motivation to share knowledge, improving work performance and increasing organizational outcomes. Within this view, the research aims to provide an integrative research framework and to underline the tie between the most significant dimensions of organizational context influencing employees knowledge-sharing motivation in industrial firms. The new research framework resulted from identifying significant contextual factors which influence employees motivation to share knowledge will provide a new direction to improving work activities and to foster the performance level at the workplace. The selection of the relevant dimensions integrated into the research framework will be used for a further quantitative research applied to employees working in industrial firms from the North-East Region of Romania. The investigation proposed brings into light a useful approach for knowledge management, emphasizing the importance of establishing the most important organizational context factors which determine employees motivation to communicate knowledge among work colleagues, demonstrating also the contribution to improving job performance. The current framework can provide important insights for managers and academia in order to understand the importance of establishing a relationship between contextual factors influencing employees motivation to share knowledge and job performance.

Using organizational performance management that is validated and used in active companies, this research aims to study business performance management in entrepreneurial frameworks. This study presents a conceptual approach based on some theories founded on the organizational performance management as a process, but adapted to the context of entrepreneurship. It is proposed the conceptual analysis and submitting the verification of the formulated hypotheses. An entrepreneurial framework is defined by some factors such as: entrepreneur, along with his personal and professional characteristics, who is the main actor of the so-called entrepreneurial process; business idea that entrepreneur wants to turn it into profitable business; market opportunity, which demonstrates that the business idea is valid, has novelty and can be fructified and developed; business plan, that needs to be well prepared in a very detailed manner and containing long run strategies; business start-up resources, including time resources allocated to implement the business plan, physical resources, information, financial and human resources; the environment where the business will be active; technology needed to develop the business activity. To study more closely the issue of performance management in entrepreneurial contexts, will be defined entrepreneurial performance management as a process, which can lead to the success rate of a business idea and to the rate of business sustainability. To perform this study it has been proposed a case study where an entrepreneur wants to develop a business in renewable energy, and more specifically, the development of a solar power plant that transforms solar energy into electricity, which then it’s been introduced into the national grid of electricity supply. So in this research will be studied the entire process by which the real business appears and a variant of the case that the solar power plant could be built in Romania and will be proposed a detailed system of performance indicators, specific to the entrepreneurial framework. Using a research methodology based on case study, this research has as a central objective, to define the entrepreneurial performance management through a set of specific performance indicators, which can then be used in practice, by entrepreneurs who want to start a new business in renewable energy.

The paper aims to present the most important features of technological entrepreneurship, both in industrial and non-industrial organisations, and its important role in organisational development. The conceptual model used to describe our approach is The Balanced Scorecard, with a focus on learning and growth perspective. Within this view, a set of specific indicators is proposed in order to assess the performance of technological entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship. The result will reflect entrepreneur’s perspective, internal innovative processes, innovation and growth of an organization.

Motivation has a central role in achieving high performances within organizations. As the organizational climate can be closely correlated with employees’ motivation, providing a motivating environment in industrial firms depends on managers’ ability to create a supportive organizational climate. The main objective of this paper is to underline the most relevant dimensions of the organizational climate which increase employees’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, according to Herzberg's dual factors theory. In the light of this research, the investigation was based on quantitative research techniques, by means of a pilot questionnaire, using a non-probabilistic sample represented by employees and managers of industrial firms from Romania. By analyzing the relationships between organizational climate dimensions and motivation, the results will demonstrate the influence of organizational climate on the level of employees’ motivation. Considering the obtained results, there will be also proposed recommendations to create an organizational climate which could enhance employees’ motivation.

In global evolution, entrepreneurship has branched into various areas according to age, gender, social environment, natural environment, technology and more. A niche of entrepreneurship is technological entrepreneurship, which includes innovations in technology and their entire evolution from idea to “prototype”. This paper aims to narrow this niche, of technological entrepreneurship, into technological ecopreneurship. This term will be detailed and introduced into a conceptual research methodology based on a conceptual model.

There is growing interest in ecological footprint analysis in aiding our understanding of societal demands on the biosphere. Moreover, attention is focused on new potential applications of the technique. Recently, its application to enterprises has been proposed. In the present study, an apparel plant was analysed. The overall purpose of this study was to develop a tool useful for evaluating the environmental impact evolution due to the performance of the plant, as well as for comparing the environmental performance of different manufacturing processes. Data collected were divided in three main categories: energy, resources and waste. The main contributor to the ecological footprint is the resources category, meaning that the changes in fashion will probably affect in the future the results of the indicator. A smaller contribution was the energy used in the manufacturing process, the selection of renewable energy sources being another possibility to reduce the footprint. In the category of wastes, the main contribution was that of urban wastes, which unfortunately cannot be recycled at the moment.

This paper presents the concept of business ecosystems as a complex system, consisting of three levels of development. The analysis of business ecosystem reliability was done based on the probabilities of its elements to cooperate at suitable parameters. The analysis was based on Markov's Chains Theory and reflects the probability of crossing an item from one state to another in the business ecosystem. From this point of view a previously-developed conceptual model was used and a graph of functioning states of each element based on business ecosystems architecture will be provided. The main outcome of this research is to provide a framework for understanding the importance of actors’ involvement in business ecosystems processes.

Most companies are trying to improve their performance in any way possible. The winning card will be hold by those who are trying to innovate, to obtain and sustain performance. This paper aims to analyze the criteria from four of the most important performance measurement models that can be used to measure the performance of the innovation process: Balanced Scorecard, Malcolm Baldrige, Performance Prism and European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). The study will be a theoretical one and it will on one hand emphasize the innovation elements from every model, and on another hand it will suggest the most adequate model to measure the performance of the innovation processes.

The purpose of this paper is to find a balanced way to analyse IT (Information Technology) industry, from its value perspective, but first we need to know how to define the IT industry, what are its component and the dynamic on global industry. This is an empiric study due to an enormous information quantity – only a simple search on EBSCO platform, looking only for Academic journals, retrieve 183.508 titles where “Information Technology” keywords were used. For same keywords Google Academic retrieve approximately 6.000.000 results in its search. As part of the economy modernization trends, the software industry plays a natural engine role - most of the company’s efforts being based on the IT, especially the software component. With the omnipresence of mobile phones and the customers demanding more and more personalized experiences, the software industry continues to stay at the forefront of the business agendas in most of the companies.

This study presents a comparative analysis model of the financial performance for two large companies operating in the field of production and trading of car parts. The model has as a starting point the assessment of the dynamics of liquidity, sales and profitability ratios (for a period of ten years). Based upon the preliminary results, the compound annual growth ratios were calculated and the trends (for the following seven years) were determined. All of these have made it possible to identify the performance profiles for the two companies. The study reveals that the financial performance was made more vulnerable by the insufficient cash availability (the cash reserves are not adequate for the current debt, assets and sales volume) and by the low levels of the recorded profit ratios (measured by the net profit margin, ROE and the return on shares). Although the cash and profit analysis reveals a cascade increase, the sales performance and return on equity ratios remain burdened by too high operating costs. To improve liquidity and profitability have been identified measures to meet the objective of ensuring the business sustainability.

In a continuous changing world, a company can achieve a competitive advantage by improving its talent to exploit intangible assets, focusing less on financial results. The most adequate performance measurement method used to identify and illustrate the main drivers of the business, and which offers also an important view on organization's strategy is the Balanced Scorecard model that aligns and focuses every part of the organisation on improving and implementing the strategy. This paper aims to identify the proper key indicators within the organisation that are used to measure the innovation processes. In order to obtain a clear view on the results after measuring the innovation process, the most appropriate research method will be an exploratory research based on case study. The main result of the paper is the analytical framework created by exploiting the key indicators of the organisation used to measure the performance of innovation processes.

Achieving high performances in organizations requires motivated employees who engage in training activities, acquiring knowledge, new abilities and skills, which they intend to share and communicate in order to improve the performance of their work activities and thus to contribute to the overall organizational performance. Therefore, by establishing the most important motivational factors for key employees there can be identified various aspects which determine employees to use, communicate and share the knowledge, skills, and attitudes acquired during training activities. This research aims at bringing into light some analyses related to employees motivation for attending training programs and knowledge communication during and mostly after training programs and the influence on the improvement of work activities and the obtained job performance. There will be also identified the intrinsic and extrinsic incentives which stimulate the employees to obtain new knowledge and skills and to communicate them, explaining as well the influence on the organizational outcomes. Therefore, by analyzing the prevalent motivational factors which determine managers and employees to engage themselves in training activities, we could establish also the degree of employees motivation to attend training programs, to communicate knowledge and improve work activities and organizational outcomes. In this view the investigation carried out by the authors was based on quantitative research techniques, by means of a questionnaire based survey using a non-probabilistic sampling method due to the initial stage of this research and its current limitations. The sample will be based on industrial firms from the North-East Region of Romania. There will be analyzed the relationships between employees motivation for knowledge communication, fostered by the training programs attended, and the performance improvement of their activities, attempting to demonstrate the influence of employees motivation to communicate the acquired knowledge during training programs on improving activities and the performance level at the workplace. It is noteworthy that this research study provides an integrated framework illustrating the main findings regarding the factors which motivate employees working in industrial companies to participate in training activities and to communicate the knowledge acquired during training programs, highlighting as well the influence of these issues on improving their work activities and the overall company performance. This framework could be further used by managers and academia as well, as a vehicle for improving organizational performance.

Continuous economic and social changes led to the development of new concepts both in business as well as in academic environments. As a result, one of them is the concept of business ecosystem. This concept brought a new definition of an industry through clear delimitation of organizational roles and relationships which are evolving around a common strategy and through the vision of an industry as a community of interrelated organizations who work together for a common benefit. This paper aims to provide a conceptual framework for a business ecosystem with a view to measure its performance by means of strategy maps. The main purpose of strategy maps is to communicate the strategy throughout the organization and to ensure its proper and successful execution. From this point of view the findings should reveal how the organizations inside business ecosystems are adapting a common strategy and the importance of the value creation processes established inside the business ecosystem. In order to achieve this objective it will be identified the business ecosystems strategy along with specific features and it will be transposed in a Balanced Scorecard framework according to its four perspectives: financial, customer, internal processes and learning and growth. Each perspective respond to organization needs and reflects the most important strategic objectives. The linkage and relations between each perspectives elements will be established by analyzing sustainable development influences as a new trend of organization development and as response to global concern to environment, social and economic evolution. This direction of analysis will provide, for various stakeholders, a new framework to implement the concepts of eco-innovation and eco-development as well as cooperation and co-evolution. Basically these concepts will be considered as key aspects of analysis as well as for the strategy implementation process and will provide knowledge about organizations mechanisms related to its role as a business ecosystem within the context of the internal and external environment. The main outcome, the foreseen result, is to create a strategy map template for a business ecosystem that could foster the importance of cooperation and co-evolution concepts for strategy implementation.

This research paper aims to propose and empirically test a theoretical model, positing relationships among entrepreneur, technology and resources. The applied methodology was completing a questionnaire survey by a random sample of undergraduate management and engineering students across five Romanian faculties. The results were based on structural equation modeling analysis. Results provide strong support for the proposition that the success of a good business idea strongly depends on some factors, including the capabilities of an entrepreneur, on the technology used to implement the idea and on the necessary resources. The paper demonstrates that the success of an idea in technological entrepreneurship, based on the potential young entrepreneurs point of view is influenced by the characteristics of the young entrepreneur, by his capabilities and his knowledge. The success is also influenced in some proportions by the innovation of technology, its development and globalization. The third category of the success factors is resources, which includes temporal resources, material resources, financial resources and informational resources. The conclusion of this research is that the most important factor for a successful business idea is the entrepreneur.

Considering the fact that creative, creativity, co-creation are so very used terms in the last years, that creative industries and entrepreneurship in creative industries are the subject to many conferences, symposiums, courses, curricula, etc., discussions on creative economy is a subject of current interest, as well. To better understand creative economy, one must understand the nature of the creative workforce. The aim of this paper is to identify the nature of creative workforce. The foreseen result is to highlight the differences between creative industries and creative jobs, starting from the identified nature of the creative industries

In the this highly competitive market, a company's capacity to generate and market creative and original ideas is a key for success. But most companies have limited resources and so, knowledge creation can not be generated solely from within the firm. In order to expand their knowledge base, organizations begun to implicate stakeholders in all phases of the new product development process, from idea generation, selection, development and eventually, even to marketing the new products or services. In this context, the Internet and the new technologies represent a valuable instrument for companies, due to the fact that they can enhance the firms’ ability to actively engage all their stakeholders in collaborative innovation. Our paper presents and evaluates the development and implementation of an online co-creation platform – E-PICUS addressed to multiple stakeholders of a new electronic product - Video Intercom providing insights into the specific capabilities a firm needs in order to manage co-creation and into partial results obtained through costumers’ involvement in the innovation process.