GROUNDS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL ECONOMY IN ROMANIA

GROUNDS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL ECONOMY IN ROMANIA

Author(s): Amalia Jurj,Claudia Bacter,Florica Ştefănescu / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2012

Keywords: social economics; social entrepreneurship; development; social enterprise.

This paper sets out as an explanatory approach, supported with theories and statistical data, for the development of the social economy sector in Romania. Following a brief review of the literature, which informs the theoretical basis of this paper, We presented a series of economic and social data, expressing the needs of several social groups, potential actors in the social enterprise arena. The study has dealt with the issue of social economy by analysing two daily papers and a professional journal, as well as by interviewing 14 experts who work in the social field, in state institutions and NGOs. After analysing the articles published in the two papers and the journal, it can be stated that there is, in the context presented, a certain interest in the issue of social economy. The articles on this subject referred to different approaches in the field of social economy, the main idea being, particularly in the journal, that social economy represents a potential for creating jobs and for the social integration of the disadvantaged. As far as the results obtained after analysing the interviews are concerned, social economy is seen by experts as an opportunity to integrate disadvantaged groups into the labour market, to reduce social marginalization and to improve local communities’ quality of life. The conclusions of the paper point to the need, but also to the possibility of developing social economy in Romania, the need to stimulate and sustain it, especially in regards to social entrepreneurship.

IDENTITY FEATURES OF THE ROMANIAN IMMIGRANTS FROM ITALY

IDENTITY FEATURES OF THE ROMANIAN IMMIGRANTS FROM ITALY

Author(s): Adrian Otovescu / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2012

Keywords: immigrant population; socio-demographic structure; stages of emigration; reasons for emigration; potential migration

The Romanian transnational migration represents one of the most important social processes that our country had to face during the past two decades, involving over 3,5 million citizens. The most compatriots have left, especially for working, to Italy, Spain, France, England, Greece, and to other continents. The biggest Romanian immigrant community in different European states is in Italy and Spain, and the migration phenomenon form Romania is still in process. The main purpose of this article is to respond at three important questions: Who are those who have left from Romania to Italy, in what regions they are living and working? Which are the most important reasons of their options for this country? In what measure living in a foreign society has influenced their cultural identity and their value options? In the article is also presented a brief history of the sociological researches on Romanian immigrants from Italy, socio-demographical data and comparative analyses. The main research methods that we have used are the statistical method and the opinion query based upon questionnaire. The initial hypothesis, that Romanians from Italy have preserved, generally, their cultural identity, was confirmed by the results of the sociological field research

IMPORTANCE OF FINANCING THE SOCIAL ECONOMY PROJECTS

IMPORTANCE OF FINANCING THE SOCIAL ECONOMY PROJECTS

Author(s): Corina Cace,Victor Nicolăescu,Sorin Cace / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2012

Keywords: social economy; project; financial allocation; evaluation; project management

The re-emergence of the social economy sector as important agent for occupation, economic growth, social solidarity, associationism and social services, coincided with a higher importance of running program and project- based activities in all European countries, irrespective whether they are member states of candidate states. Within the context of the benefits specific to the social economy projects it is important to debate and analyse the subject of continuing the activities of this form of economy by consolidating the financial allocations. Thus, complementary to the identification of new consistent sources of financing of the activity performed by the social economy organisations, it is important to know the position of the initiatives within the current context of the global economy and to apply rigorously the project implementation methodology.

CURRENT ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING SNAPSHOT IN BOSNIAN SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

CURRENT ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING SNAPSHOT IN BOSNIAN SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

Author(s): Muhammed Kursad Ozlen / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2012

Keywords: Enterprise Resource Planning; survey; interview; small and medium-sized enterprises

For the companies relying on hundreds of internal and external suppliers for the millions of components required to produce goods and services, it is quite important to integrate all these functions and departments in order to prevent information inconsistencies, to leverage multiple sources of information within the enterprise and to gain dominance among competitors, and to perform much higher efficiency levels and sustainable performance standards. Therefore, the importance of Enterprise Resource Planning emerges as a major area of interest for many enterprises in order to facilitate the flow and share of information among the different functions within and outside a company. However, especially in low income countries, there may be various barriers such as bureaucracy, poor technology infrastructure, and lack of consultancy firms in order to plan, develop and implement an Enterprise Resource Planning project. This study becomes important that it presents the Enterprise Resource Planning implementation through the leading small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A survey-based study is applied to empirically test the Enterprise Resource Planning implementation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the short interviews with relevant respondents are considered to observe the current Enterprise Resource Planning scenarios of their organizations. Furthermore, some of the surveys can also be considered as interviews. In the conclusion and discussion parts the survey and interview results are discussed and future research areas are addressed.

IDENTITY, CONTESTATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN NORTH EAST INDIA: A STUDY OF MANIPUR, MIZORAM AND NAGALAND

IDENTITY, CONTESTATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN NORTH EAST INDIA: A STUDY OF MANIPUR, MIZORAM AND NAGALAND

Author(s): Komol Singha / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2012

Keywords: Development; Institutional Structure; Infrastructure

The buzz word ‘development’ encompasses growth with institutional changes. Despite some basic commonalities, India’s North Eastern-most three immediate neighbouring states – Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur have got asymmetric development performances due to asymmetric institutional structures. Of the states, Manipur is quite different from other two and experiencing nearly a complete breakdown of its development mechanisms in the recent years, especially in 1990s. Communal violence, human rights violation, and uncertain law and order condition, etc. are the fallout of institutional failure and consequently these factors led the State’s economy to a crippled one. Infrastructure, especially, road and communication aggravates to the present state of condition, and also breaks relationship with the neighbouring states, among the communities within the State. Otherwise, this state should have been one of the most advanced states in the country when we traced the early history and its development trajectory. Why is the government (centre) apparently benign with the states of Mizoram and Nagaland when dealing with public demands while it appears to be malignant in Manipur? What factor(s) led to mass uprising, conflict in the State of Manipur and remains unsettled so long – are also raised in this paper.

THE TRIMODAL ANXIETY QUESTIONNAIRE (TAQ): A VALIDATION STUDY ON COMMUNITIES FROM WESTERN ROMANIA

THE TRIMODAL ANXIETY QUESTIONNAIRE (TAQ): A VALIDATION STUDY ON COMMUNITIES FROM WESTERN ROMANIA

Author(s): Ioana Mărginean,Letiţia Filimon / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2012

Keywords: assessment; trimodal anxiety; factor analysis; correlations; psychometrics

The objectives of our study were to verify the Romanian translation of the TAQ, to determine its psychometric qualities in a sample of participants from Western Romania, and to compare them with data from similar researches. The TAQ measures three key anxiety components: somatic, cognitive and behavioural. The questionnaire’s 36 items were derived from previous research, from different widely utilised measurement instruments known for their psychometric properties. The TAQ was administered along with other psychological tests, the Current Thoughts Scale (CTS), the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS), the McGill Pain Questionnaire, (McGill PQ-S) and the Dental Fear Survey (DFS). The validation of these instruments on the Romanian population represents a part from a PhD research project regarding anxiety and dental fear management. We consider that the results advanced in the validation study support the TAQ’s psychometric qualities, and thus the TAQ can be seen as a useful instrument, with high applicable potential.

Property reforms in rural Romania and community-based forests

Property reforms in rural Romania and community-based forests

Author(s): Liviu Mantescu,Monica Vasile / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/2009

The article provides an overview of property reforms in Romania with a focus on collective/community forests. We start by a macro analysis of the laws and their results in the distribution of community forests and a longue-durée description of the principal legal forms of collective forests, such as pãdure comunalã, obºte and composesorat. Furthermore, we concentrate on two case studies form Bukovina region to reveal the conflicts around the restitution process from an actor-oriented perspective. The conclusions point to the problems of the property laws and stress the fact that, in the context of indeterminate laws, restitution is a perpetual negotiation, influenced by mechanisms such as networking or power relations.

Age and residence-specific social worlds in the European Union

Lumi sociale de vârstă şi rezidenţă în Uniunea Europeană

Author(s): Dumitru Sandu / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 02/2009

To what degree age and residence categories combined count for the state of mind and social discourse of the population in the European Union at the current time? Are there age-residence social worlds, according to Anselm Strauss.s definition from the grounded theory (1993)? If so, what is the relevance of such worlds by sociocultural macroregions of the EU? These are the basic questions of the study. The approach is in line with the idea of .quantitative grounded theory. (Glaser, 2008) and the data to explore and test are from the Eurobarometer survey, the 70th wave from the fall of 2008. The worlds of age-residence categories are analyzed from the point of view of life satisfaction, optimism, institutional trust and propensity to discuss politics. The findings support not only the hypothesis of age-residence conditional matrix but also the idea that the age-residence social worlds are also highly differentiated by sociocultural macroregions of the EU. These macroregions are identified by powerful indicators included into a cluster analysis. The resulted regions (EAST, CENTRAL-EAST, SOUTH, WEST, NORTH) are more relevant for the sociocultural analysis than the pure geographical ones. The age-residence and macroregion factors continue to be significant predictors for social state of mind variables even after controlling, by multiple regression, many other relevant predictors.

Reviews

Recenzii

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 02/2009

Septimiu Chelcea (coord.) (2008), Rusinea si vinovatia în spatiul public. Pentru o sociologie a emotiilor. Bucuresti: Editura Humanitas, 350 p.

Historical and geo-demographical discussions on the Catholicism in Romania between 1930-2002

Consideraþii istorico-geodemografice asupra catolicismului din România în perioada 1930-2002

Author(s): Cătălina Mărculeţ,Elena Herda,Ioan Mărculeţ / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 02/2009

The Catholicism, the second denomination in Romania after the Orthodox confession from the demographic point of view, penetrated the Romanian territory through Transylvania, which once conquered by Hungarians (10th-12th centuries), had been organized as an independent voivodeship inside of the Romanian-Catholic Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Later, under the impulse of the Court of Vienna (the Principality of Transylvania was at the end of the 18th century under Habsburg domination), some of the Romanians from Ardeal adhered to the Roman Church, founding the Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic. After the Proclamation of Union at the 1st of December 1918, the Greek-Catholic confession penetrated the Romanian territory from Ardeal to the South and East of the Carpathian Mountains, where they founded local communities. In 1930 the Catholic population from Romania counted 2.661.542 persons (1.234.151 Roman-Catholics, most of them Hungarians and 1.427.391 Greek-Catholics, most of them Romanians). The majority were living in Transylvania (1.414.751 persons), Criºana-Maramureº (562.937) and Banat (355.063). Roman-Catholics lived mostly in Ciuc (81,3%),...

Peasant handicraft in market economy in Romania and the Central and Eastern Europe

Artizanatul ţărănesc în economia de piaţă din România şi Europa Centrală şi de Est

Author(s): Marin Constantin / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 02/2009

This text has two objectives referring to the study of the market development of artisanship in Romania, and to the theoretical interpretation of the folk craftsmen’s fairs in the comparative context of the open-air markets from Central-Eastern Europe. Our research attempts to answer some questions related to the cultural variability of artisanship, its hybrid character, as well as its regenerative properties within the peasant traditions as a whole. From a methodological viewpoint, the article dwells upon an ethnographic investigation (pursued in terms of participant observation and life-story interviews) of a number of 53 peasant artisans that attended folk fairs held in the summer of 2005, in the cities of Bucharest, Sibiu, Timiºoara, and Suceava. The second part of our material represents a compared analysis of the folk fairs and the open-air markets in Central-Eastern Europe. The craftsmen differ from the market traders either as to their working ownership, or as to their administrative and commercial subordination. Despite such important socioeconomic differences, the artisans and the farmers from the agricultural markets share a peasant historical background, and a series of commercial functioning similarities (including the ownership of their goods and trademarks, their relationships with partners coming from the public or private spheres, strategies of retail and wholesale, investments in ·...´

Collective identity in two rural communities in Transylvania

Identitate colectivă în două comunităşi rurale din Transilvania

Author(s): Adela Popa / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 02/2009

The article presents some of the results of a case study on two villages in Transylvania, T\lm\cel and Ludo[, from Sibiu County. The article focuses on the theme of collective identity, analyzing empirical variables – proposed by the author – that reflect the ways of identifying with the community of the people in the two villages. Data analyzed resulted from a survey in the two villages, using a bi-stadial sample, and semi-focalised interviews with key-persons from the two villages’ elite. Results show differences in the way people from T\lm\cel and Ludo[ identify themselves with their communities and the article tries to explain these differences.

The situation of young people injecting drugs in Romania

Situaţia tinerilor consumatori de droguri injectabile din România

Author(s): Vlad Grigoras,Doru Buzducea,Florin Lazăr,Marian Preda / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 02/2009

In recent years, Romania is facing an explosion in the number of injecting drug users (IDU). Young injecting drug users are considered a group of high risk for HIV infection, which cannot be ignored by the public policies. The research aimed at evaluating the risk behaviours of these young people, being the first time when Respondent-Driven Sampling (RDS) is used in Romania. The quantitative research has been supplemented by a qualitative research, aiming at better understanding and describing the risk behaviours. The main subjects/dimensions included in the research have been related to the risk associated with drug use, sexual risk behaviours, procurement of clean/safe injecting equipment, knowledge on HIV/AIDS, interactions with the police and the authorities, access to services. Based on the results of the research, recommendations for changes of social policies are included.

Directions in the study of religiosity in the Romanian Christian Orthodox space

Direcţii de studiere a religiozităţii în spaţiul creştin ortodox românesc

Author(s): Anca Gorgan / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 02/2009

Statistical data point out the high level of Romanians’ religiosity as compared to other European Christian peoples. There is an evident contradiction between this observed reality and the New Testament syntagm which denominates the Christians as the little flock. Moreover, in the study of the religious phenomena from a sociological perspective, a standardized measurement methodology suitable to each Christian denomination is still absent. In this study, I want to identify another way at analyzing the Orthodox Christian religiosity, considering that the sociological arguments must be adequate to the very specificity of this denomination. The questions that will be addressed later represent the starting point of my endeavor that will hopefully finalize in the elaboration of an instrument for the measurement of the Orthodox Christian religiosity.

The reverse path of lost sons: Romanian emigrants in Spain and Italy. The decision to return to their native country

Drumul invers al fiilor rătăcitori: emigranţii români din Spania şi Italia

Author(s): Claudiu IVAN / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 02/2009

Keywords: capsunari; temporary migration; permanent migration; returns migration; remigration; Romanian migration in Italy and Spain; logistic regression analysis

By this study we intend to approach the migration phenomenon from a perspective which has been ignored in previous studies: the determinants of Romanian emigrants. decision to return to their native country and the profile of those who intend to return. We were able to study this phenomenon thanks to the social survey on Romanian emigrants in both Spain and Italy conducted by the Agency for Governmental Strategies and Metro Media Transilvania between late 2007 and the beginning of 20082 . We take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the Agency for Governmental Strategies for granting us full access to this data set. There is a set of determinants of one.s decision to return to the country of origin permanently which we highlighted using the logistic regression analysis. The results have indicated that the Romanian emigrants who had declared that they were going to return definitively to Romania in the next two years . approximately 38% . are different from those who wished to stay in the host country in terms of their occupational status, their level of education and the magnitude of relation with relatives or friends living in Romania (we have measured this variable by means of the frequency with which they send money home, the frequency which they visit their family in the native country and the assessment of the importance of family in their life).

Maramures - between tradition and identity de-construction

Maramureşul - între tradiþie şi deconstrucţie identitară

Author(s): Gheorghe Sişeştean / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 02/2009

Maramure[ was a space that generated cultural stereotypes, and this characteristic remains current. We propose a critical examination of these cultural stereotypes. We try to identify the phenomena of social and cultural change that qualify this area among of the most mobile and innovative in Romania, even if cultural innovation, out of legislative control and everyday aesthetic education is generating the loss of any traces of local identity of these communities.

The Polish-Lithuanian Crisis of March 1938. Some Romanian and Western reactions

The Polish-Lithuanian Crisis of March 1938. Some Romanian and Western reactions

Author(s): Bogdan Schipor / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2010

Keywords: Poland; Lithuania; ultimatum; international crisis; Romania; Western Europe

In March 1938, when the eyes of the entire Europe were trained on the events in Austria that culminated with the Anschluss, there was another conflict on the European continent that bothered the Western powers, and not only. On March 17, 1938 the Polish minister at Tallinn handed to the Lithuanian minister in the capital of Estonia a notification through which Warsaw asked Lithuania to establish immediate diplomatic relations without prior conditions. The Polish government considered this the only way to solve the problems related to the border between the two states without jeopardizing the peace. Lithuania had 48 hours after the delivery of the notification to accept the proposal without any debate or negotiation. Its rejection would have given Warsaw the right to ensure its objectives and interests by any means it deemed necessary. Great Britain and France reacted cautiously to this new crisis, hoping for a peaceful solution, in order to avoid the involvement of the League of Nations or the escalation of the events towards an open conflict between the two states. In its turn, Romania, as an ally of Poland, refrained from a possible involvement or condemnation of Warsaw’s actions, a fact for which the Polish diplomats expressed their gratitude. But even if Lithuania conceded and the crisis died out, the Western countries, as well as Romania, had certain anxieties raised by the Polish-Lithuanian crisis which were to come true a year later. Poland’s actions in March 1938 had created a precedent that other powers did not hesitate to follow and the country that, in the end, would lose everything was Poland itself.

The political and diplomatic relations between Lithuania and Romania (1935-1940)

The political and diplomatic relations between Lithuania and Romania (1935-1940)

Author(s): Dalia Bukelevičiūtė / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2010

Keywords: Romania; Lithuania; Prague; diplomatic relations; 1930s; Little Entente; Baltic Entente

The first contacts between Lithuanian and Romanian representatives started after the World War I when Lithuania was looking for the protection of her inhabitants who were still refugees in Russia. As Russia became entrenched with Bolshevism, the Lithuanian citizens were evacuated through Romanian territory from South Ukraine and Crimea. Lithuania and Czechoslovakia established diplomatic relations in December 1919 and eventually an attempt was made to set up ties also with Romania. As a member of the Little Entente and an ally of Poland, Romania drew the attention of the Lithuanian government. Romania recognized Lithuania de jure on August 21, 1924 and Dovas Zaunius was appointed the first Lithuanian envoy to Bucharest. Nevertheless, during the next decade no political or diplomatic contacts between Lithuania and Romania existed. With the growing influence of Germany, the Soviet Union and the Little Entente on the international arena, Edvardas Turauskas was appointed on August 27, 1935 as envoy to Romania residing in Prague and later in the year Romania accredited ConstantinValimarescu for the position of envoy to Lithuania residing in Riga. The dialogue between the two parties remained, however, occasional. When on July 21, 1940 Lithuania was occupied by Soviet Union, Turauskas visited the Romanian Legation in Bern and presented a note of protest in this respect. Romania did not acknowledge Lithuanian occupation and annexation.

Henri H. Stahl’s conception of historical sociology and the Bucharest School of Sociology

Henri H. Stahl’s conception of historical sociology and the Bucharest School of Sociology

Author(s): Nerijus Babinskas / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2010

Keywords: Romanian school of sociology; Dimitrie Gusti; H.H. Stahl; tributalism

The Romanian school of sociology founded by Dimitrie Gusti was a favorable medium for elaborating theoretic ideas. The school became a cradle for at least two prominent theoreticians (Henri H. Stahl and Traian Herseni) whose conceptions are worth of attention not only from sociologists but for the theoretically minded historians, too. We should keep in our mind that according to the methodological attitudes of the Bucharest school field researches were highly encouraged. It means that any generalizations, theoretic suggestions or entire conceptions produced by the followers of Gusti were solidly based on empirical data. Stahl started to elaborate his conception of tributalism in the 1960s. Coincidently, at this period the international discussion about the so-called Asiatic mode of production revived so the Stahl‘s theoretic ideas were well-timed. Stahl was not the only Romanian scholar who got involved in the discussion, but his conception was more original: according to him, tributalism should be treated as something different from Oriental despotism although there were some obvious similarities between the two. Despite the fact that the majority of Romanian historian community ignored the Stahl’s innovative conception, there were some attempts in Romania as well as abroad to elaborate (Daniel Chirot) or at least to popularize (Miron Constantinescu, Constantin Daniel) his ideas.

Development characteristics of interwar European periphery: the cases of Romania and Lithuania’s agriculture

Development characteristics of interwar European periphery: the cases of Romania and Lithuania’s agriculture

Author(s): Elena Dragomir / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2010

Keywords: interwar; Romania; Lithuania; agriculture; development; comparison

In economic terms, the interwar European periphery was limited to underdeveloped, poor, and non-industrialized states. According to this definition, both Romania and Lithuania belonged between the two world wars to the periphery of the continent. The two countries approached the economic problem using similar instruments: radical agrarian reform, stress on exports, industrialization. Despite the industrial developments that Romania and Lithuania witnessed during the interwar years, they remained, throughout the period, essentially agrarian economies. Although both states had to start from a very under-developed agriculture that shared many similarities, Lithuania’s interwar agriculture was eventually considered ‘one of the most efficient in Eastern Europe’, while Romania’s remained highly ‘inefficient and peasant’. Using the comparative historical analysis method and a similar-systems approach, this paper compares their problems, evaluates steps taken towards their solutions and reveals the different outcomes.