Books: Bosnia’s Great Wars
An important new study changes the way we look at Yugoslavia’s military triumphs and disasters. The Bosnian Muslims in the Second World War: A History, by Marko Attila Hoare. London, Hurst, 2013. 512 pages.
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An important new study changes the way we look at Yugoslavia’s military triumphs and disasters. The Bosnian Muslims in the Second World War: A History, by Marko Attila Hoare. London, Hurst, 2013. 512 pages.
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The paper presents advertising agencies as a new type of knowledge-based organizations (knowledge-intensive organizations), whose essential resource is its people with their competences, in conditions in which in the present society knowledge is becoming the most important source of competitive advantage for current organizations. Such professional services firms have to practice a particular type of management, focused on their employees, on thier aspirations and satisfaction, therefore the component processes of the human resources management (recruitment, selection, integration, motivation etc.) have a particularly important role in obtaining employees’ loyalty and increasing their performance and consequently in the survival and development of the company. The empirical research used case studies based on in-depth interviews with managers in Bucharest advertising organizations, but also a survey through questionnaire sent by e-mail to advertisers across the country, to provide a clear picture on the characteristics of human resources management in Romanian advertising agencies.
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So far Macedonia has undergone an unsuccessful attempt to transition, distinguished by low growth rates, high unemployment, extensive poverty, balance of payments unfavorable position, technological lag etc. The external sector, as a core element to growth perspectives of a small open economy is critically dependant upon the export competitiveness. Consequently, this paper will address some critical points of the Macedonian economy, particularly the vulnerability of the external sector alongside with the price and trade liberalization. The set of analyses is to be carried out to explore the foreign trade structure, current account developments, as well as the major aspects of qualitative competitiveness. In addition, we have examined the impact of macroeconomic variables on exports and imports within the selected timeframe. We have therefore applied a comprehensive approach of dynamic modeling based upon a vector - autoregression model determined to control for endogeneity and set to estimate the long - run equilibrium relations, as well as the short-run dynamics of the key variables.
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Corporate governance ensures that boards are able to exercise appropriate scrutiny over management and that shareholders, as owners of the company, are able to hold boards accountable. As such, a high level of corporate governance contributes significantly to investors' confidence and market stability, thus fostering business efficiency. In 2005 the European Commission launched a recommendation on the boards of listed companies and invited Member States to follow the guidelines. In 2008 both Romania and Hungary launched a new Code of Corporate Governance on the basis of the EU recommendations. In my paper I present the EU principles, and by examining the national codes of Romania and Hungary I analyze to which extent and in what issues these two countries have adopted the EU recommendations. I concluded that by the new codes of corporate governance issued in 2008 Romania and Hungary have followed to a large extent the provisions of the EU recommendation.
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The subject of this communication is to analyze points of similarities of using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Shared Time Work (STW), for a special category of firms, whose place seems to be more and more important: Small and Middle sized Enterprises (SMEs). After several particularities (apart from the size), we will remind their difficulties in Human Resources Management, especially about ICT, then the opportunity in the using of STW, for research teachers, professionals and media. We will present different legal shapes, then precise points of similarities between TIC and STW, and finally, results among different kinds of players in this one, in an exploring research.
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This paper is about a research regarding the implications of present economic crisis on a market created to cover various risks that could affect both individuals and companies. The main objective of the research was to establish the coordinates of the insurance market at the EU countries level in order to find solutions that insurance companies could use for avoiding the negative impact of the crisis and to re-launch the local insurance market. The outcomes of our research have shown a low development of Romanian insurance market, this one being among the lowest developed market in the European Union. Taking into consideration the psychological impact of the crashes recorded by the biggest worldwide insurers, the best solution for local companies is to use the tools of relationship marketing that could develop the confidence of customers in insurance services.
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Brand awareness, as one of the fundamental dimensions of brand equity, is often considered to be a prerequisite of consumers’ buying decision, as it represents the main factor for including a brand in the consideration set. Brand awareness can also influence consumers’ perceived risk assessment and their confidence in the purchase decision, due to familiarity with the brand and its characteristics. On the other hand, brand awareness can be depicted into at least two facets – unaided (brand recall) and aided (brand recognition) – each of the two facets having its more or less effective influence on buying decision and perceived risk assessment. This paper tries to reveal, on one hand, the importance of unaided brand awareness when it comes to consumers’ buying decision and, on the other hand, the importance of aided brand awareness when assessing the perceived risk associated with the purchase. The analysis is conducted in a comparative manner, considering the case of durable versus non-durable products, and with focus on urban Romanian consumers.
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A long period of time investors were interested in the Bucharest market, but the need for investment in the rest of the country, coupled with the high potential markets present there, resulted in increasingly more investors interested in Romania, switching to provincial cities. The application presented in this paper involves clients of several types of retail stores present in the commercial area of Cluj-Napoca. The results obtained in the study, through the multinomial logit model, show different aspects of the client’s behaviour from the Romanian retail market.
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The increase in external pressures upon competitiveness makes companies quickly adapt to the criteria of modern competition. One of these criteria is the brand which has proven in developed economies the main competitive advantage and it influences to a certain extent the demand for any service. In these circumstances, the concern for a brand is a need, not a custom. Yet, the decisive influence shall belong to consumers – as their new life style includes the right to choose and to be somehow cynical when being able to give up a brand as soon as it does not fulfil its duties. Accomplishing the task to increase an area’s competitiveness requires the improvement of actions meant to develop and promote an area as a tourist destination both nationally and internationally as well as to develop a sustainable tourist industry. The sustainable growth of tourist promotion, the design and promotion of a tourist brand are a basic constituent both to achieve at normal, best levels the image of an area as a well-customized tourist destination, different from other competitive destinations on the national and international market, and to attract investors and other strategic partners for the growth of tourist industry.
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Environmental adaptation and behavioral integration are two major problems the organization of this beginning of century is confronting with. Organizational culture is one of the solutions to solving these problems. This paper presents the characteristics of organizational culture and the degree of influence on it by the different levels of managers. The most important part of the paper presents how managers can change the culture of organizations through influencing the cultural web of it.
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In the European countries life expectancy is growing, but people tend to retire earlier and earlier. The aim of our paper is to examine what measures the individual European countries take in order to keep senior citizens on their respective job markets as long as possible. Our essay consists of three parts. In the first part we examine the reform of the pension system. In the second part we survey the changing in-company employment policies. In the third part we examine the attempt of improvement of the employability of senior citizens themselves. The final conclusion of our paper can be summarised as follows: senior employees in general represent a significant group in human resources, the potentials of which ought to be and need to be utilized. Employers need to understand that the employment of senior people has its advantages. It is also very important to act accordingly.
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The unprecedented incertitude existing in the health system in Romania implies menaces for the system managers. The improvement of the performance of the medical system has never been more adequate, so that the health system needs specific managerial strategies. Romania needs a complete solution which could assure a performant management of the medical information in the system, and in their plans, the managers of the healthcare organizations must include investments for the application of the informational technologies, like the administration of medical information, of the health electronic file, the medical information exchange, so that the medical service be continuous and permanent from the birth until the death of any individual. But the piece of information is only valuable to the one who knows how to use it, where to search for it, how to choose it and finally how to use it, so that we can say the main instrument to which the manager from the health system may resort rapidly in order to find new solutions is information.
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Current academic research on the relationship of firms’ CSR activities with corporate branding typically focuses on consumers’ and shareholders’ viewpoints. This research aims to shed light on how organisational members in firms perceive to be the impact of CSR activities upon their corporate brand strategy. Using a survey administered to companies in the U.K. and Bulgaria, the author investigate, firstly, organisational members’ perceptions of the impact of different CSR-related activities upon corporate branding and, secondly, their beliefs about what customers and shareholders think are the impacts of CSR-related activities upon brand image and brand identity. The findings indicated that while organisational members rated quality products, customer service and corporate governance highly as key components of CSR activity, they were much more ambivalent about their companies' commitment to broader actions which involve the 'community' and 'society'. This paper concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for future 'CSR education' among companies.
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A thorough review of human resource development literature shows that the ability of supervisors to use good communication styles in managing programs will invoke employees’ motivation to learn, this may lead to increased positive individual attitudes and behaviors. The nature of this relationship is interesting, but little is known about the influence of employees’ motivation to learn in training management literature. Therefore, this study was conducted to examine the effect of supervisor communication in training program and motivation to learn on individual attitudes and behaviors using 100 usable questionnaires gathered from technical employees who have worked in one city based local authority in East Malaysia (CLAEASTMALAYSIA). Outcomes of stepwise regression analysis showed that relationship between motivation to learn and supervisor communication had been an important predictor of transfer of competency and job performance. Statistically, this result confirms that motivation to learn does act as a full mediating role in the training model of the in the organizational sample. In addition, implications and limitations of the study, as well as directions future research are discussed.
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