Synergy

5

Authors: Rodica Milena ZAHARIA 1

This article is a brief summary of the main outcomes of a study exploring the views of academics at the Bucharest University of Economics regarding their research activity and the evaluation of academic research. I would like to express my gratitude to Laura Mureşan, Ph.D, and Cristina Neesham, Ph.D, for their support and their guidance which has made it possible for the article version of this paper to be accepted for publication in an international journal cited in the ISI data base. I would also like to thank my colleagues who were so kind and generously shared their opinions in a focus group and in-depth interviews, and to my husband, who was the first reader and the first critic of the paper. My article reflects the knowledge and skills I have acquired during the Master Program in several courses, such as critical thinking, qualitative research, academic writing and educational management. This article is a brief summary of the main outcomes of a study exploring the views of academics at the Bucharest University of Economics regarding their research activity and the evaluation of academic research. I would like to express my gratitude to Laura Mureşan, Ph.D, and Cristina Neesham, Ph.D, for their support and their guidance which has made it possible for the article version of this paper to be accepted for publication in an international journal cited in the ISI data base. I would also like to thank my colleagues who were so kind and generously shared their opinions in a focus group and in-depth interviews, and to my husband, who was the first reader and the first critic of the paper. My article reflects the knowledge and skills I have acquired during the Master Program in several courses, such as critical thinking, qualitative research, academic writing and educational management.

9

Authors: Cristina PRELIPCEANU

This paper aims to investigate the importance and relevance of business (or marketing in particular) and war association. When saying that business is war most people think of the marketing strategies that can show similarities with battles. We may also think about brand wars or aggressive comparative advertising. We have examined both the opinions of those that are in favour of the metaphor “business is war” and of those that criticise the use of this syntagm. It is obvious that marketing strategies are somehow inspired by the works of military strategists, such as: N. Machiavelli, Sun Tzu or Carl von Clausewitz. All these are at the foundation of marketing strategies and tactics, some of whom being mentioned in the sections of this paper.

10

Authors: Ioana Maria Diana ŞANDRU 1

The present paper aims to analyze the meaning of five quality dimensions in the field of higher education and establish to what extent quality related higher education can lead to performance. Based on the five quality dimensions, the paper seeks to offer some insights into quality based performance measurement.

14

Authors: Cristina COVACI VOICU 1

This paper aims to introduce aspects of underground economy and to test specialists’ perceptions on the Romanian underground economy in particular. Using the Delphi investigation method I aim to check whether good research methodology yields correct and coherent results. The scientific fascination of the underground economy has inspired me to tackle this domain and undertake the challenging task of researching it aiming to provide eventually some insights into the main causes of underground economy and its effect on the official economy as well as to understand the perception on this widespread phenomenon.

16

Authors: Florentina-Olivia BALU

Business change, new regulations, an aging workforce and globalization have made learning and development a very strategic business function in the last years. The building of learning organizations indicates that more and more organizations see learning as a key to their long-term success. The Learning Organization is seen as a response to an increasingly unpredictable and dynamic business environment. According to Peter Senge (1990), the leader of the learning organization movement, "A Learning Organisation is one in which people at all levels, individuals and collectively, are continually increasing their capacity to produce results they really care about; A learning organization is an organization in which you cannot not learn because learning is so insinuated into the fabric of life.” This paper provide an overview of current literature in this field, highlighting the importance of development of a company as a learning organization, the main characteristics of a learning organization and also describes the means, the rules and practical steps needed to follow in order to transform a traditional organization into a learning organization.

17

Authors: Monica ROMAN 1

This paper aims to present the current state of Romanian higher education, based on statistical data on trends and number of student population and staff. The latest developments in the Bologna process are analyzed, with a special focus on international students’ mobility. Based on demographic projection, the paper also reflects the perspectives of Romanian higher education at the 2025 horizon. Statistics reveal an unseen development of Romanian higher education, in terms of number of students and an increasing international cooperation, but the perspectives are more pessimistic. Demographic trends will have a crucial impact on higher education. Romanian universities apply fairly passive policies which reflect adjustment to current demographic situation rather than anticipation of changes to come. Obviously, combining the two approaches would be an optimum solution.

17

Authors: Georgeta GHIGA

Both linguists and business people consider phatic communication an important element of business interaction. This article emphasizes the role of the phatic function in business negotiations. It capitalizes on the inventory of the phatic elements identified in spoken Romanian and focuses on those contributing significantly to relevant stages of negotiations. On the basis of real life situations, it is shown how various linguistic elements (vocatives, verbs and verbal phrases, interjections, adverbs, tag-questions and conventional dialogues) are involved in the operation of the communication channel making it work in accordance with the negotiators' communicative intention. Therefore, the quality of interaction and, consequently, success and failure in negotiations may depend on the negotiators' ability of using phatic elements effectively.

19

Authors: Raluca Andreea ION 1

This paper offers an example of a methodology change underpinning the design of a new course in teaching Common Agricultural Policy. The objectives of this research are to identify the best methods of teaching and learning a subject in English and to apply them in the teaching process. The methods were chosen after carrying out a survey about students’ learning preferences and their perceptions about the teacher’s role. The results of the survey show that students prefer practical activities in seminars: case studies, projects, working in pairs, games. During lectures, students want to receive handouts and write down only the teacher’s explanations. They agreed that Power Point presentations are useful for large classes and that small group activities are suitable not only for seminars, but for lectures as well. Students consider that some issues of Common Agricultural Policy may be learned by watching TV news in English and by reading newspapers in English. The teacher’s role within the process of teaching and learning is to act as a team member, thus the teacher and all the students in the class constitute a team and should interact like members of a team. Based on the results of the survey I have designed the methods, materials and activities that I use in teaching the subject Common Agricultural Policy. In the part “New methods of learning”, the methods and material used are described from a theoretical point of view, while in the last section of the paper: “New methods of learning Common Agricultural Policy in English – Methodology in action”, all the methods used are exemplified. The new methods focus on using group work and pair work activities rather than individual work. It intends to enable participatory and cooperative learning, where the teacher is not an absolute planner and manager of the class, but a facilitator, team member, motivator, and group organizer. The new methods introduced are: role-plays; critical thinking skills: analysis, interpretation, inference, explanation, evaluation, self-regulation; discussion: brainstorming, jigsaw activities, fish-bowl activities, pyramid discussion; group work, pair work and others. There are a lot of papers and articles on the topic of participatory learning, new methods of teaching and learning and other related issues, but none of these focuses on modern methods of teaching Common Agricultural Policy. It is hoped that teachers will find the present study useful in their efforts of preparing and teaching the classes not only of Common Agricultural Policy, but on other topics as well

20

Authors: Irina DAVID 1

One of the skills that non-native English students need to possess is the ability to plan and deliver presentations in this language. As they assume that tertiary students must have already acquired the main concepts needed to produce logically-structured discourse, university teachers of English often focus exclusively on language issues, considering this is enough for helping students develop their ability to present information. However, the author of this article considers the above-mentioned approach is not fully effective, as students need to focus not only on language concepts, but also on elements related to the development of their critical thinking skills when preparing and delivering speeches.

5

Authors: Rada BĂLAN, Anca COLIBABA

This article aims to highlight some of the ways in which innovative concepts and instruments in language learning (blended learning, autonomous language learning, online learning platform) are used to enhance the quality of less widely used less widely taught (LWULT) language learning packages created under the auspices of Lingua projects.

6

Authors: Monica VLAD, Ioana URSACHE

The aim of this article is to offer readers an overview on how linguistic skills can be improved through a non-formal way of learning called Family Learning (FL). We discuss and establish what is commonly understood by FL throughout Europe and present methods and examples of FL practitioners that have managed to improve the linguistic skills of their target groups. Family Learning generically means an informal method of learning born from work undertaken in the voluntary sector and spread by Family Literacy programmes in the USA. The focus of FL is to value learning that takes place within the home and from the family. FL course provision shares strategies to make the home an effective place for learning and to support the learning ambitions of both adults and children.

6

Authors: Mihaela DUMITRESCU

This paper focuses on a deconstructionist perspective on meaning that is perfectly compatible with, yet utterly different from Derrida’s antilogocentric “thesis” of the impossibility of a “transcendental signified”: Paul de Man’s conception of the disruptive and rhetorical nature of language. It analyses de Man’s scepticism about the epistemological reliability of language, his indebtedness to the groundbreaking linguistic insights of Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as well as his deconstructionist re-reading of their texts. It shows Demanian reading as perpetually incapable of distinguishing between the literal and the figural, and fascinated by the indeterminacy that turns texts into forever “unreadable” enigmas.

8

Authors: Claudia Elena DINU

Due to the communicational vocation of fictional works, the pragmatic values of literary speech conceal the construction of the self – both the writer’s and the reader’s. Thus it may be asserted that each enunciation comprises the author’s marks of substance, even in highly metaphorical uses of the language. These marks, always detectable, lead to the identity of the literary author. Once the author steps on the fiction stage, the dialogue with the reader begins. The latter – a faceless image – has a portrait more or less predictable before writing the text, but is definitely reshaped through the reading as mediated interaction with alterity. The two identities – the author’s and the reader’s – are consequently (re)shaped simultaneously in a secret synergy.

9

Authors: Valentina ROBU

This article explores the basic varieties of organisational culture and some of the influencing factors that determine a certain type of organisational structure. The analysis does not make explicit reference to the teaching profession (except for one instance) but has been carried out in the hope that professionals in the teaching area will be able to reflect more on the type of organisation they work in and define with grater accuracy their teaching environment, the relationships between them and the management of their organisation at different levels. I believe it is often taken for granted that because the teachers’ work is almost the same irrespective of their institution, their organisational environment should be very similar. This paper is an invitation to challenge this view and offers some basic instruments for an analysis that can be carried out both at an individual level and at an organisational level.

15

Authors: Roxana MARINESCU

This article aims to analyse gendered instances of violence, as they are described in a number of novels written in English by authors of South-Asian origin, among which Shame, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Shalimar the Clown, Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee by Meera Syal, Brick Lane by Monica Ali, or The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Institutional violence against women includes rape, sutee/sati (the ritual of self-immolation of Hindu women at the death of their husbands), wearing the Islamic symbol of burqa, or keeping women in purdah (Muslim women’s confinement to the private sphere). In the case of men, the best known is male circumcision for Muslims or the male sterilisation campaign in the Emergency period in India. The trans-gendered body is also explored, with an emphasis on the hijras in India, men who undergo a castration ceremony in order to become guardians of women or artists.

23

Authors: Ida GALLI, Roberto FASANELLI, Debora SOMMELLA

The study is part of a larger investigation on extreme right policies in Europe, achieved within the framework of the European Laboratory of Social Psychology, with the aim of understanding why it is we are witnessing the revival of the extreme right in some European countries. The investigation is defined by two analytical axes: the motivations of the adherence and the political route of the members of the party; and the social representations and practices of the supporters and the common knowledge concerning the right policy. A sample of subjects (supporters and militants of the right wing) have participated in an interview, and the data was processed through a categorial-frequencial “hand-made” analysis of the content which permitted to realize an “a posteriori” system of categories, on which the presentation and discussion are based.