Business Excellence and Management

5-16

Authors: Vasile DEAC, Radu Nicolae BÂRZĂ-NICOARĂ

Human resources qualifications and level of competences impact the production level of the gross outcome. Work productivity directly impacts the total operating cost of a company. Mismatching between the job needs and the personnel skills can lead to serious dysfunctions in the production process and the production outcome. From the neoclassic theory of the labour market we can state that mismatching is a short run problem, while, based on Spence’s job matching theory or Thurow’s competition model we can point out that in the case of production companies mismatching is a permanent problem. This paper will present mismatching theory as well as the importance of qualification and skills. In order to show the impact of education on the gross production output we will use a productivity model that outlines the impact of education.

28-32

Authors: Eduard Gabriel CEPTUREANU

Change management practices has so far been studied mainly in large companies (i.e. high-tech and multinational enterprises) because researchers could obtain relatively easy information regarding these processes and could explain easily the peculiarities of it based on case studies . However, in recent years a number of researchers focused on SMEs, because this type of organization account for over 90% of businesses all over the world, and there is a growing need to create sustainable SMEs, then developing and implementing change is highest in making progress towards sustainability. In this paper, we investigate change management tools on SMEs from seven different EU countries, in order to better understand the nature of practices and help develop best practices from SMEs on EU. Drawing on a database collected from 72 innovative SMEs, we explore peculiarities and trends on SMEs change management instruments, based on data base analysis from 2014-2015. The survey furthermore focuses on the motives and perceived challenges when SMEs adopt change management practices. Within the survey, we split instruments accordingly to change management methodology steps into planning, implementing and communication of change. We find that the responding SMEs engage in many change practices and have increasingly adopted such practices during the past years. As a limitation of our study, we investigate only medium enterprises, because was difficult to identify a coherent base of change instruments micro and small enterprises. The results are restricted to the sample which is small in size, but generate a good insight into the changes occurring within it. This study is one of the few study in its field to use data from seven different countries in order to analyze change management instruments and help to develop a common base of practice.

43-54

Authors: Sebastian Mădălin MUNTEANU

Assuming the increasing part that sport economics plays nowadays in research and pragmatic fields, the main objective of the present study is to investigate on the companies’ role for supporting sport development through sponsorships and donations, as one main component of the private financing for sport. The fundamental premise that stays behind this research is the potential of sport for inducing competitive advantages for the companies that assign corporate resources for this social domain. The research was conducted for the EU member countries by using secondary data freely available in official documents and databases. The comparative analysis highlighted the factors that generate significant differences between the investigated countries. The results showed that, although corporate financing for sport purposes is well-developed only in few EU countries, its part is constantly increasing as companies in different economic, social and cultural contexts are becoming aware of the strategic potential of sport on medium and long terms. The findings are presented in detail at country level.

68-83

Authors: Sanjay RODE

The public health care policies are responsible for human resource development. Such human resource promotes economic growth and development in any region. But public health care policies are ineffective in slums of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. It has affected on birth weight, infant and child mortality and malnutrition. The incidence of low birth weight is found more in slums of Kalwa. The illiterate and secondary school studied parents have high incidence of low birth weight babies. The mild BMI of parents have more incidence of low weight at birth. The use of modern contraceptive is very low among parents. The antenatal visits are lower among the pregnant women in slums. The logistic regression results shows that the low birth weight children have positive relationship with mothers secondary school, mild BMI, eat pulses and chicken and use of withdrawal method of contraceptive. The low birth weight babies are negatively co-related with normal BMI, reading magazine, eat curd and eggs and iron and folic acid tablets during pregnancy. Therefore policies such as full antenatal care to pregnant women are required on urgent basis in all slums. Health care staff must spread awareness of pre and post natal care and provide modern contraceptives in slums of metropolitan region. Government must provide the vocational training to unskilled workers to improve their income earning. It will not only improve their income earning but also physical and electronic asset holding. More awareness of nutrition, hygiene and family planning will result into more birth weight of babies. The poor people need affordable housing, sanitation and water supply in all slums of Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

94-101

Authors: Nadhem SELMI, Mohamed FAKHFEKH, Marwa BEN SALEM

This paper aims to test the effect of asymmetric shocks on the volatility of the Dow Jones Sukuk. To this end, we applied the EGARCH model to give a clear idea of the effect of asymmetric shocks on the volatility of the sukuk. Considering the daily returns of the Dow Jones Sukuk for the period from 09/06/2009 to 31/12/2013, our results suggest that the volatility of the 2009-2010 period is very sensitive to market events over the period 2010-2013 and positive shocks are more volatile than negative one. The results have important implications for the sukuk market. This result can be explained by the good transparency, disclosure and better incentives that make investors expand their business in the market for sukuk