Business Excellence and Management

5-15

Authors: Ion POPA, Simona Cătălina ŞTEFAN

The aim of this paper is to highlight the main strengths and weaknesses of the Romanian firms' management and the manner in which the key stakeholders relate to them. Our study is based on a research conducted during of year 2014, by applying a survey to two categories of respondents: on the one hand teachers, researchers and consultants and on the other managers and specialists of companies. Those two categories of respondents were chosen because it was considered to be directly involved and therefore having the most relevant information on analyzed phenomena. The research confirms that the vision regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the Romanian firms' management do not vary significantly among the different categories of respondents. At the same time, the strengths and weaknesses identified represent essential premises in establishing certain measures, proposals and directions to improve the performances and effectiveness of the Romanian firms.

26-36

Authors: Asser KHAMIS

The first step in creating an effective staff evaluation is to determine why you want to assess your employees. These reasons may be to determine the basis for changes in compensation or position within the company, to determine if the employee is in training period and makes appropriate progresses, to determine if an employee correspond or not to the workplace, etc. Knowing the purpose of the evaluation is important because each goal has a set of objectives and tools

50-61

Authors: Mico APOSTOLOV

In Southeast Europe, as in most developing regions, governments offer significant incentives to attract inward investment in expectation to narrow performance gaps between foreign and domestic firms. Hence, this is usually motivated by the prospect of spillover benefits to augment the primary benefits of the national income from new investment. This paper focuses on foreign direct investments and therefore foreign capital movements, labor markets and potential efficiency effects, through a case study of Macedonia. Using macroeconomic and firm-level data, we identify whether foreign ownership can bring about higher efficiency effects. By reviewing possible impact of foreign direct investments induced efficiency effects, we develop comprehensive evaluation on probable positive outcomes on enterprise restructuring due to change of ownership and corporate governance, shifts in labor market and impact on gross domestic product. Further, results give indication that there are good grounds for further developmen

73-86

Authors: Sanjay RODE

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region is growing in terms of population, industry, educational and commercial units. The daily requirements of commodities and services by all units have increased fast. Plastic is used extensively for packing, protection and service of various commodities. The use of plastic is much higher by industry and households in region. In Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation, the density of population is higher. The concentration of small and large industries is more. Therefore the plastic use is much higher for different purposes. It leads to more waste of plastic. In Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation, the population and industrial units are less. Therefore plastic waste is less generated. Theaters are generating less plastic waste in metropolitan region. The Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and municipal corporations in Thane district will continuously generate more plastic waste in future. The tobit regression model shows that plastic waste is positively co-related and statistically significant with pollution and industry in region. Therefore the comprehensive policies are required to reduce plastic waste. This is because plastic waste is affecting on the health of human being. It also affects negatively on soil, air and water. Plastic waste is also affecting on marine resources that is birds, fish and other micro-organism. The entire food supply chain gets affected due to plastic waste. The water logging is common due to plastic waste in region. Plastic is allowed to flow with rain water. It chock ups the drainage system and it becomes the ground for mosquitoes. It further leads to dengue, malaria and other diseases in region. Many people die due to seasonal diseases in region. Therefore all the municipal corporations must sensitize people to segregate plastic waste in house. Municipal corporations must collect plastic in separate bins and process it. The long term effects are much severe in region. The plastic and e-waste can be utilized for road construction in region. All the policies will certainly help to reduce the plastic waste in region. It will also help to maintain the clean environment in region.

5-21

Authors: Radojko LUKIC

The capital structure, i.e. financial leverage is one of the significant factors of (trade) companies' performance. Financial leverage affects liquidity, profitability and other segments of performance of trading companies. Application of the correlation analysis in empirical research of trade sector in Serbia for the period 2008-2013 showed that financial leverage positively affects return of assets and return on equity while negatively affects current liquidity, quick liquidity and return on revenue. Concerning the statistical significance, the impact of financial leverage in trade of Serbia is significant in quick liquidity and return on equity (sig. < 0.05). Familiarity with these effects of financial leverage is significant for meeting future goal performances in trade in Serbia. Beside theoretical knowledge of capital structure, one of the prerequisites is also an adequate integral control of key determinants of financial leverage in trade of Serbia, which is very special compared to other countries, above all developed market economies (for example, UK).

40-46

Authors: Ion VOROVENCI

The modern age of Romanian economy begins with the opening of the Black Sea trade. That creates favorable conditions for mass migration of foreign populations especially Hebrew, persecuted in the Ukraine and Poland to Moldavia and Wallachia. They will help harness Romanian products on the deployment of feudal relations and the development of industry and banking institutions. By mid-century could not question the establishment of banks, the conditions are unfavorable, but this is what has enabled the handler of money to loan sharks to get rich. They are not only Hebrew, some of them are coming from south of the Danube Macedonia. Marmorosch-Blank Bank was born under these conditions, making it one of the most important Romanian banks that contributed to the development and modernization of Romania for more than half a century. Great economic crisis that marked the world economy had an impact on the global banking system including one in Romania, leading to the collapse and bankruptcy of Marmorosch-Blank.

62-70

Authors: Dragoş Ionuţ IONESCU

Strategic management is undoubtedly one of the most debated concepts of general management, this being due to the success organizations around the world which have put it into practice have registered. More and more papers on the management of health facilities have come out, both internationally and nationally. However, in Romania, most of these papers skipped strategic management approach to healthcare and those that don’t, however, limit themselves to macroeconomic approach or describe the concept in general terms, without singularize it for hospitals. However, in the Romanian practice there is a progress in terms of concern for the strategic management of the health system, this being ascribed to the creation of uniform management standards for all hospitals in Romania, but also to the emergence of institutions responsible for training in health management. Accordingly, this paper aims to outline an overview of the current state of the strategic management practice in public hospitals in Romania, the information being useful to decision makers both at the microeconomic level, directly involved in hospital management, and at the macroeconomic level, charged with the overall health system 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

5-32

Authors: Ferit ÖLÇER , Margareta Stela FLORESCU

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among the four components of psychological empowerment (i.e. meaning, self-determination, competence, and impact), job satisfaction and job performance. This study also tested the mediating effect of job satisfaction on the relationship between the components of psychological empowerment and job performance. A survey questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 238 employees in manufacturing industry. SPSS was used to conduct the statistical analysis of all data in this study. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the postulated hypothesis and test the direct and mediated relationships among variables. The findings indicated that meaning, self-determination and impact had positive significant effects on job satisfaction, but competence had no effect on job satisfaction. In addition, competence, self-determination and impact had positive effects on employees’ job performance while meaning did not support the proposed relationship. The results suggested that job satisfaction significantly affected job performance. Furthermore, overall job satisfaction fully mediated the relationship between meaning and job performance. In contrast, job satisfaction partially mediated the relationships between competence and job performance, between self-determination and job performance, and between impact and job performance.

44-50

Authors: Ruxandra DINULESCU, Elena Oana CROITORU, Mihaela MASCU, Laura Violeta VOICU

The public health care system fights every day with issues derived from bureaucracy. Constantly, patients blame the doctors, doctors blame the authorities and in the end, everyone is accusing someone else without trying to understand the origins of bureaucracy and how can be defeated. As long as other European Union countries have succeeded in eliminating bureaucracy, Romania has to take example, to apply other countries’ model and to “clean” once for all the public health care system from everything that could affect its doctors and patients.

65-78

Authors: Ahmed JERIBI

In our paper, we use a sample of 33 IPOs listed on the Tunisian Stock Exchange (TSE) from 1994 to 2012 in order to study how the ex ante uncertainty affects the total and the involuntary underpricing. We find that the most underpriced firms are IT firms and those which choose the fixed price mechanism and have the little issue size and the lowest number of days between the prospectus registration and the first day of the subscription period. We also find that only the firm’s sector and the number of days between the prospectus registration and the first day of the subscription period affect involuntary underpcing

5-29

Authors: Irina MISOC

Since the development of the knowledge-based society, in the modern organizations, the managers are dealing with a new problem: the occupational stress. More than ever, more and more employees are affected by this type of stress, which affects their performances. The main objective of this article is to come up with new methods of copying with stress in service-based organizations, in order to improve employees' activities. For this objective to be achieved, first of all the concept of job stress will be defined. Secondly, the factors that produce stress and its effects will be analyzed. Next, the tools and methods used for measuring stress will be also analyzed. In a servicebased organization, the employees' general level of stress will be estimated. All of the employees work on a tourism project. Last but not least, new measures for reducing stress will be promoted in the analyzed organization. It is desirable that the measures taken to be promoted in other organizations in order to improve the employees' performances

37-51

Authors: Sanjay RODE

Incidence of adult malnutrition is widely viewed in Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Women are more malnourished as compare to the male. The lower literacy rate among adults is the main problem of higher incidence of malnutrition. As the educational attainment of women increases in years, the incidence of malnutrition declines in suburb. The physical household asset holding among malnourished adults is low. The modern contraceptive use is low among malnourished adults due to lack of knowledge and availability of contraceptive method. Health care access for pre and post natal care among malnourished female is very low. The logistic regression results for female shows that the malnourishment is positively correlated to sex, drinking water trips by women and children, purify water, female sterilization and immediate breastfeeding. It is negatively co-related to age, education, per capita income, source of water, number of trips, pills and IUD. The logistic regression for men shows negative correlation with sex, age, education, television, and withdrawal method of contraceptive. It is positively correlated to knowledge of nutrition. Therefore state government must frame policies to improve health of people in slums of metropolitan region. There is need to provide infrastructural facilities such as water supply, sanitation, sewage, electricity and roads in slums. Health care staff must provide pre and post natal care and modern contraceptive methods in slums. The government must provide income generating activities in slums. It will help to improve income and asset holding among poor people. Government must invest more in skill up gradation programs to improve the quality of human resource in region. Such policies will certainly help to reduce to incidence of adult malnutrition in Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

58-69

Authors: Daniela Cornelia NICULESCU

A growing number of empirical analysis identifies the need for talent retention, policies related to employee welfare, employee participation and employee satisfaction. Leaders are called to ensure the employee’s full contribution in accomplishing organizational goals and objectives, attaining occupational integration, as well as embodying career development programmers, all these improving the quality of life and the performance of the organization. We propose a research within the Romanian banking system, that studies the liaison between learning and knowledge-based society, on one hand, and a value based leadership, on the other hand. When establishing a synergy between values and life, several obstacles are removed, that stand in the way of talented people to perform at their very best. Therefore, successful employee engagement is achieved, leading to higher efficiency, and a more motivated and energized workforce. If today’s leaders set their own goals according to their highest values, then enormous rewards would surely follow, not only on personal level, but at an organizational level as well. In this framework, change becomes critical: discarding old values, learning new values and reinforcing new actions. Our study shows that success and happiness is not all about fame and wealth, instead personal conduct is the foundation of satisfaction, helping the employees who work in the Romanian banking system achieving that particular feeling of self-satisfaction when man has managed to reach the set of values that he has been pursuing