Annals of Spiru Haret University. Economic Series

18

Authors: Marinel Cornelius DINU, Nicolae GOGA, Ana Maria NEAGU, Robert ANCUCEANU

Studies performed in various countries, including Romania, have shown that a number of factors are negatively impacting the health of the population at the workplace and in the household. The connection between health and work has been researched for a number of years as an important driver towards wellbeing. Several studies have been conducted in order to identify problems and to find solutions to harmonize the balance between wealth and health. Increased globalization, the chase for competitive advantage and the reduction of costs (especially labour costs) moved employers’ attention from the wellbeing of employees to higher profits. We discuss about such situations mainly in the East European Countries since the labour force is cheaper than in Western Europe. We should not forget that this current trend started in the US and was adopted also by European companies in order to increase profits. In West Europe, there are quite a number of studies regarding the relation between work and health, while in East Europe the number of such studies is quite small. The present paper proposes as an objective the study of several working factors and the relationship to health in Romania. Some of the results in our study reveal the concordance between the propensity of individuals to sacrifice from their one time and time for work without significant discrepancies between genders. Also, the more people invest in their time to rest, the more they are able to work hard without injuries. When it comes to gender characteristics, we determined slight changes in behaviour with almost the same labour pattern for both participants. Another interesting finding was that rural and urban areas are clearly determining the type of stress exposure for participants with a higher impact for workers coming from the urban area. Physical exercise and labour can be channelled in good order according to the gender capabilities.

26

Authors: R.N. WEERASINGHE1, S.A.S.S. PERERA2

The main aim of this research is to identify the factors that are affecting the success of Chinese small businesses, which are currently operating in Sri Lanka. This study followed the ‘Investigation research model’ with the two main research aspects, ‘success of the Chinese small businesses in Sri Lanka’ and ‘affecting factors for the success’ as the conceptual model of the research, and authors used the qualitative research approach by collecting data through in depth interviews conducted with the Chinese entrepreneurs who are currently operating their businesses in Sri Lanka and the BOI officers who supporting to promote FDIs in Sri Lanka. For the data collection purpose, researchers used the snowball sampling technique and the unstructured, open-ended questionnaire. Thus, this research followed ‘case study method’ and ‘conversationbased content analysis’ to analyze the collected data. Finally, the affecting factors were identified under these four main dimensions viz.: statutory and legal requirements, market related factors, financial related factors and strategy of investments. Moreover, this study concluded that the success of the businesses can be assessed by using the seven success factors under four key dimensions such as operational performance, market performance, wealth of the business and growth of the business. The findings of the study will be useful for the investors mainly from China and also other foreign investors who are planning to invest in Sri Lanka. Further, policy makers need to consider study findings for future initiatives in crafting policies in business development, trade and investment.