Annals of Spiru Haret University. Economic Series

6

Authors: Guliyeva GULAR

The study of consumer behavior is considered one of the most important tasks of any market entity. Practical experience shows that producers (sellers) are obliged to unambiguously define their market behavior in order to better understand their consumers, to meet their desires and aspirations in everyday trade relations. However, the breadth of firms and the diversity of markets do not allow most users of marketing tools to make direct contact with their customers. Therefore, business leaders are clearly trying to study the market behavior of consumers by spending more time and money. In order to withstand an aggressive competitive environment, businesses are looking for answers to a key question that is important: how do consumers react to the use of various attractive marketing tools. Of course, the study of people's role as consumers in trade operations as a process justifies the relevance of the chosen research.

8

Authors: Dragoș-Adrian IORGA

Regional Intermediate Body for Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development Bucharest-Ilfov Region implements the 40Ready Interreg Europe project, “Strengthening SME capacity to engage in Industry 4.0”. Within this project, a research tool, a survey (“Industrial revolution 4.0 coming to our lives”), was developed and applied, designed to provide relevant information in the field of Industry 4.0 and also to provide thematic solutions (a new criterion to support SME digital competences through the Operational Programme Human Capital 2014-2020; a new evaluation criterion for the call “Digital competencies for SMEs’ employees”, designed to support the Managing Authority for OPHC in evaluation and, at the same time, to help SMEs acknowledge the main I4.0 domains to focus on their digitalisation path in general and specifically for developing employees’ digital competencies). This paper, the result of an exploratory research, aims to present the relevant characteristics, trends and potential solutions for improving the implementation of the Operational Programme Human Capital 2014-2020, a topic that generated the need to start and, implicitly, to operationalize such a study. Therefore, in the configuration of the research process, there were no strict rules.

8

Authors: Stefano AMODIO

The ability to carry out coordination tasks within the group is identified with the leading role of the group itself. If this ability manifests itself continuously, it is an indispensable premise for the attribution of leadership to the one who demonstrates and exercises it. Leadership is therefore a quality, a gift that is not only a factor of appreciation for the individual, but also a valuable resource for the group. It usually happens that one or more members of an organization find it important to engage in seeking some influence on other members; this means making attempts to exercise authority. If these attempts are successful and are repeated over time, they can actually confer leadership on the one who has been the protagonist. in whatever sector they operate, companies need to reap the benefits offered by leaders capable of generating the emotional resonance in the company that allows everyone to realize their aspirations and make their potentials concrete.

10

Authors: Melina ALLEGRO

Conflict is a divergence of opinions which, as such, generates an emotional alteration in turn arising from a clash of mutually antithetical views. (Bonfanti, 2011). I decided to start from this definition to emphasize how much, within a conflict situation, whether it be work or family, the factors in the field concern both the cultural aspect of a person and the emotional one. Speaking of conflict, therefore, without taking into account the socio-cultural substratum in which it has its roots, inevitably involves an emptying of those which are the fundamental ingredients of any type of relationship. As already mentioned in previous chapters, the socio-cultural transformations that have occurred in recent decades have led to a complete redefinition of the roles that men and women respectively cover during their lives. In fact, in the era of modernity, many of the roles that had been at the basis of society for decades were gradually overturned.

10

Authors: Bianca RUSU, Lăcrămioara HURLOIU, Iulian HURLOIU, Lucian ILINCUȚĂ

The control environment, which is largely determined by management policies and the operating style of the entity, is fundamental to the way the controls are carried out within an organisation. In order to obtain a full understanding of the control environment, the auditor should focus more on the high-level policies and practices of the audited entity and less on the detailed controls within individual operations. Professional scepticism is of great importance when assessing the control risk. The auditor must apply it when verifying how the internal controls, implemented by the management of the entity, have acted in the direction of reducing the specific inherent risks.

12

Authors: Aurelian-Virgil BĂLUȚĂ, Alexandru RADA

The paper has the following chapters: the need for a good result from the cost-benefit analysis, multi-disciplinary elements in the management of digitization projects, knowledge management in digitization projects, ethical issues – restrictions in digitization projects, natural opposition to change of organization. The use of cost-benefit analysis has the following moments of use: before its launch or choosing the option to carry out the project, if the need for a project for which there are several implementation options has been established by other methods. In digitization projects, one of the concepts used more and more is that of smart infrastructure. Recent management talks about the fact that systems are much more important now than before. One of the problems with current systems is connection. In the case of digitization projects, there are also components that aim only at acquiring the skills necessary for new technological systems or work procedures. In their case, there are many elements already established in the field of education. One of these is the relationship between the importance given to certain knowledge and its usefulness. The process of globalization has extended internationally the regulation of the ethics of certain professions, including in the field of ITC and project management in large companies. The professional ethics as restriction of digitization projects are applicable not only to multinational companies, but to all those operating in a global market. Staff confidence in the usefulness of digitization projects must aim for maximum capacity. Digitization can be conceived as a solution to increase the revenue of the companies as a financial source to motivate the staff.

14

Authors: Paolo CIONI

In the world of work, the presence of women has been a very stable phenomenon for years now. Some factors, such as: - the increasing level of education, - the progressive outsourcing of the national economy, - the diversification of employment contracts, have definitely favored an increase in the employed female population, which however still remains in a due minority compared to the figures regarding male employment. However, one factor outlines the importance of the presence of women in the labor market, and is that relating to female entrepreneurship, which has grown in recent years thanks above all to regulatory systems which, in fact, have progressively favored both its promotion and development. . However, this is a process that has not only affected Italy, but the entire sphere of the European Union, where it is estimated that almost a fifth of the annual GDP growth can be explained, in principle, precisely with the increase participation of women in the workforce. Although disparities continue to affect the employment market, the "gender segregation" element appears singular, with women concentrated in some types of employment and men, obviously, in others.

14

Authors: Elena ROBU

The set of phenomena related to recreational activities should be considered as a system, so that the object of study of recreational geography is the Territorial Recreational Systems (TRS). The main social function of TRS is to maximize the needs of the population in recreation, health, treatment and increasing physical and spiritual potential. TRS is an open system, it receives information, matter, energy from the external environment. TRS transmits to the external environment, mainly, information for the management of the supersystem and the so-called recreational information for the population (potentially aggregated by tourists) and, most important, it returns the tourists themselves - people after rest, healthy and spiritually enriched. Studying the models of development and functioning of the Territorial Recreational Systems (TRS) is inextricably linked to the problem of identifying the relationships between the individual elements of this system, such as tourists, natural complex, technical structures, service system) and between recreational and non-recreational systems (reinstallation) etc.

16

Authors: Mathew ADAGUNODO

The study assessed the effect of oil receipts and fuel subsidy payment on current account deficit in Nigeria and Venezuela. Data collected were analysed using trend analyses, unit root, cointegration techniques and Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL). The result showed that estimated oil revenue had a negative and significant impact on current account deficit in the short- run in Nigeria ( and Venezuela ( . The estimated oil revenue had a negative and significant impact on current account deficit in the long-run in Nigeria and Venezuela ( . Fuel subsidies also had positive and significant long-run impact on current account gap in Nigeria ( ) and Venezuela . The study concluded that despite the positive contributions of oil receipts to the current account in the two countries, continues fuel subsidy payment would impose significant fiscal costs and undermine current account position in Venezuela much more than Nigeria.

16

Authors: Ayo Olatunbosun FALANA, Ademola Olalekan ADEDUN, Adeolu Oluwole FAMILOYE

The growth of an economy needs to have a great impact on the citizens of that economy and thus help reduce poverty which is one of the main purposes of the millennium development goals. Nigeria has one of the largest populations in Africa and regarded as wealthy in terms of natural resources but with high levels of poverty. The government in their effort applied many policies in eradicating poverty through many empowerment programmes. This study attempts to examine if the empowerment programmes implemented by the government really helped in reducing poverty with focus on the youth who are the future of the economy. Focus was laid on the Amnesty Programme implemented to empower the youth in the Niger-Delta, highlighting the financial commitment of the programme and challenges encountered. The study uses the qualitative research approach which was exploratory and descriptive in nature with information leading to deduction of conclusions derived from journals, books and previous papers. It was realized that the Amnesty programme has helped to prevent the militant youths from their bad deeds and succeeded in equipping them with technical training in various fields of endevour. It was also concluded that there has been a lavish expenditure on the programme but still encounter many challenges such as unpaid or irregular payment of allowances to beneficiaries, inappropriate training provision, and limited employment prospects and so on. The challenges hinder the achievement of the expected goals and thus do not yield any effective result in reducing poverty. The study recommends that The Federal government should provide funds to the beneficiaries of the programme to establish their own businesses or provide them with job opportunities since unemployment of the graduates can push them back to the creek.

18

Authors: Svetlana ANĐELIĆ, Goran RADIĆ, Nikola DRAGOVIĆ, Dušan UNKULOV

The article explains the critical concepts when using domain-led design as a software development approach. It presents what makes a domain-driven design, how that philosophy came about, the advantages and disadvantages, and when it is best to use it. All the necessary elements that are essential for software designed in this way to succeed, which together form a domain-driven design, are explained in detail. Particular emphasis is placed on the importance of domain-driven design in the case of software in projects with complicated business processes.

18

Authors: Stella Ogechukwu OKEZIE, Kelechi Vivian IKEJI, Caroline Chisara OGU, Emmanuela DURU

The study examined the effect of corporate social responsibility cost on sustainable growth of listed firms in Nigeria. The study adopts ex-post facto research design. Fourteen (14) out of the 56 listed manufacturing companies on the Nigerian stock exchange as at 2021 were selected for the study. Data was analyzed using panel regression and Autoregressive Distribution Lag (ARDL) model. Findings from the study reveal that, corporate social responsibility cost denoted as social responsibility cost and environmental cost has a long run relationship with sustainable growth of listed manufacturing firms in Nigeria as measured by the bounds test using the Wald statistics. Furthermore, the results also reveal short run relationship with a speed of adjustment to long run equilibrium at 77.95% significant at 5% level of significance. It is thus recommended that manufacturing firms should continue to invest in corporate social responsibility as this has a significant effect on their sustainability. Firms must sustain the current corporate social responsibility strategy and improve on ways to be cost efficient while still maintaining an effective corporate social responsibility strategy that will put the firms in good light with consideration to environmental responsiveness.

20

Authors: Oluwatoyin Olusola AKINTAYO, Iyiola Akindele AKOSILE

This study focused on the relationship between auditors’ independence and quality of audit report. To investigate this objective a survey research design was adopted to gather data from the respondents through the distribution of questionnaires to 120 respondents comprised of 12 auditors and 108 senior staff of the 12 randomly selected Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in Nigeria. In addition, 120 copies of questionnaires were distributed to the respondents from which only 118 questionnaires were returned and used for the study. Both descriptive and inferential statistics of logit regression was adopted for the study. The result obtained from the regression analysis showed that there was a significant positive relationship between auditor independence and quality of audit report. This assertion was premised on the fact that the p-value of the LR-statistics computed for the test of 0.0000 was less than the critical value of 5%. It was concluded that auditor independence and quality of auditor report were sufficiently related. It was recommended that auditors should not interfering with the affair of its client in order not to erode its independence.

22

Authors: Elena GURGU, Milena ILIC, Sabyasachi RATH, Ioana-Andreea GURGU

In this paper we talk about creativity in public relations, that is clear that we need. For us, creativity in public relations can be a mean, a novel way to accomplish an objective more easily, more efficiently and more quickly. It is clear that every client appreciates creativity, but in many situations it does not translate into events or visible messages for a mass audience and then it is not visible. We also talk in our paper about the profile of a creative relationalist, that must be: involved, informed, avid after work, possessing theoretical knowledge, having flexible and positive thinking, being visionary. In this paper we will try to demonstrate that creativity can occur in one of the following situations: either in strategy (positioning, planning), or in execution (tactics, presentation materials, information).

24

Authors: Dorcas Adebola BABATUNDE

This study examined the impact of treasury single account (TSA) on public sector performance in Nigeria. Specifically, this study analyzed the effect of treasury single account on budget execution; accountability and cash management in Nigeria public sector. This study made use of primary data sourced from 300 randomly selected respondents from government parastatals, agencies and ministries across six southwest states in Nigeria. Data were collected with the use of structured questionnaire. Collated data were analyzed with the use of percentage/frequency count and ANOVA regression analysis. Result showed that TSA adoption exert significant positive effect of budget execution (0.794; p < 0.05); level of accountability (0.750, p < 0.05), and cash management (0.960, p < 0.05) in Nigeria public. The study therefore concluded that treasury single account has substantial positive impact on performance of Nigeria public sector. Hence this study recommends the need for government to strengthen guidelines for the full implementation of the policy so as to ensure long term sustenance of the policy across the country. In addition there is need for government to engage in objective public enlightenment about the importance of the policy. Government should also overhaul the capacity of the Federal Ministry of Finance and the CBN to cope with challenges associated with enforcement of the provisions of the TSA so as to further harness the benefit of centralize control of funds across the country.