Search results

The purpose of this article is to highlight the relevance of the factors that influence the satisfaction of e-commerce consumers in Romania and Moldova. The study aims to clearly define the main influence factors, so that the marketing managers of the online stores can adopt scientific well-founded decisions.

The paper opted for a study including a large sample of 399 respondents from two countries. For the analysis of the factors influencing the e-commerce satisfaction, multiple linear regression analysis was implemented, and their differentiation within the two countries was highlighted by multivariate analysis of variance.

The research conducted and the results obtained show that there is a differentiation of the factors that influence the level of satisfaction of e-commerce users in Romania and Moldova.

The research is still limited in terms of population studied to only two countries: Romania and Moldova. Although the study is intended to be exhaustive by analyzing no less than 11 factors influencing the satisfaction generated by e-commerce, it is still limited to this group of representative factors. Another limitation has to do with the limited number of demographic variables the authors have included.

Based on the results, the managerial implications for e-commerce companies that want to uniquely address consumers in Romania and Moldova are related to the decisions of marketing and sales managers who must allocate budgets and resources to improve the eight aspects highlighted in the paper. Also, the e-commerce companies should not allocate resources for the implementation of functionalities such as in-app after sales services, the possibility to cancel an order or the live consultant support feature, because these aspects do not influence the satisfaction of e-commerce consumers in Romania and Moldova.

This paper is the first in the scientific literature that implements a comparative study on the influence factors regarding the e-commerce satisfaction in Romania and Moldova. Also, it is important to mention that the present study is an exhaustive one because it includes many influence factors that were analyzed separately in the previous research papers from literature review.

Mobilizing a theoretical framework combining institutional logics and “imprinting” lenses, this paper provides an in-depth contextualized analysis of how historical imprints affect social and environmental reporting (SER) practices in Romania, a post-communist country in Eastern Europe.

The authors conduct a qualitative field study with a diverse dataset including regulations, publicly available reports and interviews with multiple actors involved in the SER field in Romania. The authors follow a reflexive approach in constructing the narratives by mobilizing their personal experience and understanding of the field to analyze the rich empirical material.

The authors identify a blend of logics that combine local and Western conceptualizations of business responsibilities and explain how the transition from a communist ideology to the free market economy affected SER practices in Romania. The authors also highlight four major imprints and document their longitudinal development, evidencing three main patterns: persistence, transformation and decay. The authors find that the deep connections that form between logics and imprints explain the cohabitation of logics rather than their straight replacement.

The paper contributes by evidencing the role of imprints' dynamics in the institutionalization of SER logics. The authors claim that the persistence (decay) of imprints from a former regime such as communism hinders (facilitates) the institutionalization of Western SER logics. Transformation instead has more uncertain effects. The pattern that an imprint takes hinges upon its usefulness for business interests.

Ethical consumption is on the rise amidst concerns about the environmental and health impacts of industrial agriculture. In light of increasingly complex food choices, alternative food networks have emerged. However, their success depends on a deeper understanding of the product attributes that guide (ethical) consumer decisions. This study focuses on the preferences of consumers when choosing and buying fresh vegetables in Romania.

This study employs a discrete choice experiment to determine how consumers make trade-offs across a set of product attributes, such as local origin and production method.

The study analysis sheds light on the importance of food attributes relevant to ethical consumers. The main barrier to making an ethically driven choice is convenience. While local production remains of lower importance than the production method, the authors show that the Romanian consumers surveyed strongly prefer non-certified “traditional” vegetables over certified organic products.

This study is pioneering with a state-of-the-art discrete choice setting looking at a set of product attributes that reflect the demand of ethical consumers in an understudied transitional context. The authors go beyond the current debate on the trade-off between organic vs local food labels by introducing traditional small-scale production as a separate attribute level. The food attribute preferences of different consumer segments and a market simulation offer relevant insights how to market fresh vegetables to health- and environmentally-conscious urban people.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse community-based tourism (CBT) initiatives in the post-socialist rural Romania in terms of the holism of the tourist project and the implementation of the local participation. The paper focusses on chances and challenges of CBT.

Once the main objective was established, three research interests arose: How and why tourism played a significant role in the economic and social development of the rural local community? How has the local community participated in the starting and maintenance of the CBT projects and who played a key part? How can the level of success of the CBT implementations be qualitatively measured? Qualitative methodologies (interviews, on-site observations, informal discussions) were applied to survey the four case studies.

Natural and cultural features ensure a versatile potential for touristic exploitation of the Romanian rural area, but the villages are endangered by post-socialist economic and social transformations. Innovative approaches of CBT in rural areas ignited by charismatic leaders with entrepreneurial spirit develop based on the existent social, natural and cultural capital, but on the other hand, endeavours can be vulnerable because of hindering local municipalities or sustainability issues.

The findings facilitate recommendations in favour of effective CBT ventures.

Learning about the contribution of CBT to a sustainable development of rural regions with no/little tradition of private entrepreneurship can contribute to the revitalization of rural areas facing post-socialist challenges.

The purpose of this work is twofold. First, looks to identify the main homogenous groups of companies after environmental, social, economic and governance (ESEG) disclosures, non-financial statement and earnings per share (EPS), and second investigates the connection between variables.

Using financial and non-financial information from annual reports of private listed companies, the authors performed two-step cluster analysis (TSCA) in the first stage of the research, followed by parametric, nonparametric correlation analysis, as well as regression analysis based on panel data, in the second stage.

Results of TSCA revealed a cluster of companies with good financial and non-financial outcomes and a cluster of companies with poor performance. The performance dynamics showed a slight improvement during the period for few companies and composition analysis of clusters by industries through Kruskal–Wallis test highlighted differences between clusters, only for 2017. The main findings confirm a direct, although weak in intensity but statistically significant correlation between ESEG disclosure index, its sustainability component and financial performance (FP), valid for the entire period. Also, the results showed a direct link of low intensity to average, but statistically significant between the non-financial statement and EPS, valid only for 2017 and 2018.

The results indicate mixed findings which invites further in-depth research. Limits of the study can be found in selected indicators and the short period of time analyzed. However, the practical implications are worth considering from the perspective of finding new managerial tools that can better shape the relationship between ESEG disclosures and FP.

ESEG Dindx can be an instrument for managers that can optimize the link between the FP of companies and its sustainable development.

ESEG Dindx measures the disclosure degree of ESEG information by the companies listed on Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE). The main findings of the work confirm a direct, although weak in intensity but statistically significant correlation between ESEG disclosure index, its sustainability component and FP, valid for the entire period.

This study adds value to the existing literature by the proposed research framework, design of ESEG Dindx and the way correlations between variables were investigated.

Services trade has registered a dynamic evolution in almost all developing countries. Despite the rising share in world services trade by developing countries, the gap between developed and developing countries in service exports have been widening. Developed economies have become service exporters, while developing economies are found to be more receptive towards service imports. This paper attempts to gain some insight into the actual nature and extent of exports of services from developing countries, and examines their emergence as significant players of services trade as well as the underlying factors and broader implications. One of the conclusions of this paper is that developing countries successfully export a variety of services to both developed and developing countries, whereas a relatively limited number of developing countries seem to be heavily involved in services exports trade across a range of sectors. This, alternatively, indicates that services exports, on a large international level, are associated with higher levels of development and that not all developing countries are yet in a position to be large-scale exporters.

This study examines the inter-linkages between Bitcoin prices and CEE stock markets (Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Croatia).

The dynamic contemporaneous nexus has been analyzed using both the multivariate DECO-GARCH model proposed by Engle and Kelly (2012) and quantile on quantile (QQ) methodology proposed by Sim and Zhou (2015). Our study is implemented using the daily data spanning from 6 September 2012 to 12 August 2019.

First, the findings show that the average return equicorrelation across Bitcoin prices and CEE stock indices are positive, even though it is found to be time-varying over the research period shown. Second, the Bitcoin-CEE stock market association has positive signs for most pairs of quantiles of both variables and represents a rather similar pattern for the cases of Poland, the Czech Republic and Croatia. However, a weaker and primarily negative connectedness is found for Hungary and Romania, respectively. Furthermore, the interconnectedness between the co-movements in the Bitcoin market and stock returns changes significantly across quantiles of both variables within each nation, indicating that the Bitcoin-stock market relationship is dependent on both the cycle of the stock market and the nature of Bitcoin price shocks.

The evidence documented in this study has significant implications for divergent economic agents, including global investors, risk managers and policymakers, who would benefit from a comprehensive knowledge of the Bitcoin-stock market relationship to build efficient risk-hedging models and to conduct appropriate policy reactions to information spillover effects in different time horizons.

This paper is the first study employing both the multivariate DECO-GARCH model and QQ methodology to shed light on the nexus between Bitcoin prices and the stock markets in CEE countries. The DECO model uses more information to compute dynamic correlations between each pair of returns than standard dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) models, declining the estimation noise of the correlations. Besides, QQ approach allows us to capture some nuanced features of the Bitcoin-stock market relationship and explore the interdependence in its entirely. Therefore, the main contribution of this article to the related literature in this field is significant.

本研究旨在探討比特幣的價格與中東歐股市(匈牙利、捷克共和國、波蘭、羅馬尼亞和克羅地亞) 之相互聯繫.

研究使用恩格爾與凱利(2012)(Engle and Kelly (2012)) 提出的多變量DECO-GARCH模型及Sim 與Zhou(2015)(Sim and Zhou ( 2015)) 研製的分位數-分位數方法來分析動態同期的聯繫。我們的研究使用由2012年9月6日至2019年8月12日期間取得的每日數據來進行.

首先、研究結果顯示、跨比特幣價格與中東歐股價指數的平均回報當量關聯是正相關的，即使在研究期間被發現是隨時間而變化的。第二、比特幣與中東歐股市之聯繫在大多數兩變數分位數對而言出現正相關跡象，而且，這聯繫在波蘭、捷克共和國及克羅地亞而言表現一個頗相似的模式。唯就匈牙利而言、這聯繫則較弱、而羅馬尼亞則主要是負聯繫。研究結果亦顯示: 比特幣市場內的聯動與股票回報間之內在關聯會在每個國家內跨兩個變數的分位數而顯著地改變，這顯示比特幣-股市關係是取決於股市的週期和比特幣價格衝擊的本質.

本研究所記載的證據、對不同的經濟行為者而言極具意義 (這包括國際投資者、風險管理經理和政策制定者)，因他們會受惠於對比特幣-股市關係的全面認識，他們可建立有效的風險對沖模型、及在不同時間範圍對資訊溢出效應進行適當的政策反應.

本文為首個研究使用多變量DECO-GARCH模型和分位數-分位數(QQ)方法、來解釋比特幣價格與中東歐國家之股市的關係。這DECO模型使用比標準動態條件關係模型更多資訊，來計算每對回報間之動態關係，這能減少估測雜訊，而且，QQ方法讓我們可以取得比特幣-股市關係的一些細微特徵及全面地探索其相互依賴性。因此，本文的主要貢獻是在這學術領域內有關的文獻上.

Accounting practices vary not only across firms, but also across countries, reflecting the respective legal and cultural background. Attempts at harmonization therefore continue to be rebuffed. The purpose of this paper is to argue that different wordings in national laws, and different interpretations of similar wordings in national laws, can be explained by taking recourse to the philosophy of language, referring particularly to Searle and Wittgenstein.

The example of the substance over form principle, investigated in seven countries, is particularly suitable for this analysis. It is known in all accounting jurisdictions, but still has very different roots in different European countries, with European and international influences conflicting, which is reflected in the different wording of the principle from one country to the next, and the different socially constructed realities associated with those wordings.

This paper shows that, beyond accounting practices, the legal and cultural background of a country affects the wording of national law itself. The broad conclusion is that different socially constructed realities might tend to resist any attempt at harmonized socially constructed words.

The paper contributes to the debate surrounding the possible homogenization of accounting regulations, illustrating the theory of the social construction of both “reality” and “language” on the specific application of one common principle to various Member State environments.

The hospitality industry is responsible for significant amounts of waste, more than one-third of which is food waste. Through the comparison between an Italian and a Romanian hotel, this paper aims to provide a better understanding of food waste management trends in the hotel industry as well as to highlight hotel kitchens and hotel food services weaknesses and opportunities to minimize food waste.

In-depth interviews, personal communication and observations were conducted to investigate food service planning, food procurement and food waste management, as well as to better comprehend current individuals’ understanding and attitudes, infrastructures, legislative culture and opportunities either from the managerial and the employees’ perspective. Data were analyzed according to a content analysis approach.

Three critical hot spots emerged from the analysis: prediction and check of guests’ attendance, communication and transparency with local suppliers and among departments within the unit and purchasing frequency and perishable food provisioning. The accurate forecasting of the number of guests and their nationality is fundamental in avoiding food waste at food service, as well as implementing transparency and communication with local suppliers.

Although academia and authorities have recognized the crucial importance of food waste management, food waste research in the hotel industry remains under-researched. The present exploratory research contributes to the scarce empirical studies about hotels’ food waste, giving theoretical and managerial recommendations for supporting further studies, highlighting the need for formal deals between hotels and local suppliers (food procurement), as well as the importance of food-networks that holds together companies, retailers and charities (food donation).

Changes in food retailing (globalization, concentration) have negative impacts on smaller, “traditional” food retail businesses. Their market share decreasing year by year. The purpose of this study is to examine and compare the financial performances of these businesses under the given circumstances and current economic environment in a Hungarian and a Romanian county.

The study is based on two complete databases, including all companies that behoove retail food activity (considering the NACE cod) in the counties of Hajdu-Bihar (Hungary) and Cluj (Romania). The database analyzed contains the financial statements for five consecutive years for 212 and 690 businesses. Databases were examined by the most typical financial indicators using the multivariate and univariate analysis of variance and the k-medoid cluster analysis methods.

The results of the analysis have shown that there are differences in the number of retail food companies in the case of two counties, both in number and in financial performance. Companies in Hajdú-Bihar county perform better in terms of financial ratios than those in Cluj county. The groups created by k-medoids cluster analysis are relatively well distinguished in the case of Hajdú-Bihar county, while the picture is much more mixed in the case of Kolozs county. However, it is also important to note that the companies analyzed should generally perform better to survive.

Among the limitations of the study, it is important to note that the findings are relevant only to the two counties examined. Another limiting factor is that quite several companies had to be excluded from the analysis due to missing data or outliers.

The study presents for the corporate decision-makers the current performance of the companies of the sector examined in the two counties. The results of the study highlight the business areas of concern in management. The findings show that they need to change this performance to strengthen their market position. We believe that it is not enough to complain about the expansion of the supermarket chains, but they should take appropriate actions to improve their situation. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that there is a need to improve the financial efficiency of retail food companies in both counties to survive in the long run. This improvement is essential because retailers can play an important role in smaller settlements and narrower residential environments.

Comparative analysis of retail food companies in similar counties in these two neighboring countries has not been conducted using complex financial analysis. The study revealed the common and/or individual characteristics of these companies.