Environmental education and education for the environment today play an important role toward sustainability. Environmental education provided by higher education institutions has an important impact on training and preparing the future generation for a green society. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship among perception, attitude, and environmental behavior of the university students enrolled in different specialization fields (engineering electrical, mechanical, and economic). A total of 358 students participated in this survey conducted at the North Center University of Baia Mare. To collect data to measure students’ environmental education, perception, students’ attitudes, and behavior a Likert scale was used. In this study, it was revealed that students receiving academic education are involved in activities regarding environmental protection (volunteer, warning, participation, recycling of materials) using the new product and “greener” alternative energy. As a result of the t-test performed, it was put forward that there was no difference in their level of perception regarding the importance of environmental education. As a result of the correlation analysis, a positive relation was identified between the perception, attitude, and behavior variables.

This article explores the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots for creating positive change by supporting customers in the digital realm. Our study, which focuses on the customer and his/her declarative psychological responses to an interaction with a virtual assistant, will fill a gap in the digital marketing research, where little attention has been paid to the impact of Error and Gender, as well as the extent to which Social Presence and Perceived Competence mediate the relationships between Anthropomorphic design cues and Trust. We provide consistent evidence of the significant negative effect of erroneous conversational interfaces on several constructs considered in our conceptual model, such as: perceived competence, trust, as well as positive consumer responses. We also provide support to previous research findings and confirm that people employ a biased thinking across gender and this categorization also influences their acceptance of chatbots taking social roles. The results of an empirical study demonstrated that highly anthropomorphized female chatbots that engage in social behaviors are significantly shaping positive consumer responses, even in the error condition. Moreover, female virtual assistants are much more commonly forgiven when committing errors compared to male chatbots.

The article explores consumer behavior in the context of sustainable consumption and the changes related to healthy food that have occurred during the pandemic. The study seeks to identify the factors that influenced consumer behavior on the consumption of fruits and vegetables. For this purpose, a questionnaire was applied to a sample of 1230 people from Maramures County, Romania. This study evaluates consumer behavior and attitudes on sustainable healthy food consumption; determining factors of consumer behavior are established by the needs, knowledge, selection of quality products, and the degree of culture and education in health diet issues. The study also presents a specific classification for fruits and vegetables in terms of consumer preferences and the clustering of local consumers by their interest in healthy food habits according to consumer culture, consumer loyalty, consumer needs, and consumer knowledge. In this study, it was revealed that consumer behavior consumption is not influenced by age, gender, or education. As a result of the correlation analysis, a positive relation was identified between the consumer preference, consumer attitude, and consumer behavior variables. The results of this study offer practical solutions and directions for future research on redesigning sustainable development of local, traditional foods. The new trend focuses on brand offerings and consumer needs for quality food and shows the consumer’s ethnocentrism and orientation for practical solutions.

Universities around the world have faced a new pandemic, forcing the closure of campuses that are now conducting educational activities on online platforms. The paper presents a survey about students behavior and attitudes towards online education in the pandemic period from the Technical University of Cluj Napoca, Romania. A group of 300 students participated. The questionnaire was structured in four parts to determine student’s individual characteristics, student’s needs, students’ knowledge in using virtual platforms and students’ quality preferences for online education. The students said that online education in a pandemic situation is beneficial for 78% of them. A total of 41.7% percent of students appreciated the teachers’ teaching skills and the quality of online courses since the beginning of the pandemic, and 18.7% percent of the students appreciated the additional online materials for study to support their education. However, students found online education stressful, but preferred online assessment for evaluation. This pandemic has led to the new stage of Education 4.0, online education, and the need to harmonize methods of education with the requirements of new generations.

This paper represents a research response to the current vision on transformations regarding the capacity building of smart cities focused towards sustainability, by addressing the knowledge based urban development and collaborative tools that support the development, dissemination, and use of knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to develop a collaborative pattern of knowledge networking, focusing on sustainability goals within a smart city concept, using the logic of the Complex Adaptive System (CAS). The study was carried out in an innovation cluster in Romania; the Social Network Analysis (SNA) was used as a tool to perform the study. The results of this analysis, due to the suggested networking, have led to delimitation of the roles that Groups of Competences play to enhance the sustainability of smart cities in areas where the use of knowledge has the greatest impact. Results show that the success of the smart solutions’ implementation depends on how the social and competence structures of the network are shaped and whether it permanently adapts to fit the sustainability objectives in the considered areas.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of needs and awareness of university students on their environmental behaviour. With this purpose the data was collected from 537 students from the University of Cluj Napoca, Romania, from the engineering and management specializations respectively via an online questionnaire. The questionnaire was structured in four parts including 29 questions in total. The first part is meant to identify the students’ characteristics (gender, field of study, participation and attendance in field-specific activities, and if he/she is an environmentalist). The second part is meant to determine the students’ awareness regarding plastic and plastic pollution. Another part is meant to determine the needs of students and the manner in which they learn and gather information. The last part allows the determination of the students’ behavior in their daily life (use of bio plastic bags, environmental protection). The results show that students have enough information about biodegradable plastic but they act depending on the situation, respecting or not the rules for selecting plastic waste. The female student’ pay a lot of attention to selecting and choosing bioplastic products. The male students are directly involved in cleaning nature. Management students pay attention to small details as compared to engineering students who choose bioplastic even though the costs are higher. Related with their thoughts the factors effecting the opinion of either they are environmentalist or not are also examined. Being aware of the plastic waste show significant effect from the sides of awareness and behaviour. Finally, the structural model show that strongest connection is between students’ awareness about the plastic problem and the need to adapt to new regulations. Using the model universities can promote the importance of bioplastic through study programs or by involving students in volunteering activities, through their active involvement in environmental protection, and selective waste recycling.