Considering the worldwide evolutionary stage of Industry 4.0, this study wants to fill in a lack of information and decision-making, trying to answer a question about the level of preparation of Romanian Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) regarding the implementation of the new technology. The main purpose of this article is to identify the opinions and perceptions of SME managers in Romania on the drivers and barriers of implementing Industry 4.0 technology for business development. The research method used in the study was analyzed by sampling using the questionnaire as a data collection tool. It includes closed questions, measured with a nominal and orderly scale. 176 managers provided complete and useful answers to this research. The collected data were analyzed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) package using frequency tables, contingency tables, and main component analysis. Major contributions from research have highlighted the fact that Romania is in a full transition process from industry 2.0 to industry 4.0. There was also a high level of knowledge of the new Industry 4.0 technology, and a desire to implement it in the Romanian SMEs, as well as the low level of resources needed to implement it.

In today’s business environment, corporate governance and financial transparency have an impact on the performance of firms. These changes are important for understanding the widespread accessibility of relevant and reliable information regarding an entity’s financial and nonfinancial aspects. The purpose of this study was to show how the environmental, social, and governance disclosure performance of companies has gained a reputation of having a fundamental role in financial transparency and how it varies by stakeholder orientation and economic sector. In this regard, we developed a new model based on stakeholders’ perceptions to analyze the impact of environmental, social, and governance disclosure on financial transparency using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method and select the economic sector that ensures transparency in sustainable and financial reporting. This model was applied over the 2008–2018 period to 143 companies from eight countries in the most representative economic sectors: finance, energy, and telecommunication services. Our results portray that environmental, social, and governance reporting are a company’s means of communication with stakeholders, as part of their accountability and stewardship obligations, and at the same time, they are a tool for achieving transparency regarding the financial performance of a firm. Furthermore, our findings also showed whether environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures act as a vector of financial communication for enterprises, and this relationship will also be evident in their role in financial transparency.

Sustainability involves extending the relational framework of SMEs outside the sphere of economic activity by justifying and legitimizing actions with a social impact on the environment. Links with the circular economy are achieved through the economic and environmental dimensions and through corporate social responsibility as a component of sustainable development. The main purpose of the paper was to determine the level of involvement of Romanian SMEs in activities related to the circular economy. The sample survey conducted among SME managers offered the advantage of collecting a large amount of direct information on the activities undertaken, the size of the investments and the nature of the funding sources used over the last five years. In this descriptive research, the process of setting up a representative sample of 384 enterprises was carried out by random sampling. The major contributions of the research project are to outline the contribution of Romanian SMEs to the development of a sustainable economy through their involvement in specific activities, the size of the investments made, and the level of participation of representatives of the enterprises in courses in order to identify new sources of financing and positive solutions in order to implement the principles of the circular economy.

Destination management is an important instrument in promoting tourism as a factor of economic development. Its usefulness in planning and developing infrastructures and services especially dedicated to tourism, such as holidays, sports, or balneal resorts, is well established. In the context of increasing the mobility of people at a national and international level, the flows of visitors whose trips are related to jobs, business, studies, conferences have constantly increased, and—as a result—the importance of large cities among tourist destinations is increasing. The management of destinations must also contribute in such cases to the creation of a greater attractiveness for potential visitors, the facilitation of their activities, and the production of culturally enriched and pleasant experiences. There is still a need to better understand how big cities are perceived as a destination by visitors, especially when it comes to longer stays. As a result, this paper proposes an approach to explore the visitors’ perception of their own experiences with the destination city. The subjects of the study are Erasmus students, while the destinations considered are university cities where the mobility programs were carried out. The aim of the research carried out by the focus-group method was to identify the elements that contributed to the coagulation of the experience associated with a certain destination city, in the sense of a more favorable or less favorable image of the destination in question. The results highlight that where visitors interact for a longer period of time and at deeper levels with the host community, they share the conditions of local life. The more pleasant these conditions are for the residents, the more open and welcoming they are to foreigners, and the more appreciated one’s personal experience of that city is.

In recent years, industry development has become closely connected with Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and trade openness. This research explores how industry, ICT, economic activity, and trade openness affect the environment, highlighting the importance of investing in low-carbon technologies and energy-efficient machinery. The goal of this research is to investigate the short- and long-run impacts of industrialization, ICT, economic activity, and trade openness on per capita carbon emissions in Lithuania from 2000 to 2024. This study employs the ARDL econometric model along with several diagnostic tests. The Breusch–Godfrey Serial Correlation test indicated no serial correlation, while the Breusch–Pagan–Godfrey test indicated no heteroscedasticity. The Ramsey RESET test confirmed that the model specification is appropriate and significant for the research. Additionally, the VIF test for multicollinearity indicates that no multicollinearity exists among the research variables. The research results show that industrialization and economic activity are positively associated with per capita carbon emissions and environmental harm. In contrast, trade openness and ICT are negatively associated with per capita carbon emissions in Lithuania, thereby contributing to environmental sustainability. The novelty of this research: a specific combination of variables combining key structural (industrialization), integration (trade openness), and digital diffusion (ICT penetration) determinants of CO₂ emissions within a specific single-country context, applying the ARDL framework for the Baltic EU member state, Lithuania. While prior studies primarily relied on multi-country panels and often treat ICT through heterogeneous proxies, this study operationalizes ICT as internet-user penetration to capture digital integration effects—an important distinction for small open economies where energy-intensive digital infrastructure may be located abroad. By separating short-run from long-run dynamics, the analysis offers evidence on how the environmental effects of openness, growth, and digitalization unfold over time, using recent data up to 2024 and providing policy recommendations encouraging decarbonization strategies.

Nowadays customers become more concerned about private health services, as performance, innovation and creativity overspread into our lives. Digital health services development in Romania has grown gradually through the acquisition of state-of-the-art equipment as RMN Siemens Magnetom Essenza machine, CT Optima 520 available in Romanian health private clinics. Is the e-health the future of health services in Romania? The answer will be a strong yes. Immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment by leveraging the immune system to fight tumors. The hope is that someday immunotherapy options will exist for all types of tumors. On the other hand, 3-D printing allows the user to create health products specific to the patient, including prosthetics, implants, and airway stents. More than that, Virtual reality/mixed reality applications have become popular in Romanian medical education. Robotic approaches to surgery are less invasive and faster, and are often associated with improved clinical outcomes, such as decreased recovery time and reduced pain. For example, the da Vinci Surgical System translates the surgeon’s hand movements to smaller movements made by the robot inside the body, all visualized via laparoscopy. The da Vinci System has been used on more than 3 million patients globally. The present paper researched the Romanian customers’ satisfactions regarding private health services. The sample size was 400 people, of which 168 males and 232 females, with an average age of 40 years old, all from the urban area, developed standard of living with an average income of 1,500 euro per month. The results have shown that Romanian customers are willing to pay for private health services more than 500 euro per year. Romanian customers had declared in proportion of 68% that are satisfied with the prices of private healthcare networks, in proportion of 79% that are satisfied with the medical services offered by the private healthcare networks. In what it concerns the surgery performed by robots instead of doctors, only 45% customers had declared in the robots favor. Further insights will be discussed in the research paper and concussions will be drawn reflecting the assessment of the Romanian customers’ satisfaction regarding private health services.