External growth strategies face crucial barriers when taken into consideration for investing if the involved companies are not audited. The integrity of a company’s financial information, its control systems, and its sustainable behavior represent cornerstones when participating in mergers and acquisitions (henceforth M&As). Thus, the audit function became a must and its role increased over the years, becoming an intrinsic part of faithfully disclosing financial and nonfinancial information (sustainable reporting included). M&As are ideal when the need for rapid innovation is required, in order to maintain or develop a sustainability policy. Given the environmental issues, we analyzed a sample of 1491 target companies listed on Bucharest Stock Exchange, clustered into three categories: polluters, medium polluters, and low polluters. The study reveals that the investors’ decision to purchase a certain amount of stake in target companies is influenced by the audit opinion and the sector in which they operate, depending on their pollution status.

The paper aims at describing two dimensions of acquirers’ behaviour when purchasing minority shares in Romanian listed target companies, based on a sample of 710 Romanian minority acquisitions. The first dimension regards the acquirer’s decision to invest a certain amount, being influenced by the profitability of the target company The relationship was found to be positive and significant. To test the model further, a sample of 308 transactions was used, after excluding the transactions involving primary sector and blue-chip target companies. The second dimension focuses on the amount of purchased stake, which leads to either financial gains or the takeover intention, under the influence of the target company’s operational profit. The results show a positive and significant relationship for the small stakes and a non-significant one for the high stakes.

Teleworking is known as a way of the future that enhances economic growth as an accumulation of physical as well as human capital. Using digitalization that increase the procedures and services efficiency and reduce the repetitive work of employers by using technology, teleworking improves firm performance by enhancing efficiency, motivation, and knowledge creation. This paper aims to analyze the influence of teleworking, based on its characteristics and determinants under the influence of financial and pandemic crises, on economic growth as measured by GDP growth; this was performed using econometric models from the literature and fuzzy logic. The econometric analysis included a two-step approach regarding the years 2008–2020 (including COVID-19 pandemic period) for the 27 member states of the EU. The research results suggest that access to the Internet, employment ratio, and average wage significantly influenced the teleworking ratio of the employees. Furthermore, the access to the Internet made a significant difference in using teleworking, given the infrastructure that was already created in the first COVID-19 pandemic wave. Employees took advantage of it and continued, at a lower scale, to maintain social distancing, although the measures taken in the second wave were not perceived to be as tough as in the first one.

Economic entities get involved in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) because they are interested in external growth strategies which can lead to an increase in the wealth of the shareholders of the participating entities. In M&As, from an acquirer or a target’s perspective, a company brings its resources, which can be material or immaterial (knowledge). In the post-M&A phase, through the integration process the shareholders expect synergy gains, or that the combined firms to report efficiency gains higher than if they would activate separately. In nowadays, in a boundaryless economy, one of the most appreciated resources is knowledge. In this respect, the intangible assets, in general, and patents, in particular, are the accounting representation of knowledge in a company. They are also considered to be predictors for the deal value paid to the target company. To those we add the size of the target company, its core activity and the value of the research and development expenses, the latter being a significant mediator variable for the proposed models.