Assessment and estimation of bankruptcy risk is important for managers in decision making for improving a firm’s financial performance, but also important for investors that consider it prior to making investment decision in equity or bonds, creditors and company itself. The aim of this paper is to improve the knowledge of bankruptcy prediction of companies and to analyse the predictive capacity of factor analysis using as basis the discriminant analysis and the following five models for assessing bankruptcy risk: Altman, Conan and Holder, Tafler, Springate and Zmijewski. Stata software was used for studying the effect of performance over risk and bankruptcy scores were obtained by year of analysis and country. Data used for non-financial large companies from European Union were provided by Amadeus database for the period 2006–2015. In order to analyse the effects of risk score over firm performance, we have applied a dynamic panel-data estimation model, with Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimators to regress firm performance indicator over risk by year and we have used Tobit models to infer about the influence of company performance measures over general bankruptcy risk scores. The results show that the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) used to build a bankruptcy risk scored based on discriminant analysis indices is effective for determining the influence of corporate performance over risk.

Solar water heating (SWH) systems can provide a significant part of the heat energy that is required in the residential sector. The use of SWH systems is motivated by the desire to reduce energy consumption and especially to reduce a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The purposes of the present paper consist in: assessing the solar potential; analysing the possibility of using solar energy to heat water for residential applications in Romania; investigating the economic potential of SWH systems; and their contribution to saving energy and reducing CO₂ emissions. The results showed that if solar systems are used, the annual energy savings amount to approximately 71%, and the reduction of GHG emissions into the atmosphere are of 18.5 tonnes of CO₂ over the lifespan of the system, with a discounted payback period of 6.8–8.6 years, in accordance with the savings achieved depending on system characteristics, the solar radiation available, ambient air temperature and on heating load characteristics. Financially, the installation of SWH systems determines net savings of 805–1151 Euro in a 25-year period in the absence of governmental subsidies. According to the sensitivity analysis, installing a SWH system with subsidies of up to 50% determines the reduction of the discounted payback period to 3.1–3.9 years and the increase of net savings to 1570–1916 Euro. These results indicate that investing in these systems is cost-effective for Romanian households as long as the governmental subsidies increase.

The transition to climate neutrality is an important objective for the European Union, which is increasingly affected economically and environmentally by the impacts of climate change. The primary objective of this study is to analyze the transition to climate neutrality across EU Member States through a cluster analysis approach. Specifically, the research aims to: (1) review existing literature on environmental policy outcomes in achieving climate neutrality, (2) identify key energy and environmental economic drivers impacting this transition, (3) conduct a cluster analysis to group Member States based on their progress and challenges, and (4) propose differentiated public policy recommendations to support Europe's transition to climate neutrality. To achieve these objectives, the K‐means clustering method and ranking techniques were employed to identify differences in transition policies and to evaluate disparities among clusters in their contribution to the EU's overall climate neutrality goals. The study's results determined differences in the cluster structure of the European Union in terms of the approach to the transition to climate neutrality. They will provide a basis for developing differentiated public policy proposals between countries. The results are useful for supranational policymakers in determining approaches for adjusting climate neutrality transition strategies at the EU and individual levels.

The process of organizational democracy involves a process of associating employees’ participation and satisfaction in business processes, increased innovation, increased stakeholder engagement and ultimately increased organizational performance. Organizations and the people that form the organization adapt democracy to achieve social and economic goals by making use of the blessings of democracy. In this way, they aim to reach their goals and to include all members of the organization in the process while achieving these goals, and to sustain the stability. The main purpose of this study is to analyze the democracy perceptions of blue and white collar employees in the private sector through organizational democracy scales, by using various variables and to contribute to the existing literature. The sample of the study constitutes 209 people, white and blue collar employees at various levels in medium and large scale enterprises in the Manisa Organized Industrial Zone in Turkey. As a result of the study, it is seen that married employees and employees who think that their expertise in the job is good have the power to criticize their businesses and exhibit participation. In addition, it has been concluded that employees that are high school graduates see management fairer in terms of salary than other graduates. Another finding in the study is about the size of the pre-work life centers of the workplace. Perceptions and attitudes of the people living in metropolitan and provincial center metros before work observed that more equality was observed in the workplaces than those living in the district centers.