In any competitive economy, the risk of bankruptcy is pervasive. The research aims to contribute in improving the predictive power of bankruptcy and insolvency risk among companies by introducing new methods of processing and validation. This paper investigates the extensive application of the Z score model for predicting the economic-financial stability of Romanian companies in the manufacturing and extractive industries. A list of 37 financial indicators determined on the basis of the balance sheet data of 80 companies for the period 2015–2018 was used. Stepwise Least Squares Estimation through the Forward method allowed the identification of the most relevant ones. Canonical discriminant analysis and sensitivity analyzes were introduced to test the predictive power of the model. The new model identified allows both the prediction of bankruptcy and insolvency risk. This study contributes to the literature by testing variables in relation to financial difficulties and by including other classification information. The robustness of the determined canonical discriminant function was verified by testing the model on two other samples.

The relationship between sustainable growth and public investment, considered one of the key factors, is a topic of interest in the context of globally adopted sustainable development strategies and current budgetary constraints, especially in the case of tight budgets in developing countries, which constrain public investment more than current expenditure, for political or other reasons. Although there are endogenous growth patterns that incorporate public spending as a factor that promotes growth, the findings in the empirical literature provide contradictory results. The study is an empirical investigation into the effects of public investment on sustainable economic growth in emerging EU and Central European countries. For the period 1995–2019, the research shows that, in most of the countries included in the sample, the long-term impact of a public capital shock on GDP is estimated to be negative. The analysis of the effect of public investment on sustainable economic growth was performed by applying the VAR model and impulse response functions, the results being confirmed by estimating the accumulated multiplier to obtain the GDP response to a shock equal to a standard deviation of public capital.

The devulcanization of the rubber wastes in autoclave represent a technological variant that allows the superior utilization of rubber wastes, but with high energy consumption. The researches aimed at improving the devulcanization technology in order to obtain reclaimed rubber with superior characteristics, but also with a reduction in energy consumption. An improvement to devulcanization technology consisted in vacuuming the autoclave at the end of the devulcanization process. An increase in the degree of devulcanization of the rubber from 86.83% to 93.81% and an improvement of the physico-mechanical characteristics of the reclaimed rubber was achieved by applying this technology. The realization of the new type of regenerated rubber allowed for an increase in the degree of it use for different mixtures, from 15–20 phr to 30–40 phr without substantially affecting the physical and mechanical properties of the products. Additionally, the researche has shown that, by obtaining the new type of reclaimed rubber, the duration of the refining process has been reduced by 30%. All of this leads to a considerable reduction in energy consumption and transformation of the rubber waste reclaiming process into a sustainable one.

Considering that international projects with teams in the virtual environment (IPTVEs) contribute to the reduction in the carbon footprint and, at the same time, become life-saving solutions in extreme global situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations familiar with this type of project will have a substantial advantage in their ability to operate efficiently and to achieve their sustainable goals. An important aspect of project management is to identify the factors that influence the success of an international project, increasing its performance. Our first research hypothesis was that the decision to create a project team in the virtual environment is a factor with a major influence on international project success. Data collection was performed through an online survey conducted within international project team members and managers. The success factors were explained through factorial analysis which revealed two main factors and the neural network algorithm on a dataset through IBM SPSS Modeler software. The predictive model revealed that the most important field is setting up a virtual team, followed by organizational culture. These results support our hypothesis.

The redesigning of tires is addressed from two points of view, namely the structure of the materials and the constructive shape of these products. The necessity for research is justified by the fact that even during the product design stage, there may be situations that can irreversibly affect the separation of product components (rubber and insertion), and because it is strictly necessary to achieve the reuse and recycling of waste components. The proposed redesign refers to the inscription of the types of materials that are present in each area on the lateral surface of the tire. Thus, the new redesign has positive effects both economically and socially. To highlight these, a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) has been applied and the net present value (NPV) as well as the internal rate of return (IRR) have been determined for the classic scenario and for the two proposed scenarios. Testing the financial sustainability of the proposed solution was done through sensitivity analysis. An analysis of the new tire design from the point of view of the circular economy was also presented. The results obtained have highlighted the effectiveness of the proposed solution from a technical, economic, social, and protection of the environment point of view.

The aim of this paper is to highlight the influence of economic and qualitative factors on steel production globally, as well in the EU, US, and China, using a dataset corresponding to the period 2000–2015. The research methods used are the study of specialist literature, problematisation, modelling, and simulation using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The main conclusion of this paper is that, on long term, the steel production is largely influenced by the rate of real economic growth and by car production, even if in the short term the correlation is not obvious. Likewise, qualitative factors affect the steel industry in the context of current regulations on reducing carbon emissions and ensuring sustainable development. An additional aim of the present study is to define entropy in the sustainable development of steel production, as well as illustrate some of its properties and the quality management modelling of the research process in steel production.