Purpose: This paper aims to present a model of the employability confidence of graduates using employability skills. The purpose of the study is twofold: to identify to what extent self-perceived employability skills (input employability) influence the employability confidence of students/graduates (output employability) and to identify if there are determinant relationships between categories of employability skills.Design/methodology/approach: The researchers for this study built and tested an employability confidence model which included seven constructs. Six focussed on employability skills “professional skills, transferable individual skills, transferable social skills, personal qualities, job seeking skills and corporate work-related skills”, while the last one focussed on employability confidence, seen as the students’/graduates’ self-reliance for getting and maintaining a job. The model was refined using structural equation modelling (with SmartPLS 3 SEM software) and was tested by empirically, analysing a sample of participants studying business.Findings: The results illustrated that four categories of skills (personal qualities, professional skills, job seeking skills and transferable social skills) have a positive and significant influence on students’/graduates’ employability confidence, while individual transferable skills and corporate-related skills do not have a significant influence on employability confidence.Research limitations/implications: The study contributed to the exiting literature by proposing a new model and measurement instrument that links input employability (individual employability skills) with output employability (employability confidence). The model emphasizes the complete range of individual employability skills, the types of skills that are in the control of the individual. It also contributed by collecting data from a less studied country and region, Romania, that can be considered relevant for Central and Eastern Europe due to similar economic, political, cultural and historical characteristics.Practical implications: From a practical point of view, the results can be of interest to individuals, to universities and the teaching staff, to organizations and their human resource specialists, and to public administrators, as they all can act to support the development of individual employability skills, thereby helping to increase the employability confidence of individuals.Originality/value: The study contributed to the exiting literature not only by proposing a new conceptual model to analyse employability confidence but also by collecting data from a less studied region, Romania, that can be considered relevant for Central and Eastern Europe due to similar economic, political, cultural and historical characteristics.

The research presented in this paper aimed at identifying the most significant green procurement barriers and enablers for construction projects in the Bucharest-Ilfov region and grouping them into clusters. For this purpose, 14 barriers and 14 enablers were selected on the basis of the literature review and a questionnaire-based survey was carried out with members of the construction projects’ teams from the analyzed region. The cluster analysis resulted in eight clusters for barriers and seven clusters for enablers. In the case of barriers, the most significant cluster was the one that included the barrier regarding technical and technological difficulties related to the use of green building materials. Another significant barrier was the increase of project execution costs. Enablers from the most significant cluster had higher energy efficiency and use of green building materials as a competitive advantage. Another significant enabler identified was regarding the pressure to implement environmental protection policies/legislation. To explain and detail the results of the cluster analysis, semi-structured interviews were carried out with experts involved in projects. They indicated, in most cases, the same barriers and enablers as those obtained from the cluster analysis.

The joint action of the European directives and the national strategies make the issue of energy efficiency of the dwelling stock one of the main research directions in the field. The purpose of this study is to create and apply a methodology for developing the portfolio of projects to increase the energy efficiency of the dwelling stock at a regional level through the use of life cycle cost. For this, eight types of energy efficiency improvement projects and three implementation scenarios were selected for the dwelling stock. For each project life cycle cost was determined in each county of the South-Muntenia region based on the estimation of the energy requirements, the costs of implementation and exploitation. In all three scenarios, the P3 Energy Efficiency Project (the reference building without shutters under the Romanian normative) had minimal life cycle cost in most counties in the region. For each scenario the life cycle cost was determined for the optimal portfolio of projects at regional level. The maximum scenario was chosen as the optimal scenario for regional implementation.

This chapter is focused on introducing and presenting the essential characteristics of the present context in which companies, stakeholders, and social responsibility operate. The essential elements, referring to the transition and features of a knowledge-based economy (knowledge revolution, knowledge main characteristics and roles, concept and features of knowledge-based economy), are presented in the first part. It continues with the digital revolution, digital economy, and the relationship between the digital/digitalized economy and the knowledge-based economy. The third part of the chapter approaches the knowledge-based company, the essential component of the knowledge-based economy, and the business ecosystem, the new and performative structure of the new economy. Finally, pointed out are the main challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic versus the entire economy and its components. Elements from this chapter are very necessary in order to understand and take into consideration the new contextual requirements and opportunities faced by company management and its internal and external stakeholders to valorize the huge potential of knowledge and digitalization at a higher level.

In our paper we start the analysis of the performance in the knowledge based economy from two premises: a. The productivity of the new economy is much higher comparative with the previous economic systems; b. There are at least six factors which determine the deep change of knowledge business organisation performances. Based on this approach we mention several specific ways for the evaluation of the knowledge based performances formulated by certain renowned international specialists. Finally, we elaborate a new concept regarding the approach and evaluation of the performance in the knowledge based economy - quadrangle of sustainability based on knowledge.

In the first part of the introductory chapter is argued why a company management focused on the stakeholders and social responsibility is necessary now, in the present context, using three types of arguments: organizational (18), managerial (12), and societal (9). In the second part is argued why a such vision and approach are possible now, in the current context, using the same types of arguments: organizational (9), managerial (13), and societal (3). A special attention is paid to the correlation between approach of the company management, stakeholder, and social responsibility on the one side and the transition to the knowledge-based economy, digitalization, and COVID-19 pandemic crisis on the other side. This chapter argues the necessity and the possibility to reinvent the management in the present context.