Purpose: This paper aims to examine the influence of big data (BD) on human resource management (HRM). It defines how these data can be a useful tool in the decision-making process of companies’ human resources to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage.Design/methodology/approach: This paper emphasizes the need to develop a holistic approach to emphasize these relations. Starting from these observations, the document proposes empirical research employing Eurostat data to test the benefits of BD in HRM decisions that optimize the relationship between training, productivity, and well-being.Findings: The findings estimate HRM decisions and their impact in a broader macroeconomic and microeconomic perspective.Originality/value: BD research is emerging as a crucial discipline in human resources. To overcome this problem, the paper develops an analysis of the literature on cleaner production and sustainability context; it creates a conceptual framework to clarify whether the existing studies consider the growing intensity of BD on human resources.

Background: Our study aims to verify the impact of corporate governance index on financial performance, namely return on assets (ROA), general liquidity, capital adequacy and size of company expressed as total assets in the banking sector for both a developing and a developed country. In addition, we investigate the interactive effect of corporate governance on a homogenous and a heterogeneous banking system. These two banking systems were chosen in order to assess the impact of corporate governance on two distinct types of banking system: a homogenous one such as the Romanian one and a heterogeneous one such as the Italian one. The two systems are very distinct; the Romanian one is represented by only 34 banks, while the Italian one comprises more than 350 banks. Thus, our research question is how a modification in corporate governance legislation is influencing the two different banking systems. The research implication of our study is whether a modification in legislation, thus in the index of corporate governance, is feasible for two different banking sectors and what the best ways to increase the financial performance of banks are without compromising their resilience. Methods: Using survey data from the Italian and Romanian banking systems over the period 2007–2018, we find that the corporate governance has a significant, positive and long-lasting effect on profitability and capital adequacy in both countries. Results: Taking the size of the company into consideration, the impact of the Index of Corporate Governance (ICG) on a homogenous banking system is positive while the impact on a heterogeneous banking system is negative. Conclusions: Our study provides evidence of the impact of IGC on financial performance and sheds light on the importance of the size of the company. Therefore, one can state that the corporate governance principles applied do not encourage the growth of large banks in heterogeneous banking sectors, thereby suggesting new avenues of research associated with new perspectives.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the real impact of ICT (Information and Communications Technology) skills mismatch on SME’s (small and medium enterprises) sustainable competitiveness in the presence of a guaranteed minimum wage. As part of public policies—the minimum wage needs to maintain a balance between increasing employment and not being a burden for the companies, leading them to bankruptcies, especially in times of disruptive change, in which economies have to be more resilient. The rapid progress in information and communication technologies has dramatically redefined rising unemployment as a result of skills mismatch. This paper aims to understand, on the one hand, whether there is a match between the supply demand of ICT skills, and how increasingly powerful digital technologies affect the skills, jobs, and demand for human labor. On the other hand, it aims to understand whether increasing productivity and a fair minimum wage could be an integrated approach for stimulating SME’s in increasing sustainable competitiveness.

This paper examines the impact of the internet usage and knowledge intensive activities on households’ healthcare expenditures Similarly, the paper aims to recognize and understand, from a value-creation perspective, the correlation between: internet access of households (IA), individuals frequently using the internet (IU), individuals searching on internet for health-related information (HI), payments made by households for healthcare (PHH), expressed as euro per inhabitant and employment in knowledge-intensive activities (KIA). The approach utilized in the present study consists of two steps. First, a theoretical framework was conducted to determine the existing relationship between major variables. Next, the Vector Autoregressive (VAR) approach was applied in a case study at European level to prove the three hypothesis we consider. By analyzing the connection between the major variables, a positive and long- lasting impulse response function was revealed, followed by an ascending trend. This suggests that a self-multiplying effect is being generated; and it reasonable to assume that the more individuals use the Internet, the more electronic acquisitions occur. We can thus reasonably conclude that the improvement of the internet usage and knowledge intensive activities on households’ healthcare expenditures process is strongly dependent on people’s capability. Improving IU and KIA is the new reading key in the decision-making process in health system approach.

In the present paper, we focus on the macroeconomic implications of the populist public policies and in particular on the effects of wage led growth strategy, which started to be applied in Romania from January 2017. Such a study is important as a practical example of applying this particular wage related public policy and sets the premises for analyzing its sustainability and its macroeconomic implications and costs. For analyzing the implications of the wage-led growth strategy upon the sustainability of macroeconomic variables, we have used an unrestricted VAR (vector auto regressive) and compared the effect of the impulse response functions with the recent evolutions of the Romanian economy. Thus, we have observed the effect of the wage led growth strategy, by using the average wage, trade deficit, number of employees, inflation rate, labor productivity, and minimum wage as variables. Our study shows that the wage-led growth policy had a strong positive impact on the number of employees and on inflation, increasing it, but a negative impact on productivity. In addition, we have seen a strong positive impact on increasing the trade deficit. These particular evolutions have left the Romanian economy with almost no fiscal and monetary space of maneuver in the face of the exogenous shock produced by the pandemic.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the real impact of ICT skill mismatch on SME’s sustainable competitiveness in presence of minimum wage guaranteed. As part of public policies – the minimum wage need to maintain a balance between increasing employment and not being a burden for the companies, leading them to bankruptcies, especially in times of disruptive change in which economy have to be more resilient. The rapid progress in information and communication technologies has dramatically redefined the rising unemployment as a result of skills mismatch. This paper aims to understand, on one side if, there is a match between the supply demand of ICT skills and how increasingly powerful digital technologies affect skills, jobs, and the demand for human labour. On the other, if increasing productivity and a fair minimum wage could be an integrated approach in stimulating SME’s in increasing sustainable competitiveness.