With the increasing prevalence of remote work, understanding how it impacts employee perception, psychological safety, and job performance is critical for organisations. This study aims to investigate the relationships among these variables using a cross-sectional quantitative design and a questionnaire consisting of three scales: the Worktango employee sentiment around remote work survey, the Worktango psychological health and safety survey, and Goodman and Svyantek’s performance scale. Our sample included 857 participants, both managers and non-managers, from a large insurance company. Our first two hypotheses were confirmed using non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis tests: employee sentiment around remote work as part of hybrid work is more favourable in non-sales fields and among employees who actually work remotely more often. Moreover, we found that psychological safety moderates the relationship between employee sentiment around remote work and work performance. Specifically, we observed that the positive relationship between employee sentiment around remote work and work performance is stronger when psychological safety is high. Overall, our findings contribute to the understanding of how remote work is perceived by employees and its relationship and impact on their psychological safety and job performance. These insights can help organisations develop effective policies and practices for remote work that support their employees’ well-being and performance.

Vocational education and training of human resources in tourism play an important role in the development of the tourism industry and hence in the national, regional and global economy. In this paper, we aimed to analyze the effective use of smart education in the teaching and learning process in tourism. The research was conducted over three academic years (2013–2014, 2014–2015, 2015–2016) in 12 high schools providing tourism specializations in Constanta County, Romania. The main method used was an experiment. Thus, we used information and communication technology (ICT) methods in the educational process (the independent variable) in order to compare students’ results to those obtained in control classes, in which only traditional teaching methods were used. The results of our research confirmed our initial hypotheses, namely the fact that by using ICT methods within tourism classes, students understand and assimilate specialised knowledge faster and better, and they form and develop specific skills at a higher level than by using traditional teaching methods. This means that by using the latest technology in classes for teaching and learning disciplines in tourism, it is possible to develop, by the end of the superior cycle of high school, the future qualified human resources required for sustainable tourism.

Work engagement, work efficacy and performance are key concepts in today’s human resources field, impacting both personal and organisational levels. However, not many studies investigate them in a core professional area: pre-university teachers. After measuring the work engagement, work efficacy and work performance variables of teachers, we identified the differences in teachers’ work engagement, work efficacy and work performance according to their seniority in education and the position of the high school in the top national rankings. Our paper’s focus is on exploring the relationship between work engagement and work performance among pre-university teachers from Romanian high schools. This relationship is analysed both directly and indirectly by including work efficacy as a mediating factor. A sample of 817 Romanian high school teachers participated in this study (questionnaire applied in April 2021). The results can lead to a better understanding of human resources behaviour, and, on this basis, to the formulating of human resource policies in the educational field.

The digital age or the 4.0 industry makes its presence felt in all areas of the economy, making serious contributions to its development. The automotive industry is in a phase of change, acting on all its sub-industries such as the automotive tyre industry. We are witnessing a process in which large companies no longer sell a simple car or basic tyres, but resort to new technologies and digitalization to sell complex services tailored to the needs of consumers. Terms such as connectivity, mobility, autonomy became the main pillars in the development of such solutions integrated in the current market. Based on a SWOT analysis and a focus group organized with specialists from the field, this article aims to highlight the tyre industry market, which are the latest trends in the technologies used for development of the tyre industry, which are the factors that contribute to its growth and which are the threats, the opportunities for the big competitors in the market: Bridgestone, Goodyear, Michelin and Pirelli.

A general preoccupation of many local companies is to design and implement sustainable strategies. In this context, managers are seeking to identify the potential of different factors to facilitate the effective integration of sustainability into their business practices. In the present paper, we clarify the sustainable purchasing concept and we analyse this activity run within several corporations from the local banking field, IT&C and pharma. The literature review served as a basis for an empirical investigation among local large organizations. The methods used were in-depth bibliographic documentation, companies’ analysis and semi-structured interviews performed with purchasing heads. The result of the research confirms the important role of the purchasing activity and shows us how this field can contribute to a sustainable development of business. Despite the general interest and the motivation to use sustainable principles, effective incorporation of sustainable purchasing principles into business practices may encounter some obstacles, raising the need for more research.

Manager’s role has become more complex along the decades due to social, economic and political changes that affected business worldwide. This paper is part of a larger project to highlight the importance of intercultural competence as a core management competence in an era of globalization, workforce cultural diversity, international business, worldwide connectivity. Based on a thorough bibliographic investigation including books, statistics, relevant business literature and journals, articles, research studies, meta-analysis, mega-trends analysis, we demonstrate the need to review the most important management trends and paradigms for a better understanding of a manager’s role along the time and at present and we bring arguments to support a manager’s core competence paradigm by integrating intercultural competence at its heart. By direct observation and informal interviews with managers working in multinationals exposed to a multicultural environment, we collected and presented several case studies in our paper to show that successful managers should possess intercultural competency in order to manage cross-culturally for their teams’ wellbeing and efficiency and for company productivity.