The hypercompetitive global economy of the 21st century is a hub of innovation, technology, talent, skills, speed, efficiency, productivity, and satisfaction. Within this context, the organizations are looking intensely for people with skills and talents that can differentiate themselves in all that noise. The human capital became slowly but surely a mean of efficiency and growth, especially through the premises of digitization, and a key issue of sustainability. The current research is meant to identify and highlight any correlations that might appear between the population’s welfare of 11 Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) which are members of the European Union (EU), and the components of the digitization trend, including the new human cloud industry, ICT, and the connectivity to the Internet of Things. In order to achieve the needed insights, the multiple regression analysis was employed, and the latter tested the panel models with fixed effects, both from a temporal and country perspective. The results showcased a positive connection between the dependent and independent variables, confirming that the digitization of the economy and the developed human capital will ultimately lead to the increase of population’s welfare. Moreover, the findings are consistent with specific insights for each of the 11 CEECs, showing that digitization and the influence of human capital is differentiated across the latter in terms of their overall effect and amplitude. The research is limited by the timeframe and countries included in the study, and it can be furthered by determining the impact of digitization on the economies of the EU28 countries grouped by level of development, and by using other significant indicators for analysis.

The global financial crisis was decisive in reanalyzing the role of corporate governance based on the accountability and ethics of governance practices and its impact on sustainable development. The study aims to analyze the relevance of and the interdependencies between financial governance assessment indicators and income efficiency with synergetic effects on sustainable development and social cohesion, offering a distinct contemplation on errors in governance and financial reporting. Deviations concerning the accuracy of financial statements, flaws in the process of budget creation and budgetary execution, poor implementation of internal control systems, non-compliance with procedures of public procurement contracts, and ineffectiveness in sound financial management represent barometers for assessing managerial accountability in the public sector. This study is based on data reported by the Romanian Court of Accounts processed with the principal component analysis and proposes a global efficiency index as a benchmark indicator barometer in order to analyze the influence of managerial accountability and sustainable reporting compliance on revenue reported by public institutions in Romania. The results of the study are of empirical importance and explore the constant need to evaluate managerial accountability and ethics, with an emphasis on error, in order to improve public governance and enhance corporate accountability.

Development and innovation in the digital technologies impact the whole society, communications, finances, trade, education and health services, business patterns and the entire value-added channel. The increase in the speed of digitization and its expansion within businesses leads to significant changes, both regarding the human capital and the way work and place of work are organized, with high impacts on skills, labor standards, human welfare and sustainable development of countries. Digitization involves changes not only in the human capital, but in the organizational one as well, so that for each euro invested in physical capital (hardware) some additional 10 euros have to be invested in intangible activities, especially in the human and organizational capital (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2014). The paper aims to analyse the impacts of digitization on human capital in the EU economies, also considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that has speeded up the digitization process in the EU countries. Both the useful aspects and the challenges determined by the new requirements regarding the skills necessary to human capital are emphasized, as well as the efforts included in the EU programs dedicated to such issues, considering that 42% of the European citizens do not possess basic digital skills and 37% of labor force does not possess adequate digital skills. Finally, some econometric aspects regarding the relationship between welfare and population’s digital skills are revealed, as well as conclusions on further research and directions for action.