In a turbulent economic environment, marked by multiple challenges and changes at every step, organizations must adapt their management system, in order to maintain or even increase their productivity, as well as their competitive advantage. All the activities carried out within an organization are based on a series of managerial decisions, dependent on each other, by which the objectives and the modalities of action are determined, ensuring the economic-financial balance. Frequently, the activities carried out within an organization are changing, as the circumstances and characteristics of the business environment increasingly suffers transformations, thus it is necessary that the decision-making processes be updated. Therefore, the employees of the companies must be prepared to organize their activity in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world - the VUCA world. Above the decision environment, are manifested a series of indirect and direct influences (interdependent variables, constraints and limit situations) that affect the result of the decisions adopted within the different levels of management in organizations. Thus, the present paper aims to determine and investigate the factors that influence the characteristics of the decision situations, regardless of the type of decisions adopted within an organization. The present study consists in analyzing the results obtained after applying an online questionnaire to researchers from Doctoral Schools and students of Project Management, from the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, who work in different areas of activity. After the statistical processing of the results obtained regarding the decision systems in the VUCA world, this paper aims to highlight the most important changes that occur in decision-making processes representing a key element for organizations in which managers have to make decisions on a daily basis, in order to ensure the economic performance, despite all the disruptions that occur.

This study uses fractal analysis to quantify the spatial changes of forest resources caused by an increase of deforested areas. The method introduced contributes to the evaluation of forest resources being under significant pressure from anthropogenic activities. The pressure on the forest resources has been analyzed for Maramureș County, one of the most deforested counties in Romania. In order to evaluate this, the deforested areas were calculated for the period of 2001–2014, by using the Global Forest Change 2000–2014 database. The Fractal Fragmentation Index (FFI) and Fixed Grid 2D Lacunarity (FG2DL) were used to quantify the degree of fragmentation and dispersion of the forested areas, and thereby the extent to which a forest area is affected by deforestation. The process of quantifying the pressure on forested areas included the creation of a database for the period of 2000–2014 containing economic activities (turnover) related to woody recourses, important indicators of forest exploitation. Taken together, the results obtained indicate a dramatic increase in deforested areas (over 19,122 ha in total for the period of analysis), in Maramureș County.

The present study aims to present, evaluate and identify the factors required to measure the prosperity and sustainability of Romania’s economy over the specific period 2000–2020 in light of sustainable regional development assessments, and examines how the main factors—as considered by the authors—may be integrated into regional development policies. The focus throughout the study is on the need to permanently support the development of Romanian regions in direct relation to the sustainable indicators presented within the model—through the use of data from empirical analysis—which are measures of Romania’s economic prosperity and long-term economic growth. Therefore, the study intends to assess the progress of each region of the country, showing the evolution and selection of factors that are related to sustainability, namely, child survival, poverty and education, with implications for regional development strategies and local initiatives that must promote wider sustainable regional development. Furthermore, the aim of the study is to analyse the influence of sustainable inflows on economic prosperity, reflected in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita for each region in Romania, considering factors related to sustainability and the major differences between the regions, depending on the effectiveness of these public policy applications. With this approach, our goal—considering all the macroregions of the country—is to emphasize the significance of two main aims in sustainable regional development: a better allocation of the means which actively aim to decrease the unemployment rate and a better infrastructure for public services. National, regional and local administrations play important roles in promoting coherent sustainability in economic, social and environmental activities. Regardless of the level at which development policies are devised—local, county or regional—they must take into consideration and monitor the determinants of sustainable development in cases where development is the ultimate goal.

Creative economies are at the heart of the knowledge-based economy. The main objectives of the study are to present the spatial design of the regional systems of creativity in Romania and to identify the evolutionary trends, by creating spatial models for key economic indicators, specific to such economic activities. This paper focuses on how creative economies are concentrated in the national network of settlements and how they differentiate in terms of regional profile. Consequently, a yearly nationwide database was created for 2000-2012, which includes four-digit creative economic activities, according to the Classification of National Economy Activities, for each administrative unit in Romania. The analyses, conducted for the same period, show a concentration of creative economies as a national polycentric network which includes the capital city and cities with over 300,000 inhabitants, as well as their structured territorial systems emerging around them, representing the local and regional polycentric networks. The analysis of the economic profiles highlights the growing share of creative economies in the national economy that tends to contribute more and more to the increase of the operational complexity of the local and regional economies.

Digitalization has become a watchword in all areas of economic and social activity, and its integration has become a necessity for every state worldwide. If a few years ago we were talking about technological innovation and cutting-edge technologies we are now talking about digital technologies, robotics, big data, and artificial intelligence, and future industrial production will develop in symbiosis with modern information and communication technology. The paper aims to show the impact of digitalization on macroeconomic indicators, including labor productivity, value-added, and value of exports of goods and services, and in this regard, we have built an econometric model to see how digitalization and the evolution of macroeconomic indicators work, and how they will influence the degree of growth and economic development. The research results verify the hypotheses we started from, namely that there is a positive and strong correlation between digitalization and productivity, as well as between digitalization and value-added, and that there is a positive, yet weaker correlation between digitization and exports. The impact of digitalization on macroeconomic indicators extends beyond the theoretical and practical implications, as they influence both the decision-making process of the companies’ management and national and European economic policies.

The identification of the areas vulnerable to flash floods is one of the greatest challenges in flood risk management for both the scientific world and decision‐makers. Its importance is underlined by the European Directive 2007/60/EC, which sets out the general framework of public policies to reduce the impacts of floods on the development of local communities. This research was conducted in the Moldova river catchment, located in the northern part of Romania, in the Carpathian Mountains, where half of the administrative‐territorial units record floods annually. The methodology used the Flash Flood Potential Index (FFPI) which has been computed based on the correlation of various factors which have a direct impact on the surface runoff. Each geographical factor has been represented on a 30 m grid and the data aggregation has provided the spatial hazard model for floods. In addition, the impact of deforestation on flood events was also analysed. The result of the FFPI was compared with the official flood records of the local authorities from our study area. The results constitute a methodological instrument, complementary to the classical ones, for the elaboration of the flood hazard maps, with a special importance given to the modelling of this type of hazard in the area with no structural defence measures.