The purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of digitalization on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, taking into consideration the mediating effect of renewable energy consumption in the 27 European Union (EU) countries between 2000 and 2021, by employing generalized method of moments (GMM), panel-corrected standard error (PCSE) estimators, and mediating effect models. The findings show that digitization has both a direct and a partially mediating effect on net GHG emissions. This means that to reduce GHG emissions, digitalization should be used along with clean energy, environmentally friendly innovations, and low-carbon technologies. Digitalization represents a driver for increased energy consumption towards renewable energy, which in turn has a significant contribution to pollution reduction. However, the effect could be mixed, depending on the way in which digitalization is used and the country’s economic model. These findings suggest that EU countries should create a secure environment conducive to digitalization and innovation, support digital and green startups, digital transformation, and traditional industry upgrades. Also, EU governments should consider renewable energy caused by digitalization as a critical factor in preventing pollution and climate change policies, in addition to energy savings, energy efficiency, and innovation. Additionally, EU countries should improve their research and innovation policies to develop green technologies, which are essential for accelerating the transition to clean energy, improving environmental quality, and preventing climate change. Furthermore, the EU countries should consider information and communication technology (ICT) trade as an important driver for their clean energy policies.

The aim of this article is to analyse the relationship between cultural dimensions and innovation performance within the EU28 countries in order to identify if cultural dimensions influence the innovation performance. The authors performed a data analysis based on an empirical study using open data of Summary Innovation Index–European Innovation Scoreboard (SII-EIS) and Hofstede cultural dimensions in order to identify innovation performance influencing factors in terms of enablers and blockers. Cultural-conditioned blockers within the innovation phases can be the reason why innovation is working more or less successfully and why certain countries are more or less performing in innovation. An essential finding of the present study was that indulgence as a cultural dimension seems to leverage more than the classic reasons the innovation performance on a nations’ level. Being aware of cultural dimensions, the present article findings can support companies to improve their innovation performance.

The paper highlights the results of a study based on questionnaire developed by the authors in small and medium enterprises in Romania. The objective was to identify indicators used by these enterprises to evaluate performance in the context of implementing integrated management systems. Research results showed that most of these enterprises have implemented an integrated quality-environment-health and safety management system, but concerns about the integration of a social responsibility management system are still in its early stages. In connection with these concerns, small and medium enterprises use a greater measure of financial performance indicators and indicators of customer and personnel. However, these enterprises are using to a lesser extent performance indicators related to social responsibility

This paper highlights the main elements of a doctoral research regarding the efficiency of workers evaluation process in the workplace. Based on the global competition, organizations are in continuous quality improvement of their processes to stay competitive. The focus is on motivating and constantly offering constructive feedback to the employees by evaluating them on the following criteria: job description requirements, operational objectives and behavioral objectives. The aim of this study is to confirm that in the context of digitization, both evaluation based on objectives and 360-degree evaluation have its advantages and disadvantages and to analyze the impact of it in organization’s performance. Since this process is divided in two parts (mid-year review and final review), an interesting research question would be how useful is to offer feedback to employees at the middle of the evaluation period and its impact on the final review. The first part of the paper will focus on defining the evaluation process and its scope, pursue by an analysis of 360-degree evaluation, evaluation based on objectives, and the evaluation process in the digital era. It would be a challenge to discover the inclination of organizations for different types of evaluations as well as perception differences between employees and employers. Many researches consider that one of the used methods implemented in companies is the evaluation based on objectives. A larger documentation on this subject would delimit the types of evaluations to help companies to easily choose the type that fits its culture. For this purpose, we will perform an outline on the existing literature by analyzing authors’ opinions on this subject and identifying advantages and disadvantages of the two types of evaluation specified above.

The research explores the application and temporal validity of an extended theory of planned behavior model during and after COVID-19 and investigates demographic disparities of consumer behavior evolution concerning sustainable clothing consumption after the COVID-19 pandemic. Although Theory of Planned Behavior is a well-known behavioral theoretical framework, there are few studies investigating its measurement invariance over time, especially comparing its variance across two important moments in the economic evolution, like COVID-19 and post-COVID-19. This study extends the literature on sustainable clothing consumption by addressing the gap and examining COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 shifts in trends and differences across the two groups, particularly within the under-studied Romanian context. Our study used an online questionnaire distributed during and after the COVID-19 pandemic to collect data from 2,331 Romanian consumers. Data analysis was performed to identify differences between the two distinct groups. First, we tested the effectiveness of the model and the reliability of the predictors, followed by the measurement of invariance for the model. Then, we investigated structural path differences among the two groups, and we concluded with non-parametric tests for examining differences among the temporal dimension and main predictors. Our findings contribute to the existing literature on sustainable clothing consumption by exploring the main drivers and underscoring the applicability of the theory of planned behavior to understand changes in consumer behavior during and after a health crisis such as COVID-19 in Romania by pointing out structural path differences for our research framework. Moreover, we shed light on the impact of temporal factor on sustainable attitudes and purchase intention toward sustainable clothing during COVID-19 and post-COVID-19.