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Abstract:The advent of the digital economy and, implicitly, of competition in the online marketplace has triggered new challenges in terms of consumer protection approaches. Online, consumer skills are expected to be improved and the level of consumer awareness and engagement increased. These are the baseline prerequisites of the sustainable purchasing decision and, thus, should be considered as pillars of responsible online consumption. Consistent with the novel consumption challenges, the current paper is intended to advance and test a research model integrating five main constructs, namely, competition in the online marketplace, online consumer skills, online consumer awareness, online consumer engagement and sustainable purchasing decision. A total of 318 college students-a representative population of the new Millennials generation-accepted the invitation to participate in a questionnaire-based survey. In order to pertinently analyze the collected data, a structural equation modeling technique based on partial least squares was employed for the assessment of the measurement and the structural model. The findings indicated that the model explained 24.4 percent of the variance of sustainable purchasing decisions, while the highest influence was exerted by the improvement of online consumer skills. This implies that online providers should revisit their products sustainability standards on purpose to preserve a competitive advantage.

Purpose This paper aims to present a model of the employability confidence of graduates using employability skills. The purpose of the study is twofold: to identify to what extent self-perceived employability skills (input employability) influence the employability confidence of students/graduates (output employability) and to identify if there are determinant relationships between categories of employability skills. Design/methodology/approach The researchers for this study built and tested an employability confidence model which included seven constructs. Six focussed on employability skills “professional skills, transferable individual skills, transferable social skills, personal qualities, job seeking skills and corporate work-related skills”, while the last one focussed on employability confidence, seen as the students’/graduates’ self-reliance for getting and maintaining a job. The model was refined using structural equation modelling (with SmartPLS 3 SEM software) and was tested by empirically, analysing a sample of participants studying business. Findings The results illustrated that four categories of skills (personal qualities, professional skills, job seeking skills and transferable social skills) have a positive and significant influence on students’/graduates’ employability confidence, while individual transferable skills and corporate-related skills do not have a significant influence on employability confidence. Research limitations/implications The study contributed to the exiting literature by proposing a new model and measurement instrument that links input employability (individual employability skills) with output employability (employability confidence). The model emphasizes the complete range of individual employability skills, the types of skills that are in the control of the individual. It also contributed by collecting data from a less studied country and region, Romania, that can be considered relevant for Central and Eastern Europe due to similar economic, political, cultural and historical characteristics. Practical implications From a practical point of view, the results can be of interest to individuals, to universities and the teaching staff, to organizations and their human resource specialists, and to public administrators, as they all can act to support the development of individual employability skills, thereby helping to increase the employability confidence of individuals. Originality/value The study contributed to the exiting literature not only by proposing a new conceptual model to analyse employability confidence but also by collecting data from a less studied region, Romania, that can be considered relevant for Central and Eastern Europe due to similar economic, political, cultural and historical characteristics.

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Financial markets play an important role in the economies of the world as they are supporting economic development. The present paper focuses on the young financial markets of Central and Eastern Europe with the focus on three selected cases: Romania, Slovakia and Hungary. In these countries, the capital markets are studied through the assessment of performances and risks associated with mutual funds by comparison with stock exchanges. Statistical documentation and statistical empirical research were used in order to compare mutual funds' evolution with the stock markets' evolution. The period of analysis also comprised the global financial and economic crisis, with obvious consequences on the results of the analysis. Among the main findings of the study are: mutual funds performed better (both in terms of returns and risks) than stock exchanges in the periods of economic turmoil; a movement from investing in highrisk assets (equity) towards investing in low-risk assets (bonds and monetary assets) takes place in the periods of economic distress; there were more similarities than differences in the evolutions of mutual funds and stock exchanges in these three countries, illustrating common characteristics at the

Artificial intelligence (AI) conversational agents (CA) or chatbots represent one of the technologies that can provide automated customer service for companies, a trend encountered in recent years. Chatbot use is beneficial for companies when associated with positive customer experience. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the overall customer experience with customer service chatbots in order to identify the main influencing factors for customer experience with customer service chatbots and to identify the resulting dimensions of customer experience (such as perceptions/attitudes and feelings and also responses and behaviors). The analysis uses the systematic literature review (SLR) method and includes a sample of 40 publications that present empirical studies. The results illustrate that the main influencing factors of customer experience with chatbots are grouped in three categories: chatbot-related, customer-related, and context-related factors, where the chatbot-related factors are further categorized in: functional features of chatbots, system features of chatbots and anthropomorphic features of chatbots. The multitude of factors of customer experience result in either positive or negative perceptions/attitudes and feelings of customers. At the same time, customers respond by manifesting their intentions and/or their behaviors towards either the technology itself (chatbot usage continuation and acceptance of chatbot recommendations) or towards the company (buying and recommending products). According to empirical studies, the most influential factors when using chatbots for customer service are response relevance and problem resolution, which usually result in positive customer satisfaction, increased probability for chatbots usage continuation, product purchases, and product recommendations.

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This chapter approaches the internationalization of higher education in Europe in terms of its relationship with convergence trends in European higher education. It starts with illustrating a relationship of mutual influence between convergence and internationalization at a conceptual level. The chapter looks at developments of European higher education over the past two decades, including the Bologna process, as triggers for increased harmonization of the European higher education systems. Among others, the internationalization of higher education is a way forward in implementing the Bologna process. These aspects are illustrated on a national example: Romania, through the influences of European, national, and institutional developments on the internationalization of higher education. The analysis at institutional level comprises a review conducted for all the 92 accredited universities from Romania, public and private. The study searches the information available on universities' Websites in relation with their internationalization processes. The chapter ends with the discussion of the internationalization process as a trigger and as a way forward for increased convergence in European higher education from multiple perspectives that are applied to Romania: conceptual and applied, European, national and institutional, and strategic and operational.