Abstract:The companies involved in the energy sector must reinvent themselves to be innovative and adaptable to contemporary environmental changes. The promotion of renewable energy in rural communities is a great challenge for these companies. They should focus on improving the environment scanning actions and the knowledge management (KM) system and enhancing the collective intelligence to avoid the loss of information, to foster innovation, and to maintain a competitive advantage. To achieve these goals, energy companies require appropriate management tools and practices. The purpose of this study is to propose a theoretical framework of organizational intelligence (OI) supported by a cross-perspective analysis of various aspects: economic intelligence (EI) and KM practices, entropy processes, and organizational enablers. A pilot investigation for testing the framework in the case of Transelectrica S.A. has been elaborated. The findings reveal that the elements of the OI framework are embedded in Transelectrica's system and they need to be further developed. As an intelligent company acting in the Romanian energy market, Transelectrica has a higher potential to promote projects in the renewable energy sector. The main conclusion highlights that OI is a multidimensional construct that provides the organization the ability to deal with environmental challenges in a "new economy".
For more than a century, and almost everywhere in the world, rural areas suff ered a steady decline, due to the decrease of the real income from the agricultural activities, the lack of serious economic alternatives, and demographic issues. Rural tourism could contribute to the rural sustainable development through small local businesses valorising the natural, cultural and ethnographic resources. However, most of them need the fi nancial support from private creditors (banks). Th e survey-based research conducted among banks' representatives has identifi ed several strengths of small rural ventures, such as the small scale and the associated risks, the endurance to external shocks, the openness to market opportunities, as well as some of their weaknesses: e.g. a poor management experience, seasonality etc. We have also identifi ed the actions necessary to be performed by these fi rms to attract fi nancial resources from the banks' side, i.e. the diversifi cation of income sources, the association and the adherence to recognized brands and maintaining a reasonable leverage ratio. It was found that the bank's size does not matter, but the nature of the bank's capital does: the private domestic banks are more willing to fi nance such businesses. Th e banks' involvement in co-fi nancing the EU projects could be a way to foster and strengthen the rural businesses.
Nowadays, agriculture is facing a special challengeto produce more food for a growing population, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions caused by food production. This piece of research is focused on the impact of agriculture on climate change, starting from the assumption that agriculture is affected by climate variability, but also it contributes to it by emitting greenhouse gases, under the restriction of less per capita land. The paper analyses the connection between agricultural emissions and agricultural output, using a simple regression model, which includes variables corresponding to agricultural production and to greenhouse gas emissions. The results of the research highlight the fact that agricultural production has direct effects on greenhouse gas emissions and, thereby, on climate change. The relevance of the research consists in rising awareness of the emergency to integrate climate change in policies and actions related to food security at all levels. Moreover, the paper contributes to the enrichment of scientific literature, because it presents empirical evidence supporting the different effects of agricultural practices on the environment in Romania, with implications for climate change, a scientific direction that has been little studied in other papers.
This paper investigates the state of food security in Romania and its place in the world. We analysed the level of food security indicators for 1990-2012, in Romania, and their average levels worldwide. References are also made to developed and developing countries. The research seeks to answer the questions: Is food security achieved in Romania and, if so, what kind of structural changes can be made towards improving food quality and people's living standards? As indicators show, the findings indicate that food security is ensured, on average, in Romania. Dietary energy supply is above dietary energy requirements, the ratio of cereals import dependency is below its average level worldwide, and the daily diet is balanced between vegetal and animal origin food. Having solved the quantitative aspect of food security, Romania can look towards improving the qualitative aspects of it. In this regard, organic food may be considered as a direction of developing sustainable agricultural economy.
Quality of life and social welfare are objectives of the social policy of any state. The study aims to identify the influence of factors such as the circular economy, digital innovation, sustainable entrepreneurship on social progress and completes the current approach identified in the literature by assessing the dependencies between the phenomena represented by them. The quantification of the influences of the enumerated factors on social progress was achieved by identifying some synthetic indicators, such as composite indices, which would surprise the complexity of the analyzed phenomena. To measure the progress of the transition to the circular economy – using multivariate analysis methods – a composite indicator has been proposed and determined that allows the ranking of EU states according to its orientation, as a premise of social progress, and can substantiate the adjustment national policies. The integration of the proposed indicator in the regression models used, with similar indices, is done to highlight the impact of the circular economy, innovation and sustainable entrepreneurship on social progress. Thus, the adaptation of digital technologies in current business models, the development of sustainable innovative entrepreneurship support the transition from the linear economy to a circular economy and offer new study opportunities.
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