When investigating foreign direct investment, scientists focus on different combinations of factors. They often emphasize the economic ones, while underestimating the others. Among the non-economic factors, there are several problems regarding the identification of relevant FDI determinants. The aim of this paper is the provision of a comprehensive review of the factors that are considered to impact the attraction of FDI and the identification of relevant FDI determinants. From the variety of factors, mentioned in the specialty literature, we identified eleven categories of FDI determinants. We also provided a comprehensive review of categorical and methodological interferences of the identified factors, proposing potential working hypothesis for future researches in the field. The final assessment of this study is the creation of a Synthesis of the factors influencing FDI.

This article confronts telework issues by analyzing how certain factors (motivation, dependence on coordination, self-organizing abilities and stress) impact job performance, as well as some of their interrelations. The research has been carried out with 219 Romanian employees. With the help of Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Equations Modeling, the model led to the following conclusions: employee motivation has a significant positive impact on performance; employees’ dependence on coordination has a significant negative impact on performance; employees’ dependence on coordination has a moderately intense but significant positive correlation with the level of stress perceived during teleworking; and employees’ ability to self-organize their activity is strongly and significantly linked to the level of motivation perceived. The hypothesis that perceived stress has a significant negative impact on performance has not been confirmed. These results add to the specialized literature on telework and can be the basis for future developments of managerial teleworking strategies. The implications are particularly valuable in the context of Corporate Social Responsibility considering the impact of telework on employees, organizations, and society in general.

Cultural characteristics related to the values of national identity (patriotism, nationalism) and attitudes toward other peoples (xenophobia) represent important elements of cultural specificity that influence various dimensions of socioeconomic life, including economic processes. Unfortunately, these specific characteristics are not often investigated, especially in this context, probably because of the difficulty of quantifying them and the general sensitivity of the topic. This study presents an original approach to the study of nationalist-xenophobic attitudes and their relationship to foreign direct investment (FDI). The aim of this study is to identify theoretical benchmarks for approaching the topic of nationalism-xenophobia, to develop a synthetic indicator to quantify nationalism-xenophobic attitudes, and to highlight the mechanism of their influence on FDI attraction. The methodology used for conducting this research comprises the methods of analysis, synthesis, induction (for logical connections and theoretical argumentation), weighted average technique (for the elaboration of Nationalism-xenophobia Index), Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of internal consistency (to test the reliability of the construct) and Pearson correlation coefficient (for the correlation analysis). The author's contributions include a study of the relationship between nationalist and xenophobic sentiments, the development of the Nationalism-xenophobia Index, an indicator of the intensity of these sentiments in society, an analysis of the relationship between nationalism-xenophobia relations and the amount of FDI attracted per capita, the identification and explanation of the cultural mechanism by which nationalist and xenophobic sentiments influence various phenomena, including FDI. Logical-theoretical assumptions and arguments are confirmed by the results of quantitative data analysis. The findings of the study confirm that the cultural characteristics associated with nationalism and xenophobia represent important elements of cultural specificity that influence economic processes, including FDI. Numerous studies show that the nationalist dimension of ethnocentrism is closely related to xenophobia. Analysis of countries' scores on the nationalism-xenophobia index depending on the dominant Christian denomination and the presence of a communist past shows a link between nationalist-xenophobic, Orthodox (and, to a lesser extent, Catholic) values and the values of communist ideology, which negatively affect FDI attraction. Furthermore, nationalist-xenophobic attitudes have a negative impact on FDI attraction, both directly and indirectly, showing a strong negative impact.

This paper presents an original approach to the investment attractiveness of the countries. The author developed an index of investment attractiveness which takes into account indicators of cultural specificity. The specialty literature offers a variety approaches in which different factors that are considered determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) are analyzed. However, even if cultural are frequently mentioned (and sometimes analyzed), they rarely represent an object of the research of FDI determinants. As for the indexes of investment attractiveness identified in the literature, the situation is even more difficult, and the cultural factors seem to be avoided. The elaboration of the culture-specific investment attractiveness index through the application of the principal component analysis technique proved to be efficient, the new construct being reliable. Further analysis of the connection between the index and the volume of FDI attracted confirm its suitability for explaining the localization of FDI in Europe.